Optimizing for Battle
– Dr. Timothy Grayson, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force for Mission-Centered Analysis and Operational Imperatives
– Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Purdy, Jr., Military Deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration
– Brig. Gen. Joseph D. Kunkel, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force for Operational Imperative Integration
– Moderator: Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.), Dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Brig Gen Kunkel
I would like to extend a welcome to all the other warfighters out here and I want to extend a welcome to you because this change is going to be executed by you. I think you may have heard the under say yesterday we had a team of about 1500 working on this I tell you when we start to go into the implementation phase which is happening right now we’re going to need all of you and we’re going to need the wisdom of all of you in that nurse at all of you to get this done. So thank you so much for being here to take an interest in this. But when it comes to the Why think the chief said it best this morning. We’re the greatest air force in the world. And one of the things that makes us the greatest air force in the world is our ability to adapt to changes in the strategic environment. And if you go all the way back to their core tactical school days, you know when they moved the Maxwell 1931 They were about adapting to changes in the strategic environment and they saw those changes. There’s changes in the strategic environment that we’re seeing today. Speed the enemy, China wherever we’re going requires a change in what we’re doing in our Air Force and I think that’s that’s part of it. The other part of it is this transition from combat success being defined by platform integration versus which was we’ve had in this era of dominance for the last 30 years to a transition to combat success being defined by system integration. And frankly, these changes, get us ready for that system integration is going to be required.
Maj Gen Purdy
from a space perspective, you’ll let me just roll back to yesterday and yesterday evening. When we had a pretty amazing occurrence here on stage. We had the Secretary, the under the SEA staff and the CSO all here on stage. And they had some pretty stark words in the Start message. And we can sometimes get lost in the buzzwords of competition and strategic competition and those kinds of things. But they all use the phrase we are out of time. And they said a multiple times each and I thought that is simple, easy to understand language and I really appreciate it because it it really brings home the message. We’re out of time. And it’s just one data point. From the space perspective. I’ll highlight China launches on kind of a launch guy. Last year China had north of 60 launches in the launch community we we would have dreamed of 60 launches for decades. We would never have achieved that. We actually did achieve more launches than that. But the point is if they had north of 60 launchers, what were their payloads, their payloads were a lot of military payloads a lot of ISR payloads and a lot of dual use payloads. They’re putting up in an amazing sensor net over the entire Indo Pacific. And as that sensor data continues to get deeper and more complex, it forces us to rethink about how we’re optimized, how we’re structured, and how we can get after that.
Lt Gen Deptula
And the only thing I’ll pile on, I look at a lot of these problems through my experiences with the innovation community and acquisition and capability development and to pile on but both the generals have said through that lens, we have an incredible, incredible innovation base and our airmen are guardians and our DAF civilians and often we don’t give them the opportunity to bring forward right ideas and innovations and turn them into real capabilities. So I think that’s a lot of what we’ve been doing but a lot of what you’re hearing about in these great power competition, optimization is how do we harness that? Then to go fast and then to make sure that we are constantly in a mode of saying, how do we stay ahead? How are we ready for the surprise? How do we execute and exploit the opportunities to have a bit of a follow on if we all were together here on stage five years from now how would you define or evaluate what success would look like?
Dr. Timothy Grayson
So I’m gonna answer that in two different ways. The first of all, is from the perspective. I have very myopic I live, operational imperatives day in and day out. So let’s first talk about the operational environment. Five plus years from now, we’re talking about things that have happened over the last couple of years. If we get an appropriation, I think we might come back to that. Where what our Air and Space Forces look like, are going to be radically different than what we see today. We’re going to have autonomous CCS as part of our force. We’re going to have a fully functional and well provisioned agile combat deployment schema maneuver. We’re going to have long range, online of site space base kill chains and communications that are linking sensors. To shooters for not just the Air Force, but also the joint force. Thank you, SpaceForce for doing that for us. How did we get there? A lot of these things that weren’t part of the direct glideslope from current programs and the current ways of doing things, as the Secretary said, yesterday, the allies were largely a pickup game. It was people who were I was the only person in the department who was tasked to work oh, I full time. Everyone else had a day job and was doing this as a pickup game. Well, it’s awesome where we’ve gotten but in that five years from now, under this optimization for great power competition, we’re seeing the pieces being put in place that allows us as an institution, to be able to perpetuate that. So it’s not dependent upon personalities. It’s not dependent upon the heroic actions of individuals. It’s it’s something that we can sustain. We’re constantly in a posture of saying, what’s the next competition that either going to really challenge us or frankly, really create a great opportunity? And then how do we not just turn that from a theoretical concept into something that’s actionable in the fields and in the hands of our warfighters?
Lt Gen Deptula
That’s pretty exciting. And all of you should be encouraged by that. Because you’ve got somebody up here, who has the perspective. And I think the drive to actually make these kinds of significant changes. That’s what these changes are all about to make a difference in five years. Let me stick with you because you give a little bit of a segue to this next question, and that’s how does GPC relate to the operational imperatives? Does it represent the shift in the Department of the Air Force priorities?
Dr. Timothy Grayson
Thank you for the question. Because I have to tell you, when actually back in the fall I FA when the Secretary first announced optimization for great power competition. I kept getting a lot of people coming to me so what’s your next job? So now that we’re not doing o eyes anymore, we’re focusing on GPC? One, we’ve got to be ambidextrous. We’ve got to be able to do multiple things at once. We’ve got to think about the future. While we prepare for today’s readiness to GCC as you’ve been hearing the last two days, is not just about flight tonight, readiness. That’s a very important piece of it’s about preparing our Airmen, it’s about building the right force structures and the means of presenting power to to make us more effective for flight tonight, but GBC is as much about putting the pieces in place to be able perpetuate what we’ve done a new capability development, such as we’ve done on the allies. So you know, the really the way I think about it is the allies are continuing. We’re right in the throes of developing our end point for palm 26 and it will continue under the constructs of GCC, this notion of the battle rhythm of looking at what’s next and what next field capabilities we’re gonna feel are absolutely part of the capabilities box within GBC. So its own allies are the one that we’re developing right now. GBC is how we institutionalize that perpetuated.
Brig Gen Kunkel
And I might add on to that, if you don’t mind. So, Tim, to add on to your point about ad hoc teams and allies being ad hoc teams with one full time person that the DPC frankly doubles down on the operational imperatives, you know, a year and a half ago, we’re having a conversation about the operations and turn those from just these modernization to actual field capabilities. And what we found out is you know, the way their forces capability development we assign a lead p only assign a lead match common PIO and the Mastcam work together and they feel the system so there’s a lead Pio for the FFT and and a lead match calm for the FFT and and they work together.
And sure enough, you get to feel that that’s what we found in operational imperatives as we transition from a focus on platforms to a focus on the system. Is that in order to feel these systems, we were marching through multiple PEOs and multiple lead match columns, and we really didn’t have any integrator for them. And so the chief about a year ago, and now I’d have the longest duty title in the entirety of the Air Force Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, operational imperative operational integration is an acronym. It is something like a C to something. But anyway, the whole purpose of that was this recognition that we need to develop the capabilities in an integrated fashion. So I think GPC is a follow on to this realization that you know, that otherwise started focusing on system level integration, and we needed something in the Air Force to kind of solidify and I apologize, there are now two people who have the job full time. Yeah, there’s no way that we had to twist his arm and pull them out of this. He was one of those
Maj Gen Purdy
just add on. So you mentioned sort of a black and a how, which ties wise, together, but I’ll add in a lie. There’s an underlying reason, producing combat, credible Air and Space Forces that are ready and that is the bottom line purpose of all so there’s a lot of work. The O eyes kind of help you to do that provide the tools that TDC is really all about providing the structure and the mechanisms that get after operational capabilities to the warfighter. When they need to.
Lt Gen Deptula
Let me circle back to Tim, in building off some of what you just described. How to some of these new DPC, new organizations help with accelerating Oh, I like new capabilities
Dr. Timothy Grayson
into acquisition execution. Yes. This actually addresses where I think there’s been some confusion. I’ve already gotten calls, getting a lot of questions before ama announcements, but a lot of fair questions in policy. We’ve got an integrating Capabilities Office and integrated capabilities to integrate development organization office. The way those come together is they are trying to recreate institutionally where I would argue the sauce came from the operational Americans. What made the operational imperative effective was because we build teams of operators, brought the voice of the warfighter, understood the operational problems, and frankly, were also authorized to be Jason’s pastures and brought them together with capabilities developers who understood the technology understood acquisition realities understood how to do resources. That combination of capabilities and operations is magical for the allies. So this new construct institutionalized something like an ICC is now an integrated oil supplier. And that requirements sponsor represented the operational side of this puzzle. Something like an idea of the pieces coming out of an FMC and same thing with the spaceport with a futures Systems Command. represent the operator and the capability. So it’s creating the integrated set of organizations to bear what we’ve done with the writings and then the ICO piece is only focused on what I call the new we have existing programs existing requirements existing doctrine. warfighting concepts, we’ve already got a construct that now these new organizations will help accelerate. We’ve had operators with wires coming together and things like our panel process, and how requirements sponsors work with videos. But the ICO piece does is allow us to break loose on that new again, it could be something top down covering, seeing some new competition that we have to address, or as I mentioned in the opening comments, it could come bottom up with some great innovative idea coming out of one of these future constructs or frankly, you know, coming out of a of an airman and something like Ico allows us to parse those when there isn’t an existent organization of a team to go perpetuate those
Maj Gen Purdy
just jumping in. So I’m a big fan of structural fixes. Secretary had to put together the Allies structure, the structure that you require and some of the plays in the labs and universities. One thing is that there’s a tremendous amount of good ideas but there’s not a good path. I tried to get after that when this is the front door and the thick of the power of the space futures command. You’ve got three three pieces in there. You’ve got concept pieces, where your inputs can be anything, your universities, your lab, your technology, your DARPA has all the elements and then you go through and you evaluate those concepts in rather direct recordings. Then you end up into a Slack space. NASA Center has been doing amazing work at that PhD level that comes out. So you’ve actually got a structure the first time that you take the ethereal ideas, take them through an entire process into an actual mission design. It’s pretty powerful. It’s pretty exciting.
Lt Gen Deptula
Steve, let’s stick with you for a second. SpaceForce had the flexibility to pursue a brand new organizational design with a stand up to how you and your team approach that challenge. How it continues to be refined.
Maj Gen Purdy
As a racehorse it had the benefit that it was born great. So to an extent, you know, a few years ago, we were able to put some structures and processes in play that have been pretty cool and we’ve been able to get after some really innovative ideas and concepts both from Mission perspective and organization. But you know, you can never get everything right. It was said on stage last night. We’re pretty sure this isn’t all right, but we’re headed in the right direction. And I would argue this is a good example of where hey, we’ve developed some suboptimal processes that are aspects of great power competition has enabled us to go in and look at that and figure out where do we need to continue tweaking and focus is allowed us to go live and things like futures and SMC allowed us to go look at things like readiness, advanced trading, integration, all these different elements and so across all those factors, that’s what I think kind of shows you go down the line a little bit, and then we’re going to figure out how to not fly right or get a little bit better. Very good morning.
Lt Gen Deptula
A lot of the discussion that we’ve heard relates to material capabilities, fixing acquisition related challenges, but the issues optimizing for great power competition. How’s this new paradigm impact warfighting concepts and improve readiness in the near term?
Brig Gen Kunkel
Yeah, so I think I think you will, maybe you didn’t hit cheap, but if you didn’t hear the chief what he said this morning was, is there going to be some things actually last night, there’s going to be some things that are immediate, that are going to get us ready for the fight tonight. And then there are gonna be some other things that are enduring and ready for this enduring competition that we have. I will tell you the way we project power in our Air Force right now. I’ll stick to the US Air Force, right now. We assemble our combat wings every day, and we assemble them in there and we practice in a theater certified theater. And I would suggest that that construct is not going to work for us in great power competition. I was a commander. I literally met the people in my wing, some of whom are in the room tonight or today on the airplane over there. And you don’t get that cohesive team, that unit focus team when you assemble everyone with excellent service. So one of the one of the great efforts that we’re going after Is this the combat wing is a unit of action, and a combat one that is standing in structured or restructured and a resource to execute us wartime tasks, and execute as a unit of action. You know, we haven’t since you know you were deployed in the 90s have wings that can deploy and act as a unit of action and I want to suggest that, you know, when you take the look at the wartime missions that we expect to accomplish in the future, that haven’t wings that can actually execute the seven joint functions that can actually plan and execute that have the three layers that we’ve been discussing, a command and staff resource to do to do wartime Fox emission layer which provides modularity to the wartime functions, and then finally sustaining layer which many of our combat and sustaining layer that helps run a base base operated support. So I, I can’t highlight the necessary changes in this GPC ever is going to have for how we present courses through the second time that we as a unit actually.
Maj Gen Purdy
I’d like to jump in there and add some spaces where we have some unique aspects that were employed in place. But yeah, we were also built. And as we continue to work, to build into a whole combat force and build out space superiority concepts both of those elements were incredibly important in great power competition in the readiness. So in our world, defining the combat squadron as the key unit, and building those force elements into a combat Squadron and then getting after a readiness assessment. Readiness Assessment traditionally didn’t really get after that but then also getting after those infrastructure to us infrastructure is critically important. power, electricity, all of those things we can’t get all of the other day support from cities upgrading our readiness standard assumption that gets after documenting, and accurately he was struggling on any package all that up in a space right in this model, our own space to present to the warfighter and then the final piece which is really key that sometimes really really isn’t realized it’s a pretty good invention. World Space Operations. Command did organized and broken and it created space for spaces. They’re the ones that are offering combat forces. environment that allows space operators to get after. So holding some horses back and personnel back and get after a day of streaming, which also helps back to the question on acquisition. And you want to bring in modernization elements. One of the traditional rocks like is do you have time on operations? Now we blocked that time in a good afternoon, which is kind of enabling for all of you have seven operational imperatives, three cross cutting operational imperatives, new structures to deal with great power competition, as well as some new warfighting concepts.
Lt Gen Deptula
This sounds like it could be complicated to execute. So how are we going to make sure that we maintain a warfighting hedge against the backdrop of the complexity and the challenges of all?
Brig Gen Kunkel
So I mentioned in my initial comments that we’re going to need everyone to run in me in this room. We need everyone to step into the arena. One thing we know we don’t have it all right. There’s going to be some detailed planning occurring right now. And as we implement we know we’re going to have a lot from what we’ve done, and then there will probably be some, some further changes. But what I’d ask is for those of you in the room and those of your leadership position to get behind, get on board or get in the arena with us, help us make this change. I think that’s going to be, you know, the key to success for us. Part of this is culture. And I think we can
Dr. Timothy Grayson
pile on there’s a couple of people here who are involved in some of the early optimizer great power discussions. You know, I’m a huge fan of flexibility, because I was pushing models and so on ad hoc, virtual federated, and just like the description that you gave, these are complicated models, but they give us incredible capability from it. They give us resilience, whether we’re talking capability development or operations. So yeah, it’s hard. You know, fighting a war against the great power is hard. We don’t just say because something’s hard but don’t do it. So a big part of this, you know, it’s why we have people. That’s one of the key elements of GPC so we’ve got to make sure we’re constantly developing the right skill sets, the right mindsets, the right traits and attributes of people. Who can handle this kind of leader to set said yesterday, maybe all all. Yes, change is hard. I will add to that the constructs we’re trying to create are hard. Losing is unacceptable.
Maj Gen Purdy
Thinking about the concept sounds complicated but the reality is, that one person is right, so you go after pieces into different worlds, but I think what’s more important is a step back. It’s a cultural change. So we had all four leaders up here expressing their Ragtime, expressing the friend and expressing that they’re serious. There should be no debate. Within the services or Secretariat, this is an issue that we need to get after. That gives the license all the way down. To the most junior forces. And so the question that everyone should ask yourselves and then the most junior individual in the organization, am I ready to go Am I helping as our organization is ready to present a combat credibly? Am I ready? Are we ready? If you’re not all four of our leaders have just stated that we are changing massive amounts of structures to make it. So we should feel the license to deal and raise our hand up and say that, hey, I think something’s not quite right. And that allows the user to then have an honest conversation to get after.
Brig Gen Kunkel
Take initiative, that’s what we need, folks. We need them to take initiative. I think in the last 30 years, perhaps we have not been able to take it to the to the airmen have been able to take initiative that’s actually going to be needed to execute in this era, right.
Maj Gen Purdy
All of you, all of us talking about our competition in the context of the Department of the Air Force. How does this construct relate to Joint Force operations in our coalition? Do you think it would make combined in joint force operations or integrated, for example, helping getting tgnc to left it’s just so that was an example comments that they saw. I’ll start real quick. So is some interesting data on the Space Force. 60% of our budget is actually aligned toward the joint support or supporting function, essentially. And so we already start from that place. And so the changes that we made are directly applicable. So it stood up as I mentioned, the space for spaces which is all about presented before. We’ve stood up components space and space components to multiple different events in the PAYCOM, Korea, St. Yukon we’re working. We’re working on increasing the amount of presence in each area. That’s something that we’ve been having more so now it’s all about being able to take our combat capability and present them to the different commands and so GPC is sort of helping us change the structures and abilities to be able to provide that.
Brig Gen Kunkel
I would say that questions about warfighting, how do we warfighting better? And I would think that the GPC changes that we’re making are going to help us to areas that are off my head, one is this thought of having a component commanders of our commanders that are supremely focused on generating the readiness for their combatant command. Right now some of our demands that are functional component commanders also have other roles, generate the future and understanding that, in addition to that, focus on operations manager so I think that Component Command is going to be very helpful for us. I also think, when Level One of the things that we’ve been talking about for a long time is this thought of multi domain operations and multi domain command and control in having entities that can actually execute authorities in multiple domains. I think when you take a look at the the unit of action that we’re providing, and the modularity that we propose, that perhaps one day, maybe not in the near future, but perhaps in the future, one of those modular packages and official layer could be something from its web service. And so I think this might get to that point sometime in the future.
Dr. Timothy Grayson
I’ll fly along from a capabilities perspective. I use first of all an example that we’ve experienced already from the operational imperatives, our team has been working long range kitchens. And again, virtual ad hoc, flexible, federated they realized they couldn’t do long range kill chains, just as a department of Air Force even combined the air and space. That wasn’t enough. Right off the bat. They were Navy partners, who are very key elements of a long range build chain, and they were both consumers, as well as having elements to offer. So one of our officers, Colonel ogre, first Bakker is the operations lead on that took it on his own initiative under the operational imperatives and worked with his navy counterpart, to form something called the joint long range coaching organization, which, for those of you who have been around for a while, you’ve heard of things like jado that were tactical that was that comes out of these kinds of teams. It has immediately been adopted that it has had all kinds of joint level support, more organizations with joy, inner agency, OSD that, led by that initiative that came from the strategy. We can do more of that constructs we are putting together and the great power competition would enable more of that. And the other big example I’ll give them is in the creation of the PEO procedure, data management. We’ve been calling to integrate it to your c three. Where for those of you who have been doing C Jad C two for a long time, everyone’s always been waiting for the magic global standard that’s going to come in and allow all join forces and coalition partners and staff together and we never get there. wasn’t having an integrated PTO. This is Brandon. technical expertise to the people where they are creating systems and create interoperable capabilities without waiting until there’s some magical common architecture. With the new systems commands that are being developed, particularly information system. We’re going to be able to up the scale and get bigger activities faster than more. So I think that’s a great huge opportunity for individuals.
Lt Gen Deptula
Industry has obviously been extraordinarily interested in these upcoming changes in their navigating, therefore some of the university version organizational structure and then it can system challenge especially for smaller startups. How will the reorganization impact the relationship between the Air Force?
Dr. Timothy Grayson
Yeah, so two pieces. The first is from the small business called the innovation community perspective. What are those are the original imperatives is use that operate together capabilities to provide a more crisp definition of what we need in terms of new capabilities, able to define what the actual problem is, without creating an over specified requirements, that tends to stifle innovation without a small business, or out of an app works or out of an AFRL. So we’ve been able to give them a focus to make sure it stays relevant and frankly, provide through essentially a product team, a pathway to go directly into a program record directly in operational views without squelching the innovation that happens in small businesses in the lab and these innovation environments. So I think we could do more of that through these GPC constructs. For the rest of industry, not just small businesses and VC funded places. One of the big things we’re seeing is the notion of solving big problems, even within the countries themselves, do have a cultural mindset, once you respond to requirements, and a big part of what we try to drive home operational variants is let’s actually understand what problem is and focus on solving the problem. And that’s what we’re trying to instill the industry. We’d love to get industry big and small, more focused on solving problems and offense because at the end of the day, you got to make money by it’s not about just figuring out best what sells a product. See how you can use your own expertise, your own IP, your own skills, to help solve the problems. And then what we owe you is to do a good job of explaining those problems to you. And we’re still working on that. We got a lot of work to do. GDC might help with that. But then also to be good, good customers
or employees to our end game here.
Brig Gen Kunkel
One of the major challenges affecting the department has been a shortfall of operational experience. Not only do we need the experience out in the field, but we also need it at every level of the various different staff. We’ve done a significant pilot shortfall for several years. So how to the latest changes that we have discussed to deal with this particular
part of this teams that Tim’s talking about for Ico and how you bring operational expertise that perhaps if not the nation in the Pentagon or wherever Ico is, but it’s out in the field and how do you bring in a team of operators as well as the acquisition folks to solve problems? I think that is part of it. The other part of this is you know, when you think about an integrated capabilities command, and the demand for operational expertise, we know that we’re going to have to go out into the field to get that operational expertise. It’s not going to all reside at the headquarters level. And so I think what you’ll see is this attempt to use everybody on the team, extract the wisdom of the entirety of the team, whether they’re sitting in the headquarters level or they’re sitting down on the Air Warfare Center. Right now they’re taking a large role in helping us out in defining these concepts. And I think they’ll continue
Maj Gen Purdy
to space elements to that too, because I agree with those and then additionally in space, setting up a officer training course for officers to sort of baseline all the Guardians together on operational principles and concept is a key elements. But then I think as you get later into career setting these integrated mission Delta’s who stood up in the Space Force are huge. They’re an experiment activity and we’ve got to set up right now and one for P and T position, nation timing, one for electronic warfare, and they have matching system deltas acquisition deltas, a map to them. But the IMDs are made up of acquirers and operators, and then kind of the sustainment side of the requirements on the buyer side operators. But then very interestingly, for one of our acquisition programs for OCS, we brought that over and put that in the end here as it starts to near that we’ve seen amazing benefits from that are in the greater good with the requirements as we do in this last test. So it’s bringing that operational influence and that insight toward the end game is my try to deliver the capability so we’re not just tossing things over. The fence, but we’re guiding it in to a ready and willing and receiving operator for so you can then use it and run with it.
Brig Gen Kunkel
I’m gonna go on just a little bit. In and do a special presentation. So 25 years ago, a very young Captain Franco was on his second deployment. And we were deployed to Incirlik airbase in Turkey and we were deployed for Operation Northern watch, and many of us were getting our first combat drops in the mighty 15. And we’ll come back to the base after a mission and there was this one star commander of the entirety of Operation order and watch. And every single time we landed from these missions, this one star commander would come up to the airplane and he would present us with a coin and say, Hey, thank you for what you’re doing. And this one star commander was wanting to general Brigadier General David up to LA. And so by the time I left northern watch, by the time I left northern wash, we had a stack of what the squadron had turned or coined the phrase no pun intended, the depth to the warfighter corn. Right and I promised myself if I was ever in a position to hand out some solo warfighter coins I would turn up when I was at AW Commander, I was able to hand out a bunch of solo warfighter coins. So what I’d like to do is I’d like to give you one inch so as a warfighter, thank you for all you’ve done for our Air Force over the years.
