MILITARY US AIR FORCE 2030
S
peaking at an Air Force
Association breakfast
at the Mitchell Institute
in Washington DC on
July 26, US Air Force
Chief of Staff General
David Goldfein, said:
“I am ghting today
with a force built
incrementally over
many decades,” and that the time is now
for the Air Force to make decisions on force
modernisation, based on answering the
question: “Who do we need to be in 2030
and what is standing in our way?”
This question will not be answered by the
Air Force or even the Department of Defense
alone. Goldfein is committed to including
Congress in the dialogue about where
the Air Force is going: “General [Robin]
Rand [Commander, Air Force Global Strike
Command] has been in a very aggressive
dialogue with Congress.”Fighting together
General Goldfein does have some preliminary
answers to this question. The future of airpower
will be multinational and networked. He said:
“Our allies are a source of exciting technologies
with military applications. We need to
strengthen our alliances. We have them; our
adversaries do not. Looking at our allies, as
airmen, takes on special meaning as we look
at our history and the future of sustaining
coalitions. As a former air component
commander [in US Central Command], I would
not turn down any capability, American or
coalition, that can contribute to my mission.”
Many US friends and allies participate
in coalition operations through airpower,
as Goldfein outlined: “Most countries have
an air component that can be offered as
part of a coalition to project power without
vulnerability. Together the aircraft of the 16
air forces participating in Operation Inherent
Resolve [against ISIS insurgents] constitute
the 12th largest air force on the planet.”Goldfein’s emphasis on being ready for
future coalition air operations bears directly
on his emphasis on networked capabilities.
He said: “We will ght together in an age
where information sharing is vital to success,
and it will be fast.” However, in looking at the
aircraft, manned and unmanned, that will be
called upon to carry out these operations,
Goldfein is less interested in what these will
be and more in how they will be linked and
integrated: “If we get this right, we are not
going to have as many conversations about
a particular system, but rather about a family
of systems. It is going to be the connective
tissue that is important.” In looking at the
future of airpower, Goldfein would, “focus on
the highway rather than the truck”, which,
when the ‘trucks’ are actually aircraft that
need to be replaced or modernised to create
the force he wants to exist in 2030, suggests
the Air Force may look different from that
of today in ways other than a one-on-one
replacement of aircraft types.David C Isby provides some details of the US
Air Force in 2030 based on plans being made by
today’s chief of staff, General David Goldfein
Air Force
2030