That passed almost 200 days ago. With the Mass Shootings that weve seen. The fall of the soviet union, a number of aircraft fell. Like bombers reduced even further. Command withmbat y aircraft the capitalization efforts were too often delayed. A trend accelerated in the wake of 9 11. The notion of pure competition is an outdated way of thinking. Today, the smallest, oldest aircraft fleet in history. Area withry mission actor still posing an interior threat. Nations like iran and north korea. China and russia presenting threats on a scale not seen since the cold war. A smallmes a point when number of aircraft can only be stretched so far. What the airly force was talking about when she made her call for 386 operations squadrons. Congress was concerned about the size of the air force. Studies to multiple assess inventory requirements. That brings us to our panel here today. We are pleased to have mark and dave join us. A congressionally mandated effort. Also deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, to discuss the current state of play in the air force regarding this issue. We will hand this over to you. Thank you very much. Again, thank you to the air force association for arranging this event. Theuld also like to thank Cost Assessment Program Evaluation office for their steadfast support throughout this project and i think the leadership of making my participation today possible. The study im about to present was the product of a talented team of analysts and reviewers. Dark out next slide. Modeling several highdensity operations or highintensity operations in the indo pacific theater, we focused on this theater due to the large distances and sparse facing options in order to determine the implications for aircraft in terms of range, payload, and these things. What kind of aircraft inventories can be based safely and have the capability and capacity to get into a fight . We found a high risk potential for ground losses at many of the locations that the u. S. And allies might use. In the past, the u. S. Has been fortunate to conduct air operations for relatively invulnerable locations based in sanctuaries, but this is not the case today and will not be in the future. Riskedbased aircraft being destroyed on the ground or on the deck before they can have the opportunity to launch and engage an adversary. Accordingly, we can reduce this risk and preserve our forces by expanding rear area facing options and the associated logistics required to operate from them. Now, to aircraft. Bombers provide the backbone of power projection to their longrange and large payloads, and they are essential to the indo pacific. They recommend considering obama retirements until substantial deliveries have occurred, and that should be around the year 2035. The u. S. Needs every bomber it has investing to raise Mission Capable rates to at least 80 would provide 30 additional bombers out of the current inventory of 157. This would also reinvigorate bomber training and readiness. From bombers can operate stateside bases including hawaii and alaska, extremely long distances diluted the combat power they can deliver. Selecting and expending additional bases in the indo pacific to support bomber operations is an economic way to better leverage this diet will capability. Refueling is the second key to power projection. Are justased tankers as vulnerable on the ground as our primary combat aircraft. Tankers share the same requirements for additional facing options that the bombers do. Tankers in our scenarios were highly suppressed assets in the situations we model. While the u. S. Is fortunate to have that entering the inventory, for some time, the majority of the tagger inventory will be the 135 with an average age of nearly 60 years old. Production, extending indefinitely as the 135 is retired. Regarding Fighter Aircraft, the indo pacific poses a particular challenge. The duration of combat missions and Fighter Aircraft is limited to about 10 hours, except in in frequent, special circumstances. This is a human limit due to the pilot, unrelated to a specific type of fighter. Areardbased fighters vulnerable, but moving them to real basis with them too far from the operating area to be effective, especially with the typical payloads that are a fraction of bomber payloads. Nonetheless, fourthGeneration Fighters can play a valuable role in many scenarios while freeing up this generation aircraft in flight fifthgeneration missions. The fighters, the ability to carry larger payloads was consistently valuable in our modeling. Shifting to training aircrafts, t 138hundred 38c the is nearing the tone will soon reach the end of its service life. The air force should transition back to the nonspecialized, undergraduate Pilot Training with the six and xp or with the six and x. It produces a more universally sustainable pilot and provides quick stability that the air force needs. Tx, thisbject of the airframe can also serve as a Homeland Defense fighter if it is adapted to carry the armaments, onboard sensors, and air refueling capabilities. Todays fourth and fifth Generation Fighters were designed to operate in more threatening environments that are not the case at home. Plus, they are more expensive to operate and maintain. Ftx light fighter can save money while performing this important mission, making fourth and fifth Generation Fighters available for the away game. Open rich,ld costeffective opportunities for companion fighter and bomber training, Adversary Air support, exports, and collaboration with our allies and partners. U. S. Strategic airlift appears to be healthy for the next decade, but this is the only u. S. Air power capability that is not in or near production. Of thecant retirements c17 and c5 aircraft will begin in the mid20s 30s. Therefore, by the end of the study window, we must have a plan in place, a service life extension, development, or some other option to maintain adequate strategic airlift. In closing, you may have noticed that i skipped part of the fighter discussion, namely, how to solve the forwardbased fighter challenge. We believe the answer may lie in conventional deterrence. New basing options for bombers and tankers can rebalance the correlation of forces in the indo pacific. Combined with robust programs to exercise command and control and interoperability with our allies and partners, new concepts of operations that employ a coordinated mix of aircraft and basing show great promise to improve our conventional deterrent posture and thereby reduce the risk of conflict in this important theater. I thank you for your attention and i look forward to your questions. I would also like to start by saying thank you to air force forciation institute wonderful support during the study that we executed last year and a report that you have by coming out earlier this year. Struck that afterthefact, three studies conducted had many of the same recommendations, they even had different methodologies. They do best and focused more on wargaming and workshops and really digging into potential future operating concepts that could drive a need for different capabilities and a different structure in the future. A lot of those concepts are very similar to what my partners at the table here have looked at and consider. The need for increased longrange strike, the ability to operate at longer ranges, increased lethality, increased survivability, moving toward a fifth and future sixth generation of force which would be much more survivable and contest the areas. These are all things that we shared in our insights. In our insights. Next slide. The report released in public starts off with just a bit of diagnosis before we get to the prescription. Older, smaller air force, we trace the history in the report and this slide is just a reflection of what is in their in much greater detail. I invite you to take a look at that report, which also explains how we think the air force got in the situation it is today. We also talk about how todays force frankly lacks survivability in the context of the future were quite against china or russia and highly contested environments. Yes, the air force is investing technologies, new weaponry, and other capabilities , but a lot those capabilities are yet to calm as you see in this little snapshot in the threat of environments. Heres some of the metrics that but they did not invent and impose on our participants. These metrics essentially came from them. How could we best align our air force with a new Defense Strategy . Kinds of operating concepts and capabilities could help the air force to do that . So, these are the metrics popped out of those discussions and i wanted to lay them out for you. Obviously, improve the survivability of the force. Capabilitypt or would allow the air force to do things better than it can today. Or maybe even do think that it cant do today. Aircraft and other capabilities. We also consider the opportunity cost. Are we invest in that, for going investment capabilities that we will really need in the future . That would reduce risk in the future, not just in the near term . We thought it would be useful to lay that out for you today. If you asked us what the single most important recommendation that came out of our study was, i would say it would be the construct which was required by the 2018 ndaa. I think this is one difference between what the air force proposed. We took an independent look and we concluded that the rows of blue on top, looking to the future. Having the capabilities and capacities to stay. Defend the homeland. Aswell as be prepared necessary to defeat the Campaign Strategies of two great power aggressors, nearly simultaneously as china and russia nearly simultaneously. Why . When you think about a potential conflict in europe with russia in the baltic state or another will beprimarily, it air, ground, cyberspace century. That would be maritime, air, cyber, space, centric. I will throw in the electromagnetic spectrum for good measure. Notnot saying, and we did say, and our participants did not say that the army and other marine corps would not have a role. Corps would not have a role. Of course they would. When you look at the predominant forces that might be used in scenarios which i will show you in a second, air was always a heavy player. We thought it would be prudent to recommend a construct that looked like this. Such as north korea or engaging in longtime peace time competition. You truly size and shape, do those three things, and be prepared to defeat aggression of a great power, you want to take that structure and test it against the other requirements on the bottom three rows to make sure you got the bases covered. There may be some capabilities that would come out of those rows. Next slide. In thescenario was set South China Sea in 2035 time frame. 2035, thiswe chose going to be in a lot of capabilities that could be in the force by that time. We want to play them, see how they can change operating concepts. Set in thenflict baltic sea region. Here are some of the assumptions that we explained a quite some detail in our report. The scenarios we use, the assumptions we adopted, all these have an impact on future capability capacity for the air force. Online defense and deterrence. Ignore that, we took a look at it. A point was made by a majority of our participants in a workshop that we cant ignore the growing threat to the United States of Cruise Missile attacks and other conventional attacks. Going to is probably be a requirement in the future thatdditional structure the air force might need to those kinds ofr threats against the United States. I emphasize that the kinds of numbers you see below the structures that advertisements recommended with the additive against chinarussia in the future. They are not the products of the u. S. Government. Next slide. Here is a rollup. The forcedd together is needed to engage in the scenarios i show you, plus Homeland Defense and sustaining strategic deterrence, especially in the event of a conflict of , they pop out to primary Mission Aircraft inventory and total aircraft inventory you see here. I can circle a couple of the recommendations this morning. We use the exact same metrics the air force uses. Its apples to apples. Recommendation for an increase in the longrange capabilities of future bombers. This slided do already. Theou were asked what was second most significant recommendation, it would be this. Ability. Ased the structure i just showed you stacks up like this. That is a very significant shift. This is not a structure that can be developed by 2030. This is a structure that we recommend the developed over the next 15 to 20 years. We are calling the future force if you will. If you go back a couple slides to slide 8. We did recommend accelerating be and we believe that in the late 20le 20s and early 20 30s. We also recommended maximizing the procurement. As quickly as we can. As we begin to invest in new capabilities such as a penetrating aircraft, penetrating electronic attack aircraft which we think that to be one and the same, a multimission capability, a multimission Unmanned Aircraft that can help with base defense and other missions in europe, Unmanned Aircraft come multimission for strike. We also recommended increasing the size of the tanker to support the larger force from a force planning construct that would require the air force to organize, train, and he, to be prepared to defeat aggression by china and russia newly simultaneously. That will wrap it up. I also look forward to your questions. Thank you. Me just add my thanks to both mitchell and the air force association and also thank the gentleman seemed to my immediate right. Going this journey and working on analysis, a were independently doing the same. Know that we waited with bated breath to see the results of their studies and we are interested to see how they will compared to the work that we did. It was fascinating that different assumptions, different scenarios with a little bit of different timelines. Just as mark mentioned, we had some pretty similar outcomes at the neck for level, so that was a very interesting and different methodology. I want to thank them and their team for the insight that has been brought to us. Of shiftinghe theme a little bit to the current conversation that you asked for, im going to borrow a little bit from matt donovans comments yesterday that some of you may have caught that he made. Here asaint a picture we talk about the national Defense Strategy of how the air needs to satisfy the national Defense Strategy. For three decades, our adversaries have studied how we orchestrate and equip our air force. Weve invested heavily in technology and strategies in ways that they hope reduce our advantages by exploding with a perceived as our vulnerabilities. While also designing a force they hope can avoid our many strengths. Because of these trends and the potential for deterrence, we now have a national Defense Strategy that refocuses our department on the need to build a force that competes with Strategic Security environment characterized by great power competition. That is underlying this whole discussion. From an air force design perspective, i can assure you, we continue to move aggressively to align with the national Defense Strategy. E set the vector when we are able to talk about that a little more, we step on the accelerator. You will see that. And spacelding air forces even more lethal, resilient, adaptive, and seamlessly integrated with our joint force teammates. How are we doing that . What is their framework . First, our number one Modernization Priority is the ability to conduct operations by performing multidomain command control. Multidomain operations executed via multicontrol is about creating scale and tempo. By sensing, connecting, fusing data and getting into decisionmakers, speeds, and ways to create multiple multidomain dilemmas for our adversaries. We are going to talk a little bit about that during q a, i believe. This is kind of the discussion you have heard about us building highways instead of focusing on building trucks. Second, we are laser focused on space. Space is a contested domain. As such, we must compete for space. Was noted yesterday, this will require advanced offenses and defenses capabilities, innovative theories of operational concepts. This will ensure professionals will maintain our dominance. Looking at new ways to generate conflict and power. Both of the gentleman discussed the conflicts for considering and looking at assessing. Globel do this across the , both with allies and partners and simultaneously at range with our global power capability. We will bring this punch of u. S. Airspace power together with command control and times, places, and volumes of our choosing. Thatly, we need to do while performing logistics under attack. We are working to ensure the justice support. To get those lines of effort rolling and ultimately into the along with our staff, we look forward to seeing more details on the how and what is we get through that post budget release. Saide acting secretary yesterday, now is the time for some bold moves for the air force. This will ensure the space forces will maintain our advantages so we compete in the future with the same or better advantages. With that, i also look forward some questions. Great, thank you for all your points. Taking the prerogative of the chair to lead off with a few questions. We talked about the years of austerity and the budget cuts that have been taken. Yet, we are still hearing headlines about the need for further cuts. More night courts, etc. On the budget front. Likeheir stories you would to convey or any points you would like to convey about the need for the air force to be set in a very conservative fashion after so many years of austerity . Sure. The question that Congress Asked the air force was, what does it take to ask the national Defense Strategy at a level of acceptable risk . What the air force did was go through a very exhaustive process. I know that youve heard the chief talk about this and the former secreta