The Re-Shaping of Pacific Defense: The USAF and Building Out from Today’s Force Towards Tomorrow’s Capabilities

2013-11-26 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake

We had a chance to sit down with General Hawk Carlisle, Commander, Pacific Air Forces, at the Air Force Association Pacific Forum, recently held in Los Angeles, California.  Earlier in the day, the General addressed the Forum and we were able to build upon that presentation to discuss the shaping of Pacific defense in the period ahead.

While we were attending the Forum, real world events were taking their place in making the challenges both real and significant: the PRC was declaring an expanded air defense zone, which covered Japanese territory.

The announced Peoples Republic of China’s  Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)  goes out 200 miles  from the mainland. The practical meaning is that PLAAF Fighters are being asserted the right to scramble to identify all air traffic in the zone. It would be analogus to Cuba announcing and trying to enforce an ADIZ with their MIGs, remembering that U.S. territory is approximately 100 miles from Havana Cuba.

Since the U.S. recognizes Japan’s control over the islands inside the announced PRC ADIZ, it would be analogous to Cuba announcing and enforcing an ADIZ with their MIGs 100 miles from Havana Cuba.

Dealing with such real events along with challenges like Philippine relief are the bedrock from which the USAF is building out its strategy and shaping its approach towards the future force.

In our earlier interview with his Marine Corps counterpart, Lt. General “Guts” Robling, the significant of forward presence was highlighted and the need for the USMC to plug in its new capabilities in a world in flux.

The USMC is clearly moving – literally to Guam and to a rotational base in Australia – and shaping the force as it transitions is how the Marines are building their future force while dealing with today’s realities.

Robling highlighted the strategic direction of the USMC in Pacific defense as follows:

The key is persistent presence and a scalable force.  

We need to be engaged in the process of reforming our various Pacific partners as well.  We cannot nor should not do it all on our own. 

A distributed force allows for the kind of security engagement we require to “fight tonight” or respond to further escalation if required. 

Distributed operations and disaggregation is a fact of life in the Pacific.  

There are 36 countries in this AOR and rarely do we send an ARG/MEU out where at some point in their patrol they are not required to disaggregate, do distributed operations for several countries, and then re-aggregate to form the entire force. 

This is important.  We have shown in both Exercise Bold Alligator and the work-up to Dawn Blitz that you can either break away one or two ships in your formation and increase the effects you can deliver to a coastline a thousand miles in each direction. 

In many cases we don’t even need an amphibious ship.  We can put a V-22 on a TAK-E that has 140 Marines aboard and extend the operating area an additional 500 miles in any direction they ship can operate. 

Notably, the Osprey has become a visible member of the USMC kit of capabilities and a key element for reshaping joint force capabilities.  While rolling out in a key role in the launch of relief efforts in the Philippines, the Chinese assertion of their right to operate in Japanese territory has provided yet another opportunity for the new asset to enter into to today’s challenges.

The USMC General who gained global notoriety in the Philippine relief effort underscored that tools used to mobilize support for the Philippines can be used to deal with the PRC assertions as well.

“The commanding general of the U.S. Marines in Okinawa, Lt. Gen. John Wissler, told Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima in a meeting Tuesday that MV-22 Osprey aircraft stationed at the Futenma air station could be dispatched to the disputed Senkaku Islands if needed.”

In other words, Commanders in the Pacific do not have the luxury of formulating strategies for the future without having to deal with the press of current challenges and crises.

This means that the challenge is to restructure and rework current capabilities towards the future as a means of more effectively responding to today’s challenges.

The interview with Hawk Carlisle provided a clear sense of how the General was looking at the twin challenge of re-shaping today’s force and preparing for tomorrows.

Because he is a senior USAF commander, he looks at the key role of the USAF as an enabler for the joint and coalition force and how the USAF can generate greater synergy across a deployed force whose strategic direction for the next decade is towards a more effective and more lethal distributed force.

The General emphasized the central role which working more effectively with allies was playing for the USAF in the Pacific.

“The Chief has underscored that as resources are constrained we need to become closer with our allies.  I would add that we need to do this as well for strategic reasons.  Our allies in the Pacific are always in the frontline.  This means that our task is to have credible forward presence for deterrence working in close coordination with those allies.”

Both in his presentation to the Forum as well as during the interview, the General highlighted the importance of practical steps in enhanced allied collaboration.  He highlighted in the public presentation the growing role which collaboration among Pacific allies themselves and the importance of that for the trajectory for U.S. policy as well.

In the interview, he noted that the U.S.-Japanese relationship was undergoing a fundamental transformation as major challenges emerged in the Pacific which the Japanese have clearly identified as central and which they believe requires a more effective working relationship with the United States.

An example of an evolving response is the reshaping of U.S.-Japanese capabilities to provide for more effective defense coordination.

“We have moved our air defense headquarters to Yokota air base and we are doing much closer coordination on air and missile defense with the Japanese.”

The General highlighted that the USAF was stepping up its collaborative efforts and capabilities with key air forces in the region, including with Australia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.

And he emphasized that the USAF was working to enhance cross-collaborative capabilities among those allies as well.

He also underscored that allied innovations were being adopted by the USAF as well.

“Singapore is doing very innovative things with their F-15s, notably in evolving the capabilities of the aircraft to contribute to maritime defense and security.  We are looking very carefully at their innovations and can leverage their approach and thinking as well.  This will certainly grow as we introduce the fleet of F-35s in the Pacific where cross national collaboration is built in.”

A key way ahead for the General was forging various paths towards cross-domain synergy among the joint and coalition forces.

He cited several examples.

First, the US Army has significant missile defense capabilities, which can be better integrated with the USAF in expanding defensive and offensive performance.  During the presentation to the Forum, he highlighted the example of a rapid deployment of an army missile defense battery for the defense of a key USAF airfield and saw this kind of capability as central for now and a building block for the future.

Second, the ability of advanced aircraft, in this case the F-22, to provide through its sensors forward targeting for submarine based T-LAMS was both a more effective use of the current force and a building block for the emergence of the F-35 fleet in the Pacific.

Third, the USAF is learning from the USMC about ways to become more expeditionary.  A key example he cited in the presentation to the Forum and one, which we pursued later in the interview, is what he called the Rapid Raptor deployment.

Here the idea is to take a package of 4 Raptors and deploy them with a C-17 and to rotate across the Pacific to go to the point of need for implementing missions.  This provided both a tool for enhanced survival but an enhanced capability to apply the force associated with a 5^th generation aircraft as well.

His focus was upon leveraging the USAF assets and the joint force in ways that would make that force more expeditionary and more effective in providing for cross-domain synergy.  He noted that the combination of a large deck carrier with the USAF with the ARG-MEU air assets when conjoined within a distributed strike package provides significantly greater capability than when each is simply considered in and of itself.

He sees this re-shaping approach which is going on now as central to shaping the distributed operations approach which will emerge with the F-35 fleet over the decade ahead.

“The F-35 is the finest sensor enabled aircraft ever built.  The F-35 is orders of magnitude better than the F-22 (which is the greatest air to air fighter ever built) as an electronic warfare enabled sensor rich aircraft.

We already are working synergy between F-22s and 4^th generation aircraft to provide greater fidelity of the information shaping air combat operations. 

With the F-22 and F-35 combination and the folding in of on-orbit information and surveillance systems, we will be able to generate more synergy across the fleet.”

The other advantage mentioned by the General with regard to the F-35 was its commonality across the services.  “

We are already working on greater synergy among the air power services; with the F-35 and deploying common assets in a dispersed fleet, the efforts we are making now for today’s conditions will only lead to more effective capabilities for tomorrow’s crises as well.”

The General sees the addition of the new long range strike aircraft as informed by the decade ahead in shaping the new approach.

“The new bomber is really a family of long range strike systems.  Taking the approach towards synergy, and accepting your proposition that no platform fights alone, the next generation bomber really is about making the entire force more lethal and more effective, not simply adding a new platform.”

He underscored that with the addition of the F-35 to the F-22s already deployed in the Pacific, the kind of transformation he envisaged as the new bomber gets folded in during the decade after next will accelerate.

“ When you bring Raptor and F-35 into the mix you make every one of the platforms better in terms of its performance for the joint force.

And referring back to your concept of S Cubed, when you put those two together with long range strike the synergy unleashed by S Cubed will be significantly enhanced as well.”

Editor’s Note: In a report on General Carlisle’s presentation at the Forum, reworking US and allied engagement strategy was seen as a central task.

In order to accomplish its security cooperation mission more effectively, the general outlined the way forward.

Rather than pursuing an expansion of bases in the Pacific, the command will pursue expanded engagement.

Enhancing and maintaining allied and friendly capabilities for self-defense, U.S. troops will keep a rotational presence throughout the Pacific — keeping area deployments cost-effective while maintaining presence and improving relationships with partner nations during peacetime and contingency operations.

And in another report, the Rapid Raptor approach was expanded upon as well.

According to Marc V. Schanz regarding the Rapid Raptor package: