 I'm going to embark upon that very dangerous little space in time. General Schwartz has left his previous location. He is en route to this location. The amount of time that I have to talk to fill the space is imprecise. But those of you who know me know that I rarely run out of words. So there's little risk here in terms of filling the space. The risk is in having relevant content. This is consistent with my entire career in the national security business, of course. I want to welcome all of you to the 2012 edition of the CSIS Military Strategy Forum. Those of you in the room, those of you who are joining us on the web. I'm David Burto. I'm the director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and as such, I have purview over the Military Strategy Forum. I do want to extend to you the regrets of our president and CEO, Dr. John Hamry, who is unable to be here today to do the lead-in because of a prior commitment, but he asked me to assure you that he'd love to be here and to introduce this event himself. I would ask those of you in the room to make sure you silence your cell phones and other noise-making devices so as to have no interruption, if you will. And I appreciate that. Those of you who are on the web, I suppose, are free to do whatever you want. CSIS, as many of you know, has been presenting this forum for years now. And we're delighted to be able to thank our sponsor, Rolls-Royce, for their generous support that underwrites this series. They've been with us all along and they've been a tremendous partner in making sure that we can continue to bring these discussions to you every year. Today, though, marks a new page in the way we're approaching the Military Strategy Forum. In addition to the continuing series of senior military leaders that we've had here all along, we also recognize that the Defense Department and the U.S. National Security Forum face a future with fewer resources, but not fewer challenges. And so we at CSIS are expanding our military strategy forum, not only to continue to provide that opportunity for public insight and commentary, but also to address the challenges that are presented by the drawdown of the budget and the associated strategic challenges that come along with that. I think you all are familiar with those. We are only days away from the release of the Defense Department and the entire U.S. government budget. We all know that we've had some previews of that initially with the release of the strategic guidance by the President and the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman back on January 4th, followed up by the announcements from the Secretary and the Chairman two Thursdays ago of some insight into what's in the budget. But it was really just enough to sort of wet your appetite and make you look forward to next Monday or perhaps to the leaks over the weekend to know the specific details, if you will. And as is often the case with the budget, we'll get some details, but there'll be as many questions raised as our answers. So we're going to have to wait for the justification material to roll out, et cetera. So today's speaker, I think, both reflects the long tradition of our speakers in this forum, as well as serving as the initial speaker in our budget and strategy series. I don't think you can expect from him a lot of additional details about what's going to be in the budget next week, but I think what you will be able to get and particularly what your questions may be able to focus on is insight into how they're thinking about it as they put this together. And that's really the critical value, I think, of that opportunity at this point in time. We all know that the Defense Department has made it crystal clear that they've cut as far as they can go. There are no more cuts to be taken, $487 billion over the 10-year period mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011, but no planning for or numbers for or preparation for the additional cuts that will be mandated effective January 2, 2013 by the sequestration element of the Budget Control Act. I don't think, as you know, if you've been to some of our other events, we don't anticipate any movement on that. I'm sorry, we anticipate a lot of movement, but no resolution on that issue until after the election. So I think it's fair to say that there will be a plenty of debate and discussion about change in sequestration, providing relief to DOD, providing further punishment to DOD, or a host of other options along the way. But those will largely be political illusions as we go through the manifestations of the coming year. Ultimately, we'll reach agreement more than likely after the election when we know who it is that's going to be responsible for dealing with the outcome of that agreement. Nonetheless, we're going to continue to watch that very carefully over time. We will have at CSIS a week from yesterday on the 15th of February a session looking at the industrial base implications of the defense budget as it comes out. I wish I knew what we were going to say. We're going to have to work pretty hard between Monday and Wednesday to lay those out, but make sure that everybody in this room is on the invitation list for that session once we've got it. I'm going to yield the microphone shortly to Dr. Tony Cortesman. He will introduce the general and will moderate this discussion this morning. I believe that General Schwartz has a hard stop, though, at 1 o'clock. So the time we've lost at the front end, we will, unfortunately, not make up at the back end. I'm hoping I'm wrong that they've changed their minds as we've gone through this schedule and the reality that we face. So I appreciate you bearing with that as we go, if you will. Dr. Cortesman, of course, is our Arleigh Burke chair at CSIS. He's been a long friend, ally, opponent, and thorn in the side of not only the Air Force, but the entire Department of Defense and the National Security Establishment. I am reminded every day of when he used to work for the other guys and make my life miserable, but I tend to forget that in the day-to-day operations. We've got two minutes to go. I don't really have two minutes worth. I mean, I can actually talk forever, as you've already seen. But there's really no point in my occupying that time and space, if you will. I want to thank you all again for being here. I want to thank Rolls-Royce for their continuing sponsorship. I want to welcome you to our event. Thanks. This is the point where I usually say, OK, now you can finish your dessert, except I don't have one. Ladies and gentlemen, some of you who have been in Washington for a few years may realize that every meeting in the hill does not end promptly on time. But thank you very much. The general's been kind enough to say that he will give us a full hour, which should give us time for him to make his presentation and get to the questions. I do not think he needs a long introduction from me, he has a background in special forces in transport command and dealing with long-range strike. Four years as chief of staff, that's about as many credentials as anyone can have. But I do want to give a brief commercial for the Air Force, if you'll excuse one. That is, it is the first service to put on the web at its website, both an explanation of how its plans fit into the new strategy and how it will be dealing with the budget. I know the general is going to get into a lot of these details in his speech, but I really thought this was a very impressive act on the part of the Air Force, one you should be aware of and one you can easily find on the website. In general, why don't we get to the substance of things. Ladies and gentlemen, again, thank you for waiting. Much appreciated and I apologize for being late. Two congressional delegations had extensive interests in the proposal, the budget dropped next week and so I had to pay due deference. But thank you for waiting here. It is a pleasure to be here and, again, our kids serve, our airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, serve with tremendous distinction and I would argue that we had a landmark year in 2011. It's a year that began here just with the advent of the Arab Awakening. And in a few months, emerged into the occurrences in Tunis and then subsequently in Cairo. And in a few days, actually, President Mubarak stepped down from his nearly 30 year reign. And after observing these events unfold across North Africa and the Levant and then the Arabian Peninsula, we were called upon. The Air Force and the Joint Team called into action on March 19. To help enforce the UN sanctioned no-fly zone over Libya. And we should not forget that the Air Force and the armed forces were already participating in surge operations some 5,500 miles away with a humanitarian relief effort given the concurrent disasters that occurred in Japan at the same time. And performing magnificently, Airmen, among others, were responsible for evacuating 7,500 American citizens and delivering 60% some 5 million pounds of relief supplies, providing the vital intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance of the incident location from our remotely piloted aircraft and ultimately providing much needed measure of comfort for those who suffered so dearly from those disasters. And when you consider all that, the Air Force remained fully engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq in the latter days of the Iraq mission and commenced yet another theater level operation all at the same time. And I might just add that if you recall, the president was also traveling on state visits in South America at the time, which consumes not a trivial amount of aluminum. And so this was our definition of March Madness. Can I? Chris, are you in the room? Can I get a lot of throttelossians, do you mind? I've been fighting a little bit of a cold. Need that, please. So all considered, I think these concurrent operations constitute, as I said, our version of March Madness and I think demonstrate the Air Force's ability to provide full spectrum air power that ranges across intercontinental distances, Japan to Libya to Iraq and Afghanistan, with unmatched speed and certainly a range of capability that spans the operational continuum. And it reaffirms, I think, the Air Force's capacity to surge in a matter of hours to meet the wide-ranging air power requirements, something that our joint teammates and our international partners have come to rely upon. But given the future security environment, that continues to unfold with greater ambiguity and along clearly with the budget pressures that I just discussed at length with two delegations on the Hill, it's appropriate to ask ourselves, what options must we have for meeting these future challenges? And so the department's been engaged for the better part of the last six months in a comprehensive reevaluation of our national interests and the role that the US military will play in achieving these interests. And in the new defense strategic guidance, we recognize the broad contours of the national security interests that will endure, but that many specific geographic and technological and security dimensions of our globalized world will clearly continue to evolve. And so from a geopolitical perspective, the US is rebalancing its resources and our focus toward the Indo and the Asia Pacific, where many economic and diplomatic opportunities have become increasingly vital to our core national interests. The nation clearly will sustain its hard-earned foothold in and around the primary locus of violent extremism in the broader Middle East and in South Asia and will tailor our commitments in Europe, strengthening the transatlantic alliance in the 20th century that clearly prevented the Cold War from becoming hot, and which as we venture now into clearly well into this century will remain, I think, a key partnership for ensuring stability in an uncertain world. So to prepare, we as an Air Force had to make hard choices, both to reshape and to resize our Air Force. And we realized that no matter how tremendous our service men and women are, simple physics will limit the number of places that a smaller Air Force can perform, certainly concurrently. And so with preservation of a highly responsive and effective force is our paramount consideration. In other words, a ready force, not a hollow one. We determined that careful reductions in equipment and personnel were necessary. We essentially traded some size for sustained quality so that although smaller, we will still be an unmatched Air Force with agility, flexibility, and the readiness to engage in rapid succession across the full range of threats and contingencies. In short, this is about maintaining our status, I think, fairly earned, and some of the international partners here can comment on this as the best Air Force on the planet and certainly the one that's the most feared. So the new strategy also calls for rebalancing our surface forces from a land-intensive focus to a broader, more maritime, strategic posture. But we must not forget, ladies and gentlemen, that what covers 100% of the land and the maritime is air and space. And so from a capabilities point of view, the new defense strategy emphasizes air power as fundamental to its major priorities, such as deterring and defeating aggression, projecting power in anti-access and area denial environments, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, conducting space and cyber operations, and maintaining the preponderance of the nation's nuclear deterrent. And toward a broader, cross-domain posture, initiatives such as Air Sea Battle will ensure an enhanced and more strategically oriented partnership between the nation's air and sea services. We will assure America's freedom of navigation and action wherever we have national interests and ensure that the nation has access to the global commons, in particular, the vital lines of communications and transit that are beyond any national jurisdiction. In providing the nation's ability to project global power, we also ensure the nation's global access for diplomatic and development access and our ability to conduct non-military missions, such as humanitarian and disaster relief efforts. Therefore, the Air Force, with its global responsibilities, remains committed to providing the nation with four core capabilities, and they are enduring capabilities. Air and space control, global intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, global mobility and global strike, plus the unique ability to provide high capacity command and control of air, space, and cyber systems integrating these capabilities across the spectrum of operations. While air power will enable us to repeat scenarios similar to the enforcement of the no-fly zone over Libya, that is Operation Unified Protector, it is not necessarily the template for all future conflicts. But it did facilitate the nation's contribution for seven months in Libya at approximately the operating cost of one week in Afghanistan and with no loss of coalition lives. And all the while, we retained the ability to withdraw quickly as quickly as the coalition was assembled. This operation demonstrated, I think, in a very compelling fashion, air power's versatility, its rapidity, its reversibility, all attributes that the new defense strategic guidance suggests are the future for our armed forces. But during this time of belt tightening, we had to make some very difficult choices in order to remain superb, even as we become leaner and shed some capacity. And considering that our budget-excluding contingency funding has been flat since 2004, with a 12% real decline since 2009, we fully expect that we will be required to make yet additional tough calls. In the broadest sense, we pursued a strategy of balancing risks to include the deliberate acceptance of additional risks in order to align with the new strategies requirements for the joint force being able to conduct one large scale combined arms campaign in one region, while denying the objectives of or imposing unacceptable costs on an opportunistic aggressor in a second region. And in order to achieve maximum savings and an acceptable level of risk, the Air Force has identified in the fiscal year 2013 budget submission, which we'll make next week, formally, 200 fighter mobility ISR aircraft for divestiture in fiscal 2013 toward a total of 286 aircraft through the program period. And as a general principle, we favored multi-role systems over those that are more specialized and emphasize more efficient common configuration of those systems that are retained, such as our modified C5Ms, the upgraded C17s, F22s, F15s, Cs and Es and, of course, F16s. Retiring, how are you? Got something for me here? Retiring entire aircraft types where possible generally has the benefit of enabling elimination of entire support and training infrastructures, thus producing greater efficiency. But if fleet retirement was not viable or economical, then we evaluated options for eliminating the least capable or the highest cost aircraft in terms of cost of operations and sustainment. In total, we estimate that divestiture will likely save a bit under $9 billion over the five-year defense plan. And specifically, this divestiture includes retiring or reclassifying 123 fighters, 102 A10s and 21 F16s, amounting to about a seven-squadron reduction. This leaves 54 combat-coded fighter squadrons that maintain with acceptable risk the requisite level of fighter capability and capacity while providing a bridge, an important bridge, to the delivery of the fifth-generation F-35 fighter. On the mobility side, we plan on divestiture of some 130 aircraft that exceed requirements due to the nation's new driven strategic guidance that reduces the ground forces. This enables retiring 27 C-5As because of their historically lower mission-capable rates relative to 223 C-17s and 52 C-5Ms that will remain. Also divesting the next C-27 force structure of 38 aircraft in favor of the more versatile C-130 platform, but retiring 65 of the oldest C-130s to streamline operations and maintenance activities. So in addition to retaining 275 C-17 and C-5M strategic airlifters, we will continue to operate 318 C-138 and J-Model aircraft. And as a bridge to the initial delivery starting in FY16 of the new KC-46 tanker, our area of fueling feet will be 453 aircraft strong after the planned retirement in 13 of 20 KC-35 aircraft. Finally, we will adjust the numbers in the ISR fleet, beginning with the divestiture of 18 Block 30 RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft in favor of the more mature and proven U2 sensors and aircraft. This specific initiative, that is, the trade space between U2 and the Global Hawk Block 30, generates savings in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion over the program period. We will also divest 11 C-26s, RC-26s, and retire a single E8 J-STARS aircraft that is damaged beyond economical repair. And in order to ensure maximum versatility and effectiveness of current and future weapon systems, our modernization strategy will focus on those areas that we deem most critical. For example, we have minimized reductions, and in some cases even increased our investments and our top acquisition priorities, such as the KC-46 tanker, our variant of the Joint Strike fighter, the Long Range Strike family of systems, the GPS-3 satellite system, and, of course, remotely piloted aircraft. Overall, that has meant slowing, in some cases, even terminating, lower priority programs like the C-130 avionics modernization program, as well as the defense weather satellite system. The other critical element of force structure, of course, is people. Adjustments from which naturally flow changes driven by the aircraft numbers I just described. Therefore, personnel reductions, however painful, will be necessary. And they are on the order of 10,000 guard, reserve, and active airmen. But the rub here is not only in sheer numbers. It is also in maintaining the right and proper active to reserve component ratio. And there is no doubt, none, absolutely none, that our investment in the reserve components have been and will remain smart investments. Through the creative use of active guard and reserve associations, we have integrated our collective capabilities in all major Air Force mission areas. And the return on investment there has quite simply been invaluable, and surely it will remain so. As a total force, we are now more ready, more sustainable, and more capable of meeting many surge and rotational requirements, such as those that have evolved over the last decade. But through two decades of military end strengths and force structure reductions, the active reserve mix has shifted. In 1990, the reserve component represented 25% of the total force end strength. Today, it is 35%. And in the same period, the reserve component ownership of iron increased from 23% to 28%. In relation to requirements, these numbers represent the reality that the active component has been reduced to the point at which capacity cannot be reduced further without harmful effects to the benefits that I just mentioned, readiness, sustainability, and the ability to surge and rotate at a sustainable tempo. Additionally, there are some functions for which the entire total force relies on the active component to address predominantly. For example, recruiting, training, experiencing, and equipping of the future force. So in order to sustain the total force capabilities and effectiveness, we must restore and maintain an appropriate active and reserve balance that is consistent with current realities and likely future trends. It therefore follows that the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve will necessarily be involved in all the analysis and decisions involving and affecting the total force. Together, we made tough calls, admittedly not with complete unanimity, to ensure that the total force remains viable to fulfill the surge and rotational requirements of the new strategic guidance, to ensure that the active component retain the recruiting, the training, and experiential base to sustain the total force, and to ensure that the reserve component remains relevant and engaged in both enduring and evolving missions. I stand by what chief of the Air Force Reserve, Charlie Stenner, and the chief of the Air National Guard, Bud Wyatt, and I wrote last week in the Air Force Times op-ed piece that the active component, garden reserve, have worked in will continue to work closely together charting the total force's future. And even more important than force structure alone, of course, is our readiness. Already, we have assumed risk that we deemed acceptable and manageable with a strategy for a weapon system and facility sustainment and modernization that avoids a hollow force. A $487 billion defense spending reduction over 10 years is something for which the department has spent a extensive amount of time and effort. And it is best reflected in the new strategic guidance and certainly the budget that will be formally released next week. But we have no illusions that the road ahead is going to be easy. And as I discovered this morning on the hill, but I do think it's manageable if we all deal with this in an unemotional fashion. I would add that I think further reductions, for example, as a result of sequestration, in my view, are untenable, that such reductions would clearly send us back to the strategic drawing board, particularly if the cuts are executed across the board and without respect for the defense strategy we just unveiled. And so in the end, as Secretary Panetta has been saying since he took office, any further salami slicing of the budget beyond the $500 billion in cuts for which we've been planning will have severe impacts on our ability to maintain our force structure, our readiness, and ultimately, our combat effectiveness. So in any foreseeable circumstance, the road ahead won't be easy. I harken back to observing the leadership of the Air Force during the Reagan buildup. I was a relative youngster then. And this is a different setting, but we're up to it just as they were. And as an Air Force, we are focused on maintaining an agile, a flexible, and effective force that remains prepared to defend American interests across a range of contingencies. And it is worth noting that although we have withdrawn ground forces from Iraq and continue to work toward a drawdown in similar fashion in Afghanistan, we should expect that the Air Force and probably the Navy presence will remain to a significant degree long after significant US ground forces presence has diminished in the region. In fact, historically, as land forces withdraw from active combat, the relative requirement for air power typically increases. And so when our unmatched joint team fought a brilliant and decisive campaign, an Operation Desert Storm, for example, the land forces returned home weeks and months later. Meanwhile, America's airmen, that is, of any service affiliation, continued flying and operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch over Iraq for a few dozen years afterwards, thereby maintaining America's toehold until ground troops were ordered back into Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The decades-long combat operation in the skies over Iraq demonstrates that American air power is certainly not a birthright. Rather, it is the result of dedicated and unrelenting work of America's airmen. And so although we achieved the magnificent milestone on December 17th, the first time in 20 years that the Air Force did not fly a mission over some portion of Iraq, some US airmen will remain in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to assist our partners with their request for air power training and for other operational support. You can expect highest level of energy and commitment and professionalism as we proceed now into this new geostrategic environment. You can expect airmen who will continue to innovate, adapt, and to do whatever is necessary to safeguard the hard fought gains and lessons of the past 10 years in counterinsurgency operations. Even while we remain vigilant for full spectrum threats on the horizon and even amidst the intensifying budget pressures and resource constraints that we face. Ladies and gentlemen, again, I appreciate your time today. I appreciate your patience in waiting for my arrival. And also for CSIS, a magnificent organization in this town for many years for hosting this event. Many thanks for your continuing support of our airmen, of our joint teammates, and very importantly, our families. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to apologize in advance that we can't answer every question. Let me again note that the Air Force has answered at least some of them in the two white papers that it has on its website. But there are a number of questions that people have asked in several different forms that focus on the key issues that the general has just raised. I think one of them is, could you define in, I guess, more precise terms, what changes the focus on the air seat battle will mean for the Air Force? It occurs at three levels. The first level is rather than ad hoc, episodic, or occasional collaboration between the two services that have a global perspective and operate, as I indicated earlier, in the commons and elsewhere, it will, what air seat battle has done and will do is establish and maintain a regular, normalized level of collaboration and interaction between the two services. Not the exception, but the rule. At the operational level, the question is not for the future, but the question is with the inventories we currently possess, how can the two services leverage each other in order to better perform the missions that we are assigned? And there are, you might argue a far-fetched example, but all of you know that essentially there are two stealth platforms in the Department of Defense portfolio. One is the B-2 and the other is the submarine fleet. Now, has anybody ever given any thought to whether these two stealth platforms can reinforce one another's mission effectiveness? Maybe that's fanciful, but I would argue had we not pursued this line of effort with the Navy, such a question would never get any attention at all. And thirdly, at the materiel level, clearly there are opportunities for us in the Navy to do things that are prudent, economic. And perhaps the Global Hawk BAMS collaboration is a very good example. Why base these two assets at different locations? Why should we use two different depots? And perhaps, you know, why should we have two different training pipelines? This is the material aspect of IRC battle that I think also offers substantial promise. I know you've already touched on the happy word sequestration. There is a question here in several of them. Have you examined what would happen if you really were suddenly confronted with either sequestration or major new cuts in terms of specific impacts on the Air Force? Clearly, what we have done with this program proposal is reduce capacity and we took care to avoid to the extent that we could reducing capability. In other words, we have less depth, but not a less versatile force. It is absolutely clear that if we go further, we will not only be required to reduce capacity, but capabilities, we will be able to do fewer things, not just fewer- $30 per megawatt are. Additionally, the reality is that the strategy that we spent several months putting together is the prelude to the program and the logic behind the choices that we made would have to be reopened. And so my shorthand for sequestration is surgery performed by a plumber. Extremely high risk. And something I hope that there is a way ahead to avoid. I wonder if you could provide perhaps a clearer picture of what an emphasis on Asia means in terms of changes in the Air Force, posture in Asia, in Conus, an extent to which moving forces from Europe might affect this. Clearly, the tilt toward the Asia Pacific does a couple of things. It clearly emphasizes what I would refer to as our lily pads in the Asia Pacific region. Those installations that we have access to in host nations of traditional allies and potential other coalition partners that might evolve over time. So the footprint that America has in the Western Pacific most recently reflected by the Marine reallocation, relocation in part to Australia reflects this larger effort that clearly is underway and needs to be sustained for all of the services. The Navy is proposing to home port several assets in Singapore. We clearly are keeping an eye on our major operational platforms as well, Kwam, Kadena, Milan, Japan, South Korea, so on. With respect to systems, Tony I think clearly the vast distances of the Asia Pacific underwrite the logic behind our pursuit of a long-range strike family of systems. And as it very visibly appears in the new strategy and in something I think that clearly is important to the Air Force and the larger joint team as we go forward. There are two aircraft that people have asked a lot of questions about I dimly have heard of. One is the F-22 and the other is the F-35. The F-22 questions range from I guess accident investigation down to the status and deployment of the force. The F-35 questions began at the IOC date and go onwards and I just wonder if you could bring us up to date. 186 F-22s. It is the current fifth generation platform in our fleet. Here too we are looking for versatility while it is the premier air-to-air platform on the planet, the premier air superiority machine. We through an improvement program seek to increase its multi-role capability to do both suppression of enemy air defenses and destruction of enemy air defense missions. We have experienced an issue with the onboard oxygen system on the airplane over the last number of months. An extensive study, an effort, engineering effort and one done by the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board has just concluded and the report will be available shortly. And through that effort we have not identified a specific engineering fault but a number of ways that we can assure that adequate oxygen in a very high performance airplane that operates over a very extensive altitude band protects the operators and maintains their physiological capacity to rock and roll. In terms of the F-22 inquiry by the DOD Inspector General, quite simply this is something that actually is fairly routine. The DOD IG has a mandate to assure that accident investigations comply with service instructions in our case 51503. And that the findings of a particular accident and investigation reflect back on the evidence that was collected. And again, this is not specific to this weapon system they simply chose to pursue this inquiry and naturally we will support that completely. With respect to F-35, F-35 ladies and gentlemen this is a future tactical aviation for the United States Air Force, for the Marine Corps in large measure for the Navy and for at least 10 and perhaps more of our international partners. Yeah, we're committed to the F-35. At the same time it's not at any price. And so we clearly have expectations on the part of the manufacturer to help us in a budget constrained environment buy more airplanes. So if airplanes are cheaper, we buy more. If they're more expensive, we buy less. This is the reality. There ain't no more money. And so the emphasis here is on the government side to perform exquisite program management to be transparent with our industry partners and on the industry side, we would expect to have the production lines normalized to reduce the time it takes from discovery of anomalies and tests until they're incorporated in the active production line to well less than two years and of course to control cost. We all succeed together if we follow that basic formula. You mentioned our withdrawal from Iraq. There is a question too about what is our posture and going to be, what is our level of cooperation with our Gulf allies going to be in the Gulf now that we have withdrawn from Iraq and we face a growing challenge from Iran? We have about 50 airmen that are currently a part of the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq and certainly the Air Force is prepared to expand that contribution of trainers and to assist our partners in Iraq, the Air Force who we know well. In fact, General Anwar Sun is in pilot training at Waffeland Air Force Base as we speak and will graduate in March. And General Anwar and I are gonna go down and give remarks at the graduation ceremony together. We want them to be an Air Force that can serve Iraqi's national security interests and maintain sovereignty of Iraqi airspace, among other missions. And so clearly we're prepared as soon as the two governments agree to provide training and assistance to the Iraqi Air Force in any form that they choose and as you're aware, they have already come to the table for procurement of F-16 Block 50 class airplanes as a beginning. And Iran? Iran clearly is a, a national security interest for many nations, certainly ours. Their pursuit of nuclear capability is a strategic concern and the potential for misbehavior in the Straits of Hormuz is clearly another strategic concern. And if called upon, I have no doubt that the armed forces of the United States will deal with whatever contingencies might unfold there. We have two sets of questions about new systems. One is the timetable, the nature of the new bomber. Someone from industry might be asking this question, whether you can have time for a competitive fly-off or solar source. I don't know if you'd care to comment on that. Sure, sure. Here's the deal. The independent variable for the long-range strike family assistance in the bomber in particular is cost. And so we are going to make our best effort not to design, over-design an airplane. We're going to deliver a bird that provides the essential capabilities that we need, improve it over time, no doubt. But we are not intent on delivering a capability that is extravagant, that is access to our absolute need. And the idea here is to produce an airplane in the mid-20s that would begin delivering in the mid-20s that would connect both with intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, electronic warfare capabilities, other sensors off-board capabilities that will allow us to produce a penetrating platform that is sufficiently affordable that we can buy in numbers. We are not going to do the B2 again. That is not in the cards. There are similar questions which really come down to the future of unmanned aerial vehicles. And I noticed that in your white paper, the increase in the number of UAVs is roughly equivalent to the number of combat aircraft you've cut during the same period. But this is a pretty open-ended set of questions. Remotely piloted aircraft have a, in my view, a permanent place in our Air Force. And we have postured ourselves accordingly, both in terms of the force structure itself, establishing a career path for remotely piloted aircraft operators and support personnel and so on. But at least in the nearer term, certainly the next 10 years, 20 perhaps, maybe more, we should not take the example of Iraq and Afghanistan which were essentially benign airspace to suggest that remotely piloted aircraft are any time, any place machines. They are not. Contested airspace is a different place for remotely piloted aircraft. And so it's my conviction that while the balance clearly is shifting toward remotely piloted aircraft, that there will continue to be at least my estimate is for the next 30 years, a place for manned tactical aircraft. And I would ask you candidly, would you be comfortable with a nuclear-laden remotely piloted aircraft? I wouldn't be. And this is just but one example of why we need not to be too doctrinaire or too ideological about this. We need to look at the missions, we need to understand the environments, we need to respect the technology that exists today and how it may advance and they make the best of all that. There's another set of broad questions which relate to what are the strategies and priorities in this kind of budget environment in two areas. One is information technology and the other is space systems. MIT and cyber specifically clearly is a growth area and collectively we are struggling to get our arms around this. The nascent US Cyber Command, Keith Alexander's organization, our 24th Air Force, counterpart organizations and the other services are deliberately working ahead. There are a multitude of policy and jurisdictional and statutory issues here as well but from an Air Force point of view we are increasingly dependent on our networks to execute the missions that were assigned, the way they need to be executed and so defending those networks is a profoundly important mission for our cyber operators. There are places for more offensive use of cyber and in those areas where it would support traditional Air Force missions we are pursuing that kind of capability as well. What am I talking about? Clearly you could try to mitigate the risk associated let's say with an SA-20 kinetically or perhaps you could do it non-kinetically with electrons. In any case that's the focus of our Air Force in the IT area or the cyber area. With respect to space, we're actually in pretty good shape there. We are embarking on the recapitalization of our major space constellations. We finally got the first advanced extremely high frequency satellite into its geosync orbit which by the way was a real act of rocket science. As you may know, the kick motor failed and over nine months we maneuvered this thing with thrusters that offer about a half a pound of thrust about the same as blowing on the piece of paper. In over nine months our space operators got that $2 billion satellite into the operating orbit, not a trivial achievement. Sivers, I know it's got history but there's one on board, another to be launched in the not too distant future. We just launched the fourth wideband global system to succeed the discus constellation of satellites. The bottom line and GPS three is moving as we speak. And so the nature of space, we are not predominant there. It's becoming both congested and contested but we will continue to support the various missions we have there with a very robust space capability. One of the key elements of the strategy is to improve our cooperation with regional and coalition partners in terms of interoperability, planning and the rest. No wonder if you could highlight the Air Force priorities. It goes from the tactical to the strategic but in the broadest sense, we're not talking about mature partners here. Although certainly we have long-term relationships underwritten by foreign military sales, activities, training, professional military education, liaison, many levels and so on. But with respect to nascent air forces in particular, we have a capability not just to talk about platforms and instruction and operating specific machines but more broadly what is it that's required to operate an air force, to operate an air field, pavement expertise and air traffic control and security of the air drone and air field operations. These are skills that one can transfer that a nascent air force requires. And that is one area that we are not reducing. We have that capacity and we'll continue to maintain that broader constellation of liaison with skills that, and maintenance logistics and so on, that will produce more competent air forces as partners. The one thing we were unable to do in this program was to sustain dedicated force structures associated with building partner capacity. Specifically the light lift and the light strike initiatives. There simply wasn't enough head space to pursue those as dedicated air force for structure. I have a unsigned offer to reduce your budget problems by paying $150 for an A-10. There are some other A-10 questions as well. Sure, here's the deal. If you accept the philosophy that in a smaller force versatility becomes all the more important, that those assets that are more multi-role are, have greater value. And so the reduction in A-10s, and by the way, there's still 236 A-10s remaining in the force structure. It's not like they're going away. That we opted to move toward a more multi-role mix emphasizing F-16s. So the A-10 is a noble airplane, but one should not accept the hype that the air force is walking away from close air support because we're reducing the A-10 force structure. Nothing could be further from the truth. And believe me, our youngsters on the ground in Afghanistan know that a weapon delivered from a B-1 is as meaningful as a 30 millimeter delivered from an A-10, properly done. Well, I know that you have been very generous with your time and that you're pressed by it. I haven't seen any gestures from your staff that they are looking mildly disapprovingly. We're doing fine. Question really, today DOD is recommending to Congress that women may be able to broaden their roles in combat. And what is the impact this is going to have on the air force? Modest because we already, 99% of our skills are open to females as it stands today. Those that are limited right now are primarily the battlefield airmen skills that are involved in close combat kind of situations. But we will be opening, for example, our air liaison officer opportunities at the battalion level to females. That is an example of one area that the new department policy will permit. The bottom line, though, for our air force, and I think this is true certainly for the other services, is you gotta go where the talent is. And 20% of our air force is female, and that's where the talent is. In another completely different area, do you see the gradual emergence of something approaching a peer threat from the Chinese air force? They're striving to arrive at a broad-based, multiple mission capability in airspace and cyberspace. So the short answer is it's clear to me that the Chinese are in pursuit of that objective. And it suggests to me that we need to be cognizant of that in response to that reality with respect to our own capabilities. You know, we have a host of highly technical questions, but, General, I think you've been extraordinarily generous with your time. Let me again note that a lot of what the general has said is supplemented in these two air force documents, airforce.mil, and may I ask all of you to suggest or rather thank the general in the usual manner.