Transcripts For CSPAN Gen. James Holmes On Air Combat Traini

The air force association hosted this onehour event. Gen. Holmes well, good morning. This has to be the best job in the world that somehow i fell into, when i look across the room at our air force family. Its incredible. Believe me, the chinese would not like what we are talking about, what we are doing, getting together here today focused on defending this nation, all of us together. So a special thanks to everyone in the room attending, and of course our sponsors, our Defense Industry partners. When we can put Defense Industry in the same room as our warfight good. Hats also, thanks to the media for being here. You all it criticized sometimes, more than you deserve. If we dont tell the story about the most lethal combat, conventional combat force in the world, were going to miss opportunity to defend this nation. So the medias directly involved here. The good news, this morning we have the leader of the most lethal conventional combat force in the world, general mike holmes. Incredible, when you think about whats going on across our combat air forces, supported by their combat command around the world. Taking the fight to the enemy, 24 by 7. And we should never, ever forget our officers and enlisted personnel, our warrior airmen defending the nation. Were looking forward to hosting. I hope everyone in the room attends our cyber conference in three weeks. It is focused, like i tried to outline here, on strengthening an floor warfighter industryd partnership to stay ahead of what might be the most competitive set of enemies with the most advanced technology we ever asked our airmen to face. Its a challenge, and we will continue to deter and decisively defeat enemies unless we have a strong warfighterindustry partnership. So, thank you for being here. It is an honor for doug and me, supporting all of you and our air force association and our staff. So, general holmes, 38plus years doing this, supported over at the 113th. Its a Family Affair. So thank you, sir, for being with us. Please join me in welcoming general holmes. [applause] ok . Holmes can you hear me a little different today, because i am talking to whats usually kind of a home team and doesnt need a lot a vaccination about air combat command. But we also have the cspan audience with us this morning, so i will stand over here next to the slides, so we can do all this at the same time. Im happy to see everybody. Orville, thanks for the invitation. Good to see old friends and new friends. Thanks for taking the time to come out this morning. We did a session with the Defense Writers Group on monday and are here with you guys this morning. Inll go talk to the Women Defense conference at the convention center. Im happy to do that. We have our expeditionary Senior Leaders today at the pentagon, which is where we bring last years commanders who were deployed into assets after they had a chance to come home and regroup a little. We bring them back together to get advice from them, and see what we can do to better support the folks over there now. And i have a session with some professional staffers this afternoon. So a busy day. We try to fit inasmuch as much as we can when we come to town, so lets go ahead and get started. Again, i know this is a home team, but with the audience out there. Shoulder patch on our that says people first, Mission Always in air combat command. As orville said, it is about our airmen who operate the platforms and systems that make us a great air force. We could have a phd dissertation about mission first, people always. Our heritage goes back to joel creech and his disciples, if we give our airmen the right tools and training, empower them with the responsibly and authority for their mission and hold them accountable, they will be effective. That is our first slide, please. Go ahead. You know the three on top. Here,should be a build quickly, that i will not spend much time on, except to say that uniquely among the services, the air force is in a functional fourstar command. Air combat command, air mobility command, air space command. That means we do business a little differently. Please. Ide, we start off with this mission statement. I will let you read it. Ive gone back and forth with our commanders and others. The main thing in there, our job is to organize, train and equip presented around the world. Our airmen fight on the ground, and in the air, and in cyberspace and the electro magnetic spectrum domain, to control the airspace and cyberspace. A wid spacee. Because no matter what happens going forward, our unified space command, discussions about having a separate space force under the department of the air force or separately. There are a lot of terrestrial threats to our space forces, and we will need a close relationship with air combat command, however we end up connected to the space force. Antisatellite technology from the ground, directed energy launch from the ground, Cyber Attacks launched from the ground or the air. It will take a Close Partnership among all elements to control airspace, and i have come to believe we arent going to be able to control the airspace without exerting some amount of control on the electro magnetic spectrum, of which cyber is a component. Slide, please. Command,h air combat we have numbered air forces, the next echelon. Our command chief, Sergeant Dave wade, is here. Dave came to us from ninth air force, one of our numbered air forces. Hes a career maintainer, with a great ability to connect with airmen across our command. I will not dwell on this, except to tell you i will come back to it a little. So, we have numbered air forces that are Service Components. First air force, our component in norad. 12th air force is our component to u. S. Southcom. Is thece central component to u. S. Central command. We support and project those capabilities out to socom. 24th air force is our component to u. S. Cybercom. 25th air force provides Global Integrated intelligence, surveillance to all the cocoms around the world. As we look at our structure, we are interested in how we best prepare our air force and air combat command for the environment of competition, deterrence and if we have to conflict with peer adversaries. What needs to change in the way we organize train and equip airmen in this new world . Slide, please. The last step, underneath the numbered air forces, we have wings, the next level down for an air force organizational structure. , butve wings, some centers everybody in air combat command can find themselves under this structure, somewhere, somehow. Orville talked about the family. Lieutenant holmes, is across town at andrews today defending the National Capital region in an f16. His big sister rebecca is a physicist working at the National Laboratory los alamos, and a lot of her work is for here, on of our organizations under 25th, responsible for doing the nations monitoring of Nuclear Capabilities and events, all over the world. So, still a Family Affair for me and my family. Slide, please. Were spread all over the world. Largely in the United States, but a lot of the red dots our there across the middle east. Air combat command through 25th air force provides the bulk of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for all the commands. The distributed Common Ground systems around the world are part of air combat command. Weather support is part of air combat command. We do that so we can federate it, bring the whole enterprise together to support contact with the enemy. In europe, thegs one in langley, two in the pacific, one in korea, one in hawaii. They can Work Together to provide the intelligence we need around the world. We have three priorities we focused on for the last 2. 5 years. We want to improve readiness of our units. We have a mandate to do that from our nation, as we enter into competition with peer adversaries. We need to focus on ready airmen, ready families, and ready weapon systems to put that altogether. I can tell you, we are making progress. We are grateful for the sustained spending congress has invested in our readiness issues, and we are putting that money to good use. Over the last year, as for the money started to come to us really in 2019. About8, we bought back 4000 maintenance positions. A year and a half ago, i would have told you we were short about 4000 maintainers in air combat command, and now i can tell you we are not. We are training young maintainers to be experienced, but we have them in place. Because we lay the groundwork, when the additional money rolling in 2019, we were able to start applying that through air force Materiel Command for the parts, the sustainment, the thingsept intervals, the those miracle workers do to keep our aging fleet ready. As a result, we have gained about 15 readiness across our combat air force. If you go back and look at history, in about 1978 when we came out of another period of extended high use of equipment atich drove lower readiness, tactical air command, we gained about 12 a year for five or six years, to get back to the readiness we wanted to get to. We have made a good start along that same curve. For the guys who were my commanders and mentors in that time period who are here in the room, we are going at it pretty much the same way you did, and i think we will get results that line up with the methods you taught us. Empower folks, give them authority and responsibly for the mission, hold them accountable for it, put them in competition for each other, and off they go and we start to get improve results. Building leaders to prevail in joint warfights is our idea. Were training leaders at our wings, down at the shop, the flight commander level, superintendent level. Were running an improved Squadron Commander course at air combat command, part of our focus now. We have had three years, and have run all the Squadron Commanders through the course. Were focusing, deeper generation on sorties, flying together and trimming more, making progress there. And accepting risk. We rely on miracle workers at ateriel command to keep a fleet that averages 30 years old functional and capable, striking fear into the hearts of the people we line up against. We rely on the acquisition system that is government, industry paired together to reequip us. What we need to do is go faster, ultimately. I dont have any concerns really about our system, except we all have to learn to go faster in a world where our adversaries are going fast, and we dont have the luxury anymore of setting a line out 20 years in the future when we will provide new capability. We have to focus on the next two years, three years, five years. One of the parts of that, how do we work with Operational Testing . Were responsible for, with develop in all testing, to see how we can overlap those and make them go faster. I can report to you, we are making progress there. Leader takes over at air force Materiel Command, they are working on proposals to take that to the next step, what we can do to get things done faster and better. Slide, please. There is a reason why. Know, in 2008 i was wing ofmander at bagram, and one the decisions we made as a nation was to cancel the f22 program. The logically used, ourcall we used, adversaries wouldnt be competitive with what we fielded now until the end of the 2030s. And we were wrong. Our adversaries are fielding positions already with peerlevel threats to what we put out in the field, so we have to go faster. Not just in the platforms, but as the chief said, focusing on the highways we drive are trucks on. How we connect, how we share, how we get ready for this future that will rely increasingly on new capabilities, on Information Warfare, on the electromagnetic spectrum. I will talk about that. Slide, please. Ok. So i showed you that picture of air combat command, the numbered air forces. Why did i do that . I think as we go forward, there are changes we want to drive in combat command, and i will talk to you about them. Service component, numbered air forces on the left. The First Air Force to norad, centcom. 12th, we asked them to be a Service Component to southcom, and organize half our conventional forces. Were working to see if we can put all of the conventional forces under one of our numbered air forces and free 12th to focus on central and south america in support of south,. Com. Our strategy is first peer threats like russia and china, and then rogue states like iran korea, and all of them are in central and south america. We went u. S. Southcom to focus more on that role, so were proposing, not a done deal in the air force, but proposing a conventional fighter rescue and command control forces under the ninth air force. The ninth air force is also home to a Standing Joint Task Force Headquarters capability we have built, so we can take on if a cocom wants us, can provide a headquarters to run a task supporting, like the army can provide a Division Headquarters or a corps headquarters. We are billing that capability in the ninth air force. They have reached an initial Operational Capability and will lead an exercise this fall, with u. S. European command, the next step on reaching full Operational Capability. So, that will be responsible for both force generation and presentation of our conventional forces, then working with the Wing Commanders to get the readiness. Under the i. W. Forces, this fall we will combined 24th and 25th air force. 24th has been our air forces cyber, and 25th the Global Integrated isr. Well put them together this fall. We dont know exactly when the date will be, pending the nomination process, but we are putting those together. The new numbered air force and we will continue to maintain advanced training, tactics, test functions at the u. S. Air force center. So, back to the conventional forces, bringing them together under the ninth. Why do we want to do that . If we can align them under a single commander, we can take advantage of a strike eagle wing in Mountain Home and a strike eagle wing at seymour johnson, working together to achieve readiness goals. We can pull them together under one commander, and able to optimize training and support, helping them Work Together. It will be a Single Service force provider in those capabilities that makes trades when someone cant go, substituting someone who can. Who will be able to advocate for all those forces, with one i. G. Across them all. Slide, please. For Information Warfare. This is a big job we will ask this new numbered air force commander to do, but it is important to bring these capabilities together. This new numbered air force commander will be air forces cyber, the Service Component to u. S. Cyber command with teams working in that role. He will also command a joint force Headquarters Cyber air force, focused on ucomm, stratcom, and there are different headquarters on different parts of that. He will be the air force net ops commander, running all the networks the air force provides, and at thesified, secret and higher classification levels. He will be our Service Component commander, working to support the airmen we provide to the National Security agency, and the other things that we do across the Intelligence Community. And well be pulling all that together, supporting both u. S. Cyber calm, air force cyber, and supporting the rest of the cocoms with Global Integrated surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance. We pull those things together, and our belief is it will make us more effective across this information spectrum. Frankly, we are still working on how exactly to define that. Me, Information Warfare is this larger issue of how we take all the data out there available to us, and use tools to make that data work on for half of war behalf of warfighters. Information operation to me, that is more tailoring, crafting a message that has the right impact, finding the right audience to deliver it to and having a means to deliver it to them to drive an effect. 24th air force already has some in that area, and pulling pooling greater intelligence resources with them will give them even more game. Peerhallenge against adversaries, we are in competition and would like to stay in competition. We are in a competition that has a military component but largely stays below armed conflict, and we would like to keep it there, so we want to recast the competition on terms that are favorable for us. Part of that is offering options to our national decisionmakers that they can use in competition that are not necessarily he rightry, but are on t level with things our adversaries are doing so we can deter malign activities at all levels, from Information Warfare all the way to major conflict. Our goal is to provide new our goal here is to provide new options. Options for national decisionmakers. We will start off with the consolidated component with an integrated staff in a single Operation Centers that ties those things together. And we can do that at ioc this fall. And then will continue to stretch and build on that Defense Industry<\/a> partners. When we can put Defense Industry<\/a> in the same room as our warfight good. Hats also, thanks to the media for being here. You all it criticized sometimes, more than you deserve. If we dont tell the story about the most lethal combat, conventional combat force in the world, were going to miss opportunity to defend this nation. So the medias directly involved here. The good news, this morning we have the leader of the most lethal conventional combat force in the world, general mike holmes. Incredible, when you think about whats going on across our combat air forces, supported by their combat command around the world. Taking the fight to the enemy, 24 by 7. And we should never, ever forget our officers and enlisted personnel, our warrior airmen defending the nation. Were looking forward to hosting. I hope everyone in the room attends our cyber conference in three weeks. It is focused, like i tried to outline here, on strengthening an floor warfighter industryd partnership to stay ahead of what might be the most competitive set of enemies with the most advanced technology we ever asked our airmen to face. Its a challenge, and we will continue to deter and decisively defeat enemies unless we have a strong warfighterindustry partnership. So, thank you for being here. It is an honor for doug and me, supporting all of you and our air force association and our staff. So, general holmes, 38plus years doing this, supported over at the 113th. Its a Family Affair<\/a>. So thank you, sir, for being with us. Please join me in welcoming general holmes. [applause] ok . Holmes can you hear me a little different today, because i am talking to whats usually kind of a home team and doesnt need a lot a vaccination about air combat command. But we also have the cspan audience with us this morning, so i will stand over here next to the slides, so we can do all this at the same time. Im happy to see everybody. Orville, thanks for the invitation. Good to see old friends and new friends. Thanks for taking the time to come out this morning. We did a session with the Defense Writers Group<\/a> on monday and are here with you guys this morning. Inll go talk to the Women Defense<\/a> conference at the convention center. Im happy to do that. We have our expeditionary Senior Leaders<\/a> today at the pentagon, which is where we bring last years commanders who were deployed into assets after they had a chance to come home and regroup a little. We bring them back together to get advice from them, and see what we can do to better support the folks over there now. And i have a session with some professional staffers this afternoon. So a busy day. We try to fit inasmuch as much as we can when we come to town, so lets go ahead and get started. Again, i know this is a home team, but with the audience out there. Shoulder patch on our that says people first, Mission Always<\/a> in air combat command. As orville said, it is about our airmen who operate the platforms and systems that make us a great air force. We could have a phd dissertation about mission first, people always. Our heritage goes back to joel creech and his disciples, if we give our airmen the right tools and training, empower them with the responsibly and authority for their mission and hold them accountable, they will be effective. That is our first slide, please. Go ahead. You know the three on top. Here,should be a build quickly, that i will not spend much time on, except to say that uniquely among the services, the air force is in a functional fourstar command. Air combat command, air mobility command, air space command. That means we do business a little differently. Please. Ide, we start off with this mission statement. I will let you read it. Ive gone back and forth with our commanders and others. The main thing in there, our job is to organize, train and equip presented around the world. Our airmen fight on the ground, and in the air, and in cyberspace and the electro magnetic spectrum domain, to control the airspace and cyberspace. A wid spacee. Because no matter what happens going forward, our unified space command, discussions about having a separate space force under the department of the air force or separately. There are a lot of terrestrial threats to our space forces, and we will need a close relationship with air combat command, however we end up connected to the space force. Antisatellite technology from the ground, directed energy launch from the ground, Cyber Attacks<\/a> launched from the ground or the air. It will take a Close Partnership<\/a> among all elements to control airspace, and i have come to believe we arent going to be able to control the airspace without exerting some amount of control on the electro magnetic spectrum, of which cyber is a component. Slide, please. Command,h air combat we have numbered air forces, the next echelon. Our command chief, Sergeant Dave<\/a> wade, is here. Dave came to us from ninth air force, one of our numbered air forces. Hes a career maintainer, with a great ability to connect with airmen across our command. I will not dwell on this, except to tell you i will come back to it a little. So, we have numbered air forces that are Service Component<\/a>s. First air force, our component in norad. 12th air force is our component to u. S. Southcom. Is thece central component to u. S. Central command. We support and project those capabilities out to socom. 24th air force is our component to u. S. Cybercom. 25th air force provides Global Integrated<\/a> intelligence, surveillance to all the cocoms around the world. As we look at our structure, we are interested in how we best prepare our air force and air combat command for the environment of competition, deterrence and if we have to conflict with peer adversaries. What needs to change in the way we organize train and equip airmen in this new world . Slide, please. The last step, underneath the numbered air forces, we have wings, the next level down for an air force organizational structure. , butve wings, some centers everybody in air combat command can find themselves under this structure, somewhere, somehow. Orville talked about the family. Lieutenant holmes, is across town at andrews today defending the National Capital<\/a> region in an f16. His big sister rebecca is a physicist working at the National Laboratory<\/a> los alamos, and a lot of her work is for here, on of our organizations under 25th, responsible for doing the nations monitoring of Nuclear Capabilities<\/a> and events, all over the world. So, still a Family Affair<\/a> for me and my family. Slide, please. Were spread all over the world. Largely in the United States<\/a>, but a lot of the red dots our there across the middle east. Air combat command through 25th air force provides the bulk of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for all the commands. The distributed Common Ground<\/a> systems around the world are part of air combat command. Weather support is part of air combat command. We do that so we can federate it, bring the whole enterprise together to support contact with the enemy. In europe, thegs one in langley, two in the pacific, one in korea, one in hawaii. They can Work Together<\/a> to provide the intelligence we need around the world. We have three priorities we focused on for the last 2. 5 years. We want to improve readiness of our units. We have a mandate to do that from our nation, as we enter into competition with peer adversaries. We need to focus on ready airmen, ready families, and ready weapon systems to put that altogether. I can tell you, we are making progress. We are grateful for the sustained spending congress has invested in our readiness issues, and we are putting that money to good use. Over the last year, as for the money started to come to us really in 2019. About8, we bought back 4000 maintenance positions. A year and a half ago, i would have told you we were short about 4000 maintainers in air combat command, and now i can tell you we are not. We are training young maintainers to be experienced, but we have them in place. Because we lay the groundwork, when the additional money rolling in 2019, we were able to start applying that through air force Materiel Command<\/a> for the parts, the sustainment, the thingsept intervals, the those miracle workers do to keep our aging fleet ready. As a result, we have gained about 15 readiness across our combat air force. If you go back and look at history, in about 1978 when we came out of another period of extended high use of equipment atich drove lower readiness, tactical air command, we gained about 12 a year for five or six years, to get back to the readiness we wanted to get to. We have made a good start along that same curve. For the guys who were my commanders and mentors in that time period who are here in the room, we are going at it pretty much the same way you did, and i think we will get results that line up with the methods you taught us. Empower folks, give them authority and responsibly for the mission, hold them accountable for it, put them in competition for each other, and off they go and we start to get improve results. Building leaders to prevail in joint warfights is our idea. Were training leaders at our wings, down at the shop, the flight commander level, superintendent level. Were running an improved Squadron Commander<\/a> course at air combat command, part of our focus now. We have had three years, and have run all the Squadron Commander<\/a>s through the course. Were focusing, deeper generation on sorties, flying together and trimming more, making progress there. And accepting risk. We rely on miracle workers at ateriel command to keep a fleet that averages 30 years old functional and capable, striking fear into the hearts of the people we line up against. We rely on the acquisition system that is government, industry paired together to reequip us. What we need to do is go faster, ultimately. I dont have any concerns really about our system, except we all have to learn to go faster in a world where our adversaries are going fast, and we dont have the luxury anymore of setting a line out 20 years in the future when we will provide new capability. We have to focus on the next two years, three years, five years. One of the parts of that, how do we work with Operational Testing<\/a> . Were responsible for, with develop in all testing, to see how we can overlap those and make them go faster. I can report to you, we are making progress there. Leader takes over at air force Materiel Command<\/a>, they are working on proposals to take that to the next step, what we can do to get things done faster and better. Slide, please. There is a reason why. Know, in 2008 i was wing ofmander at bagram, and one the decisions we made as a nation was to cancel the f22 program. The logically used, ourcall we used, adversaries wouldnt be competitive with what we fielded now until the end of the 2030s. And we were wrong. Our adversaries are fielding positions already with peerlevel threats to what we put out in the field, so we have to go faster. Not just in the platforms, but as the chief said, focusing on the highways we drive are trucks on. How we connect, how we share, how we get ready for this future that will rely increasingly on new capabilities, on Information Warfare<\/a>, on the electromagnetic spectrum. I will talk about that. Slide, please. Ok. So i showed you that picture of air combat command, the numbered air forces. Why did i do that . I think as we go forward, there are changes we want to drive in combat command, and i will talk to you about them. Service component, numbered air forces on the left. The First Air Force<\/a> to norad, centcom. 12th, we asked them to be a Service Component<\/a> to southcom, and organize half our conventional forces. Were working to see if we can put all of the conventional forces under one of our numbered air forces and free 12th to focus on central and south america in support of south,. Com. Our strategy is first peer threats like russia and china, and then rogue states like iran korea, and all of them are in central and south america. We went u. S. Southcom to focus more on that role, so were proposing, not a done deal in the air force, but proposing a conventional fighter rescue and command control forces under the ninth air force. The ninth air force is also home to a Standing Joint<\/a> Task Force Headquarters<\/a> capability we have built, so we can take on if a cocom wants us, can provide a headquarters to run a task supporting, like the army can provide a Division Headquarters<\/a> or a corps headquarters. We are billing that capability in the ninth air force. They have reached an initial Operational Capability<\/a> and will lead an exercise this fall, with u. S. European command, the next step on reaching full Operational Capability<\/a>. So, that will be responsible for both force generation and presentation of our conventional forces, then working with the Wing Commanders<\/a> to get the readiness. Under the i. W. Forces, this fall we will combined 24th and 25th air force. 24th has been our air forces cyber, and 25th the Global Integrated<\/a> isr. Well put them together this fall. We dont know exactly when the date will be, pending the nomination process, but we are putting those together. The new numbered air force and we will continue to maintain advanced training, tactics, test functions at the u. S. Air force center. So, back to the conventional forces, bringing them together under the ninth. Why do we want to do that . If we can align them under a single commander, we can take advantage of a strike eagle wing in Mountain Home<\/a> and a strike eagle wing at seymour johnson, working together to achieve readiness goals. We can pull them together under one commander, and able to optimize training and support, helping them Work Together<\/a>. It will be a Single Service<\/a> force provider in those capabilities that makes trades when someone cant go, substituting someone who can. Who will be able to advocate for all those forces, with one i. G. Across them all. Slide, please. For Information Warfare<\/a>. This is a big job we will ask this new numbered air force commander to do, but it is important to bring these capabilities together. This new numbered air force commander will be air forces cyber, the Service Component<\/a> to u. S. Cyber command with teams working in that role. He will also command a joint force Headquarters Cyber<\/a> air force, focused on ucomm, stratcom, and there are different headquarters on different parts of that. He will be the air force net ops commander, running all the networks the air force provides, and at thesified, secret and higher classification levels. He will be our Service Component<\/a> commander, working to support the airmen we provide to the National Security<\/a> agency, and the other things that we do across the Intelligence Community<\/a>. And well be pulling all that together, supporting both u. S. Cyber calm, air force cyber, and supporting the rest of the cocoms with Global Integrated<\/a> surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance. We pull those things together, and our belief is it will make us more effective across this information spectrum. Frankly, we are still working on how exactly to define that. Me, Information Warfare<\/a> is this larger issue of how we take all the data out there available to us, and use tools to make that data work on for half of war behalf of warfighters. Information operation to me, that is more tailoring, crafting a message that has the right impact, finding the right audience to deliver it to and having a means to deliver it to them to drive an effect. 24th air force already has some in that area, and pulling pooling greater intelligence resources with them will give them even more game. Peerhallenge against adversaries, we are in competition and would like to stay in competition. We are in a competition that has a military component but largely stays below armed conflict, and we would like to keep it there, so we want to recast the competition on terms that are favorable for us. Part of that is offering options to our national decisionmakers that they can use in competition that are not necessarily he rightry, but are on t level with things our adversaries are doing so we can deter malign activities at all levels, from Information Warfare<\/a> all the way to major conflict. Our goal is to provide new our goal here is to provide new options. Options for national decisionmakers. We will start off with the consolidated component with an integrated staff in a single Operation Centers<\/a> that ties those things together. And we can do that at ioc this fall. And then will continue to stretch and build on that Information Warfare<\/a> capability we provide through service and cyber components. Will be able to, were still have one commander over all our Cyber Mission<\/a> force teams and were going to move the 557 wing over this alignment. Its been under 12 air force. When you think what our weather wing does, takes information, gathered by centers all over the world, uses algorithms and people to work through it and it out through networks. It kind of 15 with our isr and Cyber Mission<\/a> and we think it will have a better home there. Then we are looking at what should follow in our organizational structure. We also expect this to take a lead role in revitalizing the planning, capability to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum. With your help we continue to field some outstanding systems that operate in the electromagnetic system, Electronic Warfare<\/a> and combat, but in 15 years of combat focus on violent extremist down at the lowest tactical level, weve lost a little bit of our operational and Strategic Planning<\/a> capability to bring all those things together to achieve operational and strategic effects. We think we need to rebuild that. And then we also know that to be successful as we go forward with the systems we built that rely on computer power and rely on identifying the enemies sophisticated threats in the spectrum, to be able to counter them, we want to be able to reprogram faster, and so we will be taking some steps you look at enterprise we use to do that. How do we take information on the specific specifications that in any system is operating under in the electromagnetic domain, get it back to our reprogrammers as i get turned back out to our systems so we can counter the threat in near realtime. Our goal is to be able to do that at least with the an ato cycle as our starting cap and then work to get it faster and faster. And then with this established together we looked at all the different Information Warfare<\/a> Training Programs<\/a> that we have across 25th air force and intelligence and cyber and Information Warfare<\/a>, and theres the option we might pull this together under one Wing Commander<\/a> to do that a little better and faster. Slide, please. And thehighways, systems that bring them together and eventual platforms. I know im in a room with people built highways and platform so we need to come to this and this may be what you want to talk about but is a kind of some of the things that make the patient happen that we are working on. Im always going to start with the ones on the top. Joint, advanced Battle Management<\/a> system. Its based on having multidomain information, gathering tools to gather information across multiple domains. Its kind of the bedrock of what we are doing. And then the ability to command and control that in new ways, to take over date and make sense of it and get it back out. And then the agile communication required to share that data in a contested in private. Those three things are going to be fundamental to everything we do get multidomain awareness, advanced Battle Management<\/a>, and the agile key medications to link those together. Beyond that we are working through a transition with Headquarters Air<\/a> force on how we plan and design for the future. Headquarters air force has taken a more central role in guiding that. We do the work to help them pick working today to work through the modernization of their Operation Center<\/a> through a new protocol to try to do that faster. Weve moved or are in the process of moving to open architecture and distribute, grand system structure so we can make changes in realtime. We own that oms and we can work forward to it. Talked about multidomain command control. This fall will do a joint experiment under the blessings of the vice chairman to go think about what joint domain command and control looks like. We will be building a capability to experiment with that, and what you may know is, we call the shadow Operation Center<\/a> and were going to be working to see how we can work with the other services to pull this together. When our young folks exercise and they talk about the future, no matter which service, which uniform they are wearing, they come back and say boss, we have to get how to do purple states to duplicate the effects we want in the time that we want across service boundaries. We are going to have to pull our command and control together to keep up with the enemy. Talked about ot and dt. To be ready for the advanced threats we are going to make some improvements in our Operational Training<\/a> infrastructure. That means both the live ranges that we train on and then increasingly the virtual ranges where we can do things we dont want people to watch us doing and so that we can go get rep after rep in a more costeffective way. Thinking about peer adversaries means with you think our approach to Homeland Defense<\/a> and where working with northcom on analysis of alternatives to think about what should our coverage be for the northern approaches that been the central threats, surface that we presented to enemies, to think about that broader across the two giant oceans and the fellow neighbors north and south to give us a unique geographic position. How should we do that, how should we get our awareness for Homeland Defense<\/a> . How we command and control that when you reach out pretty far . How will we work with partners that sit at their astride those approaches, need to make sure with awareness of whats happening out there . And how will we provide the criminal defense required to deter attacks on the United States<\/a> . We continue i think to uniquely lead the department of defense in the integration of our reserve and International Guard<\/a> forces with our activeduty forces and find ways to improve that across the multiple domains we are responsible for. And we have Air National Guard<\/a> wings right now that have a group that flies rpas, group that does cyber and a group that does isr, all under one wing. How can we continue to take advantage of that talent that america has in a parttime or fulltime role and bring to bear on our problems. I talked about spectrum dominance wing. Dynamic force employment is the joint staffs approach to how to make the most effective use out of the forces we have to be a little less predictable and to be able to operate around the world facing global problems. We kind of devolved to a view if you are problems could be handled within region under a cocom. When you think about peer adversaries that operate all around the world and dynamic deployment is a way to make use of all of the forces across our joint force and use them in an unpredictable manner without leaving them out so long that were not able to train and do the things that will take force to regain our readiness. Slide, please. Why do all this in air combat command . What are we doing . This is a picture in 2003 of the second invasion of iraq. This is a team of soldiers that are on the march toward baghdad. Theyve been on the road for a couple days. Theyre pretty worn out. Its time to stop and take a rest. You can tell by the way theyve arranged their equipment what threats they are worried about. They put their vehicles in a circle to protect them from small arms fire. Theyve dug some shallow sleeping positions to protect them from shrapnel from mortars if theyre attacked by a ground force. The are not worried about air attack or their vehicles would be distributed and they would be arrayed in a different fashion. They know that already theres a satellite constellation operated by the air force that will watch their flanks. They know theres an rpa above watching closer for anybody who is pressing them. They know if they can come the entire weight of u. S. Air force will be brought in to look after them. This is what we wanted to look like. Slide, please. And again, for my mentors and bosses in the crowd, this is the first invasion of kuwait. This is what happens to a nation whose Ground Forces<\/a> are not protected, dont control the airspace and cybercom want to make sure this never happens to an american or an allied ground force. Thats our sacred duty in air combat command and this is why we work with you to do the things that we do to ensure that we will have this capability as we go forward. Slide, please. So thanks for giving me a minute to talk you through what were up to and where were going. And id be happy to take some questions. [inaudible] hi, sir. On tuesday, you said that you are looking at the longerterm options for addressing the low observability maintenance facilities for the f22. I was wondering if you could expound upon that. What are you considering, what is wrong with them right now . And are you considering moving them to perhaps Forward Deployed<\/a> locations . We talked a little bit monday. The question was hey, what impact does the hurricane have on the readiness of the f22. Our response was we have relocated the flying Training Unit<\/a> from tydall to egeland and they are back producing students that we need to fly the f22. The operational squadron, the 95th, we dispersed their airplanes and we were able to take the operational f22 squadrons and plus them up to 24 assigned aircraft, which we think is the right number to be able to train at the tempo we need to to produce missionready pilots. We saw good results from that. One of the factors that will take us longer to work through is kind of reconstituting the low observable maintenance capability. The bayside tyndale are operating again and egeland is using their low observable base to do some of the work on their airplanes. They are flying back and forth and doing that work. We also have announced that the longterm health of the ftu at langley is the preferred alternative for that, and that means we are networking to the Environment Impact<\/a> statement and looking at what it will take to get a third squadron down at langley. Langley was designed for that but when we decide to curtail the program we didnt build enough low observable maintenance capacity for three squadrons. So, as we move that fpu and will address the low observable Maintenance Facility<\/a> requirement at langley. In the meantime were using a facility that are out there in industry and were taking a look at some of the facilities that we built at holloman and what we can do in the shortterm make use of all the facilities we have to start buying back the an acronym that talks about how you present the low observable signature of the f22 to an enemy. And we monitor that as part of the missioncapable status of the f22. We are looking for ways to build to rebuild the capacity that we lost as we worked through. As far as building them down range, we have ways to do it down range in expeditionary fashion. Its not as effective or as efficient as doing in our big home station facilities but we will continue to keep doing that the same way we have been doing it. Industry related question. Industry . Nobody. Maintenance . Right there. Hi, thank you for your presentation. Im with breaking defense. You mentioned doing operations in the competition phase and Information Warfare<\/a>. Can you explain to me what your legal mandate is there . It seems to me theres some fairly gray legal issues. Gen. Holmes there certainly are policy and legal issues, and any authority we have to do that comes down from the president , either through the secretary of defense or through the nsa, and then down to the units that do it in different places. This year we received some authorities from 24th air force to operate in that national space, but youre right, all the authorities, we will not run an air force independent Information Warfare<\/a> campaign. We will provide capabilities that will be operated either by the Intelligence Community<\/a> or by cocoms under the direction of the president and secretary of defense. But our job is to build capabilities that they can choose from then to direct and use. Thank you. David, air international. In the press recently we saw a lunch of a groundlaunch Cruise Missile<\/a>. Is the air force looking to get back into that business, and if not, what do you see the the integration of this in accs future standoff offensive capabilities . Gen. Holmes i think i would probably know the saying that you do about that test from what i saw reported in the press. I dont really have anything to say about it beyond that. Air combat command will work with the department of defense to think about the right mix, the longrange and short range and standoff and penetrating options for our forces. And im not really in the loop on that test or the National Policy<\/a> issues that would go with the sighting if were going to field a ground launch Cruise Missile<\/a> or not. [inaudible] theres a mic, jack, so they can hear you on television. I have been told i am too loud. Thank you very much for the mic. [laughter] i know you are going to be talking to congressional staffers this afternoon. Can you share some of your major soundbites on the requirement for engad as you try to get them to restore your funding. Gen. Holmes so were happy with the recognition in the department of defense and in general and congress, like those two slides i showed you at the end of the presentation will join forth depend on our ability to be able to control and export the air and space and the Cyber Capabilities<\/a> that help us do that. As we go forward in the future we have to think about whats next. As the work were doing for next Generation Air<\/a> dominance starts with those three overreaching capabilities, like i said, a multidomain awareness, advanced by management, and Agile Communications<\/a> it will take to communicate with any system that we might go after. And then we are pursuing the research and the Risk Reduction<\/a> to say whats next, how will we maintain that dominance to the air those guys be pulled in circle the go forward in the future. Were working with congress to make sure we have the funding to do that. When we find the defense budget, its kind of a zerosum game that has to fit under a top line and we work through this process with the committees. If they move money into a place that they think theres a need they have to find a place to take it from. We will work through to try to let Congress Know<\/a> how were spending that money and why we think its important to spend it and what the benefit is that we can get from spending that money on the schedule that we have laid out. Its what we do in every program across the department. Its part of the process as we work through it. We appreciate the role they play in it and we look forward to the chance to continue to explain what were doing and trying to accomplish. [inaudible] good morning, general. General milley recently published on defense. Gov some ideas that he called missed modern warfare. And among those were you are not going to win a war without significant engagement of the u. S. Army under not going to win a war from afar, which i presume means by air. Have you detected those ideas filtering into the nds process,nt, the budget and do personally agree . Gen. Holmes john, i think everything were going to do is built on a partnership across the joint force and then based on exactly where you are and what you are doing it is putting together the right tools to do that. So i dont think i know a scenario that we wont need capabilities provided by the u. S. Army to be able to do it. And then there are scenarios like combined arms continental multidomain operations in warfare on the european continent where the army is going to play central role and air combat command have been working together closely and now air combat command and Army Futures Command<\/a> have been working together closely to think about how we will do that together on the modern battlefields. And the army is bringing capabilities that help us counter integrated air defenses. We are bringing capabilities that help counter longrange artillery systems that are a threat to the army. So there is a Great Partnership<\/a> there. So i dont see really any value in trying to drive a wedge between what we are doing. We are going to rely on the capabilities that we all provided as we go forward at a and i think we have a great working relationship and a Great Partnership<\/a> with the army leaders that are thinking about how to do this in the future. Ok, go ahead. Gen. Holmes tell us about yourself. [laughter] appreciate it. John paul with the air force fellows. A few of us were talking about and agreeing with bringing the future batch of the chautauqua earlier. Could you talk about what is being done currently in changing and improving our acquisition timelines, what is being done with acquisition funding and also legislation to go ahead and cut that from the 15 years that into the fiveyear time period you spoke of . Gen. Holmes doctor roper or general richardson or general bunch and the teams are more expert on it than i am. Into the fiveyear time period but i can tell you that work is being done. To take advantage of the new authorities and Congress Gave<\/a> us in whatever was like like to talk on the 804 authorities fellows go with prototypes, compare those to each other, decide they meet our war fighter requirement and go forward without doing all the milestones integration process. Doctor roper has set a goal of trying to cut 100 years out of acquisition by adding up what you say then different programs and i think were making Good Progress<\/a> there. Part of the other approach to it is recognizing as ive been told by industry leaders, you guys still think you are a Hardware Company<\/a> but youre really a Software Company<\/a> that operates hardware with it. Then how do we change the way we acquire things to match up with the way we acquire software in the commercial world and maintain it and sustain it. And were making some progress there. Thats going to take a partnership with the primes as well to think about how going to do that in new ways. So i think those are kind of the two primary things that i see progress in. And then i think just across the whole enterprise sense of urgency that we have to do things faster. Sometimes that means we make decisions faster that were going to cancel a program because at the end of comparing 804 prototypes, it doesnt meet the requirement we need but we found that out faster and were ready to go look at it and go to next thing to try to figure it out. So i think those are the things that i see happening in our acquisition community. Hi, valerie with defense news. A couple days ago, boeing got a contract to continue rewinging the a10. In the past about a year ago, you and other air force leaders express some reluctance to treat that contract as a followon and just give it to boeing because there were some concerns about costs and about their ability to get suppliers in line and deliver on time. So has boeing resolved those issues with its suppliers at this point . And are you guys getting a better deal with this new contract . Gen. Holmes youre talking to a user, not an acquirer. So im happy to know that weve worked the contract solution to rewing the remaining 810. Theres been a couple articles in the last weeks or so of not completing the first contract while weve been working the process to get another one. My interest is in finding somebody that can build those wings and get them out there in a costeffective process. I have confidence that my partners in the hq enterprise that work through that and we will have partnership as we go forward with aq and boeing to get those airplanes rewinged. Beyond that i think you should probably talk to aq or boeing. When youre discussing your organization, one thing that can that did not come up is the reserve, how you plan especiallying when we moved to the hightech out of industry. Gen. Holmes our guard and reserve elements are really organic across air combat command. As we align our activeduty conventional light a rescue and command and control under 9th air force, our plan is to align the corresponding guard units. Ive talked about giving us a reserve and guard deputy to come be a part of that organization to help us further that integration. I think our future is increasing integration at the unit level. I think is with you new capabilities it will, i say always, at least almost always be built on an association of the active and guard or active and reserve. Part of the difficulty of length of the guard wings underneath one of these is what i talked about, a single wing in the tennessee Air National Guard<\/a> has rpas that are lined up through the forests, cyber aspects that are working through 24th and a group working through 25th. So where do you put that wing in the structure . The answer is we continue to associate and stay in a Close Partnership<\/a> across all those places. We are not walking away from our associations with the guard and reserve. We are fortunate in the things that we do that our nation has a really strong bench of talent that does work like what we do out in the commercial world, whether thats flying and fixing airplanes or whether thats working in the i. T. Or cyber industry, or all those capabilities were able to bring to bear and using the talent that we have are an important part of what we do. And im a fan of finding even new and better ways to allow americans to participate in their defense in whatever way they can. We have an air auxiliary in the Civil Air Patrol<\/a> that is also a lligned under air combat command. A great opportunity for americans from across the country to be associated with the defense of their nation by working in the Civil Air Patrol<\/a>. We have opportunities both through afa with the things that we do and cyber challenge, cyber patriot, Civil Air Patrol<\/a> is looking at moving into some of those capabilities. Id like to see a world where we have an auxiliary that lets americans, anticipate insider americans participate in cyber activities and at the things we do within their time and within what they want to commit to bring the expertise that any they need. Right now weve got 100 activeduty commitment. We have parttime or fulltime commitment in the guard and the reserve that pretty much meet the same requirements. What kind i do to let people come in and kind of keep their earring and keep their hair and the other things but still find a way to participate. In the back. Ted bowles. More importantly, proud father of two airmen. My question is, any thoughts r discussion use in companion traders for f35, f22 fleet to help readiness . Gen. Holmes we published an article thank you. We published an article in war on the rocks in one of the websites where people share information on how we might use the tx in a different way as we achieve, we start to receive that new trainer that were we really happy to be getting to be able to produce experienced Fighter Pilot<\/a> study. It is really experienced Fighter Pilot<\/a>s. We are looking at ways we can use the things that we have in different ways. Can we partner it with the things steve and aetc did next to produce a candidate pilot faster and better to then take themn and experience them faster and better into the combat air forces. Were looking at ways to do that. As far as the campaign trainer, thats not exactly what weve laid out although in our vision to might be some people who instruct in both. What were trying to do is see if we can use a costeffective venue to move training from the advanced training that happens in an expensive f22 or f35 to bring some of that training down into a vehicle that has avionics that may be constructive look kind of the same so that you can train the same skill set in people earlier in their career, and ultimately be able to produce them faster. And we think maybe reduce the time that it takes for them to check out and become a wingman or a flight leader instructor. So that article is out there on war on the rocks that would give you a little bit more indepth look into it. We have about five more minutes. [inaudible] general holmes, thanks for the presentation and thanks for the service, your continued service for you and your family. So thanks for that. If you would, could you qualify the sentry series comments that youve said in the past, doctor roper seems to be piling on on and recently there was an rpa, the rpa is piling on. It may be helpful. Gen. Holmes sure. So you have heard us talk about the sentry series fighter Acquisition Program<\/a> and ill be careful because again, some my mentors may have lived through that timeframe. But the idea is that when we are in competition with great powers we fielded airplanes rapidly and we moved on to the next thing when it was time to do it. Ive talked to guys that were flying straight wing f84s, they got brandnew ones and we figured that was better and we add it to the airplane and we continuously pass things down and kept bringing the new capabilities out there. The idea is how do we move from a 20year Development Program<\/a> that weve done with the f22 and f35 to a shorter Development Program<\/a> where we use 804 authorities. We say what capabilities do we have now that are at a trl and mrl, that means there at a manufacturing level and the Technology Level<\/a> ready to go. What do we have that is ready to go right now that we could put the pieces together, have capability, put out there maybe in 804 process can see if its better than what we have now and if it is start buying them. Then come back a year later and say whats ready now . Is that better than what we were by . No, then lets keep buying what we were. Yes, then lets switch to that and do that. We know this is a change in business models. We know there are minimum quantity kind of things to make this something that we can field new capabilities and allow our Defense Companies<\/a> to make a profit at. We know there is a negotiation that has to happen as we go forward, but if were going to do that a lot of the cost that goes into our airplanes is building airplanes that are made to last 8000, 10,000, 15,000 flying hours. And if we change to a world where were going to rotate and pass through capabilities, are there ways we can find less Expensive Solutions<\/a> by not necessarily engineering in. One of the test were doing is looking at what we call lowcost achievable airplanes, which there is a negotiation on how good that the weapons system have to be to give you a capability against the enemy, but then what can you do to make that cheap. So if you get to a lowcost unmanned airplane that you keep in a box most of the time, you pull out a red flag twice you to make sure that it works and you know how to integrate it into capabilities, it does need 8000 Hours Service<\/a> life. It is going to get shot down in 400 or 500 anyway, and so how might we build the airplane different, might we as industrial turbine instead of a jet engine made to last 8000 hours. We might do different structural things. We might think about in a different way. So theres a lot the pieces to it but the central idea is just going faster. And when i was talking about this two or three years ago with a think tank panel and talk about this, one of the guys said of course because youre back in competition. So youre back in a world where your enemy is building new things that are incrementally better. An example would be china working through with the j20 and pl15, the missile that goes with it, to try to counter the advantage that we cut in the air to air environment. What will we do incrementally to go counter that are returned the advantage and how can we Work Together<\/a> across this partnership to find a way to ship back to that model. That is kind of what we are talking about while we play on homage to the development that produced a lot of really good airplanes in a short time that made a difference, that we think in being able to deter conflict with russia and kind of ending the cold war conflict with the soviet union. Last question. Please, yes sir. Morning, sir. From the embassy of france. I can tell from your great presentation that youre working hard on the force. You are improving the procurement because you are going faster. Can you speak about what you are putting forward for interoperability which is the third axis of the nds . Gen. Holmes no, i think that is certainly important on all that we do and this is an issue that often comes up when were operating around the world. Its examples, one end of the spectrum are the partner presses process we use to build the f35 so that we partnered with some of our International Allies<\/a> where they participated in the development of the aircraft. They are in on all the security details of how we put it together, and so that makes interoperability, not easy, but less challenging as we go forward. And then with great partners like france with its own Industrial Base<\/a> that chooses to stay separate, and then how do we pull those together, working together in the gulf or Work Together<\/a> for the defense of europe, and thats more of a challenge because were not just protecting our National Secrets<\/a> but were protecting proprietary information that leads to profit for the companies in our country. So that certainly has been a challenge, particularly with the u. S. And france, an invaluable partner to all that we are doing in the middle east, and particularly and africa which may not be well understood, as frances longterm relationships and knowledge of the africa continent and the capabilities that free, they bring to project great power there is a great partner. Classification is a hurdle and whole lot of things that we do. And we Work Together<\/a> across the department all the time to try to drive those classification problems down, but yet its a policy issue that we cant always settle uniform to uniform in the way we would like to. So we will continue to work it, we will continue to advocate for the access that our partners need to operate alongside us. And were going to work as an industry at a National Policy<\/a> part of that as well. But youre right, it has to be figured into everything that we do. Thank all of you for being here. And a special thanks to general holmes. [indiscernible] so, a tshirt. Not just a tshirt. [laughter] this is the first version of a new afa shirt. Airmen for life. If it is not as should be. On the sleeve, a new logo which says join the fight. And we are in a fight for the future of our nation. So thank you for being in the fight. Thank you for giving us direction. [laughter] [inaudible] god bless you. [applause] gen. Holmes ill take this opportunity real quickly to say when lieutenant holmes was commissioned, a friend of her family was a long time afa member and was the president of the tennessee chapter at one point gave me a membership in the air force association. And after paying the yearly dues a couple of times, i turned it into a life membership and in cost me 25 aat year or three years to turn it into a life membership, which turned out to be a pretty good deal. 38 years later. So thanks very much, and we will wear this with pride. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National<\/a> cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer on newsmakers, president of the Senate Leadership<\/a> fund talks about efforts to keep a Republican Senate<\/a> majority in 2020 and republican priorities if they maintain the majority. Newsmakers, today at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Announcer President Trump<\/a> and japanese Prime Minister<\/a> abe announced a trade deal and principal during the g7 summit in france today. The agreement addresses industrial tariffs, agriculture, and digital trade. President trump also met with other leaders and took part in ceremonial events at the summit. We have all of the g7 activities from today at about 7 15 p. M. Eastern right now, the u. S. Japan trade deal announcement. Right pres. Trump thank you very much. Weve been working on a deal with japan for a long time. It involves agriculture and commerce and many other things. Its a very big transaction and we have agreed in principle. Its billions and billions of dollars. Tremendous for the farmers and one of the things that Prime Minister<\/a> abe has also agreed to is we have excess corn in various parts of our country","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia801004.us.archive.org\/19\/items\/CSPAN_20190825_203800_Gen._James_Holmes_on_Air_Combat_Training__Readiness\/CSPAN_20190825_203800_Gen._James_Holmes_on_Air_Combat_Training__Readiness.thumbs\/CSPAN_20190825_203800_Gen._James_Holmes_on_Air_Combat_Training__Readiness_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}