To all of you. This is dean i would like to thank air combat general mike holmes for joining us today. Now, after so many years of service, in key positions throughout our air force, he needs no little introduction. Ill summarized by saying he has excelled in operational, staff and academic pursuits at every level. As a result, he is brought in an surpassed degree of competence to his current job. As the command of air combat command, hes responsible for organizing, training and equipping air force and Intelligence Forces for rapid deployment. With that i would like to turn it over to you, to share with us what issues are at the top of your priority list these days. Especially when it comes to the operational employment vero space assets in key regions, around the globe. Im shaking his stick over to you. Thank you thanks for those kind words. Hello everybody, thanks for spending some time with the Mitchell Institute thanks for giving me a chance to talk a little bit. As he point out air combat command is primarily our job primarily is to present combat ready forces, but are components are ac seen as, or we are presented as a result were pretty pretty and focused a lot of the time. At the top of my list right now, our efforts to mitigate the impact of covid19 on our capabilities in other people and are a sissi airman in families that responded very very well and weve been able to maintain our capability and most of our capacity throughout. We are also very interested are a he headquarters as you may have seen it says people first, mission always. Which is one of our core beliefs. We are very focused right now. On the air force an air combat command efforts to dig into and to address the things that are keeping our airmen to maintaining their best lives and keep with the mission. As you know that also been nominated. I can now confirm hes been nominee by the president to take my place as a sissi commander. But in his role, working to find tune and present a new air force force generation and force presentation system. Well talk more about it in some of the corrections. So those three things are at the top of our plate every day, and the next thing as we work through this season of our budgets from the hill. And always the was we are building the 22 bomb. I describe it as a funding, is this tragic gap where the air force finds itself at a place for not big enough to meet the requirements has buildup barren asheville security strategy. And then we are perhaps we have time to be able to keep all our force modernized, to keep up with the threats and read enough to go fight with adversaries. Finally when you look at what a job is when we are trying to set our parties as we go forward. We know theres talk about what will happen to defend budgets as we go forward. Both with investments that we made, through covid and an election here coming up what will happen to the budgets as we go forward. You prioritize our work efforts to have balance loosely. I would paraphrase is to primary things we do. One is to control the air and space in the department of the air force, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Joint force says freedom to operate, and freedom to act across all our capabilities. And to, to provide the chair of the sea to that makes . Thats on top of our plate. You have some questions out allow me to expand on those. Thank you for that excellent overview. Lets dig a little deeper into some of these issues. When you and i were far younger, we had the privilege of flying in an air force that was legendary. They summarized the well when he talked about desert storm compared to todays. With less than half the forces. As a commander responsible for reading these commands, could you give us some of your insights into how this challenge is affecting your combat command and how you are on their way to deal with it . When you talk about a smaller force with increasing demand, i would agree that that is true. And it dries a collision for ac forces for preparation with combat having the red capability in the right modernization in the right readiness and the presence for competition in deterrence around the world every day. Every day there is a collision trying to find a training time and to try to be confident enough to get adversaries. And to compete and deter as the National Security strategy we were testing our boundaries than violent extremist organizations and are continuing battle, with isis eisele in the love on. And other places. And then our efforts to reach a lasting solution to the problems in afghanistan. You have that collision between those two things, and then a collision between operating to be those things. And modernization and readiness. The goal in the way we try to work through that is to find some predictable white space we call it. White space on the counter. You have a counter what you do next year you got things written in for your vacation and work trips and all youre doing. And the white space is when you rest and recuperate. When i have predictable white space for all our units. Whether its traditional aviation units or whether its our siphon i. S. Our analysts and the forces that are working every day and do that you need time, but you also need the training resources. Thats live a virtual. Or in a constructive environment where using a computer to generate things to bridge and between. The investment to simulate and vans integrated air defenses around our threats being able to put a control system together. Thats on the live environment, or up in jay park in alaska. Or whether thats in our simulator environment we need wide space to train and we need the night Training System to train in. Then we take this new forest generation presentation concept that were socializing with the joint staff to help us do that. At the same time weve had an Expeditionary Force structure that others worked hard on. Theres a couple things that never brought forward, it kept us from exercising. One of them is having command Elements Incorporated with it, to be able to take it forward as a group and pull them together. And then another one is having that builtin white space to work with it. Were working on trying to get a model that takes the air forces and breaks them into six bins. On a 36 month schedule. So wed be able to bring forces for certain needs and have some forces to present in contention of Response Force and the secretary of defense and president needs while ensuring white space to train between those. He trained for that mission or you might need to go against an adversary. Then you have to train for your specific rotational mission, which might be in afghanistan and said. And all that depends on the people in their attention and how you keep people around. We think its a key to doing that. It provides predictability for folks. But some guarantee time at home. The temple is certainly a part of people keeping them around, but doesnt answer all of it. The answer near the drive of having to pick up and move puts pressure on families, but they bounce passes. And Building Careers on their own. And on the Education Opportunities for the children. All the Service Secretaries have been working together to work with the states to improve the ability to bring the tour folks to. Thanks for that very comprehensive answer. Clearly that is the concerns restricted sounds like ac and your leadership as really wrapped around that moving into the future. Lets talk a little bit but resource as youre well aware the 2020s a really makeorbreak for Aircraft Systems are gonna be replaced, or missions are gonna have to the challenge is the air force faces with the cd forest represent the tip of the iceberg in this regard. And you alluded to it, but given the covid19 emergency funding which makes an already difficult efforts more challenging. Whats your take on the situation when you speak to leaders on capitol hill and beyond, how do you explain to them the need for the air force to remain committed to its key modernization goals . Thanks dave i go back to where it we are too small for the global requirements, but in some ways were too big to the for the budget that we have. If you go back and look at some of the things of the promises in the 20 years went back to 1990, the air force but new airplanes were able to do that in realtime under the 20 years after that we bought about 25 aircrafts a year. That but as to an aging force lets decide to talk about. Iran at transition that into new ideas, we are proud of the work that we have done were trying to come up with a vision a new approach to how that would take to counter new adversaries anyways. Weve watched china and russia spend the time since desert storm to come up with new approaches to counter our strength and take advantage of our weaknesses. Our folks at work through ways to bring that back them, and not try to go with the things weve always done to counter what they do. The hard part for that is what you lead into finding the money to make the to transform to do things in a different way. If the key problem is that were in a battle of long range fires with adversaries weather trying to keep us at arms length, and keep us distant, we are trying to find and destroy multiple agile intelligent or anti satellite systems, mobile longrange fires, local air defenses in many places there shooting at ports and airfields which are predictable and easy to find. That means well rely on things like advanced by management systems. To try to help us close that killed chain. Doubles find those targets and have a credible ability to take them out. Thats networks and productivity, we may come back and talk about d. C. To or whether its we are stuck in this. As we look at the rising costs of maintaining the capabilities in those 30 year old system that we have, each one of them has a different problem that we are working. You have miracle workers and that have dedicated their lives, there has never been an air force in the history of the world that could get as much out of the aging platforms as we are able to do because of them. If you look at the f22, the focus in the primary problem there is not having enough engines to meet our requirements. As weve been driving them northern. Which means, taking airplane apart. For the a ten its wings and being able to replace the wings on the airplane. So they could continue for longer service life. The f16 they have service live on them, but they need some modernization to be useful. Against current threats. So its a lot of inputs to get in that modernization. To get the requirements for them. And then for the f35s, the air plane is maturing. Or happy with the aircraft we have. We are figuring out how to sustain the airplane for the long term at an affordable cost. And then our platform the seven seven platforms. Its primarily engine availability and the depth of time to keep those aging airplanes flying. Thats a long story to get to that we cant afford not to continue to invest and not sustain it as well. The bottom line is but you let me into that here at our time figure out our new that and if we are required to hold on to everything through that process particularly as the budgets go down. We appreciate what congress is doing to recognize our requirement. They sent mandates to say the air force has to have 2000 fighters, and equivalent of that across the course he look at those numbers it comes really close the 386 squadrons the air force was the air force you need. The problem is how do we have for that at the level that weve been given. For not gonna get the money to for that there would have to make some hard choices. Yes sir and i think you know this thats one of the things are trying to help you with here at the Mitchell Institute and thats to make the Decision Makers over on the other side to understand that you can do one of two things. You could either provide the resources to provide the needs of the defend strategy, for change the expectations of the National Defense strategy. Its a real challenge and thank you for laying that out. Intending to raise the awareness of the importance of modernizing our forces to be able to deal with what it is. The leadership of the nation wants the air force to do. Lets move on. If you let me. I went through the traditional things that you dont use easy commanded to talk about. If you look at the competition where in today, with china and russia and with iran and north korea. The primary tool is being used in that competition is Information Warfare. Theyre certainly a military component to that Information Warfare russia and china used military forces to drive points to drive influence, to drive achieving their goals without combat. But the primary tool is Information Warfare. As we move forward or have to look at the investments there. How much should be invested in the department of defense for Information Warfare, what should be invest in other places. Covid definitely highlights new challenges that a National Security strategy has to take into account. Even with competition for National Security dollars, and the stimulus driving that down, i think we could all sort of expect to hear people talk about, or some justification that arent National Security dollars should not be spent theres a variety of threats and information, pandemics and other things are enough to work through. How are gonna spread these resources across. Now for what its worth, its interesting to know when you look at four security pillars in the United States is based on diplomacy, information and the economic element. The only wanted does not have is a cabinet designed to it is information. I think thoughts are spot on in that regard. The nation needs to move out in that respect. One of the things that the subject of, it is fundamental to our Aerospace Nation if you will. Is the whole issue of training. Training pilots, general mcgee just released a gal groundbreaking concept. That revitalize is out here for should be training its pilots. Would you talk to us a bit about the project reforge concept . It was the premiere seeking to solve and how youre aiming to go about doing it . Thanks dave. Two years ago i think, i traveled on their invitation to israel and spent some time with the israeli air force. I took five commanders with me. One of the things we noticed with the Israeli Air Forces cabin, they purchased an advanced trainer in their case of the leonardo and the advanced training. Although the airplane does not have a radar, more advanced targeting, when youre in the airplane it feels like it does. But generating constructive threats, they were able to train their cruise extensively and rapidly. Against those threats in a much cheaper platform. When we look at the work that eighties lead, in new piece to the next. And now we marked into you pd two point oh 2. 5 and three point oh. They found by making the curriculum in the steady material, people were able to progress faster. It by training in a computerized environment, they kept a record of everything the student did. Theyre also able to judge the proficiency in the different skill and focus returning inaudible instead of doing a one size fits all thing for every student. Theres an opportunity to put those two things together a shortage of pirates in the air force in the aca shortage is not assured to pilots its a shortage of experience fire pilots. Our goal is to say what is the most fastest effective way to produce experienced fighter pilots. In the way we would measure that would be, could we produce training that can Transition One of our Operation Air airplanes without having to do what we call it deep coarse or basic course or a person thats never been a fighter crew member before. So we proposed to lease some airplanes while we are waiting for the tea seven to arrive and do experiments to try to produce more pilots and more experienced pilots sooner and we think taking advantage of the capabilities of that new trainer along with the Training Systems with the atc will give us a great opportunity to meet the requirements of the shortage that we have in the fastest best way, and other benefits that come with it, it for example youve got your wings and a seven or eight Month Program focused on the t6 data air to air and ground Ground Missions against a local fighter and step across the street and do a local checkout and stay and not have to make those moves that are driving our feet out of the air force. We think there are a lot of opportunities to win, to produce better pilots faster and to increase retention and without cutting down anne and put pressures on family. On behalf of many folks whove been part of the air force, where the challenges, i just really would like to applaud your efforts in moving our training regime into the future, and we all look forward to seeing progress in that regard. You mentioned earlier, the importance of joint all domain commanding control, it is no surprise that general gold fiend has made a notion anne to a cornerstone cornerstone of a chief of staff junior. A combat commanders huge component whose assets and personnel are required to act wise is vision. The imperative for combat cloud, five plod this emphasis. When you discuss this vision, the key stakeholder on capitol hill, how do you describe the stages of implementation . What are the court elements that need to be fielded and how do you envision operating concepts of change . Thank you dave. We had a chance to talk on this in a couple of places. There are some videos out there of some longer versions of this. What i would highlight right now is when you talk about your combat cloud, like he or abms and jbc2 its making use of all the information that is out there, getting into places where it needs to be and make better, faster decisions because of that. That is certainly essential to the idea. How do you make all the information that we already collect useful to all war fighters. The term is to connect every sensor and every shooter to every commanding control platform, but we are connecting back and forth and between all those forces. Connectivity is the next element to be able to connect those things toge