Flight Plan - The Air University - U.S. Air Force

176 Pages·2003·3.38 MB·English

The U.S. Air Force
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November 2003

The U.S. Air Force
Transformation
Flight Plan
November 2003
This document was produced by HQ USAF/XPXC
Future Concepts and Transformation Division.
For more information, contact Mr. Mort Rolleston at [email protected]
or Lt. Col. Flip McCaw at [email protected].
Design and Artwork—11CS/SCUS Media Services

Foreword
For those of us charged with protecting the United States, new national security
realities have forced us to redefine our enemies as well as our concepts of defense.
As we prepare to fight these new enemies, we recognize the campaigns of the future
will involve all elements of our nation’s might—economic, diplomatic, information,
investigative, and military power—and will require us to develop new concepts of
operation, technologies, and organizational constructs that will enable us to address
these new challenges. It is these new challenges as well as historic opportunities
to exploit revolutionary technology that underscore the absolute necessity of
transforming our military capabilities.
America’s armed forces must be re-balanced for future operations. What we require is
a capability mix consistent with pre-defined operational concepts and effects-driven
methodology. Future programs must be conceived with this mix in mind. Systems
or capabilities based on arguments that do not consider the emerging joint character
or the asymmetric nature of warfare will find themselves obsolete, irrelevant, and
candidates for elimination.
Adapting to this new era is one of our principal missions. We view it as a process by
which the military achieves and maintains advantages over our potential enemies, and
enables our forces to fight and win, from a major conflict to small-scale contingencies
and in every phase of a campaign. To do so, it is essential that we remain focused on
how we intend to shape our force so it is poised for the future, not for the century of
World Wars and Cold Wars we left behind. We need to develop strategies and concepts
of operation appropriate for this new era and rethink our doctrinal approaches to
organizing, training, and equipping.

The Air Force Transformation Flight Plan presents this Service’s ongoing transformation
to meet these new challenges.
John P. Jumper, General, USAF Dr. James G. Roche
Chief of Staff Secretary of the Air Force

Table of Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .i
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. Providing Strategic Context: What is Transformation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
III. Enhancing Joint Warfighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
IV. Innovation: Turning Transformational Ideas into Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
V. Transforming Air Force Culture and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
VI. Transforming to a Capabilities-Based Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
VII. Developing Transformational Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
VIII. Transforming How the Air Force Does Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
IX. Long-Term Transformation: Future Challenges for Science and Technology . . . . . . . . . . 79
X. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Appendices:
Appendix A: TPG Guidance for Service Transformation Roadmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1
Appendix B: Additional Details Required by Transformation Planning Guidance . . . . . . . . . B-1
Appendix C: How Air Force Supports the QDR’s
“Critical Operational Goals Of Transformation” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1
Appendix D: Brief Descriptions Of Programs,
ACTDs, and Future System Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1
Appendix E: How the Air Force Supports the
Transformation Plans of the Other Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1
Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Acr-1
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
The Purpose of the Air Force
Transformation Flight Plan
The Air Force Transformation Flight Plan (or “Flight Plan”) takes a “snapshot in
time” of the ongoing transformation of the Air Force as well as anticipated future
transformation. The initial Flight Plan, submitted to the Office of Force Transformation
in June 2002, was developed in response to direction from the FY03 Defense Planning
Guidance. This second edition addresses detailed requirements in the Transformation
Planning Guidance (TPG), which are listed in Chapter I and Appendix A.
Providing Strategic Context:
What Is Transformation? Why Transform?
There have been arguably two separate, but related, transformations of the US military
over the past decade that will continue for the foreseeable future. The first is the
transformation from an industrial age force to an information age force. Vast
leaps in information technology in the areas of intelligence and surveillance, command
and control, as well as precision kinetic and non-kinetic weapons, are dramatically
reshaping warfare. Before long, joint force commanders will be able to see the entire
battlespace, identify key adversary centers of gravity, and rapidly communicate that
information to friendly combat forces so they can use precision munitions to destroy/
affect those centers. Put another way, a commander could defeat an adversary by
disabling its ability to operate as opposed to bleeding it to death with mass attrition
through sequential operations or produce the effects of mass without having to mass
forces (air, ground, or naval). This approach would require the deployment of fewer
forces (and thus enhance rapid mobility), reduce the length of the conflict, and limit
collateral damage. In seeing the entire battlespace through advanced C4ISR capabilities,
a commander would also be able to identify threats and communicate that information
to forces in time to avoid them. In the context of air and space operations, the keys to
threat avoidance and applying the right force to the right place at the right time are the
closely related concepts of parallel warfare and Effects-Based Operations (EBO).
The second ongoing transformation is that from a Cold War to a post-Cold
War force. The military advantages America currently enjoys are in danger of eroding
in the face of new, unique challenges in the post-Cold War security environment. The
United States must prepare for new forms of terrorism, attacks on its space assets,
information attacks on its networks, cruise and ballistic missile attacks on its forces and
territory, and attacks by chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-explosive
(CBRNE)-armed adversaries. It must also cope with the unique demands of peace
operations, homeland security, urban operations, and low-intensity conflicts. To deal
with this new security environment, where traditional concepts of deterrence may no
longer apply, the US military must be able to conduct operations effectively across the
entire spectrum of conflict against a broad range of potential adversaries.
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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan
To address both of the aforementioned realities, the Air Force has developed a
definition of the transformation process to scope the efforts described in the
Flight Plan:
A process by which the military achieves and maintains
advantage through changes in operational concepts,
organization, and/or technologies that significantly improve
its warfighting capabilities or ability to meet the demands
of a changing security environment.
The Air Force’s Transformation Strategy
To play its part in these transformations in support of the Joint Force Commander,
the Air Force is pursuing the following strategy:
• Work with the other Services, Joint Staff, and other Department of Defense (DoD)
Agencies to enhance joint warfighting
• Continue to aggressively pursue innovation to lay the groundwork
for transformation
• Create flexible, agile organizations that continually collaborate to facilitate
transformation and institutionalize cultural change
• Shift from threat- and platform-centric planning and programming to capabilities
and effects-based planning and programming via the new Air Force Concepts
of Operations (CONOPS) and Capabilities Review and Risk Assessments (CRRAs)
• Develop “transformational” capabilities to enable the six operational
goals of transformation from the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR),
the new Joint Operating Concepts (JOCs), the Air Force Vision, and the
new Air Force CONOPS
• Break out of industrial age business processes and embrace information
age thinking
To execute this strategy, the Air Force will capitalize on its three core competencies:
• Developing Airmen: The ultimate source of air and space combat capability
resides in the men and women of the Air Force. The Service’s first priority is to
ensure they receive the precise education, training, and professional development
necessary to provide them a quality edge second to none.
• Integrating Operations: The Air Force’s inherent ability to envision, experiment,
and ultimately execute the union of a myriad of platforms and people into a great
synergistic whole is pivotal to maximizing air and space power in a joint warfighting
environment.
• Technology-to-Warfighting: The Air Force matures and promotes its ability to
translate vision into operational capabilities in order to prevail in conflict and avert
technological surprise.
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