we'd like to take every opportunity to
hear the next incredible speaker thank
you again for this afternoon I don't
sense that the energy is what the energy
is waning in any way and we're gonna
close up with a couple of great
opportunities and oh by the way there is
however you would describe it especially
for this crowd there might be a cold
drink
also known as the pool party after the
next two speakers so again thank you for
being here well as we introduce our next
speaker
responsive joint all domain command
control as the potential and I know we
all share this understanding to give our
Airmen and the joint force the needed
decision dominance to simultaneously
outmaneuver and outgun our enemies with
overwhelm with allottee across the
battlespace of today and tomorrow
this afternoon we were lucky we were
fortunate to have an outstanding leader
in combat air forces and proven
employment expert just got to discuss
how the Air Force will provide the joint
all domain command and control
capabilities our warfighters must have
to fight and to win so please help me in
joining join me in welcoming general
mobile homes
[Music]
all right good afternoon everybody here
we are in the coveted four o'clock
speaking spot with the topic that's the
same thing everybody else has talked
about all day I'm sure you're fired up
about it I'm gonna do my best I want to
thank the Air Force Association for
doing all the work that makes this event
possible so we can be here together I
want to thank our industry partners that
pay the money to the Air Force
Association so that they can make this
possible so that we can all be here
together I want to thank our
international air force partners that
are joining us here so that we can stay
on the same page and and do the things
we need to do together and what I'm
going to try to do is talk a little bit
about to follow on from what shags and
CQ and copra talked about this morning
of how do we go from where we are with
the ideas we have to make what we're
talking about a reality and what will it
take from us to make that happen
but first I'll tell you my favorite
little joke or funny story right now
many of you know if you look around that
we have multiple old bald-headed
four-star generals in the Air Force and
we kind of look the same and I told this
story before but Arnie Bunch and I are
from the same neighborhood in East
Tennessee and people confuse us Jay
Raymond the commander of our great new
space force we're also sometimes
confused to the point that I get
clippings mailed to me from my you know
cousins and aunts
so Mike we're so proud of you here's
this picture we saw and I look at it and
go Arnie Bunch
or J Raymond and two weeks ago when
general Raymond the commander of our
space force got invited to be a part of
the State of Union address I made my
weekly call to my mom and dad and my dad
said well why didn't you tell us no what
are you talking about dad well the State
of Union what are you talking about that
well you didn't tell us you were gonna
be there to stay the year
come on dad
that was J Raymond and then my favorite
part dad says are you sure yeah
yeah I'm sure dad but I'm proud proud to
be a part of that group I'm proud to be
a part of the the team that works with
you and let's go ahead and get started
you know we start with the problem what
are we up against and I'll talk about
two different parts of it but we know
that China has watched what we do for
the last 15 or 20 years and has tried to
come up with a way to counter what we do
and I'll oversimplify it there are a lot
better experts here on it but they
invested in exquisite intelligence tools
to be able to find us and see us long
before we get close to them and then
multiple long-range fire systems to be
able to target us at distance and keep
us at distance and we're oversimplifying
the problem we're in a battle of long
range fires with them and they're
shooting at fixed targets ports and
airfields that you can find the GPS
coordinates for in advance those are the
places we have to be at some point and
we're trying to find and keep custody of
mobile agile intelligent targets that
are hard to find and so they know where
we're gonna be
and they've invested in systems to hit
us where we have to be and we have to
find them where they are and even with
the newest hypersonic weapon we still
have to find that target and keep
custody of it long enough to do what we
call completing the kill chain to be
able to put that threat at risk and so
that means the battlefield that we're
all preparing for because of those
sayings has changed and
I'll simplify it to say it means that
there are no boundaries on that
battlefield anymore
anybody can see anywhere on the
battlefield including our garrison
before we start so at our bases at home
GPS coordinates are known more than that
Network coordinates are known to be able
to reach out and touch us with
non-kinetic tools cipher tools to keep
us from ever even deploying so there's
no boundaries on this battlefield there
are no hiding places when you take the
sophisticated means they're acquiring
and then you add publicly available
information tools that all of us are
vulnerable to where we have facebook
pictures and all those things out there
we can't hide in general they know where
we are and there are no sanctuaries on
this battlefield you can't say hey give
us a minute we just got to the port
we'll let you know when we're ready to
come into the fight and we'll move
forward into the battle area and fight
so those things mean that we know those
about each other and so how do you win I
think you win by operating at a tempo
that they can't keep up with and by
putting them on the horns of multiple
dilemmas you know you heard the chief
talk at a previous AFA about you know
one Lantern if by land and two by sea
and he wants to make the enemy run out
of lanterns we want to create enough
options for our warfighting commanders
that the enemy doesn't know where we're
going to come from next and that we can
choose between those multiple options so
on the war fighting side as CQ and his
team have to get ready and prepare if
they had to fight China you have to
think about those details but we know
that we're in a competition now and that
we don't wait for war fighting and the
character of warfare has been changed
and we see it every day by the
information tools in this environment
that we now live in so we know that it's
easy to enter for a nation-state it
doesn't take a whole lot of money to
build an information warfare force you
can manipulate the environment you can
threaten our ability to operate in the
domains that we have dominated without
challenging us in that domain but by
challenging us in this information
warfare domain and we know they're going
after our abilities to compete with them
we know
they manipulate data we know that this
technology is proliferating and we know
that both nation-states and criminal
organizations are poking around in our
networks trying to steal our property to
gain an assymetric advantage we'll come
back to this but this also offers us a
way to close gaps and to make the
quickest change that we can make in the
balance between US and China and also
Russia so at Air Combat Command I
enjoyed talking to listening to my
brother's talk this morning that you
know lead the war fighting organizations
our jobs a little different we help
prepare so we organize train and equip
Airmen we put those words in that order
on purpose we're not providing airmen to
weapon systems who are organized
training and equipping airmen Airmen who
fight in multiple domains we classically
have said we fight an air but we fight
on from the ground we fight in cyber we
fight any W yes we fight in that space
environment and what do we think our job
is we think our job is to control and
exploit the air space and the
electromagnetic spectrum so air probably
makes sense why does acc think their job
is to control you know space we think
with our new space force partners that
we're gonna have to work closely because
many of the threats to the space force
are actually on the earth right now and
we need to be prepared to be the strike
arm of the space force to be prepared
when called on to counter anti satellite
systems left the launch to counter
directed energy systems before they can
fire against the space system to go
after the enemy's command and control
and there's space Pirie already sensors
and to be a partner there and then the
electromagnetic spectrum to us means the
place where our classic electronic
warfare efforts and our burgeoning cyber
capabilities come together in that
electromagnetic spectrum and then if
we're gonna do our job to control and
exploit the air in space that we will
have to control and exploit that
electromagnetic spectrum and again the
fastest way we have to catch up and
address gaps I think is working in that
electromagnetic spectrum and information
environment space it took us 20 plus
years to
you know the f-35 and filled it and get
to FOC we can operate much faster in
this space and so I think we'll have to
so that leads us to what we've been
talking about all day joint all domain
command and control for multi domain
operations and Preston's sitting down
here and yes Preston I steal your slides
I steal them shamelessly I try to stay
on the same page with you and your team
and what you're doing and part of the
way I do that is by stealing your slides
so we know that we need to be able to do
offensive and defensive effects in all
domains and we want to support one
domain with systems in another and look
that's not new we've learned working
with our land partners that we want to
put the enemy in a position that if they
bring their ground forces together and
achieve mass to take on our ground
forces they will be extremely vulnerable
their forces and if they disperse them
so we can't kill them from the air
they'll be extremely vulnerable to
ground forces so we've always worked
multiple domains together to create an
advantage and take take advantage of
that we know this capability we're
building has to work in contestant
environments which is Mike Fantini says
we're gonna have to fight we're gonna
have to fight to control the air in
space and we're gonna have to fight to
protect our command and control systems
and defeat the enemy's command and
control systems seamless dynamic and
continuous in spite of breaks in
continuity operate at a high tempo that
the enemy can't match that's our problem
that's how we want to solve it that
sounds pretty hard it sounds like it
might take a while and I think if we
were going after it in the way we always
have in our traditional acquisition
method it would be quite a challenge but
what else has changed in the world the
Air Force I joined we talked about the
military-industrial complex you know we
had a giant military industrial
component that people were afraid would
take over the country in the world we
live in now Apple Google Amazon have
enough cash reserves that if they wanted
to they could buy the entire defense
industry and I think they don't because
they're not sure that can make fifteen
percent return to their
investors on the defense industry but
they could and that means the money the
research money the internal R&D money is
being spent there it's being spent in
that commercial world and not in ours
and to win we're gonna have to take
advantage of that so how do they do it
again I'm stealing Preston slide but you
know we they have demonstrated a way to
do similar things I know when I fly back
to Norfolk if I get there at midnight I
don't have to have a car there waiting
for me I know that five minutes after I
open up Oprah there'll be somebody
waiting for me we talked about pairing
every sensor to every shooter through
every command and control platform they
pair every rider with every ride
provider through every command and
control platform and update it
continuously there's technology
available to do this if you look at ways
ways now has cooperative people so every
driver is a sensor in ways and so
they're telling you where the wrecks are
where the potholes are where the cars
pulled over and if you live in an urban
environment when I lived in DC and I'd
be making my way with Waze you know
through the back roads I learned that
there are people that don't particularly
appreciate that and there are people
that put a wreck in in the school zone
every day at 2:30 to keep the wazers
from flowing through their neighborhood
so there is anti command and control
warfare going on also inside this app so
there are ways to do this and our
industry partners are ready to help us
do it Preston and his team have
developed this architecture I'm not
going to talk about it except to say
it's sound and when we had our recent
command and control summit the Army and
the Navy put up slides that looked a
whole lot like this everybody kind of
agrees this is the way to go and when
our young war fighters get together and
look at problems they all come back and
say we need purple command and control
it takes too long for us to do air
command and control and ground command
and control and Navy command and control
and then try to come back together and
talk about what we're going to do we
need to put it together and make it
purple
so I stipulate that I agree with that
and we're going to have to make this
happen but we also know that it takes
more than a new technology to make a
fundamental change in the way we fight
or in the way our warfare works the
literature says that to have a
revolution in military affairs you take
a new technology that delivers something
better to you but it doesn't really
revolutionize warfare unless you combine
it with a new way to think about how you
use that technology if you just apply a
new technology to what you've always
done it'll make you a little better but
it won't revolutionize the the
battlefield and then sort through the
organizational changes that are required
to make it work so it takes to all three
of those sayings to make a change we've
been kind of focused on that first part
on the technology and to carry this
through and make it a real revolution
and the way we fight to create an order
of magnitude improvement and our
capability salty said you know to get to
3 times 3 times 3 and be 27 times better
and when he talked this afternoon we
have to pair it with the other parts so
on the equipment side yep the cut the
connection and the connectivity that
we're building through the ones it's
going to be critical but to connect
every sensor to every shooter we'll
start with what we have but there's
going to be other sensors that we want
there's going to be other weapons and
other platforms that we want to plug
into that we got to sort through that we
have to think through what are the Intel
requirements for this new system that
we're pulling together what do we need
to know and how are we going to know it
and who's going to do that thinking
they're you know we talked about Wars of
cognition instead of wars of attrition
and one of my jokes is wars of cognition
need cognitive if you're gonna win right
if it's a battle of thinking then we got
to have thinkers and a lot of those
people are in our Intel enterprise it's
one thing to count systems and know
where they are it's another thing to
think about how we're going to defeat
those systems an example I'd give is
when we were squared off against the
Warsaw Pact in the Fulda gap we put
analysts together and they said yeah we
can try to kill every tank
but wouldn't it be better to kill the
fuel system that all those tanks require
to move around and do it that way and
then we can come back and kill them all
when they run out of gas at our leisure
so we need people to think through that
what are the requirements and then we
need to think about what our cyber
capabilities will be required what will
be required to help us jump into this
fight to protect the system that we're
building which has many attack surfaces
to cyber threats because of all the
communications were doing and what will
we need to operate against the enemy
that's the hardware side and software
side and then the CONOPS
the Joint Staff is working on a joint
concept for joint all domain command and
control you need a place to put humans
together to go figure that out we
nominated our shadow Operations Center
at Nellis as a place to do that and so
we'll need to equip it with people and
with an iteration of the ones to be able
to run the apps that will run to do
command and control and start figuring
out how real people will command and
control forces using these capabilities
that we're building and we're working
toward doing that and then we've got to
train people to be able to operate in
multi domain environment salty talked
about our 13 Oscars that's a step along
the way but will need a place to train
and will need time and opportunity to
train right now our AOC s as good as
they are and as effective as they are
they're kind of busy every day serving a
component commander and we're going to
make have to make sure that we provide
them with the capability to train which
means having enough people to have some
people training every day and having a
robust realistic system with
constructive forces to command and
constructive forces to fight in multi
domains so that they can work through
this and practice it Air Combat Command
we've taken the first steps toward this
organizational part so talked about the
change in warfare talked about CONOPS
and how we're gonna get to that
how will we figure out the
organizational part it started with
bringing 24th Air Force over into Air
Combat Command for us and then the next
step was put in 24
than 25th together into 16th we plan on
organizing into two main elements
they're conventional forces and
information warfare forces we've done
the second part and Tim Hawk and his
team are finalizing what will those
that's combined staff look like after we
put the two staffs together and what
will the Operations Center look like
that's able to command and control all
the forces that he brings to support
combatant commanders and then they'll
work on their wing structure eventually
if we were building these wings from
scratch how would we put the forces
together to focus on problems and more
and less on geography because we know
you don't fight Russia just in ucomm you
don't fight China just in Indo PACOM
they're a worldwide threat and we're
gonna have to focus on those problems we
plan to move our conventional fighter
rescue and command and control forces
together under the numbered Air Force
currently known as 9th Air Force we'll
see whether it needs a new name when we
do that or not but we want to bring them
together so we can get the same synergy
out of them so that was our first step
and then the chief has asked us to look
at how we present forces into the joint
world and over the last 15 years we have
sent you as airman not as a squadron
most of the time we've sent you as unit
type codes or UTC's from your squatter
may be as small as one airman or two
airman and then we put you together
downrange into teams that are kind of
ad-hoc teams not teams that train
together prepared together and we're
ready for combat together but teams we
put together once you arrive the chief
has asked us to look at how we present
those forces and to find a way to be
able to present forces and larger
elements again instead of small pieces
that go to a base with the wing
commander already there but if you have
to open up a base and you're going to
bring a whole wing in so we're thinking
through those those parts of what he
asked us to do and that means we have to
have a wing that can go forward and
establish a base defend that base
sustain the the forces there receive
follow-on forces command and control
those forces and then generate and
project combat
are even under attack from the enemy our
Wing Commanders are working to do that
but let's face it we took resources away
from our wings and we streamlined them
and we tried to make them as efficient
as possible to support peacetime
garrison operations because we were
under budget pressure and that's what
you do when you're under budget pressure
you peel away everything that's not
necessary for day-to-day ops so it's
going to take a few more people my Wing
Commanders think it's really in the
number of less than 50 to try to give
them the wing operations center they
need without robbing the squadrons to do
it and it's going to take some calm gear
it's going to take equipping them to be
able to link in to theater command and
control and to be able to do the
missions we're asking them to do to
present those forces forward then to the
joint force through our service
component commanders and then below that
we want to optimize the squadrons in
that wing now you know we've done some
experiments at mountain home the goal of
that experiment we had three the goals
were to empower squadron commanders and
revitalize squadrons and we went after
it in that experiment by removing a
layer of leadership with the fairly
simple idea that squadron commanders
would have to do more and have to take
more responsibility our second goal was
to look at if we could draw a line
between line work that squadrons are
responsible for and staff work that
serves the whole wing so that squadron
commanders could focus on their line
work and so we pulled up an a staff to
support the Wing Commander and the new
wing functions and then the third part
was to try to right-size squadrons so
that a commander and the superintendent
could know the people in their squadron
and be immersed in their daily mission
so we had squadrons with 800 people in
them and we had squadrons with 70 people
in them and we wanted to right-size that
mix that's been successful we've
achieved those goals it's not the only
way to do it but it worked there we'll
continue to experiment and fine-tune
that we'll move that experiment and
expand it to Seymour Johnson this summer
as the deputy commander for ops it
mountain home becomes the
wing commander of the 4th Fighter Wing
and Seymour Johnson and we'll keep
looking for ways to address those three
goals meanwhile after I'm about a month
short of three years in the job it takes
a while to convince people that you want
to know their ideas and you want them to
try new things and experiment it's one
thing to say go do it
when I was starting to try to do this in
a five-eighth we put all the tools out
there for innovation I borrowed them
from SOCOM they had some really good
ones that were well used and six months
later I was waiting for the first person
to use them because they did not believe
I really meant it
and so we went to what we called a
freestyle Friday we said hey on Friday
once a month you can work on whatever
you want as long as it's related to an
Air Force mission anything you're
interested in work on it and my guys
would go that's good but what do you
want me to work on go well anything you
want they go yeah but what do you want
me to want to work on you know it's just
a test
no it's not a test but ACC's wing
commanders have bought into this idea
and so I we've achieved what I would
call catastrophic success in innovation
attempts all designed to meet those same
goals that I talked about but different
some different ideas at every wing 1st
Fighter Wing is putting ops and
maintenance together but keeping their
groups 4th Fighter Wing made some
changes to think about a wing Operations
Center and executed rapid Forge and
they're looking at changing the way we
train pilots and initial training in our
ft use which good spread from their xx
fighter wing focused on pushing
Authority and responsibilities back down
in their maintenance squadrons and last
week they separated their giant AMX s
into three squadrons three maintenance
squadrons one align to each fighter
squadron as part of this experiment on
pushing thanks down 23rd wing is doing
their own take on some of those sayings
working through the packages here the
wing at davis-monthan has looked at what
they call the dynamic wing and how will
they think about deploying as a wing
Gerald Brown talked about hey we need a
little more camping and a little less
glamping Johnny Bravo and his team have
taken that to heart you know when they
deploy they deploy with their own
sleeping bag their own shelter half and
a stove and they're not waiting for
anybody to build a tent city for him
they're coming ready to fight and then
at Mountain Home their FOC but their
fine tuning the 388 wing at Hill is
looking at their own take on how to push
Authority and responsibility down to
maintenance the ninth reconnaissance
wing is looking at their own idea and
our for 80th intelligence surveillance
and reconnaissance wing has completely
revolutionized the way we do Intel
support for service components by
focusing on problems and not on
platforms so a lot of new ideas out here
and I think it's great and I think I
trust these Wing Commanders I'm gonna
let them try what they think will work
and they are smart and so are their
teams and if it doesn't work they'll say
that didn't work we're gonna try
something else but that's how we're
gonna work through it we're conducting a
series of experiments to guide them
through it we did rapid Forge last year
where we deployed ACC units over to you
safe EF Africa and worked within their
command and control system to do dynamic
force employment in a agile combat
employment method we hope to do another
big rapid Forge West this year right now
there's a little risk of that because of
the continued deployments to CENTCOM and
then another one in 2021 the idea is
that we'll support those Wing Commanders
organizational experiments with these
exercises so that they can fine-tune
what we've asked them to do in a
realistic environment and then in about
2022 the next comic will pull the Wing
Commanders together and say okay what
have we learned and now let's go back
and and kind of rescan der dies where we
are I don't think there'll be one answer
for every wing and Air Combat Command
but we'll group wings that do similar
things together and do some recenter
decision
and then ultimately to secure this
revolution it'll take other changes
we'll have to go look at air force
policy on how we manage talent on how we
develop people how we spread out the
tasks we'll have to go look at how we
certify and inspect our capabilities and
make sure we're ready in this new
environment there'll be some new kit
required primarily comm gear we're gonna
look at organization
we'll have to train our Airmen different
if you're sending Airmen out and multi
functional teams your Airmen need to be
able to do more than one thing and we
found an hour rapid Forge exercise but
that was one of the things our Airmen
really enjoyed was getting a chance to
move from an office environment to be
part of a team in an air base squadron
that was generating combat power in
Europe and then there'll be some
equipment as well we will work with our
brothers and sisters across the airforce
and in the Air Staff to try to work
through these second-order implications
and settle on an organizational
structure that'll let us make the most
out of the revolution that joint all
domain command and control makes
possible Mike Fantini again talked this
afternoon and told you that our air and
space control is not a birthright and we
have to fight for it and I think he's
right and I think we can fight for it
and I think we can still control the air
in space there are people that think we
can't I believe we can I think we have a
path toward doing that and I think we
can do it together and it's important
that we do it not because we want to but
because the joint force and the American
Way of war depends on us to control the
air in space and when we get it right
this is a picture from the 2003 invasion
of Iraq this is a group of soldiers that
are making their way to Baghdad they've
been on the road for about two and a
half days here they're exhausted they're
taking advantage of the daylight to take
a break they parked their vehicles to
protect themselves from the threat
they're worried about what does this
tell you anybody they're worried about a
ground threat right they're worried
about small-arms threat they're worried
about mortars from people on the ground
so they put their vehicles in a circle
some protection they've dug some some
holes to be able to get below shrapnel
from a mortar so that they can safely
take a nap and they're gonna rest a
little bit and move on they are not
worried about attack from the air or
they would be dispersed they know that
overhead there's a satellite
constellation providing continuous
monitoring there's an RPA and is our
enterprise is keeping an eye on their
flanks and if they get into trouble the
entire way to the US Air Force will come
to them rapidly to take care of them to
keep them safe
if we get control of air and space wrong
if a nation does it looks like this so
this is the first Iraq war and this is
what happened to Saddam Hussein's force
when they tried to leave Kuwait without
being able to control air in space you
could substitute an airfield here you
could substitute a ship with its decks
cleaned off this is what happens to a
force that doesn't control the air in
space so this is our sacred trust this
is what the joint force depends on us to
do we can do it and this is my call to
arms that taking advantage of the things
that are being provided that can change
the way we fight and joint all domain
command and control that we this
government uniform industry team can do
this and the joint force depends on us
to do it and nobody else will so thanks
for your time I have cleverly exhausted
all thirty minutes of my time but you
can ask your questions to the general
Scobie
and Joe hi and general Pierce that are
coming up next
thank you oh you have we cannot thank
general homes enough three years of
their Combat Command incredible
innovation leadership and your forces
our combat air forces forces deployed
around the world we'll talk about that
in the next session
sir just humble thanks for your
leadership
ladies and gentlemen please remain in
place we'll begin the final program of
the day in just a couple of minutes
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