ANNUAL AIR & SPACE CONFERENCE AND TECHNOLOGY …...towards 309,000, the Air Force is being asked to address new and evolving issues in Europe, Pacific, Africa, the ... years ago. The

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AIR FORCE ASSOCIATION

ANNUAL AIR & SPACE CONFERENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EXPOSITION

2014

FUTURE OF THE COMBAT AIR FORCE

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

National Harbor, Maryland

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LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

LIEUTENANT GENERAL GEORGE K. MUELLNER

Chairman, Board of Directors

Air Force Association

GENERAL MICHAEL HOSTAGE

Commander, Air Combat Command

U.S. Air Force

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FUTURE OF THE COMBAT AIR FORCE

GEN. MUELLNER: Our next speaker certainly is going

to provide us some updates on a topic of significant

interest to us, and that is the "Future of the Combat Air

Force." Our forum speaker is the commander of Air Combat

Command at Langley Air Force Base. As the commander, he's

responsible for organizing, training, equipping, and

maintaining combat-ready forces for rapid deployment and

deployment while ensuring strategic air defense forces are

ready to meet challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and

wartime defense.

Air Combat Command provides conventional and

information warfare forces to all unified commands to

ensure air, space, and information superiority for

warfighters and national decision-makers. ACC is also

used to assist national agencies with ISR and crisis-

response capabilities. General Hostage's bio is

(inaudible). At this time I'd like to turn the podium

over to General Mike Hostage. And he is planning to take

questions, so please filter them over to the folks as they

come around.

GEN. HOSTAGE: Thanks, George.

(Applause)

GEN. HOSTAGE: As George said, bad planning on my

part to follow the chief. I'm not going to be nearly as

glib as the chief is, but I'll be looking forward to your

questions when we're done here. The Air Force active

duty, civilian, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve

airmen are the keys to our ability to fight and win today,

tomorrow, and as far in the future as we can see. Through

tenacity, creativity, honor, and courage, they provide

dominant combat air power around the world ensuring our

nation's security.

They are our most sophisticated and precious

resource, and I am proud to call them my peers and

wingmen. We owe our airmen the best equipment, training,

and skills our nation can provide. But our ability to do

so is being challenged by today's fiscal realities. In

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2013, our government implemented a stopgap solution known

as the -- to -- known -- to limit federal spending known

as sequestration. This program forced the military to

make some drastic short-term cuts.

As a result, our readiness, morale, and the ability

to deliver capabilities to the combatant commanders are

eroding. I don't see any actions under way that will end

sequestration or that are going to solve the fundamental

problems that are driving sequestration. Thus your Air

Force leadership is seeking to reshape the force to allow

us to remain capable and ready despite diminishing budgets

over the next decade. As the commander of Air Combat

Command my job is not to complain about whether I have

enough resources.

My job is to produce as much combat power as possible

with whatever resources the nation will provide me. Even

if we suffer full sequestration all 10 years plus the

additional 2 from the Ryan-Murray agreement, we can still

field the finest and most capable air force on the planet.

We will be a smaller force that is not able to go to as

many places at once. But wherever we go, we will still be

able to dominate. However, for this to come to pass, we

have to be able to make some very hard decisions now and

through the next several years in order to maintain that

dominance.

The challenge we face is the politics are not likely

to let us make these hard decisions. Given the reality of

tremendous resource constraints, we've proposed a fiscal

plan based upon our best military judgment. This proposal

includes near-term risks such as cutting certain

capabilities like the A-10 and U-2 in order to develop

longer term capabilities that counter our most likely and

most dangerous threats. The only way to shrink the budget

as drastically as we are being directed to is to shed

force structure.

I don't want to cut the A-10 or the U-2. I just

don't have the direct -- and I don't have direct

replacements for those systems. I have a need for both

the capacity and the capabilities those systems deliver.

However, I just don't have the resources to retain them

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and still have a ready and capable force. To implement

proposed directed spending decisions we may be forced to

make additional cuts to preserve readiness. Readiness is

the linchpin for Air Combat Command. I won't deploy our

airmen if they're not ready.

I tell the commanders every day, I want you to work

to achieve the maximum amount of combat capacity and

capability you can produce. When you hit a limitation

tell me what it is. Don't push past it, don't try to do

more with less, don't cut corners. I really realize that

it's difficult to report failure, but tell me what your

limits are and stop at that point. I will either fix the

problem immediately or take steps to mitigate the risk

until the problem can be permanently solved.

We owe it to our young airmen to only ask of them

what we have trained and equipped them to do. That's our

mission at Air Combat Command -- to organize, train, and

equip combat-ready forces. Throughout the 37 years of my

military career I have formed beliefs that have guided my

decision-making process. In particular, five beliefs have

played a major role in my efforts and decision-making

while at Air Combat Command. It is my hope that by

sharing those beliefs with you today current and future

leaders can take something from what I have learned and

use it to ensure that our military and civilian airmen are

resourced, equipped, and trained to execute the missions

our nation asks of them.

First, I fundamentally believe in civilian leadership

of the military. It is critical that we in the military

have a strong and trusted relationship with our civilian

leaders. Mutual trust will ensure that the best advice to

our military advisors is heard and will further increase

the ability of our military to act in the best interest of

the nation consistent with budgetary and capability

constraints. Through a coordinated effort with our

democratically elected leaders we can work to mitigate the

potentially catastrophic impacts of challenges and changes

that we face today.

When I entered the Air Force we numbered nearly

700,000 personnel. Now even as we continue to shrink

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towards 309,000, the Air Force is being asked to address

new and evolving issues in Europe, Pacific, Africa, the

Middle East, and the Americas. As the missions grow, we

are shrinking our force to the point where we're going to

have serious challenges living with some of the

nonmilitary decisions that are being forced into the

equation. When we were 700,000 and the world was far less

turbulent, the less-than-optimum political decisions that

are a reality of our system, were absorbable.

However, now that we are cut to the bone and we are

being stretched thin by our multitude of overseas crises,

suboptimum fiscal decisions directly threaten our

readiness and effectiveness. One clear example is our

bases. We no longer have the latitude or the need to hang

on to our current amount of infrastructure given our

radically reduced force structure. Right now I could

close one in three bases across the Air Combat Command and

still have sufficient infrastructure to support my force.

But politically, closing a base is just not going to

happen.

ACC continues to carry this excess capacity and we're

getting small enough that this burden is sapping our

ability to deliver maximum combat power. Then there is

force structure. We find ourselves in the difficult

position where we are forced to make cuts to legitimate

priorities. We executed a deliberate process in

determining just how to maximize our capabilities given

the limited resources we were allocated. Now I hear

discussions inside the Beltway describing how funding is

being moved from lower priorities to prevent some of those

difficult cuts that we propose.

The problem is we ran out of those lower priorities

years ago. The lower priorities spoken of now are not

military priorities but political priorities, and shifting

of funds at this point will most likely impact readiness.

Ultimately it is our duty to inform our civilian leaders

of the risks and impacts of those decisions. With the

mutual trust I spoke of, we can ensure that that best

military advice is heard, the risks are properly assessed,

and then we, the uniformed military, will do our utmost to

implement as directed.

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Second, I believe that a strong and capable military

is critical to the continued survival and success of the

United States. A strong military makes it possible for

the nation to achieve its objectives without the use of

force. A weakened military sends a message to both allies

and enemies that we cannot respond to threats towards our

interests. Even the appearance of weakness greatly

increases the risk to our nation and to our allies. To

mitigate risk, we must have the ability to project force

and provide allies with a measure of assurance.

The Combat Air Force's ability to secure the skies

shields our forces and our allies from aerial attack and

allows freedom of maneuver. A strong Combat Air Force

underpins the achievement of our national will. It

secures air superiority which denies freedom of maneuver

to our enemies. By dominating the skies the CAF further

shapes the battlefield by enabling friendly forces to

execute their missions while we hold adversaries at risk

and deny them sanctuary.

In order to have an effective military we must

acknowledge the critical role Combat Air Forces play. For

nearly 67 years the Air Force has been there to fly,

fight, and win as our nation needed. Six years after the

formation of the Air Force as an independent service, we

established air dominance on a global scale. The result

of this dominance is clear. 1953 marks the last time a

U.S. or allied service member on the ground was lost to

enemy air attack.

During the conflict in Vietnam our third-generation

weapon system supplied air support to our ground forces

while dominating the North Vietnamese air force. The Cold

War pushed us to develop a fourth generation of aircraft

and the training necessary to defend against a peer

adversary, along with the capacity to deal with conflicts

on multiple fronts. These systems, training, and capacity

have allowed us to maintain air dominance in the decades

since.

This dominance was showcased during Operation Desert

Storm as video feeds showed stealth fighters destroying

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targets with pinpoint accuracy and impunity. Our

dominance in this arena has resulted in generations of

friendly forces that never have to worry about the sound

of jet noise overhead -- it has always been us. We cannot

take air superiority for granted. I can assure you that

potential peer competitors out there do not.

While we must sustain the precision ground support

capabilities that have been honed during the two decades

of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must also address the

need for new technologies and the associated tactics,

techniques, and procedures required to ensure continued

success in other areas of air combat. It is necessary to

recapitalize and refurbish our full spectrum air assets in

response to the rapid evolution of adversary threat

capabilities and the increase in density and lethality of

their integrated air defenses.

The nation's ability to project global power is

predicated on the relevance of its combat air power. To

be relevant the CAF must be ready to operate in highly

contested environments and have an adequate number of

technologically advanced aircraft and operators trained to

deal with the most dangerous threats. In addition, we

must sustain the capability and capacity to deal with the

lesser but more likely threats. It is necessary for us to

recapitalize our air arsenal and work to better understand

and develop the capabilities required to achieve long-term

air superiority in the anti-access, area-denied or A2/AD

environment.

It is time for us to restructure, to prioritize

programs that allow the CAF to execute full-spectrum

operations in order to continue to meet our nation's

security demands. The A2/AD environment presents one

facet of a future challenge. However, nearly every region

of the globe demands our attention today and will continue

to for the foreseeable future. It is imperative that we

continue to support our NATO allies in Europe and promote

peace in the region.

Likewise, our allies in the Middle East must know

that they can depend on strong, enduring U.S. support.

The Pacific will remain a focal point for our efforts with

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both military and nonmilitary activity. Simply put,

through population alone the Pacific is a center of

gravity for politics, commerce, and conflict over the next

decade -- over this next century. U.S. national interests

in the region are best served through sustained peace and

open trade lines. In order to confront the challenges of

the region it is necessary for the military to develop a

battle plan that integrates the efforts, capabilities, and

technologies necessary to support this objective.

Currently termed Air-Sea Battle, this integrated

effort must be about all domains, not just air and sea.

At the same time we develop a strategy for handling of the

challenges in the Pacific, we must also continue to define

our role and develop our strategy in Africa. Africa

presents a multitude of challenges as potential

adversaries seek to harness the natural resources and take

advantage of unstable governments for nefarious purposes.

The harsh tyranny of distance is just one of many

challenges there.

We must continue to develop long-range capabilities

that can deliver intelligence, surveillance, and

reconnaissance as well as kinetic and nonkinetic effects -

- all of this to improve our ability to respond to

emerging challenges that threaten our national interests.

One nonkinetic effect in particular needs attention due to

its continued -- due to continued instability in places

like Libya, Mali, and the Horn of Africa. Our CAF rescue

forces have been in high demand in Africa for over a

decade, and the worldwide demand will only continue.

In order to meet combatant commander requirements it

is necessary to pursue recapitalization of the combat

rescue helicopter and the new HC-130Js. It remains a

moral imperative to retain sufficient numbers of well-

equipped combat rescue forces today and in the future. To

be a strong military in today's fractious world requires

that your Combat Air Forces be able to field the full

range of military capabilities to match the needs of the

different theaters. However, key to every theater will be

the need for air superiority.

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The third belief I want to address is the need to

develop strong partnerships with industry. In my view the

historic strength of this nation lies in our industrial

capacity. However, our adversaries are aware of our

historical tendency to surge from behind and are

countering this by developing technologies and tactics to

get inside any surge time-window effectively negating the

historical pattern of an American industrial surge. We

cannot afford to loose our organic industry. The

capability to develop and produce game-changing

technologies is vital to national defense.

To protect this we must begin to find new ways to

encourage development and long-term partnerships with

industry. At the same time, we must look to industry to

supply better, faster, and cheaper solutions to our

existing capability gaps. Together, we need to refine our

acquisition process for more speed while retaining proper

oversight. Military science and technology efforts and a

clear articulation of our operational challenges must

provide focus for industry to research and development

investments.

In recent conflicts, we saw our adversaries use

common inexpensive items to develop effective weapons,

witness the IED fight. We were forced to scramble to

develop expensive countermeasures to keep our blood and

treasure safe. We need to flip this cost imposition

paradigm. I want future adversaries to spend a million

bucks to counter a $5 weapon. We can't afford to be on

the opposite side of that equation.

My fourth core belief is that leaders need to take a

stand on the issues they believe in and not back down just

because their position might be politically unpopular.

General Eisenhower once said, "Making decisions is of the

essence in leadership." The attitude of leadership should

be to provide the best advice in a given situation and

then stand ready regardless of popularity. New ideas

aren't always popular or readily accepted, but a good

leader must have the conviction to stand by them.

One new idea I have been discussing is distributed

control. While not particularly controversial, it will

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require us to adjust the way we control airpower. Through

the concept of centralized command, distributed control,

and decentralized execution we can diminish the impact of

a temporary break in the link between CFACCs and their

forces.

Our adversaries are sinking massive resources into

denying our forces access to tools such as Position

Navigation and Timing, data links, communication networks,

and radars. However, our adaptation of distributed

control and its associated TTPs will ensure that we remain

effective. Centralized command, distributed control, and

decentralized execution are not a change from our past,

but a healthy adaptation to the realities of contemporary

warfare. The keys to effective use of distributed control

are the clear articulation of intent and standing

directions that will allow and -- that will continue to

allow our forces to operate in a broken link environment.

Unlike distributed control, the acquisition of the

Joint Strike Fighter has drawn a lot of criticism. It is

my professional judgment that recapitalizing our aging

legacy fleet with a fifth generation capability is a

national imperative. Recapitalization to fifth gen

ensures lethality and survivability against emerging high-

end threats, delivering the best answer to the challenges

posed today and in the future. The political and fiscal

realities of the day make this a lightning rod for

discussion.

The defining characteristic of the fifth generation

fleet is its tremendous fusion capability. By enabling F-

35 machine-to-machine communication as well as the ability

to pass information back and forth with our fourth

generation platforms, we will give viability to our

combined fourth and fifth generation fleet for a longer

period of time. We are in a situation where we are forced

to do less with less and the recapitalization to fifth

generation allows us to retain both -- the most

capabilities in the long term. The F-35 is the

cornerstone to our continued success and every possible

action should be taken to ensure the Air Force acquires

the full planned fleet while getting the greatest value

for the dollar.

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Another idea attracting a lot of criticism is greater

integration of our active, reserve, and guard forces. I

stand by my vision of a fully integrated Air Force that

can adaptively respond to both Title 10 and Title 32,

federal and state requirements. We are all airmen, and we

must be one force with common goals and unified

priorities. Today, we succeed only when the components

work together in unison. My long-term vision for the

Combat Air Force is one team comprised of airmen -- some

full time, some part time -- functioning as an integrated

whole. Despite legal, cultural, and leadership challenges

to this vision, we must continue to take steps to make

Total Force Integration a reality where one patch, one

boss, one fight will exist as the reality for our Air

Force. We should work to build a culture that supports

unified action. It is time, as our force develops -- in

time, as our force develops and barriers impeding

effective integration disappear, we will succeed in

becoming an integrated Air Force.

Finally, I believe the foundation of a successful

leader starts with his or her credibility. Good

leadership is palpable. Good leaders produce results

because their people feel empowered, and empowered people

want to excel at the mission. Leaders must believe in the

mission and strive to position people to succeed. To do

this our leaders must know the basic ins and outs of the

mission they are responsible for. This requires

proficiency in the mission and comes with the expectation

that our leaders can sustain the same level of combat

readiness that they expect of our airmen.

In my view, leaders must lead from the front. If you

are going to ask a young airmen to put their life on the

line for the mission, leaders must be willing and able to

do the same -- do so themselves. As both the CFACC and as

COMACC, I found that only by going out and flying with

aircrews could I fully understand the operational

challenges and risks that those under my command faced.

These experiences were critical in informing my decision-

making process and allowing me to establish credibility in

the eyes of the troops I led as well as in combat and as

well as in garrison.

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This does not mean I expect my commanders to be down

at the tactical level day in and day out, they are still

leaders and I expect -- my expectation for them is to

lead. However, sustaining the skills and the ability to

execute the mission ensures they retain a perspective of

what it takes to achieve combat air power for the nation.

It is through credibility that our military leaders can

ensure that their troops and our civilian leaders place

credence on what they say. This credibility is the basis

for trust in our best military judgment.

Budget cuts, force structure reductions will

ultimately make us a smaller force, but by leveraging the

technology of today and the advancements of tomorrow we

can be a more capable force with the ability to counter

our most dangerous threats. In addition, we must retain

the capacity and capability to deal with our most likely

threats, sustaining the hard earned skills and lessons

learned during the most recent conflicts. This is

dependent upon a balanced approach to recapitalization and

refurbishment of our combat fleet.

In the coming decades we must complete the transition

of our fighter fleet from fourth to fifth generation,

develop the next generation JSTARS, recapitalize our

rescue force, and continue to develop the long-range

strike bomber. Dynamic threats will require further

advancements to maintain the combat edge we have become

accustomed to over the last 60 years.

In Air Combat Command we recognize that the fiscal

and threat environments are constantly evolving. We also

recognize our airmen are our asymmetric advantage. By

understanding the enduring role of the CAF, the historic

need for our restructuring, and the imperative to grow our

fifth generation fleet, we'll enable our airmen to deliver

the dominant combat airpower that America expects.

As leaders, we use our beliefs and our experiences in

guiding our decisions. I believe the military and the CAF

specifically will have a critical role now and in the

future as there will be a continuing need for stabilizing

forces around the globe. I believe we must have a strong

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relationship with our industry partners and civilian

leaders, based on mutual respect and trust. Finally, I

believe competent leaders must lead from the front and

champion causes even in the face of heavy criticism.

At ACC our task is clear, provide warrior airmen

trained, equipped, and ready to fly, fight, and win

America's wars when and where we are called upon to do so.

The ability to provide our dominant combat airpower

underpins our nation's ability to pursue and protect our

vital interests, and without it we put at risk this

precious bastion of liberty, the United States of America.

I am ready for your questions.

(Applause)

GEN. MUELLNER: Well, we've got a number of difficult

questions.

GEN. HOSTAGE: Perfect --

GEN. MUELLNER: You commented on the -- you commented

on the issues with the U-2, the A-10 and so on. How much

progress do you think you've had helping the

representatives understand the issues there, the difficult

tradeoffs. And if you're unsuccessful in convincing them

to allow the force structure reductions you mentioned,

what are the alternatives?

GEN. HOSTAGE: Well, certainly the core folks that

have to work in the D.C. area have spent the bulk of their

time across on the Hill trying to explain the choices we

had made in the '15 budget, why they were what they were.

I've tried to make the case as well. But as I said

earlier, my job is not to whine about whether there is

enough or not, it's to produce maximum combat power for

the resources available.

The best way to achieve the budget targets we were

given was to take weapons systems, the entire system

because you save both training infrastructure, logistics

infrastructure, you lose the least the amount of actual

combat power versus just taking a salami slice off of

every weapons system. That logic is accepted in many

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places on the Hill, but then it comes back to the

individual politics of what the weapons system in my

district is, what you're targeting, and I'm not happy

about that. So I'm pessimistic about what's going to

happen with this budget.

And so my -- again we plan for worst case, we deal

with what actually happens. Worst-case scenario is we're

told we can't cut any of the force structure we need to

cut but we don't get any extra money to keep it. And then

my choice is either kill off future investment or attack

readiness, neither one of those is a good choice. In my

view, if I have to attack one or another I'll take risk

and readiness even though I know that -- I mean, I heard

the secretary, and I agree readiness, we have to sustain.

But in the end a hard choice is going to have to be made.

I view going after our future potential is -- borders

on the existential and that's an unacceptable path.

Taking the hit in readiness is taking risk but it's

potentially a survivable risk if the adversary doesn't

call our bluff. I've got some ideas on how to distribute

that risk to have the least damage to our ability to

produce high-end combat power but we will wait and see how

the budget actually comes out, tough choices.

GEN. MUELLNER: You mentioned the importance of

training and keeping a trained force, and we know there is

a difficult challenge with our, especially with our fifth

generation aircraft and really training in a realistic

environment. You've talked about live virtual

constructive linkage, could you discuss your vision for

that.

GEN. HOSTAGE: Absolutely. So just for everybody so

we're on the same wavelength, live is live, live is pretty

understandable; virtual is a simulator where the human

operating a simulator; constructive is digits inside the

ether there, representing activity -- you know,

theoretically flown by a human being but it's actually

done by the computer. So live, virtual, constructive.

It's the melding of the three that gives you an enhanced

training environment over just all live training.

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So in the fourth gen world, and the chief referred to

it, Red Flag is the pinnacle of our fourth generation

level of high-end training. We replicate for our young

aviators that first several missions of combat without

real bullets and without real missiles to give them the

highest probability of surviving their first combat

missions. And we can do that because we've replicated a

threat array and we've replicated tactical environments

that challenge them at that combat level with all the fog

and friction we can produce in combat.

The problem is the fifth gen platforms now. I talked

about fusion as a quintessential characteristic of fifth

gen. That fusion is smarter than any range I can afford

or produce. Even if I can afford it, I don't think that

bad guys would sell me enough of their IADS to put a

representative Integrated Air Defense System on my range.

So I probably can't even build the range that would

challenge the system. Remember, on a fourth gen airplane

the pilot is the fusion element. So I can build an array

to give the pilot enough of a fusion challenge to get the

training. I can't build an array that will give the

computer on the fifth gen platform that same level of

training. So what we're looking at is that we will

reverse the training paradigm. Today red flag is the

high-end training. In the future LVC vision is the

highest end training, the most unbridled, unlimited

training will be in the virtual constructive area.

We'll meld live, virtual constructive, but the

primary customer, the high-end customer in that training

will be in the virtual mode. The person sitting in the

fifth gen simulator or the fourth gen simulator with all

of the sensory input that virtual reality technology today

and the gaming industry is already producing for the

commercial sector, leveraging that level of reality to the

point that when you're sitting in that container flying

the simulator you forget that you're not in a real

airplane. And that in that simulator I can let you turn

on all those systems that I can't turn on out in the real

world because they're either too damaging or I would give

away too many capability to my adversary.

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And I can also do real-time kill removal because

today in our fourth gen world if you go out and you shoot

somebody, that airplane doesn't blow up and go away, so

you maneuver in a way to avoid the real air plane which

fundamentally changes the battle. In the virtual world

when you shoot the adversary, the adversary blows up and

goes away, you have to deconflict from the fireball and

you move on, that's realistic. So I think we can get to a

higher end level of -- higher quality of training in the

virtual world but it's going to require a lot of effort in

upping our virtual reality capability to where I can

reproduce in that simulator absolute fidelity and

concurrence with what the flying platform and the

simulator looks like.

General Field (phonetic) has the unenviable task of

pulling all of these efforts together for us, both what

the math is doing, what the airlift platforms, what we're

doing with the combat platforms to try to build an

architecture where we can support this live, virtual,

constructive training. As the chief made reference in his

remarks, the perfect nirvana is I can have simulators at

every base and everybody can connect and fight in this

virtual construct and nobody has to leave home station.

There are some challenges with linking those systems

and maintaining a certified security of it that is proving

at the moment unconquerable. So I -- the initial path

we're looking at is a closed loop type of arrangement

where we go to a location and they have a certified closed

loop simulation center where we can provide that high end

virtual reality training, linking in live training,

linking in virtual but the primary customer being the --

bringing in constructive but the primary customer being

the virtual training device.

GEN. MUELLNER: We've heard a lot over the last day

and a half about ISR and the seemingly increasing demand

for it. In an A2AD environment that becomes more

challenging. But the term non-traditional ISR has been

fielded because many of our systems like the F-22, the F-

35 and others really are vacuum cleaners to the

environment.

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GEN. HOSTAGE: Absolutely.

GEN. MUELLNER: What are the plans of ACC to try to

incorporate that data?

GEN. HOSTAGE: So what we have, even today, even

without the onset of the -- of operational F-35s, any

airplane that has a pod is a potential non-traditional ISR

platform. Our challenge right now is how do I link that

capacity with a tasking mechanism that gives them a useful

task and then funnels the information back into the system

in a timely fashion to the right customer. We have a very

well-orchestrated prioritization process for prioritizing

ISR requirements that works its way through the planning

process inside the AOC, becomes part of the tasking order

on the -- in the ISR tasking order as well as the AOC or

the ATO, the air tasking order, but that's not going to be

the fast enough loop for the CFACC because as a CFACC I've

got targets I -- we just hit an hour ago and I need to

know whether the sortie I'm launching right now needs to

re-hit that target or could go on.

I have a lot of capacity resident in the fleet that's

out there operating right now that if I had a way to task

it on their way back from another target passing by the

target we hit that hour ago, they could take a look, image

it with a pod, they could (inaudible) a SAR radar, and

then when they land or data link back to me, if the

airplane has the capacity, data link the information,

allow me to have a look at that BDA and decide do I have

to hit that target or not.

So what we're working on is the mechanism within the

AOC process to put in the CFACC's requirements, get them

out to those platforms that have the ISR, the non-

traditional ISR capacity, understanding their mission

priority is still their -- the mission, that whatever

target they were given, that's their primary mission but

they will have adjunct mission that if possible, if the

primary mission allows, to hit this non-traditional target

in terms of an ISR pass and then how to get that

information back during debrief in a timely fashion. So

we're building the TTPs and the processes to make that

happen.

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What I fully expect is when the JTF commander figures

out how good we are doing that, some of that is going to

get drawn into the JTF commander's bucket and so we're

going to have to service them. But I'm willing to pay

that price downstream once I've built that process that

allows me to hit the CFACC's priorities and make the

CFACC's job more effective.

GEN. MUELLNER: You know, one of your five areas was

a partnership and a strong industry underpinning. What

can both sides of that partnership do to enhance this

relationship?

GEN. HOSTAGE: Well, it's dialogue and venues like

this, convention, the opportunity to walk the floor and

listen to some of the new ideas. I mean, I've heard some

-- already heard a number of very interesting concepts

that I need to take back to my staff and ask the

questions, have we thought about this or what I heard is

some things on the floor that sparks some ideas in my head

that I can go and ask my SSA (phonetic) I heard this but

how about if we tried this with that capability. Go talk

to those guys, have them come, get us smart on what

they're talking. So these venues are great for that.

One of the things we've been doing in Air Combat

Command is innovation conferences. I fundamentally

believe, as I said in my remarks, that the S&T effort that

we put forth in -- as in terms of our broad investment in

science and technology by the government is critical to

sustaining that technological edge. But if our industry

partners don't spend the IR&D money to actually make

usable stuff out of that, then, you know, we're wasting

money in the S&T world. And if our industry partners

don't spend IR&D then they're not going to sell anything.

So it's in their best interest to keep at it too. But

given the fiscal realities that the government is facing,

the industry is facing the same challenges. And so my

view is we need to help industry narrow the shot

(phonetic) group and spend their IR&D money in a way that

has a higher probability of producing fruitful prototypes

or designs or concepts that may meet some of the

challenges.

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So we've had these innovation conferences where we

bring our lab -- our industry and lab partners together,

we'll bring operators in and just describe an operational

challenge, let industry talk about the bleeding edge of

technology out there in the 10- to 20-year range, and let

-- and ask our industry partners to think about what their

internal capacity is, which of these labs they could

partner with to produce something actually in the next 6

to 18 months that would actually solve a problem. And

then come to us and say, hey, we propose to partner this

lab with a crater or any one of a variety of mechanisms to

build one of these to do this, to solve the problem you

just talked about.

If they come and do that with me, I can say great

idea or, that's interesting, I hadn't thought about that,

let's give it a try or that's not really the direction

we're headed, that won't meet the operational concept

we're working with. If I on the other hand come up with a

brilliant idea and go turn to a partner and say, hey,

could you build one of these in the next 6 to 18 months, I

wind up in jail because I have to go through a heinous

acquisition effort to drop an RFP out there and wait 9

years for all of these documents to get written. By the

time I get a capability, it's long past need. So keeping

the dialogue, spurring that dialogue, spurring the

contact, then getting some of these near-term solutions

out there to play with and try gives us a better chance of

getting that technology in the near term.

GEN. MUELLNER: Well, sir, unfortunately we've run

out of time. I do have a small memento for you. It's the

history of the (inaudible).

GEN. HOSTAGE: All right. Thanks. Thank you all.

(Applause)

GEN. MUELLNER: A couple of announcements. We'll

reconvene here at 3:40. There are dissert, coffee and so

on down in the expo area. I do have one announcement on

the schedule. Unfortunately the Secretary of Defense,

Hagel, got pulled away and will not be speaking tomorrow

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at 10:30. However, replacing him will be the honorable

Frank Kendall who is the undersecretary of Defense for

acquisition, technology and logistics. And that's again

in this room tomorrow at --

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