By Claudette Roulo
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17, 2012 – The
nation’s youngest force enjoys an unbreakable connection to state-of-the-art
technology, Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley said at the Air Force
Association’s annual meeting today.
But while technology enables the Air Force
to innovate, its people are “the living engine of the Air Force,” Donley said.
“Today, more than ever,” he said, “our
Air Force can take pride that our service culture promotes and benefits from
the know-how, determination and commitment of a diverse group of men and women
who embody our core values – integrity first, service before self and
excellence in all we do – while pursuing adaptive and innovative solutions for
our nation’s security.”
Although stretched by two decades of
combat, humanitarian and stability operations, the Air Force’s men and women
continue to provide unmatched global vigilance, reach and power across the full
spectrum of operations, the secretary said.
Donley said airmen play critical roles
in accomplishing national and international milestones, including the
completion of military operations in Iraq and the ongoing transition in
Afghanistan.
“Just as in the first moments of that
long campaign, as the last vehicles crossed the border into Kuwait, airmen were
overhead to ensure their security and mission success,” he said. “During the
past year in support of our mission in Afghanistan, airmen have flown more than
162,000 total sorties, including almost 90,000 combat sorties, more than 22,000
close air support sorties, and 15,000 aerial refueling sorties.
“Let there be no mistake – America’s
airmen are in the fight,” he said.
The Air Force also is making valuable
contributions outside the U.S. Central Command area of operations, Donley said.
“We have continued to strengthen unity
of command in the nuclear enterprise with the realignment of nuclear munitions
squadrons under Air Force Global Strike Command,” he said. “We also
successfully completed the first guided test vehicle release for the Small
Diameter Bomb and completed multiple flight tests of the Massive Ordnance
Penetrator. The Air Force continued the F-22’s return to flight, including
extensive testing and analysis, taking corrective actions to enhance flight
safety and enable operational deployments.”
The Air Force also successfully
completed eight launch campaigns with the evolved expendable launch vehicle,
Donley said, including the first space-based infrared system geosatellite, the
second advanced extremely high-frequency satellite, and the fourth wideband
global satellite.
Air Force Cyber Vision 2025, the
service’s plan for near-, mid- and long-term science and technology strategy,
is scheduled to be released soon, he said.
“This effort seeks to ensure that the
Air Force has the best force operating with the best technology in this
increasingly contested and critical cyber domain,” he said.
The new defense strategic guidance
supports continued Air Force presence in the U.S. Pacific Command area of
responsibility, Donley said, where about 60 percent of the Air Force’s
permanent overseas assets are stationed.
“This guidance also reinforces the
importance of long-range strike and other advanced technologies, and supports
concepts like Air-Sea Battle, which will develop integrated air and naval
forces to counter anti-access [and] area denial strategies and threats to the
global commons,” the secretary said.
“At the same time,” he added, “strategic
guidance also provides the basis for adjusting our forces and footprint in
Europe and the mix of our force structure based on changed warfighting
assumptions.”
Donley said the fiscal 2013 defense
budget “reflects both the priorities identified in the defense strategic
guidance and the fiscal requirements of the Budget Control Act, and represents
the culmination of a number of very tough decisions, including the decision by
Air Force leaders to reduce the overall size of the service.
This decision will allow the Air Force
“to protect a high-quality and ready force, one that will continue to modernize
and grow more capable in the future,” he said.
“We intend to be a superb force at any
size,” Donley said, “maintaining the agility, the flexibility and above all,
the readiness to engage in a full range of contingencies and threats.”
As the service strives during uncertain
times to strengthen its culture and community, two issues are particularly
troubling, Donley said.
“Our success depends on our people, our
airmen, and we must ensure that our great airmen have the tools, the support
and the environment they need to succeed in the tasks that we give them,” he
said. “As a military community which values each and every individual, the
incidence of suicide is deeply disturbing.”
Air Force people at all levels must do
all they can to strengthen airmen's resilience and look out for each other to
prevent what he called “these irreversible tragedies.”
The second issue confronting the Air
Force is sexual assault, Donley said. Allegations of professional and sexual
misconduct by basic military training instructors at Joint Base San
Antonio-Lackland are both shocking and troubling, he acknowledged.
“The misconduct alleged has no place in
our Air Force culture,” he said. “This behavior constitutes an abuse of power
and an abuse of trust which cannot and will not be tolerated. … The Air Force
has taken aggressive steps to assist the victims and increase protections for
our airmen in the training environment.”
Much is expected of Air Force people,
Donely said, both outside the service and within it.
“We hold airmen to high standards
because that’s what is expected of us, and what we expect from each other –- to
set the example, to treat people with dignity and respect and to act promptly
to right a wrong, to protect people under our charge, and to live by Air Force
core values.”
It’s up to every member of the Air Force
to make that happen, the secretary said.
“This is family business. Nobody will do
this for us. We must do it for ourselves, for our airmen, and for our Air
Force,” he said. “And I have every confidence that we will confront this
challenge, and come out a stronger and better Air Force on the other side.”
Budget uncertainty and the threat of
“sequestration” – additional, across-the-board spending cuts if Congress can’t
find equivalent savings by January -- also presents a challenge for the Air
Force as it attempts to budget for fiscal 2013, which begins Oct. 1, Donley
said. The budget already reflects the beginning of $487 billion in spending
cuts over the next decade that will take place whether the additional cuts kick
in.
“This [fiscal 2013] budget was really
the first opportunity for policy makers to see in black and white what would
have to be done to program $487 billion in defense reductions,” Donley said.
“And simply put, in beginning to program for these reductions, it is impossible
to avoid impacts to airmen, to various civilian and contractor workforces and the
communities in which they live.”
As defense spending continues to shrink,
the service has rededicated itself to improving communication and rebalancing
resources between its active, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve
components, he said. The success of the Air Force, he added, depends on the
collective success of all three components. “We must move forward together as
one Air Force,” he said.
As the defense budget works its way
through Congress, Donley said, the Air Force will stand firm on its strategic
choices: trading size to maintain a quality force, and staying focused on
readiness and modernization.
Sequestration, Donley said, would be
irresponsible.
“We have less than four months before
sequester goes into effect -- a meat-ax approach which would drive additional
reductions of approximately $55 billion to [fiscal 2013] defense accounts. This
is not a responsible way to achieve deficit reduction. These additional and
arbitrarily applied across-the-board cuts would leave the military without a
workable strategy to counter global threats.”
Sequestration would reduce Air Force
funding to about fiscal 2004 levels, he added.
“There is great uncertainty in today’s
security environment, but these matters at least are under our nation's control
and should be resolved,” Donley said. “We need Congress to de-trigger the
Budget Control Act’s sequester provisions before the end of this year.”
Still, the secretary said, airmen remain
focused on the mission.
“Every day,” he said, “our active duty,
Guard, Reserve, and civilian airmen are adding bright new chapters to the Air
Force story, combining air, space, and cyber power in new ways that add to our
nation’s joint warfighting capabilities. Working together in common purpose as
one Air Force, there is no challenge we cannot overcome.”
Despite these accomplishments, he said,
the Air Force will finish the year facing the same two major challenges with
which the year began: an unstable and dynamic international security
environment and a looming economic and fiscal crisis putting downward pressure
on the nation’s defense spending.
“And as this tension grows, as the
uncertainty continues, we need to ensure that we remain well-grounded in the
foundations of our Air Force,” he said. “The more uncertainty there is, the
more budgetary churn ahead, the more important it is to come back to basics –-
to the Air Force family and the central role of airmen in the fight. Because we
know that whatever challenges lay ahead, our airmen will see us through.
“[Airmen] are the living engine of this
Air Force … and at the core of this engine are Air Force values -- integrity,
service, excellence --- and from this engine we generate air power, air power
that ensures the success of our joint team and protects the security of our
country,” he added.
Posts
