The U.S. Air Force

November 2003

Transformation Flight Plan

The U.S. Air Force

Transformation

Flight Plan 

November 2003

This document was produced by HQ USAF/XPXC 

Future Concepts and Transformation Division.

For more information, contact Mr. Mort Rolleston at moreton.rolleston@pentagon.af.mil 

or Lt. Col. Flip McCaw at james.mccaw@pentagon.af.mil.

Design and Artwork—11CS/SCUS Media Services

Foreword

For those of us charged with protecting the United States, new national security 

realities have forced us to redefine our enemies as well as our concepts of defense. 

As we prepare to fight these new enemies, we recognize the campaigns of the future 

will involve all elements of our nation’s might—economic, diplomatic, information, 

investigative, and military power—and will require us to develop new concepts of 

operation, technologies, and organizational constructs that will enable us to address 

these new challenges. It is these new challenges as well as historic opportunities 

to exploit revolutionary technology that underscore the absolute necessity of 

transforming our military capabilities. 

America’s armed forces must be re-balanced for future operations. What we require is 

a capability mix consistent with pre-defined operational concepts and effects-driven 

methodology. Future programs must be conceived with this mix in mind. Systems 

or capabilities based on arguments that do not consider the emerging joint character 

or the asymmetric nature of warfare will find themselves obsolete, irrelevant, and 

candidates for elimination. 

Adapting to this new era is one of our principal missions. We view it as a process by 

which the military achieves and maintains advantages over our potential enemies, and 

enables our forces to fight and win, from a major conflict to small-scale contingencies 

and in every phase of a campaign. To do so, it is essential that we remain focused on 

how we intend to shape our force so it is poised for the future, not for the century of 

World Wars and Cold Wars we left behind. We need to develop strategies and concepts 

of operation appropriate for this new era and rethink our doctrinal approaches to 

organizing, training, and equipping. 

The Air Force Transformation Flight Plan presents this Service’s ongoing transformation 

to meet these new challenges. 

John P. Jumper, General, USAF

Chief of Staff

Dr. James G. Roche

Secretary of the Air Force

Table of Contents 

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

II. Providing Strategic Context: What is Transformation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

III. Enhancing Joint Warfighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

IV. Innovation: Turning Transformational Ideas into Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

V. Transforming Air Force Culture and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

VI. Transforming to a Capabilities-Based Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

VII. Developing Transformational Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

VIII. Transforming How the Air Force Does Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

IX. Long-Term Transformation: Future Challenges for Science and Technology . . . . . . . . . . 79

X. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Appendices:

Appendix A: TPG Guidance for Service Transformation Roadmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1

Appendix B: Additional Details Required by Transformation Planning Guidance . . . . . . . . . B-1

Appendix C: How Air Force Supports the QDR’s 

“Critical Operational Goals Of Transformation” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1

Appendix D: Brief Descriptions Of Programs, 

ACTDs, and Future System Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D-1

Appendix E: How the Air Force Supports the 

Transformation Plans of the Other Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E-1

Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acr-1

i

Executive Summary 

The Purpose of the Air Force 

Transformation Flight Plan

The Air Force Transformation Flight Plan (or “Flight Plan”) takes a “snapshot in 

time” of the ongoing transformation of the Air Force as well as anticipated future 

transformation. The initial Flight Plan, submitted to the Office of Force Transformation 

in June 2002, was developed in response to direction from the FY03 Defense Planning 

Guidance. This second edition addresses detailed requirements in the Transformation 

Planning Guidance (TPG), which are listed in Chapter I and Appendix A.

Providing Strategic Context: 

What Is Transformation? Why Transform?

There have been arguably two separate, but related, transformations of the US military 

over the past decade that will continue for the foreseeable future. The first is the 

transformation from an industrial age force to an information age force. Vast 

leaps in information technology in the areas of intelligence and surveillance, command 

and control, as well as precision kinetic and non-kinetic weapons, are dramatically 

reshaping warfare. Before long, joint force commanders will be able to see the entire 

battlespace, identify key adversary centers of gravity, and rapidly communicate that 

information to friendly combat forces so they can use precision munitions to destroy/

affect those centers. Put another way, a commander could defeat an adversary by 

disabling its ability to operate as opposed to bleeding it to death with mass attrition 

through sequential operations or produce the effects of mass without having to mass 

forces (air, ground, or naval). This approach would require the deployment of fewer 

forces (and thus enhance rapid mobility), reduce the length of the conflict, and limit 

collateral damage. In seeing the entire battlespace through advanced C4ISR capabilities, 

a commander would also be able to identify threats and communicate that information 

to forces in time to avoid them. In the context of air and space operations, the keys to 

threat avoidance and applying the right force to the right place at the right time are the 

closely related concepts of parallel warfare and Effects-Based Operations (EBO).

The second ongoing transformation is that from a Cold War to a post-Cold 

War force. The military advantages America currently enjoys are in danger of eroding 

in the face of new, unique challenges in the post-Cold War security environment. The 

United States must prepare for new forms of terrorism, attacks on its space assets, 

information attacks on its networks, cruise and ballistic missile attacks on its forces and 

territory, and attacks by chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-explosive 

(CBRNE)-armed adversaries. It must also cope with the unique demands of peace 

operations, homeland security, urban operations, and low-intensity conflicts. To deal 

with this new security environment, where traditional concepts of deterrence may no 

longer apply, the US military must be able to conduct operations effectively across the 

entire spectrum of conflict against a broad range of potential adversaries. 

Executive Summary
ii

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

To address both of the aforementioned realities, the Air Force has developed a 

definition of the transformation process to scope the efforts described in the 

Flight Plan:

A process by which the military achieves and maintains 

advantage through changes in operational concepts, 

organization, and/or technologies that significantly improve 

its warfighting capabilities or ability to meet the demands 

of a changing security environment.

The Air Force’s Transformation Strategy 

To play its part in these transformations in support of the Joint Force Commander, 

the Air Force is pursuing the following strategy: 

• Work with the other Services, Joint Staff, and other Department of Defense (DoD) 

Agencies to enhance joint warfighting

• Continue to aggressively pursue innovation to lay the groundwork 

for transformation

• Create flexible, agile organizations that continually collaborate to facilitate 

transformation and institutionalize cultural change

• Shift from threat- and platform-centric planning and programming to capabilities 

and effects-based planning and programming via the new Air Force Concepts 

of Operations (CONOPS) and Capabilities Review and Risk Assessments (CRRAs)

• Develop “transformational” capabilities to enable the six operational 

goals of transformation from the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), 

the new Joint Operating Concepts (JOCs), the Air Force Vision, and the 

new Air Force CONOPS

• Break out of industrial age business processes and embrace information 

age thinking

To execute this strategy, the Air Force will capitalize on its three core competencies:

• Developing Airmen: The ultimate source of air and space combat capability 

resides in the men and women of the Air Force. The Service’s first priority is to 

ensure they receive the precise education, training, and professional development 

necessary to provide them a quality edge second to none.

• Integrating Operations: The Air Force’s inherent ability to envision, experiment, 

and ultimately execute the union of a myriad of platforms and people into a great 

synergistic whole is pivotal to maximizing air and space power in a joint warfighting 

environment.

• Technology-to-Warfighting: The Air Force matures and promotes its ability to 

translate vision into operational capabilities in order to prevail in conflict and avert 

technological surprise. 
iii

Enhancing Joint Warfighting

A critical part of transformation is maximizing the US military’s ability to fight jointly 

so that the most effective force for a given situation, regardless of what Service or 

combination of Services contribute that force, can be brought to bear. The Services 

already strongly support each other in many different areas and continue to enhance 

that cooperation. 

Maximizing the advantages of joint operations requires a common framework 

that enables DoD to identify Service interdependencies as well as capability gaps 

comprehensively. To accomplish this, the TPG established a process to create new 

Joint Operating Concepts (JOCs), which will depict how the joint force of the future 

is to fight across the spectrum of military operations. The JOCs are also intended 

to be specific enough to permit identification and prioritization of transformation 

requirements inside the defense program. Development of the JOCs is guided by the 

Joint Operations Concept (JOpsC), which captures OSD’s future vision for transformed 

joint forces in the following “key joint force attributes”: fully integrated, expeditionary, 

networked, decentralized, adaptable, decision superiority, and lethality. 

This process of developing the JOCs and their supporting operations and integrating 

architectures is presently underway. Once they are completed, future Service 

transformation roadmaps will, as directed by the TPG, comprehensively describe how 

the Services are developing the capabilities necessary to execute them. The Air Force is 

developing Service operating concepts and a Master Capability List that support the 

JOpsC and the new JOCs. 

Innovation to Turn Transformational 

Ideas into Reality

Transformation demands innovative thinking and a process that can identify, examine, 

and turn bright ideas into reality—whether the idea is a new technology, concept, or a 

novel way to organize. The objective of Air Force innovation is the timely adoption and 

integration of new or improved technologies, capabilities, concepts, and processes into 

Air Force planning and acquisition activities, organizations, and operations. Air Force 

innovation must be continuous and comprehensive over the near-, mid-, and far-term 

time horizons. 

Key components of the innovation process in the Air Force include: the Innovation 

panel, science and technology (S&T) development, Air Force Battlelabs,

Advanced Technology Demonstrations, Advanced Concept Technology 

Demonstrations, Agile Acquisition, Air Force Tactical Exploitation of National 

Capabilities, experimentation, wargaming, modeling and simulation, and

training transformation.

Executive Summary
iv

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Transforming Air Force 

Organization and Culture

Transformation is more than new hardware. Equally important, if less glamorous, are 

the organizational concepts that capitalize on the technological advances and allow 

the US military to truly transform. In addition, the process of transformation begins 

and ends with people. One Air Force core competency—Developing Airmen—is defined 

by senior leadership as the heart of combat capability. Only through the effective 

development of airmen and the seamless integration of their capabilities into Air 

Force operations can the Service optimize air and space power. To ensure its ongoing 

transformation, the Air Force must also modify its culture and airmen development to 

be conducive to transformation and then adapt its organization to institutionalize this 

new culture. 

Key organizational transformation efforts in these areas within the Air Force:

• The Air and Space Expeditionary Force construct has been critical in 

transforming the Air Force from a threat-based, forward-deployed force designed 

to fight the Cold War to a capabilities-based force based primarily in the 

United States that is sufficiently flexible to conduct a wide range of operations 

throughout the world while accommodating the high operational tempo of 

today’s contingency environment.

• US Special Operations Command has recently created a Combat Aviation 

Advisory Squadron to assist allies develop their airpower and associated combat 

support functional areas into a viable alternative to employing US assets. It will 

shape the environment and promote stability without the need to project a large 

US force presence abroad. The Air Force is exploring options to significantly 

expand and enhance this capability.

• The Air Force is transitioning into a new Combat Wing Organization designed 

to fully develop commanders with specific functional expertise to plan and execute 

air and space power as part of expeditionary units.

• Through the new Force Development construct, the Air Force has a transformed 

vision for how it trains, educates, promotes, and assigns the Total Force in a more 

deliberate, coordinated, and connected approach—one grounded in doctrine.

• Through the Future Total Force effort, the Air Force is continuing its 

transformation in the way it integrates the Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, 

and civilian force to produce greater combat capability more efficiently.

• The Air Force Council has embraced a new vision and construct to transform 

human capital management.

• The Air Force is exploring various innovative infrastructure transformation 

options to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of DoD and improve jointness.

• Implementing the changes recommended by the Commission to Assess 

United States National Security Space Management and Organization (“Space 

Commission”) is transforming the way military space is managed and organized.

• The proposed Warfighting Headquarters would develop full spectrum, joint 

warfighting structures linked through a collaborative planning network. 
v

Transforming to a Capabilities-Based Force

While adapting to the new strategic environment, the Air Force’s principal focus 

has been transitioning from a platform-based garrison force to a capabilitiesbased expeditionary force. The Air Force is committed to make effects and 

the capabilities needed to achieve them the driving force behind its ongoing 

transformation. In the future, all Air Force operational, programming, and 

budget decisions will be driven by a predefined capability. To make this 

essential shift, the Air Force has developed six new CONOPS: Global 

Mobility, Global Response, Global Strike, Homeland Security, Nuclear 

Response, and Space&C4ISR. Additionally, the Integration Champion ensures 

the operational capabilities integrate across the other six CONOPS and that 

solutions from one CONOPS are applied appropriately.

The emerging CONOPS will help make this essential shift by offering solutions 

to a variety of complex problems warfighters can expect to encounter in the 

future. They focus on the essential elements required to accomplish the mission. 

They aim to cover the complete spectrum of warfighting capabilities and 

enable the Air Force to tailor forces from existing AEFs to meet the Joint Force 

Commander’s requirements. 

The Air Force is transforming around these CONOPS. In addition to serving 

as a roadmap for operators, the CONOPS construct will form the basis for 

resource allocation, future system acquisitions, and POM submissions in order 

to find capabilities-based solutions to satisfy warfighter requirements.

In order to precisely assess each CONOPS, the CRRA identifies and analyzes 

current and future capabilities, capabilities’ shortfalls, health, risks, and 

opportunities. The CRRA is a twofold process: each CONOPS executes a CRRA 

within its effects and capability purview. Then, an Integrated CRRA assesses 

capabilities and capability shortfalls across all CONOPS. The CONOPS first 

identify desired warfighting effects and then develop top-level capabilities 

required to generate those effects. The CRRAs then identify capability gaps, 

overlaps, and robustness within each top-level capability. Finally, the Integrated 

CRRA identifies an acceptable level of risk and risk mitigation measures within 

each capability. This assessment helps the CONOPS Champions articulate any 

disconnects between required capabilities and programs. This provides senior 

Air Force leadership an operational, risk, and capabilities programmatic-based 

decision-making focus. Metrics to measure the Air Force’s progress towards 

“transformation” will be derived from this analysis once the CONOPS and 

CRRAs have been finalized and have determined specific required capabilities. 

This process is transformational as it concentrates on desired battlespace effects 

vice specific platforms. 

Executive Summary
vi

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Developing Transformational Capabilities

The Air Force of today is facing numerous challenges in achieving the QDR’s critical 

operational goals of transformation, the Air Force Vision, and the new Air Force CONOPS 

within the new security environment. Networking of air, space, and ground systems is limited. 

The amount and type of ISR assets needed for time-critical and simultaneous targeting in 

most cases is limited. Legacy air capabilities are vulnerable to the next generation of advanced 

air defense systems. Rapidly striking anywhere on the globe and conducting persistent 

operations is very difficult. In most cases, the only option to affect a target is to destroy it 

with kinetic weapons, which is not appropriate in all situations. Critical information and 

space systems are vulnerable to attack. The United States has a limited capability to affect 

adversary C4ISR and deny space to adversaries if necessary. In most cases, forces cannot be 

deployed abroad in a timely manner. American territory and forces are also highly vulnerable 

to ballistic and cruise missile attacks. The threat from the continued proliferation of chemical, 

biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons creates a continuous need to ensure that US 

forces can survive, fight, and win in a contaminated environment.

As previously discussed, the new Air Force CONOPS are driving Air Force requirements, 

both transformational and non-transformational, to ensure that the best solutions get 

to the warfighter. While most of the CONOPS are still in the preliminary stages of 

development, the Air Force anticipates that the “transformational” capabilities (based on 

the definition in Chapter II) they will require fall under 16 categories. These represent 

capabilities the Air Force cannot achieve today or that must be significantly improved 

to close the crucial capability gaps described above. They are organized below under the 

relevant Air Force distinctive capabilities from the Air Force Vision:

Information Superiority:

1. Seamless joint machine-to-machine integration of all manned, unmanned, and 

space systems

2. Real-time picture of the battlespace 

3. Predictive Battlespace Awareness 

4. Ensured use of the information domain via effective information assurance and 

information operations 

5. Denial of effective C4ISR to adversaries via effective information operations 

Air and Space Superiority: (subdivided into three categories)

Negating Enemy Air Defenses: 

6. Penetration of advanced enemy air defenses to clear the path for follow-on joint forces 

7. Effective and persistent air, space, and information operations beyond the range of 

enemy air defenses under adverse weather conditions 

Space Superiority: 

8. Protection of vital space assets

9. Denial of an adversary’s access to space services
vii

Missile Destruction in Flight: 

10. Detection of ballistic and cruise missile launches and destruction of those 

missiles in flight

Precision Engagement: 

11. Order of magnitude increase in number of targets hit per sortie

12. Achievement of specific, tailored effects on a target short of total destruction 

Global Attack: 

13. Rapid and precise attack of any target on the globe with persistent effects

Rapid Global Mobility:

14. Rapid establishment of air operations, an air-bridge, and movement of military 

capability in support of operations anywhere in the world under any conditions 

15. Responsive launch and operation of new space vehicles and refueling/repair/

relocation of existing vehicles

Agile Combat Support:

16. Significantly lighter, leaner, and faster combat support to enable responsive, 

persistent, and effective combat operations under any conditions

These are subject to change as the new CONOPS and CRRA processes mature 

and produce detailed analyses on the capability needs of the Air Force.

Preliminary, unclassified “lessons learned” analyses from Operation 

Iraqi Freedom indicate that the Air Force has achieved significant advances in 

many of these 16 capabilities since Operation Enduring Freedom. Key examples 

include: improved joint operations, Blue Force Tracking, UAVs, Time-Critical 

Targeting, Expeditionary Force Modules, Embedded Contingency Response 

Group Capability, greatly expanded special operations, unprecedented command 

and control, integration of space operations, and agile logistics.

The Air Force will need the assistance of and coordination with the other 

Services and Agencies to enable these transformational capabilities. Key 

areas include: joint C4ISR, information operations, joint air operations and 

combat air support, missile defense, space control, minimizing lift demands, 

joint training, joint exercises, joint experimentation, professional military 

education, standards by which all Services provide human resources services 

to employees, predictive sustainability awareness, integrated combat support 

situational awareness, urban operations, and homeland security. 

Executive Summary
viii

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Business Transformation

Air Force business processes stem from an industrial age when America faced 

a security environment that was vastly different in character than the one 

the Air Force faces today. Although they have been incrementally reformed 

and modernized over the last 30 years, the underlying philosophy and basic 

architecture of these processes has not changed—they are labor intensive, they 

lack agility, flexibility, and speed. Accountability is fragmented and diluted 

throughout large bureaucracies that must render their collective assent to enable 

the accomplishment of the most mundane tasks.

The Air Force seeks—relative to the status quo: 

• A significant shift in business operations resources (dollars and people) to 

combat operations and new/modern combat systems

• Work processes and a work load enabling its people to accomplish routine 

(non-crisis, non-exercise) organizational missions within a 40 to 50 hour 

work week

• A compression of average process cycle time by a factor of four (relative to 

current established process baselines)

• An improvement in the effectiveness of operations resulting in higher 

customer satisfaction ratings

• Empowerment of personnel and enrichment of job functions

The Air Force has recently created several organizations, processes, and programs 

to begin the task of achieving these goals. Highlights include: Business 

Management Modernization Program, Air Force Business Modernization 

and Systems Integration Office, Air Force Business Management 

Modernization Program, Business Transformation Investment Process,

and the Balanced Scorecard.

Long-Term Transformation

While the United States possesses a world-class Air Force, rigorous S&T is essential 

to maintain its superiority and better meet the security demands of an increasingly 

complex world into the future. In a broad sense, long-term Air Force S&T is 

focused on: (1) moving the Service’s capabilities from a theater to a global focus; (2) 

integrating air, space, and information capabilities to take advantage of the synergy 

between these three domains; (3) rapidly projecting capability to anywhere on the 

Earth and into space while still retaining the ability to be expeditionary; (4) creating 

effects on demand anywhere, anytime; and (5) creating a rapidly composeable 

environment able to accurately replicate potential battlespace anywhere in the world 

through the use of rapid scenario generation tools—and providing that ability to the 

warfighters in a timely manner. 

Long-term Air Force S&T is exploring many exciting possibilities, including: 

integrating sensory data with real-time detection; netting large arrays of 

sensors to create invulnerable sources of information; swarms of very small 
ix

sensors to enter tunnels, look under camouflage cover, listen behind lines, 

electronically eavesdrop, or sniff out chemical and biological presence or 

threats; nanoelectronics; nanopropulsion; molecular level sensors; a “master 

caution panel” for the joint commander that would proactively tap him on the 

shoulder whenever a new critical situation developed in the battlespace and offer 

alternative courses of action; bio, nano, and quantum information processing, 

storage, and retrieval; human performance enhancement; atomic-level computing 

that is a million times faster than today’s silicon chip; artificial intelligence; 

putting a warning energy “spot” on any target worldwide that could be rapidly 

followed with varying levels of effects; solid-state directed energy; a safe source 

of fuel from water; camouflage skins; “air-launched” payloads for rapid cheap 

space-launch; and plasma dynamics that can significantly increase range and 

reduce time to target, aircraft time-on-target, and fuel consumption. 

Conclusion 

The Air Force is committed to transforming and maximizing joint combat capabilities. 

The Air Force Transformation Flight Plan lays out the Service’s ongoing transformation 

efforts, which, in concert with the other Services, will help achieve the effects required 

by the Joint Force Commander.

The ongoing transformation of the Air Force will enable the Joint Force Commander to: 

• Achieve decision cycle dominance to strike adversaries before they can mount an 

effective defense

• Deny sanctuary to adversaries through time-critical targeting 

• Design campaign actions based on desired national security outcomes 

• Use smaller forces to disable an adversary rather than having to destroy it with 

mass attrition

• Maximize the power, lethality, and flexibility of a truly joint force

• Successfully neutralize mobile targets

• Integrate air, space, and land systems across all Services

• Achieve Predictive Battlespace Awareness 

• Deploy with significantly smaller combat support footprints

• Penetrate and defeat the next generation of advanced air defense systems to sustain 

air superiority into the foreseeable future

• Strike targets anywhere on the globe in a timely manner

• Affect targets short of destroying them

• Protect its information systems 

• Disrupt adversary C4ISR, effectively making the enemy fight blind, deaf, and dumb

• Protect space systems and deny space to adversaries, if necessary

• Rapidly deploy forces abroad

• Defend against ballistic and cruise missile attacks

• Protect resources on the ground for forces both within the United States 

and abroad

• Assure continuous operations in a CBRNE environment 

Executive Summary
x

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

These capabilities will not only revolutionize high intensity combat operations, but also 

enable the United States to face new non-conventional threats and the future security 

environment. For example:

• Rapid global attack, rapid global mobility, persistent ISR, standoff, ballistic and 

cruise missile defense, information operations, and stealthy air defense penetration 

capabilities will counter various anti-access strategies by adversaries.

• Information operations capabilities will protect critical C4ISR systems and networks 

against adversary attacks and counter adversary PSYOP campaigns.

• Space superiority capabilities will protect critical space assets against growing 

adversary threats to them.

• Information superiority capabilities will counter advanced dispersal and 

deception techniques and enable tracking of targets under the cover of night 

and in adverse weather. 

• Information superiority, non-lethal, and rapid global mobility capabilities will 

greatly enhance future urban operations. 

• Rapid global attack, loitering munition, information superiority, and rapid global 

mobility capabilities will be essential in the ongoing global war on terrorism.

• Ballistic and cruise missile defense and force protection capabilities will protect US 

forces from new technologies available to adversaries and defend the US homeland.

• Agile combat support capabilities will enable US forces to conduct responsive, 

persistent, and effective combat operations under any conditions, to include 

CBRNE environments.

• Predictive Battlespace Awareness capabilities will significantly mitigate the 

unpredictability of threats in the new security environment.

• Information superiority, rapid global mobility, agile combat support, and rapid 

global attack capabilities will significantly mitigate the greatly reduced access to 

forward bases. 

The Air Force will always excel at providing air and space focused capabilities to the 

joint warfighter, while enhancing the capabilities of soldiers, sailors, and marines. 

The diversity and flexibility of Air Force efforts and capabilities through concepts of 

operation, technology, and organizational structure provide unparalleled value to the 

Nation and make the whole team better. DoD must integrate the existing capabilities of 

the Services in a way that is most efficient and effective to address the rapidly changing 

security environment. The Air Force will continue to work with the rest of DoD to 

develop the new Joint Operating Concepts and keep transformation focused to provide 

the capabilities required for the Nation in the 21st Century. 
xi

Executive Summary

1

I. Introduction 

“Transformation is not a term; it is a philosophy—

a predisposition to exploring adaptations of existing and 

new systems, doctrine, and organizations. It has been part 

of the Air Force for decades. Transformation is not outlining 

new programs or things to buy. Rather, it is an approach 

to developing capabilities and exploring new concepts of 

operation that allow us to be truly relevant in the era in which 

we find ourselves, and for years to come.”

—Dr. James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force

To support US national security, the Services must maintain broad 

and sustained advantages over potential adversaries by providing joint 

commanders with the most effective solutions to conduct a broad spectrum 

of joint operations. The capabilities necessary to achieve this have, of 

course, changed through time, requiring the military to constantly adapt 

and “transform.” The Air Force, like all the Services, has contributed significantly to 

the US military’s transformation through the years. Examples of past transformational 

technology breakthroughs in air and space power include jet aircraft, supersonic 

flight, missiles, nuclear weapons, spacecraft, long-range airpower, and precision-guided 

munitions. Throughout its history, the Air Force has also gone through numerous 

significant organizational and conceptual changes to maximize the effectiveness of these 

new capabilities. This ongoing transformation of the US military continues today. 

Purpose of the Air Force 

Transformation Flight Plan 

The initial version of the Air Force Transformation Flight Plan (or Flight Plan), 

submitted to Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in June 2002, addressed the 

requirement in the FY03 Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) to “prepare and update 

annually for review by the Secretary of Defense a transformation roadmap...[that will]...

specify timelines to develop Service-unique capabilities necessary to meet the critical 

operational goals [of transformation, which are described in DPG-03 and the 2001 

Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)]” and “address resource requirements to fully fund 

transformation through the Future Years Defense Program [FYDP].” 

This 2003 edition is governed by the OSD’s Transformation Planning Guidance 

(TPG), signed by the Secretary of Defense in April 2003, which lays out the 

Department’s transformation strategy and roles and responsibilities in a series 

of “transformation tasks” to implement that strategy. The broad outline of this 

transformation strategy is to:

Introduction
2

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

• Develop new joint operating concepts (JOCs) and associated linking integrated 

architectures that depict how the joint force of the future is to fight to meet the 

objectives of the six operational goals of transformation from the 2001 QDR 

with enough detail to permit identification and prioritization of transformation 

requirements inside the defense program.

• Have Services and Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) prepare transformation 

roadmaps to specify the capabilities required by the JOCs and their supporting 

operations and architectures and articulate how they intend to build the capabilities 

necessary to execute them. 

• Initiate rapid research, development, testing, and evaluation programs to 

facilitate execution of these roadmaps and stimulate alternative ways to better achieve 

desired capabilities without sacrificing safety of personnel, equipment, or mission.

• Evaluate and interpret progress toward implementation of all aspects of 

this transformation strategy—recommending modifications and revisions where 

necessary. More specifically, TPG requires the following appraisals:

Strategic Transformation Appraisal (by the Office of Force Transformation) 

will assist the Secretary of Defense measure progress in implementing 

transformation. It will include recommendations for future DPGs.

Program/Budget Review Output Report (by OSD Program Analysis and 

Evaluation) will summarize the transformational elements of the defense 

program and evaluate the transformational value of Service programs 

in light of their transformation roadmaps and the implementation of 

transformational initiatives.

Roadmap/POM Analysis (by OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation) will 

evaluate POMs based on their consistency with transformation roadmaps and 

provide recommendations for resolution of issues in the program review.

The TPG includes several statements that describe OSD’s overall guidance for this and 

future Service transformation roadmaps: 

“The roadmaps will demonstrate how the Services and JFCOM intend to build the capabilities 

necessary for executing the joint operating concepts. Upon approval, these roadmaps will be used 

by the Services to help develop their POMs [Program Objective Memorandums]. During 

the annual program/budget review, the transformation roadmaps will be used by Director, 

Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) as yardsticks for evaluating the transformational 

value of the POMs.” [TPG, page 14]

“The 2003 DPG-directed roadmap efforts established a baseline assessment across DoD’s 

[Department of Defense’s] transformation activities. The next set of revised roadmaps will 

address capabilities and associated metrics to address the six transformational goals [the “QDR6”] and the joint operating concepts. In addition, the Service roadmaps will provide a plan for 

building joint capabilities in support of the JOCs.” [ TPG, page 19]

“....the Services and Joint Forces Command will build transformation roadmaps to achieve 

transformational capabilities (as represented in the six operational goals) in support of joint 

operating concepts and supporting operations. The transformation roadmaps will plot the 

development of capabilities necessary to support these concepts and will serve as baseline plans for 

achieving the desired joint operating concepts. They will outline the concrete steps organizations must 

take in order to field capabilities for executing joint and Service concepts.” [TPG, page 29]
3

Introduction

“The updated transformation roadmaps will...describe how the organization plans to 

implement transformational architectures for future operating concepts, consistent with the joint 

operating concepts and supporting joint and service mission concepts to include: when and 

how capabilities will be fielded; identify critical capabilities from other Services and Agencies 

required for success; identify changes to organizational structure, operating concepts, doctrine, 

and skill sets of personnel.” [TPG, page 29]

In addition, Appendix Three of the TPG (replicated in Appendix A in the Flight Plan) 

mandates that the roadmaps describe Service efforts to address several specific key areas 

of interest to OSD (primarily interoperability, intelligence, information superiority, and 

experimentation) in detail.

In addition to addressing this guidance, this version of the Flight Plan updates the 

information presented in the initial June 2002 edition and conforms to the informal 

guidance from the Office of Force Transformation to:

• Remain a broad, strategic-level planning document that lays out a general plan with 

a rough schedule 

• Not include extensive details regarding specific programs and their funding levels

• Not rehash “legacy” programs

• Build on last year’s initial roadmaps rather than starting from scratch

The Flight Plan is a reporting document to OSD that is intended to reflect decisions, 

information, and initiatives already made and/or approved by the Air Force capabilitybased planning, programming, and budgeting process—unless otherwise noted. This 

process is described in the “United States Air Force Strategic Planning Directive for Fiscal Years 

2006-2023.” 

The Flight Plan Outline 

The body of the Flight Plan is a broad, strategic level overview of the ongoing 

transformation of the Air Force—organized around the Service’s transformation strategy: 

• Work with the other Services, Joint Staff, and other DoD Agencies to enhance 

joint warfighting

• Continue to aggressively pursue innovation to lay the groundwork for transformation

• Create flexible, agile organizations that continually collaborate to facilitate 

transformation and institutionalize cultural change

• Shift from threat- and platform-centric planning and programming to capabilities- and 

effects-based planning and programming via the new Air Force Concepts of Operation 

(CONOPS) and the Capabilities Review and Risk Assessments (CRRAs)

• Develop “transformational” capabilities to enable “QDR-6,” JOCs, Air Force Vision, 

and the new Air Force CONOPS

• Break out of industrial age business processes and embrace information age thinking

Most of the information required by the TPG regarding details of Air Force efforts in 

specified areas and how Air Force transformation is addressing the QDR’s six operational 

goals of transformation is included in the appendices.
4

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

More specifically:

• Chapter I presents the purpose, requirement for, and outline of the Flight Plan and 

broadly outlines the Air Force’s transformation strategy. 

• Chapter II provides the broad strategic context by presenting the Air 

Force’s conceptual view of the ongoing transformation of the US military 

and why it is necessary. 

• Chapter III summarizes the ongoing efforts to enhance joint warfighting—a 

critical piece of transformation. It includes discussion of how the Air Force already 

supports the other Services and vice-versa, the new JOCs, and how the Air Force 

anticipates that its ongoing transformation efforts will strongly support the JOCs 

when they are completed. 

• Chapter IV discusses the innovation processes currently in place in the Air Force 

to ensure transformational ideas become reality—including details on Service 

experimentation required by the TPG. 

• Chapter V discusses current Service-wide organizational transformation to 

enhance Air Force capability significantly and institutionalize a culture conducive 

to transformation. 

• Chapter VI presents the Air Force’s new CONOPS, which are at the heart of the 

Service’s transformation to capabilities-based planning. 

• Chapter VII provides a preliminary look at the “transformational” capabilities the 

Air Force is pursuing in order to make the QDR’s six critical operational goals of 

transformation, the new Air Force CONOPS, and the Air Force Vision a reality. It 

also outlines significant gains in these capabilities achieved during Operation Iraqi 

Freedom as well as what the Air Force needs from the other Services to enable 

these capabilities.

• Chapter VIII lays out the Air Force’s broad goals and strategy to transform its 

business practices. 

• Chapter IX briefly describes the “long-term challenges” that guide long-term Air 

Force science and technology (S&T) efforts and offers a glimpse into a few truly 

“revolutionary” concepts and capabilities the Air Force is exploring over the next 

fifty years. 

• Chapter X summarizes important points about Air Force transformation. 

In addition, five appendices describe: 

1. The TPG guidance governing the scope and content of the Flight Plan. 

2. Most of the detailed information required by TPG regarding Service efforts in 

the area of information superiority—especially interoperability, intelligence, and 

information operations. 

3. How Air Force transformation strongly supports the six “operational goals of 

transformation” from the 2001 QDR. 

4. The Air Force programs, Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs), 

and future system concepts listed in Chapter VII.

5. How the Air Force supports the transformation plans of the other Services. 
5

II. Providing Strategic 

Context: What is 

Transformation? 

“Transformation is thinking through the challenges of 

this era, adapting our forces and people to them, and then 

operating our services as efficiently as possible using these 

new realities as the barometer to gauge our success.”

—Dr. James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force

“Transformation is the leveraging of our technological superiority 

to create an asymmetric advantage and to combat asymmetric 

vulnerabilities.”

—General John Jumper, Chief of Staff of the Air Force 

While transformational activities have occurred throughout military 

history, the term “transformation” in its current context is quite new 

and means different things to different people. Broad, vague, and/

or conflicting definitions have not only resulted in confusion, but 

have also led to widespread misunderstandings about the military’s 

transformation efforts. In order to determine what efforts to include in the Flight 

Plan and to provide an overall strategic context, the Air Force first had to define 

“transformation.”1

Most discussions that attempt to describe transformation appear to fall into two 

general schools of thought. The first links transformation exclusively with the so-called 

“revolution in military affairs” (RMA) or transforming from an “industrial age” force 

to an “information age” force. The second views transformation more broadly in the 

context of transforming from a Cold War force to a post-Cold War force. This chapter 

briefly describes these two perspectives and the Air Force concept of transformation, 

which takes both into account. 

Providing Strategic Context

1

 While the discussion in this chapter focuses on combat transformation, the concept of transformation has also been 

applied to the business practices of the military. An overview of those efforts in the Air Force is addressed in Chapter VIII.
6

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Transformation as a 

“Revolution in Military Affairs”

A “revolution in military affairs” is widely described as a dramatic increase in combat 

capability that changes the rules of the game and renders the status quo obsolete. 

RMAs combine new revolutionary technology with organizational and conceptual 

changes that maximize the effectiveness and potential of that technology. RMAs are not 

necessarily dependent on or driven by changes in the security environment. Instead, 

new technological advances primarily drive them. The RMA school of thought tends 

to have a very strict view of what actually is “transformational,” as it directly pertains 

to the new revolutionary technology driving the RMA and associated concepts and 

organizational changes.

Proponents of the RMA view of transformation assert that vast leaps in information 

technology in the areas of intelligence and surveillance, command and control, as 

well as precision kinetic and non-kinetic weapons are dramatically reshaping warfare. 

Before long, joint force commanders will be able to see the entire battlespace, identify 

key adversary centers of gravity, and rapidly communicate that information to friendly 

combat forces so they could employ precision munitions to destroy/affect those 

centers. Put another way, a commander could defeat an adversary by disabling its 

ability to operate as opposed to bleeding it to death with mass attrition—or produce 

the effects of mass without having to mass forces (air, ground, or naval). In turn, this 

would require the deployment of fewer forces, reduce the length of the conflict, and 

limit collateral damage. In addition, in seeing the entire battlespace through advanced 

command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities, a commander would be able to identify threats and 

communicate that information to forces in time to avoid them. 

In the context of air and space operations, the keys to threat avoidance and applying 

the right force to the right place at the right time are the closely related concepts of 

parallel warfare and Effects- Based Operations (EBO). Parallel warfare refers to the 

simultaneous attack of carefully selected targets to achieve specific effects as opposed to 

attacking targets in a more sequential fashion with the goal of destroying everything on 

a target list. Until the Gulf War, there were three primary obstacles that made parallel 

warfare problematic: (1) the requirement for mass to compensate for the lack of precise 

weaponry, (2) the high number of assets necessary to suppress enemy air defenses, and 

(3) the absence of an operational level concept focusing principally on effects to achieve 

control over an opponent rather than total destruction. The development of lowobservable “stealthy” platforms, precision weapons, information operations capabilities, 

along with a new concept of operations (i.e., EBO), overcame these obstacles and made 

parallel warfare possible. 

While parallel warfare is a manifestation of the ongoing RMA, Effects-Based 

Operations is a critical enabler. The central idea of EBO is to design campaign actions 

based on desired national security outcomes rather than merely attacking targets to 

destroy adversary forces. The goal is to understand the effect that is desired in the 

battlespace and then create that effect more efficiently and effectively. EBO may 

enable striking fewer targets, using fewer weapons, avoiding enemy threats, mitigating 
7

the consequences of enemy action, and limiting the potential for collateral damage 

and civilian casualties that might occur from a more traditional air campaign. EBO 

also focuses on combining and coordinating all elements of national power, military 

and non-military, to achieve its goals by influencing the will and perception of the 

adversary’s decision-makers. EBO requires systems-based intelligence analysis that reveals 

what an adversary relies on to exert influence and conduct operations and the ability 

to get that intelligence and all other relevant information to the right place at the right 

time. It also requires the ability to precisely conduct operations in the right order, with 

a wide range of tools, to include non-lethal weapons and information operations. While 

the tenets of EBO can be applied in every medium of warfare, the relative advantages 

of air and space power—speed, range, maneuver, flexibility, precision, perspective, and 

lethality—fit seamlessly in this strategic construct. 

However, current limitations in both technology and organizational structure prevent 

the military from achieving the full potential of parallel warfare and EBO. Overcoming 

these limitations through non-lethal weapons, information operations, miniature 

munitions, counter-chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive 

(CBRNE), and space-based systems is a key goal of the ongoing RMA. 

Transforming from a Cold War Force 

to a Post-Cold War Force

Another school of thought views transformation more broadly in the context of 

changing the US military from a Cold War force primarily designed to defend against 

a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe and deter nuclear attack through the threat 

of overwhelming nuclear retaliation to a force prepared to meet the broad array of 

new challenges from a multitude of potential adversaries. For it, many transformational 

efforts that would enable the United States to deal with the new security environment 

may not be “revolutionary” or “transformational” as described by the RMA school. Put 

another way, instead of equating transformation with an RMA, this school of thought 

would consider the RMA to be a subset or category of transformation. 

In addition, this perspective often contends that the RMA only would enable the 

US military to fight traditional militaries during conventional conflicts in a far more 

effective way while it ignores many new non-traditional/non-conventional threats, 

against which the RMA would have a limited impact. This new security environment 

has many new characteristics that require the US military to “transform”:

• Asymmetric strategies by adversaries: Most traditional nation-states learned 

from the Gulf War that it would probably be fruitless to take on the United 

States in a conventional war. Instead, they can be expected to plan a wide array of 

“asymmetric” strategies to challenge the United States:

Various unconventional anti-access strategies to deter any US response in the first 

place—to include cruise and ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction 

Information operations, especially network attack and psychological operations 

(PSYOP), terrorism, and counter-space

To fight not to win but rather fight not to lose in an attempt to outlast 

American and allied political will 

Providing Strategic Context
8

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Advanced dispersal and deception techniques that will only become more 

sophisticated in the future. These include hardened facilities, deception 

and masking (mock-ups and camouflage), urban operations, and frequent 

movements under the cover of night and adverse weather. 

• Non-state adversaries: Many of America’s adversaries probably will not be 

traditional nation-state militaries using conventional forces. Instead, they will likely 

be non nation-states such as terrorists, drug lords, or guerilla groups. The United 

States must develop new concepts of deterrence for these adversaries, for whom 

traditional concepts of deterrence do not apply.

• Increased peace operations: The need to maintain stability in failed states has 

greatly increased—prompting the increased demand for peace operations, which 

require an array of “non-conventional” capabilities. 

• New technologies available to adversaries: Potential adversaries are also 

exploiting rapidly advancing technologies in deep strike and intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), whose costs are declining overall, making 

them more accessible. The proliferation of CBRNE weapons has also made 

their technology and techniques more accessible. In addition, rapid advances in 

nanotechnology, genomics, and other advanced sciences will produce a host of 

potential threats in the future.

• The diminished protection of geographic distance: As the 11 September 

2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC graphically illustrated, 

the United States homeland is under significantly increased threat. Addressing this 

threat will require major changes both within the military and within the civilian 

population of the United States itself. Defending against these new threats will 

require greater time and perseverance than most Americans are used to enduring. 

Units and capabilities with primary warfighting missions could be dual-tasked 

to support homeland security (HLS) missions, thereby adding some level of 

risk to DoD’s ability to conduct deployed combat operations successfully. The 

ability of US forces to deploy in the face of homeland attacks is an additional 

concern. DoD’s role in homeland security must also be carefully weighed against 

existing national laws and policies limiting DoD’s participation in domestic law 

enforcement and intelligence gathering.

• Unpredictable threats: Overall, the threats the United States faces today are 

somewhat unpredictable in both substance and location. America must be prepared 

to cope with a wide range of threats across the entire spectrum of conflict.

• Reduced access to forward bases: The United States has reduced access to 

forward bases required to conduct significant military operations. As a result, the 

US military is becoming more expeditionary in nature and thus will be required to 

carry more capability with it.

• Nature of coalition operations is changing: During the Cold War era, US 

defense planners counted on the capabilities provided by formal alliance partners 

in most circumstances. While those formal alliances will remain critical to future 

planning, recent operations have shown that the number, composition, and ad hoc

nature of future alliances are more uncertain. Also in contrast to the Cold War, 

allied contributions may be, with significant exceptions, better measured in terms 

of political support and access to facilities than in combat capabilities. 
9

To deal with this new security environment, this second school of thought tends to 

argue that the United States must refine its capabilities from a force designed only to 

fight high-intensity conventional battles to a force prepared to face a wide range of 

future contingencies across the spectrum of conflict. 

Defining Transformation

Both of these views of transformation make valid points and are not mutually 

exclusive. Whether they constitute an actual revolution or not, rapid advances in 

technology are enabling significant increases in military capability that will continue to 

profoundly change the conduct of conventional warfare. At the same time, the security 

environment is dramatically different since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the US 

military must adapt in ways beyond the scope of the ongoing RMA to address a broad 

and rapidly growing array of non-conventional threats.

The TPG provides this definition of transformation: “Transformation is a process that shapes 

the changing nature of military competition and cooperation through new combinations of concepts, 

capabilities, people, and organizations that exploit our nation’s advantages and protect against our 

asymmetric vulnerabilities to sustain our strategic position, which helps underpin peace and stability 

in the world.”

The TPG adds that: “shaping the nature of military competition ultimately means redefining 

standards for military success by accomplishing military missions that were previously 

unimaginable or impossible except at prohibitive risk and cost. The U.S. military 

understands current standards for success because it trains to exacting standards in the most realistic 

fashion possible. From this baseline, we can compare and assess new operating concepts that employ new 

organizational constructs, capabilities, and doctrine for achieving military objectives and determine 

whether they are sufficiently transformational to merit major investments. Eventually such efforts 

will render previous ways of warfighting obsolete and change the measures of 

success in military operations in our favor.” (Emphasis added) [TPG, pp. 4-5]

The DoD goal of transformation, according to the TPG, is to produce military forces 

capable of the following type of operations by the end of the decade:

• Standing joint force headquarters will conduct effects-based, adaptive planning 

in response to contingencies, with the objective of defeating enemy threats 

using networked, modular forces capable of distributed, seamlessly joint and 

combined operations.

• US forces will defeat the most potent of enemy anti-access and area denial 

capabilities through a combination of more robust contamination avoidance 

measures, mobile basing and priority time-critical counterforce targeting.

• US forces will leverage asymmetric advantages to the fullest extent possible, drawing 

upon unparalleled C4ISR capabilities that provide joint common relevant operational 

situational awareness of the battlespace, rapid and robust sensor-to-shooter targeting, 

reachback, and other necessary prerequisites for network centric warfare.

• Combined arms forces armed with superior situational awareness will maneuver 

more easily around the battlefield and force the enemy to mass where precision 

engagement capabilities may be used to maximum effect.

Providing Strategic Context
10

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

To more directly scope its transformation efforts, the Air Force developed the following 

working definition of combat transformation that addresses both perspectives on 

transformation while remaining consistent with the TPG’s definition:

A process by which the military achieves and maintains 

advantage through changes in operational concepts, 

organization, and / or technologies that significantly improve 

its warfighting capabilities or ability to meet the demands of a 

changing security environment.

Several clarifications of the Air Force’s view of combat transformation are important: 

First, true transformation is not the result of a one-time improvement, but of sustained 

and determined effort across a broad range of areas. Each area has a starting and ending 

point and is at a different stage of development, but is focused on contributing to and 

improving the whole. The Flight Plan provides a “snapshot in time” of these areas.

Second, the Air Force believes that meaningful transformation requires integrating its 

expanding capabilities with those of the other Services and non-military elements of 

national power. Air Force transformation cannot occur in a vacuum.

Third, transformation is not just new “gee-whiz” technologies. It usually combines 

technology with some or all of the following:

• Adapting existing capabilities and using them in new ways

• Changes in how the military is organized that increase its effectiveness 

• Changes in military doctrine and concepts of operation, to include training, tactics, 

techniques, and procedures that determine force deployment or determine the way 

forces are led or interact with each other to produce improved effects. 

Fourth, it may not be possible, necessary, or desirable to transform the entire US 

military at once. Historically, transformations involve less than the entire force. Also, 

attempting to transform the entire force at once may be risky if the assumptions about 

the future threat turn out to be incorrect. The wrong type of force, totally incapable of 

meeting actual threats, may be the result. 

Fifth, transformation should not be achieved at the expense of conducting current vital 

operations in support of the DoD Defense Strategy, maintaining adequate readiness and 

infrastructure, conducting critical recapitalization, and attracting and retaining quality 

personnel. There must be a careful balance between these requirements, which compete 

for limited resources. 

QDR 2001 mandates a defense strategy (known as the “1-4-2-1” construct) that directs 

the Services to size and shape its forces to:
11

1 — Defend the United States

4 — Deter aggression and coercion forward in four critical regions

2 — Swiftly defeat aggression in two overlapping major conflicts.... 

1 — ...while preserving for the President the option to call for a decisive victory in one

of those conflicts.

In addition to requiring the capabilities to achieve the “1-4-2-1” strategy, the QDR 

mandates that the United States must also be able to conduct a limited number of 

smaller-scale contingency operations, plus maintain sufficient force generation capability 

to mitigate risks. While ongoing and planned transformation efforts within the Air 

Force are significantly improving its ability to achieve this strategy and enabling to do 

so with smaller forces, it is critical that the Air Force (and other Services) maintain 

significant “legacy” forces in order to execute the Defense Strategy effectively and 

provide critical capabilities that will remain relevant into the foreseeable future. 

The Air Force must also transform while continuing on or moving to a recovery path 

in critical areas affecting its people, including morale and quality of life. Transformation 

is not possible without: 

• Recruiting, training, educating, and retaining a diverse mix of people who exhibit 

the broad skills, intelligence, and personal qualities consistent with the core values 

of the Air Force needed to respond to the dynamic challenges of the 21st century

• Ensuring an adequate quality of life for Air Force members and their families

Sixth, not all change is transformation. Distinguishing between transformational and 

non-transformational efforts, however, is difficult and at the heart of the debate over 

defining transformation. Transformational efforts, whether they are programs, concepts, 

or organization adaptation, should result in significant improvements in warfighting 

capabilities or the ability to address new threats. Not all efforts achieve that. 

Unfortunately, there is no one quantitative metric or framework that allows us to say: 

“Above this line, a program, concept, or organizational change is transformational 

and below this line, it is not.” Is a technology that gives the military five times more 

capability in a certain area transformational and one that provides four times more 

capability not transformational? This even assumes that transformational capabilities are 

quantifiable at all. Such metrics assume that transformation only comprises significant 

improvements in existing capability. This ignores the fact that many transformational 

efforts are geared to adapting to a post-Cold War security environment, which does not 

always require improvements in the same capability, but different types of capabilities 

altogether that are not comparable to the status quo. In the end, determining what 

is transformational comes down to qualitative judgment calls by informed senior 

leadership based on a set of agreed upon standards. 

The Air Force prefers focusing on transformational capabilities rather than 

transformational programs or technologies because a new technology or program often 

must be combined with a new concept of operation and/or organizational change 

to produce a “transformational” effect or capability. The most well known historical 

example of this is the fact at the beginning of World War Two, the French had more 

Providing Strategic Context
12

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

and better tanks. However, the Germans combined their tanks with a new concept and 

organization (blitzkrieg) and other new systems such as the dive-bomber to produce a 

transformational effect that revolutionized warfare at that time.

To determine what to include in the Flight Plan to address OSD guidance to identify 

ongoing efforts and relevant funding, the Air Force first developed a list of capabilities 

consistent with the definition and discussion of transformation in this chapter it 

believes are necessary to achieve the new Air Force CONOPS, QDR-6 transformation 

goals, and the Air Force Vision. The Air Force then identified those key new programs 

and future system concepts being explored that appear to be critical to enable those 

transformational capabilities when combined with new concepts of operation and/or 

organizational changes (see Chapter VII). However, it must be emphasized that these 

lists are preliminary and subject to change as the new CONOPS and CRRAs mature 

and are completed (see Chapter VI). 

Seventh, transformation requires new levels of cooperation and collaboration 

between historically isolated communities or “tribes” within the Air Force. The 

speed and agility with which the Air Force must react to emerging threats means 

that the Service can no longer afford to sequentially move the development of new 

capabilities from one function to the next. The Air Force must work in parallel and 

constant collaboration to move promising technologies from the lab to the warfighter 

as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Eighth, it is important to stress that transformation is not only about changing the way 

the military fights. The term is also applied to changing how the military does business 

(see Chapter VIII) and how it works with other instruments of national power and 

America’s allies. 
13

III. Enhancing 

Joint Warfighting 

“The foundation of our success [in Iraq] can be found 

in two simple concepts: teamwork and trust. This was a 

truly joint and coalition warfighting effort from planning to 

execution. Air, ground, maritime and space forces working 

together—at the same time for the same objective—not 

merely staying out of each other’s way—but orchestrated to 

produce a decisive outcome.”

—Dr. James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force

“It’s going to get better when we understand that the buzz words 

of this decade [are] integration [and] persistence...We’ve got to 

learn to think in terms of integration [so that we] end up with a 

cursor over the target, and we are indifferent to how we got there.”

—General John P. Jumper, Chief of Staff United States Air Force

Acritical part of transformation is maximizing the US military’s ability to 

fight jointly so that the most effective force for a given situation, regardless 

of what Service or combination of Services contribute that force, can 

be brought to bear. This chapter briefly describes how today’s air forces 

support ground and naval forces and vice-versa and some key ongoing 

initiatives between the Air Force and the other Services that are improving joint 

operations. It then discusses the development of the new JOCs and outlines how the 

Air Force is building its concepts to support them. 

The Air Force and the Joint Team

The Services already provide critical support to each other that greatly enhances the 

effectiveness of the joint force. For example, air power helps create the conditions for 

rapid Army deployment and survivable engagement: 

• Air Force C4ISR assets provide theater situational awareness to the ground force 

commander and supports inter/intra theater communications.

• Air power provides air superiority to prevent air attacks on ground forces, lines of 

supply, and logistics sites.

• Air power prevents an adversary from massing armored forces, which are the 

most dangerous threat to dispersed ground forces.

• Air power delays, disrupts, and destroys follow-on forces.

Enhancing Joint Warfighting
14

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

• Air power provides persistent, all-weather fire support to light forces using new 

through-weather precision weapons. This allows ground forces to lighten-up and 

improve responsiveness by reducing pressure for early deployment or organic 

deep strike assets.

• Air power strikes enemy long-range strike systems, threatening ports and airfields 

to permit the accelerated delivery of ground forces.

• Air Force space assets provide situational awareness 

Ground forces provide critical support to air power:

• Ground forces can compel enemy ground units to mass, thus providing lucrative 

targets for air strikes.

• Ground forces provide accurate targeting data on mobile ground forces, enabling 

more lethal air strikes.

• Ground forces protect key areas and bases supporting Air Force bases for fighters 

and ISR assets.

• Ground forces provide long-range missile fires to increase theater firepower and 

confront adversary with multiple threats.

• Ground forces take and hold ground.

• The Army provides significant logistics support to the Air Force.

Air Force and naval (Navy/Marines) forces are mutually reinforcing and enhance each 

other’s effectiveness while allowing each other to focus on individual strengths. Air 

Forces enable naval forces in the following ways:

• Land-based air can deploy to provide presence in areas where naval forces are 

not available.

• Air Force can assist the Navy in countering maritime anti-access threats. For 

example, bombers can “takedown” large shore-based target complexes to allow 

naval forces to focus on other vital missions, strike mobile anti-ship cruise 

missile launchers to reduce the threat to the fleet, and allow aircraft carriers 

to deploy closer and increase sortie rates or deliver mines to bottle up enemy 

fleets on shore.

• Air Force can enhance the survivability of naval air power by taking down 

airfields with “mass precision” and/or degrade enemy surface-to-air missile 

(SAM) threats. 

• Air Force greatly augments naval precision strike capabilities by adding 

tremendous punch to on-scene naval forces, providing stealth assets, enabling 

the joint commander to combine air and naval power to strike across the 

breadth of the theater, deliver large penetrating weapons against hard and 

deeply buried targets, and greatly enhance the ability to conduct continuous 

strikes around the clock.

• Air Force refueling systems increase the range and on-station times of naval aircraft.

• Air Force ISR systems provide broad theater situational awareness to naval forces.

• Air Force space assets provide situational awareness and support inter/intra 

theater communications.
15

Naval forces return the favor by assisting the Air Force in the following ways:

• Naval forces provide air forces with an enhanced ISR picture via maritime ISR assets.

• Carrier-based fighters support Air Force bomber operations and protect ISR orbits 

while F/A-22s deploy.

• Carrier-based electronic warfare and jamming greatly enhances Air Force survivability.

• Sea-based theater missile defense protects Air Force theater bases.

• Tomahawk Land-Attack Missiles executing Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) 

missions enhances survivability of Air Force systems.

• Combined naval and air systems complicate enemy air defenses by diversifying the 

method, time, and geographic space of US strikes.

• The Coast Guard and Navy protect vital Air Force space assets associated with the 

Eastern and Western Range and associated facilities.

• Naval forces support sea launch operations and sealift requirements.

• Naval forces protect sea lines of communication needed to supply Air Force in-theater 

logistical requirements.

The Air Force puts a premium on joint enablers. In fiscal years 2004-2009, the Air 

Force will spend 23 percent of its Total Obligation Authority on joint combat forces 

such as close air support fighters and gunships, loitering indirect fires, and advanced 

air-to-ground munitions and 41 percent on critical joint force enablers such as air and 

space C4ISR, airlift, and tankers. 

In addition, the Air Force has been working closely with the other Services to further 

improve joint warfighting in various areas. Some examples: 

• Air Component Coordination Element (ACCE). During Operation Iraqi Freedom 

(OIF), an ACCE team was located within each component’s (land, maritime, and 

special operations) force headquarters to allow the air component to better integrate air 

and space power with the operations of the other components to more fully achieve 

the Joint Force Commander’s objectives. 

• Army-Air Force discussions on improving cooperation. The Air Force and Army 

are working to improve air support of ground forces in a number of forums: Air Force 

Task Force Enduring Look, Air Force Doctrine Symposium III, Center for Army Lessons 

Learned and Air War College Lessons Learned, Joint Combat Air Support Executive 

Steering Committee, the Combat Air Support Summit, and the Army-Air Force 

Warfighter Talks. As a result, various actions were agreed upon to resolve these issues:

Update Joint Pub 3-09.3—Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Close 

Air Support

Validate the Time-Phased Force Deployment Document (TPFDD) to include 

associated units

Provide Army Tactical Missile System fire support to the Joint Force Air 

Combat Commander

Provide greater support will be provided to special operations forces (SOF)

Develop a Joint Air Liaison Element concept

Improve Liaison Office manning, training, and teamwork

Install common, interoperable software 

Develop a Joint Simulator requirement for combat air support 

Enhancing Joint Warfighting
16

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Strengthen joint training

Institute Battalion Air Liaison Officers attending the Army Battle Staff 

Course concept

Identify command and control integration and training improvements 

In addition, the two Services recently held an Army-Air Force symposium to 

jointly address this issue as well as urban operations and forcible entry over 

strategic distances.

• Army-Air Force coordination on base protection efforts. The Air Force is 

coordinating its Integrated Base Defense and Force Protection effort with the 

Army’s Project Guardian.

• The Improved Data Modem will provide critical Joint Surveillance Target Attack 

Radar System (JSTARS) data to Army Apache attack helicopter gunships, which will 

dramatically reduce the kill chain timeline for air-to-ground targeting. The JSTARS 

mission crew will be able to provide moving target indicators directly into the 

cockpits of over 500 Apaches while simultaneously providing this information to 

the Air Operations Center over satellite communications radio.

• Joint Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) Office. A Joint Program 

Office was stood up on 1 October 2003 to address Air Force and Navy UCAV 

issues. Its goal is to create standards that will allow UCAVs to be built along 

common lines in hopes of decreasing costs while retaining interoperability.

• Joint command and control. As also discussed in the Joint Transformation 

Roadmap, the Navy, Marines, and Air Force are collaborating to synchronize 

development of FORCEnet and the Command and Control Constellation. 

• Joint wargames. Air Force participation in OSD, Joint Staff, and other joint 

wargames explores the potential synergy of emerging joint concepts. 

Working with other joint force elements, Air Force capabilities enable and accelerate 

joint force power projection operations in the new security environment. The 

mobility and swiftness, stealth, precision, and range of the Air Force, working with the 

dramatically enhanced capabilities of the Army, Navy, and Marines, have already paid 

huge dividends in recent operations.

JOC Development Process

Further expanding joint capabilities requires a detailed common framework that enables 

DoD to identify Service interdependencies as well as capability gaps. In order to achieve 

this, the TPG established a process to create new joint operating concepts, which will 

describe how the future joint force will fight across the range of military operations. 

The process will permit DoD to identify and prioritize transformation requirements 

inside the defense program and is the key to the DoD’s transformation strategy. 

The Joint Staff, in coordination with the Services and Unified Combatant 

Commanders, recently developed an overarching joint concept (the Joint Operations 

Concepts or JOpsC) that broadly describes how the joint force intends to fight in the 

next 15-20 years and provides the conceptual framework to guide future joint concept 

development and experimentation. Buttressing this effort is the development of four 

subordinate JOCs that address major joint force applications, which include major 

combat operations, stability operations, homeland security, and strategic deterrence. 
17

Because the JOpsC and JOCs will continue to evolve as insights are gained from testing 

and experimentation, they should be viewed as “works in progress” until validated.

The JOpsC describes the four JOCs as follows:

• Major Combat Operations (MCOs). MCOs achieve objectives by removing an 

adversary’s ability to conduct military operations and creating acceptable political 

conditions for the cessation of hostilities and the imposition of US will. At the 

direction of the President, the Joint Force will simultaneously “swiftly defeat” 

two efforts, and, if necessary, win one of those efforts decisively. MCOs are 

conducted in a campaign consisting of sequential, parallel and simultaneous actions 

distributed throughout the physical, information and cognitive domains of the 

global battlespace. Operations will attempt to sustain an increased tempo, placing 

continuous pressure on the adversary, and will harmonize military action with the 

application of other instruments of national power. The campaign is designed to 

dismantle an adversary’s system of offense and defense, preempt their freedom of 

action, destroy critical capabilities and as rapidly as possible isolate enemy forces. 

Thereby, the joint force will deny the adversary sanctuary, the ability to maneuver 

and reconstitute, and defeat or destroy them through the integrated application of 

air, ground, maritime, space and information capabilities. 

• Stability Operations. Stability operations are military operations in concert with 

the other elements of national power and multinational partners, to maintain or reestablish order and promote stability. These consist of global and regional military 

operations that establish, shape, maintain and refine relations with other nations. 

Included are operations to ensure the safety of American citizens and US interests 

while maintaining and improving the US ability to operate with multinational partners 

to deter hostile ambitions of potential aggressors. Stability operations help ensure 

unhindered access by the US and its allies to a global economy. These operations may 

include a wide array of tasks from combat operations—in order to remove isolated 

pockets of resistance, to peace enforcement, or security cooperation activities.

• Homeland Security. The highest priority of the United States is Homeland 

Security. The military mission sets are homeland defense, civil support and 

emergency preparedness. Homeland defense will be the primary focus of the 

Homeland Security JOC. Military forces may execute assigned missions in 

circumstances of emergency, routine or extraordinary nature. The mission 

sets for homeland defense are aerospace, land and maritime defenses. These 

are operationalized through attack operations, active defense, passive defense, 

command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence. The mission 

sets for civil support are military assistance to civil authorities, military support to 

civilian law enforcement agencies and military assistance for civil disturbances.

• Strategic Deterrence. Strategic deterrence encompasses the range of DoD efforts 

and capabilities to discourage aggression or coercion by potential adversaries. 

Strategic deterrence provides the President with a range of military options and 

capabilities intended to deter aggressors while requiring only modest reinforcement 

of forward-deployed and stationed forces from outside the theater. Strategic 

deterrence includes joint counterproliferation, defense against weapons of mass 

destruction, overseas presence, peacetime military engagement and nuclear and nonnuclear strike capabilities enhanced by global intelligence.

Enhancing Joint Warfighting
18

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

The Air Force recently provided its MCO future joint warfighting perspective in 

JFCOM’s Pinnacle Impact ’03 discovery experiment. The Air Force concept, Decisive 

Coercive Operations, goes beyond the current Air Force CONOPS to the 2018 

timeframe and integrates joint capabilities as defined in the JOpsC. The concept 

rests firmly on coercion theory and attempts to prevent conflict by using decision 

superiority, assured access, persistent dominance, and the Warfighting Headquarters 

(see Chapter V) to favorably influence regional, state, and non-state actors. If conflict 

erupts, the concept uses mechanisms to quickly engage and bring order before events 

spin totally out of control. Unlike many other Service concepts, Decisive Coercive 

Operations is a joint approach that incorporates not only military force, but also all 

instruments of power to influence and bring compliance. 

Once the JOCs are completed, the TPG directs the Joint Staff to generate a list 

of required “supporting operations” necessary to support the JOCs and develop 

“integrated architectures” for each supporting operation. The architectures will describe 

in greater detail the relationship between the tasks and activities that generate effects 

on enemy forces and also those tasks and activities that support functional operations. 

They will identify where operations intersect and overlap and provide details on 

interoperability requirements. The architectures will include material solutions, doctrine, 

organization, and training needs. Using these architectures, the Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council will prioritize needed capabilities based on their contribution to 

realizing the JOCs. The Services and selected combatant commands will then develop 

new concepts, or refine existing concepts, to support each joint operating concept.

How Air Force Supports Future Joint Concepts

The Air Force fully supports joint warfighting. As joint concepts are developed, to 

include the JOCs, Air Force concepts will follow suit to underpin and support the joint 

construct. The process for developing the JOCs is presently underway with an expected 

completion date in early 2004. Once completed, future editions of the Flight Plan will 

provide specific details of how the Air Force plans to field the capabilities necessary to 

execute the JOCs and their supporting operations and architectures (the Air Force will 

develop a Master Capability List that supports the JOCs). 

In the meantime, the Air Force has embraced the key Joint Force Attributes in the JOpsC 

and is developing concepts and capabilities that support them. These attributes are: 

• Fully Integrated: joint forces must move beyond deconfliction to fully integrated 

elements with all functions and capabilities focused toward a unified purpose

• Expeditionary: joint forces are rapidly deployable, employable, and sustainable 

throughout the global battlespace regardless of anti-access or area-denial 

environments and independent of existing infrastructure

• Networked: joint forces are linked and synchronized in time and purpose to turn 

information into immediate actions

• Decentralized: joint forces leverage power of interdependent joint capabilities 

while operating jointly at lower echelons

• Adaptable: joint forces can quickly respond to any contingency with the 

appropriate capabilities mix
19

• Decision Superiority: joint forces can arrive at better decisions that can be 

implemented faster than an adversary can react or at a tempo that allows the force 

to shape the situation or react to changes and accomplish its mission

• Lethality: joint forces can destroy an adversary and its systems in all conditions 

and environments via kinetic and non-kinetic means while leveraging technological 

advances in great precision and more devastating target effects at both longer ranges 

and in close combat

Using these attributes, the following table identifies how Air Force concept and 

capability development efforts described in the Flight Plan link to future joint force 

operations. It is important to underscore that there are many additional capabilities 

and efforts throughout the Air Force not included in the Flight Plan that would also 

contribute to these Joint Force Attributes. 

Joint Force 

Attributes 

(from JOpsC)

Relevant Air 

Force 

CONOPS 

(Chapter VI)

Relevant Air Force 

Transformational 

Capabilities 

(Chapter VII)

Other Relevant Air Force 

Efforts in the Flight Plan

Fully 

Integrated

Space&C4ISR Information 

Superiority

Interoperability (Appendix B), Command and 

Control (Chap IX), Business Transformation 

(Chap VIII), Space Commission Implementation 

(Chap V), Enhancing Joint Warfighting (Chap III)

Expeditionary Global Mobility Rapid Global Mobility, 

Agile Combat Support

Effective Air and Space Persistence; Rapid Air 

and Space Response; Sanctuary (all Chap IX); 

Business Transformation (Chap VIII), Air and 

Space Expeditionary Force (Chap V), Combat 

Wing Organization (Chap V), Combat Aviation 

Advisory Squadron (Chap V)

Networked Space&C4ISR Information 

Superiority

Interoperability (Appendix B), Command 

and Control (Chap IX), Space Commission 

Implementation (Chap V)

Decentralized Space&C4ISR Information 

Superiority

Interoperability (Appendix B), Command 

and Control (Chap IX), Space Commission 

Implementation (Chap V)

Adaptable All Rapid Global Mobility, 

Agile Combat Support

Air and Space Expeditionary Force, Future 

Total Force (Chap V); Effective Air and Space 

Persistence (Chap IX); Rapid Air and Space 

Response (Chap IX); Sanctuary (Chap IX); 

Business Transformation (Chap VIII); Combat 

Wing Organization (Chap V)

Decision 

Superiority

Space&C4ISR, 

Global Strike, 

Global Response, 

Global Mobility

Information 

Superiority

Interoperability and Information Operations 

(Appendix B), Finding and Tracking (Chap IX), 

Command and Control (Chap IX), Controlled 

Effects (Chap IX), Space Commission 

Implementation (Chap V)

Lethality Global Response, 

Global Strike, 

Nuclear 

Response

Air and Space 

Superiority, 

Precision 

Engagement, 

Global Attack

Controlled Effects, Sanctuary 

(both Chap IX)

TABLE 1: How Air Force Transformation Supports the JOpsC Joint Force Attributes

Enhancing Joint Warfighting
20

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

In addition, based on the general descriptions of the JOCs from the JOpsC above, 

the Air Force believes its 16 transformational capabilities detailed in Chapter VII will 

strongly support the JOCs—as detailed in the table below. 

Air Force Transformational Capability 

(see Chapter VII)

Major 

Combat 

Operations

Stability 

Operations

Strategic 

Deterrence

Homeland 

Security

Seamless joint machine-to-machine integration 

of all manned, unmanned, and space systems X X X X 

Real-time picture of the battlespace X X X X 

Predictive Battlespace Awareness X X X X 

Ensured use of the information domain 

via effective information assurance and IO X X X X 

Denial of effective C4ISR 

to adversaries via effective IO X X X X 

Penetration of advanced enemy air defenses 

to clear the path for follow-on joint forces X X

Effective and persistent air, space, 

and information operations beyond 

the range of enemy air defenses under 

adverse weather conditions, twenty-four 

hours a day, seven days a week

X X

Protection of vital space assets X X X X

Denial of an adversary’s access 

to space services X X X X

Detection of ballistic and cruise missile 

launches and destruction of those 

missiles in flight

X X X X

Order of magnitude increase in number 

of targets attacked per sortie X X X

Achievement of specific, tailored effects 

on a target short of total destruction X X X

Rapid and precise attack of any target 

on the globe with persistent effects X X X X

Rapid establishment of air operations, 

an air-bridge, and movement of military 

capability in support of operations anywhere 

in the world under any conditions 

X X X X

Responsive launch and operation of new 

space vehicles and refueling/repair/relocation 

of existing vehicles.

X X X X

Significantly lighter, leaner, and faster 

combat support to enable responsive, 

persistent, and effective combat operations 

under any conditions

X X X X

TABLE 2: How Air Force “Transformational Capabilities” Support JOCs 
21

IV. Innovation: Turning 

Transformational Ideas 

into Reality 

“It is our strength that we unlock the intellectual potential 

that resides in those who can think across the dimensions 

of air and space, of manned and unmanned. If we can do 

this, it is true transformation.”

—General John Jumper, Chief of Staff of the Air Force 

Transformation demands innovative thinking and processes that can identify, 

examine, and turn bright ideas into reality—whether it is a new technology, 

concept, or a new way to organize. This is a key part of the Air Force core 

competency of turning vision into tools for the warfighter. The purpose of 

Air Force innovation is to rapidly assess and implement new ideas, concepts, 

and technologies to field the best capabilities to the warfighter while also improving 

the associated doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, 

personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF). Air Force innovation must be continuous and 

comprehensive as the Service moves into the future.

Sources of Air Force innovation are numerous and come from senior leadership all 

the way down to junior airmen. They come from within the Air Staff, the Secretariat, 

Major Commands (MAJCOMs), operational units, support organizations, professional 

military education, academia, S&T research, and the entire defense community. Specific 

programs often come from lessons learned following combat operations, where a need 

for a certain capability or effect was crucial but not available. 

Before discussing the specific details of Air Force transformation in the remainder of 

the Flight Plan, this chapter briefly discusses the processes the Service uses to conceive 

and examine new ideas and turn them into reality. 

The Innovation Panel

Whether a management or operational concept or a new system, it is essential that 

an advocate champion bright ideas to ensure transformation occurs. The Innovation 

Panel performs this role by supporting the corporate resource allocation process 

within defined Air Force mission and mission support areas. Its portfolio is a subset 

of program elements, programs, and activities such as Battlelabs and S&T that drive, 

enable, or enhance Air Force innovation. The Innovation Panel examines insights into 

the various elements of its portfolio to generate Air Force-wide assessments and advice.

Innovation
22

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Science and Technology Development 

The Air Force Research Laboratory and product centers support the innovation 

process with emerging technologies. The laboratory works closely with operators and 

strategic planners to link research activities with the Air Force’s distinctive capabilities 

and future concepts of operation. Six long-term challenges have been identified to 

focus Air Force efforts. The challenges are: finding and tracking, command and control, 

controlled effects, sanctuary, rapid air and space response, and effective air and space 

persistence. S&T development will also identify solutions that improve or enhance the 

Service’s ability to provide Agile Combat Support to the warfighter, such as reducing 

the deployment footprint and improving asset visibility and logistics command and 

control. Long-term S&T efforts are outlined in more detail in Chapter IX. The Air Force 

also maintains a close working relationship with various laboratories, civilian industry, 

and government agencies. 

Air Force Battlelabs

The Battlelab’s mission is to rapidly identify and prove the worth of innovative ideas 

that improve the ability of the Air Force to execute its distinctive capabilities and joint 

warfighting. The overarching objective of Battlelabs is to generate high pay-off initiatives 

with minimum cost and investment. Their output includes operations and logistics 

concepts whose worth has been proven, creating opportunities for the Air Force to 

impact organization, doctrine, training, requirements, or acquisitions. Battlelabs focus 

on near-term solutions (2-4 years) to operational issues. The Battlelabs are aimed at Air 

Force distinctive capabilities, both institutionally and operationally. Leveraging ongoing 

training and exercise investments, the Battlelabs have a direct need for awareness and 

insight into all of the Air Force Warfare Center’s activities. In addition, Battlelabs 

identify ideas by interacting with Active, Guard, and Reserve forces; foreign military 

services; other operational and research agencies; and industry involved in operations, 

training, research, testing, acquisition, and logistics. The Battlelabs’ ability to freely 

interact with these agencies is critical to achieve its mission. The Battlelabs draw upon 

the expertise and resources of Air Force Materiel Command, Air Force Operational Test 

and Evaluation Center, Air Education and Training Command, and other organizations 

to rapidly generate, lend, or lease technical capabilities needed to demonstrate and 

measure the worth of promising operational concepts. 

Advanced Technology Demonstrations (ATDs)

ATDs typically are integrated demonstrations conducted to demonstrate the feasibility 

and maturity of an emerging technology for both Service and joint use. They provide 

a relatively low-cost approach for assessing technical risks and uncertainties associated 

with critical technologies prior to incorporating these technologies into a system 

entering the formal acquisition process. ATDs are selected by the Applied Technology 

Council consisting of the commander of the laboratory, commander of the product 

center, and the vice commander of the client MAJCOM. This selection process ensures 

the ATDs are focused on solutions that will facilitate a MAJCOM in achieving its 

mission. ATDs are managed and executed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. 
23

Advanced Concept Technology 

Demonstrations (ACTDs)

ACTDs are designed to respond quickly to an urgent joint or Service military 

need. They employ available technologies, which frequently have been successfully 

demonstrated in an ATD. Under ACTDs, systems are designed, fabricated, and then 

demonstrated in realistic combat exercises to gain an understanding of the military 

utility of the system, to support development of the associated CONOPS, and to 

place a limited but demonstrated capability into the hands of the warfighter at the 

conclusion of the ACTD without jeopardizing the warfighter’s safety or effectiveness. 

The Air Force leads several current ACTDs likely to play a significant role in providing 

transformational capabilities. They are discussed in Chapter VII and Appendix D.

Agile Acquisition

Developing and fielding weapon systems in today’s dynamic threat environment with 

rapidly evolving technologies demands changes to the process the Air Force uses to 

acquire those systems. Agile Acquisition is changing the way the Air Force delivers 

capability to the warfighter with two basic goals: decrease acquisition cycle time and 

increase credibility in executing programs. The bottom line is to achieve effects on the 

battlefield with today’s technology today rather than yesterday’s technology tomorrow. 

Achieving this aim requires collaboration among all the stakeholders in the acquisition 

process to include the warfighter, funding, engineering, test, S&T, program management, 

industry, contracting, sustainment, and others.

The Air Force and DoD began this transformation with complete revisions to the 

directives governing acquisition. The governing principles include encouraging 

innovation and flexibility, permitting greater judgment in the employment of 

acquisition principles, focusing on outcomes vice process, and empowering program 

managers to use the system versus being hampered by over-regulation. Development and 

delivery of integrated capabilities requires the flexibility to use innovative approaches 

such as evolutionary acquisition where capability is delivered to the field incrementally. 

The warfighter gets products delivered quickly, and the acquisition team has the 

opportunity to infuse emerging technology into the system and deliver full capability.

The next steps in Agile Acquisition include developing a collaborative requirements 

process, a seamless verification process, and a focused technology process. First, a 

collaborative requirements process will demand that the warfighter, acquirer, and tester 

work as one team at the outset and throughout the development or a weapon system. 

It is imperative to begin with a CONOPS and then define requirements, with the 

engineers and scientists helping the team understand the risks and the cost drivers of 

the current and/or evolving technology. Second, a seamless verification process will 

necessitate the merger of developmental and operational tests into complementary, 

synergistic activities. Third, a focused technology process will target limited science and 

technology resources on programs that directly support warfighter capability needs. 

Collaboration with the science and technology community will bring more mature 

technologies into programs, adding to capabilities and avoiding delays. 

Innovation
24

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Credibility is the key to Agile Acquisition. A collaborative approach between warfighters 

and acquirers in continuously performing risk management will be essential. Written 

agreements have been reached between the acquisition and requirements communities to 

continually engage in expectations management so that users and acquirers will remain in 

sync on all cost, schedule, and performance issues and program surprises will be reduced. 

Eventually, risks will drive cost, schedule, and performance tradeoffs. Collaboration is 

essential to tradeoff non-critical elements in the program and buy down risk. 

Air Force Tactical Exploitation 

of National Capabilities (TENCAP)

The Air Force TENCAP mission is to increase warfighter awareness and tactical use 

of national and other space systems through rapid prototyping and assisting in the 

identification and definition of possible warfighter application of emerging technologies 

and concepts. Air Force TENCAP is a non-traditional acquisition program that rapidly 

prototypes projects, validates proofs of concepts, and demonstrates capabilities and 

transitions them to the warfighter or to an appropriate System Program Office for 

further development and fielding within the operating forces. Air Force TENCAP also 

influences the development of emerging technologies for tactical users by providing 

inputs into the capabilities and development cycle of national, military, commercial, 

and civil space systems. Air Force TENCAP executes this portion of the charter 

through coordination and participation in the development process for future systems 

with laboratories and agencies. A final mission area is the education and training of 

operational forces in emerging technologies and concepts developed by Air Force 

TENCAP. A critical need exists to properly educate the provider on required warfighter 

capabilities as well as the environment of the operational user. Air Force TENCAP 

executes this portion of the charter by participating in combat or contingency 

operations, exercises, and project demonstrations worldwide.

Experimentation 

Air Force experimentation is a discovery process that facilitates achieving the Air 

Force Vision; identifies innovative and revolutionary operations and logistics concepts; 

evaluates the concepts and associated capabilities; and provides feedback through the 

operational innovation process and into the Air Force Corporate Structure. 

The remainder of this section addresses TPG guidance for the Service transformation 

roadmaps to describe how Service experimentation programs meet the TPG 

experimentation criteria (in bold below) and support OSD priorities for experimentation.

Scientific method and its role in US armed forces achieving competitive 

advantages: The Air Force uses the Scientific Method in its experimentation process, 

using the research question of whether the technology or process has operational utility 

to warrant fielding.
25

Experimentation in exercises and operations and considerations for design, 

data collection, analysis, and sharing results: The incentive for participation in 

capability-based experimentation is the possibility of securing funding to actually 

field the capability and, thus, significantly improve warfighting. The focus on 

experimentation is on near- to mid-term solutions to operational issues and a look at a 

larger solution scope than the Battlelabs. The Air Force conducts a variety of events and 

activities to investigate future operational concepts and desired operational capabilities. 

It also participates in large-scale field exercises and in both small- and large-scale field 

experiments, such as Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX). Prototyping of 

capabilities occurs in limited objective experiments or in a series of spirals leading up to 

the main event. 

Experimenting with virtual capabilities and threats to explore mid- and farterm transformational possibilities and experimentation with aggressive 

threats that include asymmetric capabilities, the possibility of technological 

breakthroughs, and span a variety of environments: As part of JEFX experiments, 

live-fly execution is conducted to validate the operational usefulness of experimental 

capabilities in a realistic environment. The Air Force leverages existing live-fly 

infrastructure at Nellis AFB, Nevada to execute the experiments in an efficient 

and safe manner and to combine live-fly, virtual, and constructive forces in an 

operationally realistic environment. JEFX applies air and space power in new and 

innovative ways to enhance Air Force distinctive capabilities and assess the operational 

utility of new concepts and capabilities. Virtual simulations such as Airborne Laser, 

F-35, and other futuristic capabilities can be part of JEFX modeling and simulation 

architecture, as required, to support desired scenarios. In addition, the Air Force CRRA 

process (described at the end of Chapter VI) includes extensive virtual capability 

experimentation to help decide what kind of capabilities, transformational or not, are 

required to achieve Air Force capabilities into the future.

The use of red teams supported with fenced funding and operating at the tactical, 

operational, and strategic levels: Futuristic threats such as advanced SAMs and space 

and information operations (IO) capabilities, including red teaming, are incorporated into 

modeling and simulation and scenarios to explore and define future requirements.

Institute procedures and establish repositories for capturing and sharing 

lessons learned: After each JEFX, the Air Force Experimentation Office publishes 

a JEFX Final Report and Final Briefing that captures the experiment lessons learned. 

Significant lessons learned are submitted to the Air Force Center for Knowledge 

Sharing and Lessons Learned in the Joint Universal Lessons Learned System format. 

The capabilities that perform successfully compete for JEFX Transition Funding and 

Warfighter Rapid Acquisition Program monies to get these capabilities out to the 

warfighter. For instance, the Master Air Attack Plan Toolkit participated in JEFX 02, was 

fielded, and aided the Air and Space Operations Center during OIF. Experimentation 

also supports requirements, acquisition, training and education programs, and the 

strategic planning process. Experimentation results, or findings, consist of the best 

“value added” recommendations for changes in DOTMLPF required to achieve the 

Air Force Vision. Experimentation results illuminate and underpin corporate Air Force 

Innovation
26

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

modernization decisions. The Air Force experimentation effort also leverages concepts 

and analyses from unified command, joint, DoD, Agency, coalition, and private sector 

experimentation and exercise programs for its planned, completed, and future events. 

For example, the Air Force experimented with its concept of Global Strike for the first 

time in JFCOM’s Millennium Challenge 2002. 

Consider the use of the Paul Revere concept in JEFX 02: Paul Revere is a Boeing 707 

aircraft used in a concept and technology demonstrator configured to demonstrate 

capabilities like wideband line-of-sight technologies in support of forward elements of 

Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, and Assess kill chain prosecution. Paul Revere was 

outfitted with commercial-off-the-shelf equipment and Air Force systems including 

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance-Manager, Theater Battle Management 

Core System, Automated Application for Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, 

Joint Services Work Station, Information Work Space, and Automated Deep Operations 

Coordination System. All battlefield information was displayed on 24 real-time 

reconfigurable operator workstations integrated into a wideband aircraft network linked 

to the ground via a line-of-sight tactical common data link. This demonstration and 

experimentation with emerging technologies allowed Air Force planners to close the 

seams between the operational and tactical levels of war with direct application to the 

recent Iraqi conflict.

Wargaming

Air Force wargames explore emerging and future operational concepts, capabilities and 

doctrine to evaluate the Service’s Strategic Plan and Vision and refine the Air Force 

Capabilities Investment Strategy in order to determine how air and space power can 

better support the joint commander and integrate with the other Services. 

In addition to conducting its own wargames, the Air Force also participates in other 

Service, OSD, and joint wargames. Air Force participation in the Army and Navy 

Title 10 wargames provides an excellent forum to highlight Air Force transformation 

initiatives and to examine how modern air and space power contributes to joint 

operations. Similarly, Air Force participation in OSD, Joint Staff, and other joint 

wargames explores the potential synergy of emerging joint concepts. Examples of Air 

Force participation in OSD/joint games include Pinnacle Impact, which is sponsored 

by JFCOM, the OSD Transformation Wargame series, and several other JFCOM 

wargaming events. Finally, there are several interagency efforts at varying classification 

levels that further augment and integrate the unclassified games. Wargame scenarios, 

concepts, and capabilities are conducted in future timeframes. 

To ensure that wargame players and other interested parties are on the “same sheet 

of music,” the Air Force maintains the “Air Force Toolbox,” a web-based database 

outlining the characteristics and capabilities of both current and future Air Force 

systems. The Air Force is also exploring ways to strengthen the linkages between 

wargaming and Air Force/joint experimentation.
27

Recognizing the uncertain environment in which future airmen may find themselves, 

the Air Force Chief of Staff directed that a recurring Air Force wargame, Global 

Engagement, explore emerging operational concepts and warfighting issues for 

employment of air and space power. Global Engagement examines the comprehensive 

application of air and space power to the joint fight beyond the current POM year. 

This game seeks to examine the totality of modern warfare on a level playing field. In 

a structured forum, military and policy experts highlight, discuss, explore, and define 

warfighting concepts and issues that can shape the future Air Force. 

To explore potentially transformational concepts more than fifteen years beyond 

the current POM year, the Air Force utilizes the Future Capabilities Game. Set 

approximately a decade beyond Global Engagement, the Future Capabilities Game 

explores alternative futures and force structures to support strategic planning inputs. 

The Future Capabilities Game works within the context of the Administration’s 

guidance and strategy to determine the Air Force capabilities most useful to the future 

joint force commander. Proponents of new concepts, capabilities, and emerging 

doctrine include these innovations in the wargames to explore their future potential 

and raise their visibility. Both Global Engagement and the Future Capabilities Game 

incorporate all six operational goals of transformation from the QDR in their play. 

Both games are played in a joint warfighting context using game players from OSD, the 

other Services, and other joint organizations.

Space wargames bring together leaders and planners from the Services, the intelligence 

community, commercial space providers, and departments, agencies, and offices to 

explore the in-depth integration of space into the joint fight. These wargames explore 

space warfare issues in detail. They examine mission partner equities as Executive Agent 

for Space; generate insights for Air Force Space Command, Headquarters Air Force, and 

DoD transformation; and provide cadre- building by bringing together the best strategic 

and operational minds to focus on the future of space power.

The Air Force also participates in the Focused Logistics Wargame, which facilitates 

assessments of new technology, current and proposed joint logistics doctrine, and 

current and new Desired Operational Capabilities required to meet Joint Vision 

2020 Focused Logistics Challenges. The game’s objective is to conduct joint logistics 

capability assessments over the full spectrum of operations and to debate and resolve 

issues affecting future combat support capabilities.

Modeling and Simulation (M&S)

The Air Force is working in conjunction with Joint Forces Command and the other 

Services to continue to improve modeling and simulation abilities to best serve the 

joint commander. The increased sophistication and robustness of modeling and 

simulation is enabling the creation of trade space for transformation in a low threat, 

yet realistic environment. The key for this to continue will be the development of a 

joint synthetic environment that allows for Rapid Scenario Generation for various 

theatres of operations. Such scenario generation will allow for mission rehearsal, new 

capabilities testing, and Course of Action Development in a Distributed Mission 

Operations environment.

Innovation
28

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Creating a Joint Synthetic Battlespace will allow DoD to train tailored forces for any 

scenario imaginable. Using Distributed Mission Operations, forces can be selected 

to meet national objectives and train together in a live, virtual, and constructive forum 

through the entire chain of command in a realistic and meaningful way. This capability 

will allow commanders the ability to test strategies and tactics in a way that is not possible 

today. The Air Force is expanding the Distributed Mission Operations and Distributed 

Mission Training initiative to allow commanders to train forces with a realistic mix 

of capabilities from the strategic level (joint battle staffs) to the tactical level (individual 

sorties). Distributed Mission Operations is a concept that integrates live, virtual, and 

constructive aspects into a single seamless joint/coalition training environment. Through 

simulation, assets that are seldom available live can be incorporated into a live exercise and/

or rehearsal. Connectivity to the Global Information Grid will allow Low Density/High 

Demand (LD/HD) assets to participate in training, exercises, or mission operations even 

when those assets are not available in the area of operation. 

For example, a JSTARS simulator located at Warner Robins Air Force Base might be 

“connected” to a Red Flag strike package so that the JSTARS is a seamless part of the 

live-fly operation. In other words, the same JSTARS sensor information is available to 

the exercise participants that would be available had the E-8 been located in an orbit 

supporting the Red Flag shooters. Expanding from the JSTARS-Red Flag example 

enables the Air Force to visualize a capability to practice missions requiring a “total 

team” environment where all the players and command and control are part of a 

realistic “virtual” battlespace where it is impossible to determine if a particular input 

comes from a live or virtual source.

To attain the Distributed Mission Operations vision, the Air Force has established 

three goals:

• Integrate and access war-altering capabilities across compartments and stovepipes 

before a crisis and judge the value to combat actions

• Provide a force seasoned to fight as if they had been in combat in that 

battlespace before

• Anticipate and counter enemy actions by achieving information superiority and 

Predictive Battlespace Awareness (PBA) through improved decision support

In addition, the Air Force is using the DoD concept of Advanced Distributed 

Simulation as a tool to create an integrated Air and Space Warfighting M&S 

architecture that includes a totally interoperable Joint Synthetic Battlespace. The Air 

Force M&S architecture will support analysis and training by linking together many 

types of simulations, from aggregate and detailed computer models to pilots in live 

aircraft and simulators to hardware components. 

The Joint Synthetic Battlespace will be a vehicle to develop future forces, concepts, 

systems, and doctrine in a simulated environment where Air Force roles and missions 

will be appropriately and accurately represented. The Air Force integrated M&S system 

will be manned and supported by experts and will represent the joint environment. It 

will also be affordable and efficient through reusable simulations with plug and play 

modules that have interoperability with joint, Service, and civilian environments.
29

Training Transformation

Training is integral to Air Force core competencies and the critical enabler for military 

capabilities. The Air Force is engaged with the other Services, unified commands, and 

OSD in developing and implementing a training transformation plan. The objective is 

to train as the Air Force will fight and increase the joint context of exercises through 

live, virtual, distributed, and constructive environments. This involves not only 

modernizing the integration of space and information operations in training ranges, 

but also planning for their sustainment to meet future test and training missions 

while implementing environmentally sound use and management to ensure long term 

availability. Future training will also likely include an increased emphasis on close air 

support, special operations forces, urban operations, joint/coalition command and 

control, and sensor training.

In addition to the Distributed Mission Operations and Distributed Mission Training 

initiatives described earlier, the Live, Virtual, and Constructive Training Capability

will enhance the kill chain by allowing the sensor-shooter links training time that is 

currently not available to due the LD/HD realities of the C4ISR assets. Linking of the 

three disparate environments improves both training availability and training value while 

increasing commander’s understanding of linkages within the kill chain. The realism 

achieved by this capability will further augment the commander’s desire to “be inside 

the opponent’s decision loop” and improve combat effectiveness.

Innovation
30

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan
31

V. Transforming Air Force 

Culture and Organization 

New aircraft, advanced weapons, and an endless variety of technologically 

advanced gadgets gain a great deal of attention, but they are by no 

means the beginning or the end of the transformation effort. Equally 

important, if less glamorous, are the organizational concepts that 

capitalize on the technological advances and allow the Air Force to 

transform. In addition, the process of transformation begins and ends with people. 

One of the Air Force’s primary core competencies—Developing Airmen—is defined 

by its senior leadership as the heart of combat capability. Only through the effective 

development of airmen and the seamless integration of their capabilities into Air 

Force operations can the Service optimize air and space power. To ensure its ongoing 

transformation, the Air Force must also modify its culture and the development 

of airmen to be conducive to transformation and then adapt its organization 

to institutionalize this new culture. This chapter describes key organizational 

transformation efforts within the Air Force in these areas.

Air and Space Expeditionary Force (AEF)

Despite a thirty percent reduction in manpower over the past twelve years, the 

Air Force has faced an exponential increase in worldwide taskings. This required 

significant changes in the way the Air Force trains, organizes, and deploys to support 

Joint Force Commander requirements. The AEF construct has been critical in 

transforming the Air Force from a threat-based, forward-deployed force designed 

to fight the Cold War to a capabilities-based force based primarily in the United 

States that is sufficiently flexible to conduct a wide range of operations throughout 

the world while accommodating the high operational tempo of today’s contingency 

environment. It has also been essential in creating a mindset that embraces the 

unique characteristics of air and space power—range, speed, flexibility, and precision.

This construct divides most Air Force Combat Air Forces and Expeditionary 

Combat Support resources evenly across five AEF pairs (for a total of ten AEFs). 

Each of the AEF pairs also includes some associated Mobility Air Forces and Low 

Density/High Demand resources. In addition to the forces assigned to a particular 

AEF, the AEF calls upon enabling forces such as Stealth, Space, ISR, on-call 

bomber elements, and other LD/HD assets to provide combatant commanders with 

tailored forces possessing the capabilities required to execute the mission. The 10 

AEFs (or five AEF pairs) are the mechanism through which the Air Force allocates 

available forces to meet the combatant commander requirements for rotational 

forces. Each AEF pair represents the Air Force capability to maintain a sustainable 

rotation of forces without surging. AEF rotational forces and forward permanentbased forces underpin the Air Force policy for providing global AEF presence.

Transforming Air Force Culture and Organization
32

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

The AEF incorporates a 15-month cycle during which two AEFs are designated 

as lead for a 90-day “eligibility” period. During this period, the two AEFs are 

either deployed or on alert for daily, worldwide expeditionary taskings. The 

remaining eight AEFs are simultaneously in various stages of reconstitution, 

training, or preparatory spin-up. Additionally, there is one Air Expeditionary 

Task Force (AETF 07) permanently forward deployed in the Republic of Korea. 

Forces for this AETF are sourced from the 10 AEF structure. Other AETFs 

are pre-designated and, when activated, will be sourced from the alert AEF 

pair. While Air Force combat forces cycle through deployment vulnerability 

periods, they sustain wartime readiness throughout the 15-month training and 

preparation cycle. The AEF cycle thus precludes the need for “tiered” readiness 

by allowing Air Force combat forces to remain current and capable for any 

contingency or operational plan. The first AEF cycle began on 1 October 1999 

and lasted through 30 November 2000. 

While ensuring necessary Air Force support for the Joint Force Commander, 

AEF cycles allow the Air Force and the Joint Force Commander a more 

predictable and stable environment in which to train, re-fit, and equip. In 

addition, AEF scheduling makes it easier and more feasible for the Air Force 

Reserve Component forces to bring their essential contributions to bear by 

allowing them to plan definitive absences from their civilian employment. This 

is a critical advantage of the AEF, as Air Reserve Component forces comprise 

nearly half of the forces assigned to AEFs and contribute the majority of forces 

for some mission areas.

Combat Aviation Advisory Squadrons

Theater strategies aimed at shaping the battlefield prior to the onset of crisis or 

war will be increasingly important as future battlefields become multinational 

with nontraditional coalition partners. US Special Operations Command has 

recently created a combat aviation advisory squadron to assist allies develop 

their airpower and associated combat support functional areas into a viable 

alternative to employing US assets. Combat Aviation Advisors play a major 

forward presence and engagement role by shaping foreign aviation forces 

capabilities to develop their own internal defense capabilities and integrate them 

as key team players for coalition operations. They also assist US combatant 

commanders and civilian agencies in planning and integrating foreign aviation 

forces into theater campaign plans, contingencies, and other joint and 

multinational activities. These enhanced organic, regional airpower capabilities 

will add stability and thereby shape the environment and promote stability 

without the need to project a large US force presence abroad. They also may 

possibly provide US access to bases if a crisis develops in the region. The Air 

Force is exploring options to significantly expand and enhance this initiative.
33

Combat Wing Organization

Based on lessons gleaned from expeditionary operations over recent decades, the Air 

Force created the Combat Wing Organization. The new wing organization allows 

commanders to fully develop within specific functional areas to plan and execute air 

and space power as part of expeditionary units, while also giving maintenance and 

support personnel focused career progression.

The new Combat Wing Organization establishes the Operations, Maintenance, Mission 

Support and Medical Groups. One of the key changes is the re-establishment of the 

Maintenance Group to focus effective use of maintenance resources. Another change is 

the Mission Support Group, that merges former support and logistics readiness groups 

and contracting and aerial port squadrons, as applicable. Within this group, the Air 

Force will hone expeditionary skills; to include personnel and logistics readiness, force 

protection, communications, contracting actions, bare base preparation, munitions and 

fuels site planning, and contingency beddown; and work with the joint system for load 

planning and deployment. Currently, all of these aspects exist in skill sets that no Air 

Force officer has in total. The new expeditionary support discipline will address this 

deficiency and provide Air Force officers the expertise in all aspects of commanding 

expeditionary operation. With this reorganization, each wing will now have one 

individual responsible for the full range of deployment and employment tasks—the 

Mission Support Group Commander.

This restructuring will retain the Operations Group. However, group commanders 

will become more active in the operational level of war. Squadron commanders will 

be role models for operators in the wings, ready to lead the first exercise and combat 

missions. Similarly, the Air Force will establish a maintenance group responsible for 

base-level weapons system maintenance and sortie- production rates. Like their operator 

counterparts, maintenance squadron and group commanders will be role models for all 

wing maintainers. As part of on-going medical transformation efforts, the Air Force will 

also develop options for consideration to enhance health service support.

Force Development 

Transforming the Air Force is not possible without a process to educate, train, and offer 

experience to the right mix of Active Duty, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and 

civilian airmen who understand the nature of the changing security environment. The 

Service has a much smaller force today that is experiencing a very high operational 

tempo while absorbing a high technological growth rate. As a result, the Air Force must 

better utilize the time and effort of its people so it best realizes their expectations while 

meeting the needs of the Service and the Nation. Force Development is designed to 

address these challenges. It can be defined as the series of experiences and challenges 

combined with education and training opportunities that produce Air Force leaders. 

Force Development is grounded in doctrine. It starts with a simple Force 

Development doctrine composed of three levels—tactical, operational, and strategic. 

At the tactical level, early in their career, airmen should concentrate on learning their 

primary skill. As they transition into the mid-grade ranks, they should begin to focus 

Transforming Air Force Culture and Organization
34

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

their skills more at the operational level. Airmen may pick up a complementary skill, 

and the focus should be on understanding the broader air force perspective. As Air 

Force personnel move into the senior ranks, they should begin to operate at the 

strategic level, with emphasis on combining their primary and complementary skills 

and experiences to develop an understanding of not only the Air Force but also how 

their mission integrates with the DoD, other agencies, allies, and coalition partners. 

At all three levels, education and training will be carefully tailored to help build the 

necessary skill sets.

Today, the Air Force has a “career path choice” that encourages the development 

of a deep perspective in a particular area, i.e., the development of a specialist. It 

is primarily focused on competency skills in a single Air Force Specialty Code. 

Careers are frequently stove-piped and development is often left to chance. The 

new Force Development concept recognizes the continued need for strong 

grounding in functional areas, but at the same time offers the means to achieve 

the wider perspective the Air Force needs within its leadership. Skill sets must 

be driven by requirements and focused on systemic development and enduring 

competencies. The Air Force has determined that there are clearly identifiable 

requirements for leaders who have experience in more than one career area. For 

example, the Air Force may need to grow some fighter pilots who understand 

space, some acquisition managers who understand plans and programs, and some 

space/missile operators who understand acquisition, etc. In the Force Development 

construct, the Air Force will best use the existing amount of time it has for all 

Developmental Education, training, and experiences, including assignments—all 

managed through one Development Team.

Developmental Education will be tied directly to Developmental Assignments. The 

Air Force will provide people with the education necessary both to enhance their 

primary occupational depth and to transition them into new skill areas where 

appropriate. Developmental Education will expand to include not only ISS in 

residence but possibly also highly selective advanced academic degree programs, 

education with industry, fellowships, and specialty schools. All will be tailored to the 

individual’s Development Plan and better meet Air Force needs.

This transformation in Force Development will touch all aspects of the Air Force 

force management system. It addresses: accessions, promotions, education and 

training, evaluations and feedback, information/decision support tools, and the new 

Development Teams, which will be the lynch pin in the development process. The 

resulting Force Development system, supported by investments in key technologies, 

will deliberately develop a force ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century. 

Future Total Force (FTF)

The Air Force Reserve Component is critical to enable air operations. For 

example, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, it flew nearly half of the C-17 and 

C-5 missions, 90 percent of the C-141 missions, and about 50 percent of the 

aeromedical evacuations. In addition, the Air Guard flew 43 percent of Air Force 

fighter sorties and 86 percent of the refueling sorties.
35

As the Service relies more on Guard and Reserve components to provide critical 

peacetime and wartime capabilities, it makes sense to allow some units the 

opportunity to live, work, and train together. FTF would allow each component 

to contribute its unique strengths to provide the capability, experience, stability, 

and continuity required to operate today’s information- and technologydriven forces. It would also enable the Air Force to make better use of basing 

infrastructure and maximize the utilization of expensive weapon systems.

One way to implement this is to expand the integration of Active and Reserve 

component units. Moving Guard and Reserve units with like assets to active 

bases or vice-versa could facilitate leaner, more efficient operations, maintenance, 

and infrastructure. The Air Force has already established units using this 

concept. Examples are the merger of the Air National Guard’s 116th Bomb 

Wing and Air Combat Command’s 93rd Air Control Wing to form the 116th

Air Control Wing (a Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System Blended 

Wing) at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia; and the integration of Air Force 

Reserve Command’s 8th Space Warning Squadron associated with Air Force 

Space Command’s 2nd Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base, 

Colorado. Reserve Associate and Active Associate units have proven that this 

concept works and benefits the Active and Reserve Units. Indeed, they have 

been used for the last 35 years. There are currently a total of 11,000 Air Force 

reservists assigned to associate units, including 32 Reserve Associate flying units. 

The movement of the 126th Air Refueling Wing from Chicago to Scott Air 

Force Base, Illinois represents another example of the efficient use of available 

infrastructure by different components.

Another possible area for integration is to expand the blending of Guard units 

across state lines to unify mission areas, reduce infrastructure, and improve 

readiness while preserving home station control. Active Integrated Reserve 

Component and Service boundaries could be blended to provide regional 

entities more useful for homeland defense (e.g., one that includes air defense, 

Army Guard state responders, and interagency links in a single location).

The Air Force will, per the new Air Force Strategic Planning Directive for Fiscal 

Years 2006-2023, develop options to better leverage all Air Force capabilities and 

expand Associate Unit programs and “Blended Wing” initiatives.

Human Capital Management Transformation

Underpinning the Service’s new Force Development construct, the Air Force 

Council has embraced a new Personnel Vision and new Personnel Strategic 

Planning Construct to transform human capital management. This is required 

to ensure that human capability development meets the ever-changing threat to 

the United States, addresses one of the new core competencies of the Air Force—

Developing Airmen, transforms the manner in which the Air Force delivers human 

resource support to customers, and enables the realignment of Manpower and 

Personnel under the same Headquarters Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff.

Transforming Air Force Culture and Organization
36

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

In the spring of 2003, the Air Force conducted three personnel vision and goal 

development sessions involving senior leaders of the manpower, personnel, 

and training community along with Reserve and Guard representatives. These 

discussions centered on the imperative to transform the Air Force personnel system 

to be agile and responsive to changing requirements while efficiently serving all 

airmen. It was clear the personnel community needed to shift thinking from how to 

meet a given threat to thinking in terms of developing capabilities for warfighters. 

What emerged from these sessions were a new Personnel Vision and a Personnel 

Strategic Plan to execute that vision.

The new Vision succinctly states the role of personnel professionals: Right People, 

Right Place, Right Time—America’s Airmen Creating The World’s Best Air Force. 

By accessing, developing, and sustaining the right people and having them at the 

right place ready to perform at the right time, airmen create the world’s greatest 

air and space power. This vision necessarily drives a new set of goals focused on a 

transformed view of the traditional personnel lifecycle, which forms the centerpiece 

of the new Personnel Strategic Plan.

The new Personnel Strategic Plan supports the President’s Management Agenda, 

incorporates feedback from a recent General Accounting Office report, and is 

directly linked to the new Air Force core competencies. Accordingly, the effectsbased strategy focuses on mission outcomes and needed capabilities while 

optimizing the Air Force’s return on investment in its people. This strategy also 

moves us from a regulatory-based construct to a performance-based construct where 

the measures of merit are successful mission outcomes. The new strategic goals 

focus on the effects of the personnel community’s mission:

• Define—Implement a capabilities-based requirements system that meets surge 

requirements and optimizes force mix (Active duty, Air Reserve Component, 

civilian, and contractors) to produce a flexible and responsive force.

• Renew—Maintain a diverse, agile workforce that leverages synergy between 

active duty, air reserve and civilian components, and private industry to meet 

requirements and sustain capabilities.

• Develop—Synchronize training, education, and experience to continuously 

create innovative, flexible, and capable airmen to successfully employ air and 

space power.

• Sustain—Sustain required force capabilities through focused investment in 

airmen and their families.

• Synchronize—Implement a robust strategic planning construct, understand 

Air Force Human Resources investment, and link programming and legislative 

development to the plan.

• Deliver—Transform customer service by delivering a leaner, more costeffective, customer-focused Human Resource Service to support the Air 

Expeditionary Force.
37

Innovative Infrastructure Transformation

“A primary objective of BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] 

2005, in addition to realigning our base structure to meet our 

post-Cold War force structure, is to examine and implement 

opportunities for greater joint activity. Prior BRAC analyses 

considered all functions on a service-by-service basis and, 

therefore, did not result in the joint examination of functions 

that cross services. While some unique functions may exist, 

those functions that are common across the services must be 

analyzed on a joint basis.

“Accordingly, the BRAC 05 analysis will be divided into two 

categories of functions:

• “Joint cross-service teams will analyze the common businessoriented support functions and report their results through the 

[Infrastructure Steering Group to the Infrastructure Executive 

Council (IEC)].

• “The Military Departments will analyze all service unique 

functions and report their results directly to the IEC.” 

 —The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

“The BRAC 2005 process is critical to the Air Force’s ability to 

successfully meet our future mission needs. We must not only 

reduce the budgetary demands from excess infrastructure, 

but also ensure that the resulting infrastructure can effectively 

support projected missions as well as provide maximum 

flexibility and efficiency for the future.”

—Dr. James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force

One way the Air Force will transform its industrial age infrastructure into an 

information age force is through the Congressionally mandated BRAC. This process 

uses carefully formulated data collection and analysis to find excesses and deficits in 

military capacity, which, in turn, helps determine the intrinsic value of a base. Foremost 

in DoD and Air Force analysis is military value—the ability to successfully meet mission 

needs while maximizing future flexibility and efficiency. 

Transforming Air Force Culture and Organization
38

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

BRAC 2005 goals are to:

• Maximize warfighting capability efficiently 

• Transform the Air Force by realigning infrastructure to meet future defense strategy

• Capitalize on opportunities for joint activity

• Eliminate excess physical capacity to maximize operational capability

In addition to the Future Total Force, discussed previously, potential infrastructure 

transformation options include:

• “City-Basing”: Some military bases can divest and privatize selected non-military/

non-critical facilities and functions to reduce the DoD’s infrastructure. Military 

installations usually are small cities that lend themselves to local management 

and operation, perhaps by the private sector, which allows military commanders 

to concentrate on military operations. However, DoD must not divest functions 

needed for military wartime or contingency requirements and must ensure troops 

have access to the same or better services for their money. 

• Joint Basing: Where sensible, the Services should combine assets on the same 

bases. By exploring a joint basing concept, the Services can facilitate rapid 

mobilization by stationing Continental United States (CONUS) units and assets 

closer to planned ports of embarkation. At the minimum, co-location simplifies the 

mobility challenge by turning bases into mini-transportation hubs to get troops and 

equipment down range more efficiently. In addition to the advantages of improved 

mobility, operational and support units will likewise benefit from joint integration 

in daily activities and large force, joint, and combined exercises. A prime example 

is the co-locating of the Services’ special operations forces, especially overseas, to 

reduce infrastructure requirements and enable improved training opportunities. 

Another possibility would be to co-locate or integrate Service and civilian satellite 

control assets.

• Restructure and/or combine Service acquisition organizations: The Air Force 

believes combining, merging, and/or co-locating selected acquisition and supply 

activities can achieve significant efficiency gains. Transforming Service-specific 

product centers into jointly managed centers for items such as avionics, aeronautics, 

weapons, fuels, supply, transportation, and a myriad of other common functions 

would eliminate functional overlap.

• Partner military depots’ workload with industry: Opportunities exist to 

partner with industry at government facilities to further reduce infrastructure 

requirements. In addition, future opportunities may exist to combine certain depot 

functions across the Services. A future partnership arrangement and joint depot 

function for the F-35 is a prime example. 

• Restructure/combine Service training activities and organizations: There 

are several promising opportunities in this area. For example, the Services could 

consolidate and/or co-locate commissioning sources or professional military 

education schools at all levels. The Services could also combine or merge Service 

specific test pilot schools and collocate test functions. Combining the Services’ 

range management offices into one joint management office would not only reduce 

overhead but also could produce more efficient use of a precious DoD resource. 
39

In support of the 2005 BRAC and the upcoming QDR, the Air Force, as directed by 

new Air Force Strategic Planning Directive for Fiscal Years 2006-2023, will:

• Identify current force structure capability to support Defense Strategy requirements

• Define Service force structure projections for the mid- and far-term in terms of the 

Air and Space Expeditionary Force

• Identify alternative force structure concepts and technologies to optimize 

potential investments

• Develop a long-term (through 2020) Air Force overseas posture plan to address:

Regional trends affecting US military access

New concepts for regional presence

Capabilities required to support forward deterrence and swiftly defeat 

operations in each of the four critical regions

Potential options for future changes to the Air Force’s overseas posture

Space Commission Implementation

The changes recommended in January 2001 by the Commission to Assess United States 

National Security Space Management and Organization, more commonly known as the 

Space Commission, have the potential for far-reaching transformation of defense and 

intelligence affairs. 

The Space Commission’s recommendations revolved around five matters of “key 

importance that need attention quickly from the top levels of the US Government”:

• US national security space interests must be recognized as a top national security 

priority with Presidential leadership. 

• The DoD and intelligence community are not properly organized to meet the 

national security space needs of the 21st century. A number of disparate space 

activities should promptly be merged, chains of command adjusted, lines of 

communication opened, and policies modified to achieve greater responsibility and 

accountability.

• The Secretary of Defense and Director of Central Intelligence must work closely 

and effectively together, in partnership, both to set and maintain the course for 

national security space programs and to resolve the differences that arise between 

their respective bureaucracies.

• The United States must develop the means both to deter and to defend against 

hostile acts in and from space.

• The United States must adequately invest in space-related science and technology 

facilities and people.

The Air Force embraced the Commission’s recommendations and worked with the 

other Services and intelligence community to implement its decisions to transform the 

way military space is managed and organized. These sweeping changes include career 

force development, acquisition, operations, budgeting, and planning at the national, 

DoD, and Air Force levels. The Secretary of the Air Force has been designated as 

the DoD Executive Agent for Space with broad responsibilities for developing and 

transforming national security space capabilities. The Space and Missile Systems Center 

Transforming Air Force Culture and Organization
40

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

has also been realigned under Air Force Space Command to enhance space professional 

development and provide “cradle-to-grave” management of space systems. In addition, 

the Air Force has developed a Space Career Management Plan to establish and sustain 

a cadre of space professionals. This plan addresses accession, retention, education and 

training, career path advancement, and methods for developing a space career field that 

combines research, development, acquisition, operations, and employment. 

Warfighting Headquarters (WF HQ)

The Air Force is presently exploring new organizational concepts to address the 

command and control and presentation of air and space forces in the 21st Century. 

While the Air Force has undergone a significant transformation from a “main 

operating base” mindset to an expeditionary Air Force, its organizational structure 

has changed very little. The main effort to reverse this course is captured in the Air 

Force White Paper and Briefing entitled the Transformational Warfighting Construct. This 

proposal would re-engineer the Air Force’s command structure to address current and 

future strategic objectives within anticipated fiscal restraints. The construct envisions 

the development of full spectrum, joint warfighting structures linked through a 

collaborative planning network. During the evolution of this construct, the Air 

Force will be able to proactively integrate with the proposed Standing Joint Force 

Headquarters while evolving to a fully joint air and space headquarters. 

The construct establishes ten warfighting organizations. Seven of these will be regionally 

focused and three will be globally focused. Each WF HQ will have an A-staff and an 

Air Operations Center (AOC). The WF HQs will be sized to effectively execute their 

mission. The headquarters will vary in size, depending on factors such as geographic 

location, responsibilities, and missions assigned. These WF HQs are intended to be 

led by a three or four-star general and will be the airman’s single voice to the Unified 

Combatant Commander (UCC). This reorganization is designed to enhance combat 

capability, integrate combat staffs with AOCs, and provide the UCC an air and space 

focused-warfighting structure supported by state-of-the-art warfighting command and 

control. Each WF HQ is focused on its warfighting mission—providing the air, space, 

information, and computer expertise to execute the National Military Strategy through 

the combatant commander’s plans. 

The AOCs included in this construct would not be the same. Some will be “Falconer” 

mobile AOCs. Some will be mobile but not along the Falconer design. Others like 

AFTRANS and AFSOF will be functionally built for their specialty. All WF HQs would 

be integrated into a robust communications network that will facilitate collaborative 

planning and the rapid transfer of AOC functions between headquarters in the event 

an AOC is taken down or during the initial movement/stand-up of a mobile AOC. A 

deployable “monster” AOC will be strategically located in CONUS to respond to loss 

or disruption to regional AOCs. 
41

VI. Transforming to a 

Capabilities-Based Force 

“In the future, we need to make warfighting effects and the 

capabilities we need to achieve them the driving factors 

in our transformational efforts....I want everyone in the 

business of inventing, developing, building, purchasing, 

and sustaining to understand this concept: the CONOPS 

are the foundation of our transformation efforts.” 

—Dr. James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force

“We are focused always on programs, always on platforms. We 

are going to change that. So that the first thing we talk about is the 

concept of operations. How we fight. Not only with ourselves but 

how we...join with the other Services, with coalition partners.”

—General John Jumper, Chief of Staff of the Air Force 

While adapting to the new strategic environment, the Air Force’s principal 

focus has been transitioning from a platform-based garrison force to a 

capabilities-based expeditionary force. Capabilities-based planning is a 

key tenant of both the 2001 QDR and the National Military Strategy. 

Capabilities-based planning focuses on developing Air Force capabilities 

that can and will be employed to achieve desired effects. The Air Force is committed 

to make effects and the capabilities needed to achieve them the driving force behind 

its ongoing transformation. In the future, all Air Force operational, programming, and 

budget decisions will be driven by a predefined capability. To make this essential shift, the 

Air Force has developed six CONOPS: Global Mobility, Global Response, Global Strike, 

Homeland Security, Nuclear Response, and Space&C4ISR. The Integration Champion 

ensures the operational capabilities integrate across the other CONOPS and that solutions 

from one CONOPS are applied appropriately.

The emerging CONOPS will help enable the shift to a capabilities-based POM by 

identifying the warfighting capabilities needed to successfully engage and defeat 

potential enemies. Responsibility for developing these CONOPS falls to the 

MAJCOMs, with a senior officer on the Air Force Headquarters Air Staff assigned to 

each CONOPS serving as their “Champion,” leading the process.

The Air Force is transforming around these CONOPS. In addition to serving as 

a roadmap for operators, the CONOPS construct will form the basis for resource 

allocation, future system acquisitions, and POM submissions in order to find 

capabilities-based solutions for warfighter problems.

This chapter summarizes each of the CONOPS and the CRRA process. 

Transforming to a Capabilities-Based Force
42

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

A. Global Mobility CONOPS 

The Global Mobility CONOPS supports the QDR transformation goal of global force 

projection and sustainment. Quick, effective response to any crisis or contingency mitigates 

instabilities and reduces adversaries’ time to mobilize threats, thereby reducing casualties to 

US and allied forces. The Global Mobility CONOPS represents a collection of Air Force 

capabilities designed to meet growing challenges to rapidly deploy US military forces and to 

initiate operations around the globe in minimal time. 

According to the Global Mobility CONOPS, the desired effect of these capabilities is the 

rapid projection and application of joint US military power. This primary effect is achieved 

through four effects mission areas.

• Power Projection through Air Mobility 

The seamless integration and effective conduct of air mobility operations with all 

theater operations.

Air Mobility Forces that have the capabilities to seamlessly integrate with joint and 

coalition forces across all theater boundaries in order to rapidly accomplish the 

objectives of the combatant commander. 

The assured ability to deploy, replenish, sustain, and redeploy joint forces in 

minimum time to allow them to accomplish the missions assigned to them 

through all phases of conflict.

• Power Projection through Global Command and Control 

Achieve minimum time lapse between the initiation of crisis action planning and 

the projection and application of joint US military power. 

Air Force expeditionary planning and force posturing to prepare Air Force 

forces for rapid, time sequenced deployment, employment, sustainment, and 

redeployment. 

• Power Projection through Expeditionary Air Bases 

Assured ability to mesh seamlessly with other forces (Army, Marine Corps, SOF) 

to open a base and establish air operations from a spectrum of airfields—austere 

base, cold base, warm base, and hot base (includes CBRNE environments). 

Achieve seamless transition from airfield seizure, to base opening, to force 

employment and sustainment in concert with theater-assigned mobility forces; 

includes the rapid, efficient redeployment of forces.

• Power Projection through Space Mobility

The ability to deploy, replenish, sustain, and redeploy space-based forces in 

minimum time to allow them to accomplish the missions assigned to them 

through all phases of conflict. The US space capability rests on the foundation of 

assured access. 

As the Global Mobility CONOPS develops, the force required to achieve this effect 

represents the overall impact of the Air Force capabilities to be presented to the Combatant 

Commander and, in turn, helps to define the future forces the Air Force will require to 

perform Global Mobility missions. The capabilities generally fall into the categories of: Air 

Refueling, Airlift, Global Command and Control, Base Opening/Standup, and Spacelift. 

The capabilities embodied in the Global Mobility CONOPS leverage the inherent 

characteristics of air and space power: speed, flexibility, and precision. 
43

B. Global Response CONOPS

The Global Response CONOPS describes the Air Force’s ability to globally attack 

fleeting or emergent, high-value and high-risk targets by surgically applying air and 

space power in a narrow window of opportunity, preferably in a manner that minimizes 

collateral damage. At the President’s direction, these tailored forces will strike single or 

multiple targets, with operational surprise, anywhere on the globe within hours and 

with some degree of persistence. The Global Response CONOPS accomplishes this 

by developing capabilities to: (1) anticipate world events through global situational 

understanding, (2) posture forces to respond without warning anywhere on the globe, 

and (3) neutralize fleeting and emergent targets before they pose a threat to the United 

States or its Allies. The Global Response CONOPS can operate independently or with 

other joint forces and will be equipped to strike with kinetic or non-kinetic assets. Its 

unique characteristics are its speed and responsiveness as it achieves its desired effects on 

an elusive target set. 

Traditionally, US military operations relied on deploying superior power against 

an adversary in a time-consuming build-up phase before beginning operations. To 

counter this, potential adversaries are acquiring advanced anti-access systems, including 

sophisticated air defense and surface attack capabilities, that threaten to discourage US 

intervention, disrupt coalitions, or prevent forces from operating at forward operating 

locations. Potential adversaries have become increasingly hesitant to oppose the US 

military force-on-force and are seeking new ways to counter American strengths. Instead, 

they are dispersing their critical systems into sensitive areas with high collateral damage 

potential, in deeply buried bunkers or tunnels, and employing asymmetric offensive 

capabilities such as terrorist acts, network attack, or subversive media campaigns that 

undermine coalitions and sway international opinion. Consequently, some US targets 

have changed from fixed, fielded forces to a series of fleeting and emergent targets. To 

combat them effectively, the United States must be able to respond swiftly, precisely, 

decisively, and globally so that it can attack with agile, concealed, and lean air and space 

power packages that will surprise the enemy at a time and place of our choosing, while 

causing minimal collateral damage. 

The Global Response CONOPS will require unique capability sets that include the 

ability to clandestinely deploy assets in and out of areas of interest. It will also require 

the ability to conduct clandestine surveillance and infiltration or extraction operations 

with other joint force packages. These forces will require common jam-resistant, secure, 

over-the-horizon communications and the ability to conduct machine-to-machine data 

exchanges in hostile electronic environments. The Global Response CONOPS requires a 

truly joint, integrated, and distributed mission rehearsal capability that exploits synthetic 

battlespace and refines combat operations at all levels from command to execution. 

Air and space forces require the ability to incorporate sensor-to-shooter, sensor-toweapon, and sensor-as-shooter architectures, in either independent air operations or air 

operations in support of, or with the support of, additional joint forces. Supporting ISR 

must have the capability to rapidly find, fix, target, track, and assess a full spectrum of 

fixed, mobile, and CBRNE target sets. Moreover, all of these capabilities must mesh to 

enable highly distributed and decentralized operations, over large and dispersed areas of 

operations, while maintaining low signature and visibility. 

Transforming to a Capabilities-Based Force
44

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C. Global Strike CONOPS

Potential adversaries have become increasingly reluctant to oppose the US military 

using force-on-force. Instead, they seek new and asymmetric ways to counter American 

strength. For example, potential adversaries are acquiring advanced anti-access systems 

and developing and acquiring weapons of mass destruction to threaten America and 

discourage intervention, disrupt coalitions, or deny access. 

The effects that Global Strike CONOPS capabilities generate are twofold: (1) gain and 

maintain battlespace access, and (2) High Value Target destruction. In order to achieve 

these effects, Global Strike capabilities will employ C4ISR, mobility, agile combat 

support, strike operations, and personnel recovery. Together, these capabilities will 

rapidly counter adversary anti-access systems and create the conditions required to gain 

and maintain access for follow-on joint force entry operations. Concurrently, Global 

Strike assets enabled by these conditions will destroy/neutralize High Value Targets and 

establish personnel recovery operations. 

Pre-conflict, Global Strike assets employing persistent C4ISR, as described in the 

Space&C4ISR CONOPS, will gain Predictive Battlespace Awareness to locate fixed targets 

and predict an adversary’s probable courses of action, rapidly deploy forces directly from 

CONUS and forward-based home stations as described in the Global Mobility CONOPS, 

and utilize Agile Combat Support to sustain deployed operations. At the start of conflict, 

Global Strike capabilities will “kick down the door” into denied battlespace by rapidly 

degrading, and then defeating, the adversary’s battle-space awareness and anti-access 

capabilities, clearing the way for joint persistent follow-on operations. 

Theater threat levels may initially require large ISR and command and control 

platforms to remain over-the-horizon or require assets in space. Global Strike 

capabilities will: (1) fuse joint, coalition, inter-agency, and civil battlespace 

information; (2) employ manned, unmanned, and space assets in an expeditionary 

sensor constellation to develop and maintain an accurate view of the battlespace; and 

(3) conduct over-the-horizon communications and machine-to-machine data exchange 

in a hostile electronic environment. 

In the initial hours of conflict, the Global Strike capabilities will gain access into denied 

battlespace by rapidly degrading, and then defeating, the adversary’s C4ISR, anti-access 

weapons, and CBRNE weapons and delivery systems. Systems engaged will most likely 

be low-observable, remote, and standoff supported by focused information operations 

and guided by flexible, responsive command and control systems.

The Global Strike CONOPS is a transformational concept. Its capabilities will enable 

joint warfighters to collaboratively improve and develop the proper balance between: 

(1) stand-off, low-observable, human, and expendable sensors; (2) sensor-to-shooter and 

shooter-as-sensor methods; (3) centralized and decentralized command and control; (4) 

bandwidth requirements and availability; (5) manned and unmanned platforms; (6) air, 

surface, and space platforms; and (7) kinetic and non-kinetic weapons. 
45

D. Homeland Security CONOPS

The objective of this CONOPS is to aid in the transformation of Air Force homeland 

security planning, programming, requirement, and acquisition processes through Air Force 

capabilities that support the National Strategy for HLS objectives, DPG, and the QDR. 

The Homeland Security CONOPS addresses three primary problem areas: (1) defending 

the homeland through air and space power in an interagency environment within 

legal and resource constraints; (2) ensuring proactive coordination with and responsive 

actions to requests for assistance from local, state, and lead federal agencies without 

compromising combat mission capabilities; and (3) preserving the ability to project 

forces overseas in a terrorist threat environment and provide for their protection. This 

CONOPS encompasses only those missions with points of effort within the territories 

of the United States and its littoral waters out to 500 nautical miles. Many elements 

of the HLS mission are employed overseas, including most operational theater missile 

defense systems. However specific roles, missions, and budget responsibilities are yet to 

be determined. 

Based on its large perimeter, porous borders, and societal emphasis on freedom of 

travel, the United States remains vulnerable to asymmetric attack. As a result, the Air 

Force must be prepared to contribute to HLS across the spectrum—whether facing 

specific weapons (such as CBRNE) or non-kinetic cyber and psychological attacks. 

More significantly, the domestic character of the HLS mission connotes that force 

employment, especially ISR, must occur within the guidelines set forth by law. Analysis 

for the HLS CONOPS begins with Air Force operational capabilities to which legal 

and policy restrictions are applied. Provisions within Title 10, 32, and 50 of the United 

States Code define legal roles and actions for domestic employment of both forces and 

intelligence gathering assets. 

The National Strategy for Homeland Security establishes three prioritized objectives: 

(1) prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, (2) reduce America’s vulnerability 

to terrorism, and (3) minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur. 

The desired effects provided by the capabilities identified in this CONOPS fall into 

three major areas that parallel the objectives set forth in the National Strategy for HLS: 

prevent, protect, and respond. 

To prevent attacks against the United States, the Air Force must have the ability to 

deter, detect, predict, and preempt threats to the homeland, particularly those that 

target friendly resources through the air and space medium. Protection of critical 

infrastructure, as defined by the DoD and the National Security Council, must ensure 

continuity of operations, continuity of government, and must preserve key national 

capabilities, resources, and landmarks during elevated threat conditions. The Air Force 

must be capable of defeating adversary threats via the Air Sovereignty Alert network, 

missile defense, unique capabilities to disarm or disable CBRNE weapons, and precision 

conventional strikes within the US or the littorals. It also requires the appropriate level 

of protection or procedures necessary to survive and operate through a CBRNE attack 

or incident. 

Transforming to a Capabilities-Based Force
46

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Homeland security is an exceedingly complex mission. It demands a range of 

government and private sector capabilities. It calls for coordinated and focused effort 

from many actors who are not otherwise required to work together. The Air Force 

will conduct operations consistent with US law as tasked in support of combatant 

commanders, especially US Northern Command, to preserve DoD’s ability to project 

forces and provide support to civilian authorities. 

E. Nuclear Response CONOPS

Now and in the coming decades, the United States is likely to face adversaries 

possessing a wide range of capabilities, to include CBRNE weapons, which threaten 

the survival of the United States and its allies. These adversaries include those who 

support terrorists, have active CBRNE programs, and are developing capabilities to 

reach forward-deployed US forces as well as US and allied population centers. The 

ability to deter such adversaries, especially those with authoritarian, unconstrained, 

and unpredictable leaders, is uncertain. While CBRNE threats are not new, the nature 

of potential adversaries and the methods they may use have dramatically changed. 

Therefore, the ways the United States addresses these threats must transform.

The Congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review, completed in December 2001, 

put into motion a major change in DoD’s approach to the role of nuclear offensive 

forces in its deterrent strategy and presents a transformational blueprint for a new 

strategic posture. The Nuclear Posture Review established a New Triad composed of 

offensive strike systems, both nuclear and non-nuclear; defenses, both active and passive; 

and a revitalized defense infrastructure—all bound together by enhanced command and 

control and intelligence systems. The addition of defenses and non-nuclear conventional 

capabilities, combined with information operations, will both reduce US dependence 

on nuclear weapons and improve the ability to deter attack in the face of proliferating 

CBRNE. The new capabilities, described in the Nuclear Posture Review, reduce the 

risk to the United States as it draws down its nuclear forces toward a goal of 1,700-

2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The Review also describes the 

shift from a threat-based planning construct to a capabilities-based planning construct, 

recognizing the new relationship between the United States and Russia following the 

collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

A vital element of the New Triad, the Nuclear Response CONOPS fully supports this 

new concept by providing safe, reliable, and proficient nuclear forces. Capabilities 

within the Nuclear Response CONOPS act as the AEF top cover, providing the 

deterrent umbrella under which joint conventional forces operate. They help to deter 

nuclear attacks and dissuade any adversary from employing nuclear threats to coerce 

the United States, its forces, or its allies. They also contribute to deterring other 

CBRNE attacks, as well as major conventional aggression, that endanger US or allied 

vital interests. If deterrence fails, the Nuclear Response CONOPS links nuclear strike 

forces with command, control, information, and adaptive planning capabilities to 

jointly defeat the enemy, through a variety of nuclear attack options, and to reestablish 

deterrence upon conflict termination. The critical capabilities of the Nuclear Response 

CONOPS include joint ISR; joint nuclear command and control; joint nuclear strike 

forces, strategic and non-strategic; and joint support forces. 
47

F. Space&C4ISR CONOPS 

This CONOPS’ fundamental objective is to identify and define Space&C4ISR 

capabilities needed by the Air Force to achieve the right mix of assets for supporting 

joint and combined operations at all levels of conflict and in all operational 

environments. The Space&C4ISR CONOPS seeks to guide the development of 

advanced space, command and control battle management, and C4ISR systems to 

provide Predictive Battlespace Awareness, facilitate precision attack, and compress 

the sensor-to-shooter Kill Chain. Ultimately, the Space&C4ISR CONOPS advocates 

the evolution of strategic, operational, and tactical capabilities that result in globally 

responsive and persistent forces that become the centerpiece of Joint Command and 

Control architectures. Space&C4ISR assets deliver decision dominance, the key to 

gaining supremacy in all environments while ensuring force protection for US soldiers, 

sailors, marines, airmen, and non-combatants.

ISR provides warfighters with information on the constantly changing battlespace. ISR 

must be available at all echelons of the joint warfighting force. This capability must 

employ manned and unmanned, air, space, surface, and subsurface sensors to develop 

and maintain an accurate picture of the battlespace. Additionally, the cooperation of 

multiple Services and organizations is required to enhance the provided information. 

These organizations must share planning and execution information across multiple 

security levels and work with development organizations so databases are shared and 

command and control capabilities are interoperable across multiple theater battle 

management systems. ISR management must include the ability to dynamically 

operate in a networked environment to compress the Kill Chain and conduct effective 

predictive operations. Predictive analysis derived from Target Development and 

Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, integrated with ISR planning and operations, 

come together to form an Air Force concept called Predictive Battlespace Awareness. 

Intelligence operators will use PBA to provide detailed assessments of an adversary’s 

intentions, capabilities, objectives, and potential courses of action, which will enable 

commanders to seize and maintain the initiative and create conditions to produce 

desired effects. The goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the battlespace 

in time, space, and effect, regardless of the adversary, location, opposition, weather, or 

time of day. Predictive actionable intelligence, based on timely, pertinent, and accurate 

information, is essential to commanders and decision makers at all levels.

The Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment 

In order to precisely assess each CONOPS, the CRRA identifies and analyzes current 

and future capabilities, capabilities’ shortfalls, health, risks, and opportunities. The 

CRRA is a twofold process: each CONOPS executes a CRRA within its effects and 

capability purview. Then, an Integrated CRRA assesses capabilities and capability 

shortfalls across all CONOPS. The CONOPS first identify desired warfighting effects 

and then develop top-level capabilities required to generate those effects. The CRRAs 

then identify capability gaps, overlaps, and robustness within each top-level capability. 

Finally, the Integrated CRRA identifies an acceptable level of risk and risk mitigation 

measures within each capability. This assessment helps the CONOPS Champions 

articulate any disconnects between required capabilities and programs. 

Transforming to a Capabilities-Based Force
48

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

During each CONOPS CRRA, the CONOPS Champion and Risk Assessment Teams 

will: (1) identify their CONOPS desired effect(s) and top-level capabilities; (2) review 

existing and planned programs, S&T, and special access programs; (3) determine 

strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities; and (4) assess capabilities based on analysis 

of the capability to deal with an adverse event and the impact if the Service fails to 

provide the capability to achieve the required effects. This analysis will: (1) provide 

senior Air Force leaders an operational, capabilities- and risk-based focus for investment 

decision-making across the DOTMLPF spectrum and (2) achieve the goal of using 

operational warfighting effects as the drivers for resource allocation for the Air Force. 

This process is transformational as it concentrates on desired battlespace effects vice 

specific platforms. 

Metrics to measure the Air Force’s progress towards “transformation” will be derived 

from this analysis once the CONOPS and CRRA processes have been finalized and 

specific required capabilities determined.
49

VII. Developing 

Transformational 

Capabilities 

“Our legacy aircraft systems were built with specialized roles 

and they were very good. But we have limited networking, 

limited all-weather delivery and limited stand off and our sensors 

are only partially integrated. Our deployments require large 

logistics tails and we currently employ stealth only at night...

The force we are building...will employ multi-mission systems 

with multi-spectral fused air and space sensors and robust allweather weapons delivery with increased standoff capability. 

We will deploy with reduced logistics tails. We will attack with 

improved range, payload, speed, maneuverability and precision. 

We will network these systems in ways that enable us to find, 

fix, track, target, engage and assess in timelines unimaginable 

just a few years ago. It is our goal to have consistent, persistent 

intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and, once a 

decision to attack is made, we will attack instantaneously.”

—Dr. James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force 

One of the Air Force’s three core competencies is “technology-towarfighter” or translating vision into operational capabilities in order to 

prevail in conflict and avert technological surprise. This process flows 

from vision to military strategy and effects, to concepts, to capabilities, 

to requirements, and then to programs, with the new CONOPS 

as the primary driver of capability requirements, both transformational and nontransformational. While most of the CONOPS are still in the preliminary stages of 

development, the Air Force anticipates there are 16 “transformational” capabilities, 

consistent with the discussion of transformation in Chapter II, based on preliminary 

analysis. They represent capabilities the Air Force cannot achieve today or must be 

significantly improved to enable the new CONOPS and DoD’s transformation goals:

1. Seamless joint machine-to-machine integration of all manned, unmanned, 

and space systems

2. Real-time picture of the battlespace 

3. Predictive Battlespace Awareness 

4. Ensured use of the information domain via effective information assurance and 

information operations 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
50

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

5. Denial of effective C4ISR to adversaries via effective information operations 

6. Penetration of advanced enemy air defenses to clear the path for follow-on 

joint forces 

7. Effective and persistent air, space, and information operations beyond the range 

of enemy air defenses under adverse weather conditions

8. Protection of vital space assets

9. Denial of an adversary’s access to space services

10. Detection of ballistic and cruise missile launches and destruction of those 

missiles in flight

11. Order of magnitude increase in number of targets hit per sortie

12. Achievement of specific, tailored effects on a target short of total destruction 

13. Rapid and precise attack of any target on the globe with persistent effects

14. Rapid establishment of air operations, an air-bridge, and movement of military 

capability in support of operations anywhere in the world under any conditions 

15. Responsive launch and operation of new space vehicles and refueling/repair/

relocation of existing vehicles

16. Significantly lighter, leaner, and faster combat support to enable responsive, 

persistent, and effective combat operations under any conditions

This chapter organizes the transformational capabilities under the six distinctive Air 

Force capabilities identified and defined in the Air Force Vision: 

• Air and Space Superiority: the ability to control what moves through air and 

space to ensure freedom of action

• Information Superiority: the ability to control and exploit information to 

the Nation’s advantage to ensure decision dominance 

• Global Attack: the ability to engage targets anywhere, anytime to hold any 

adversary at risk

• Precision Engagement: the ability to deliver desired effects with minimal risk 

and collateral damage to deny sanctuary to the adversary

• Rapid Global Mobility: the ability to rapidly position forces anywhere in the 

world to ensure unprecedented responsiveness

• Agile Combat Support: the ability to sustain responsive, persistent, and 

effective combat operations

This chapter also presents a preliminary look at programs, ACTDs, and future 

system concepts (in italics) the Air Force anticipates will help enable these 16 

transformational capabilities (see Appendix D for very brief descriptions of 

them) based on current information and guidance. It distinguishes between 

those programs and future system concepts expected to come on-line in the 

near-term (through 2010), the mid-term (between 2010 and 2015), and the longterm (past 2015). 

There are several very important caveats concerning these transformational 

capabilities and associated programs/future system concepts:

• The nature and details concerning these capabilities and associated 

programs/future system concepts are subject to change. Because the new 

Air Force CONOPS are still under development, it would be preliminary at 
51

this point for the Air Force to provide a final, definitive list of transformational 

capabilities and necessary programs to enable the capabilities. As the CONOPS and 

CRRAs are completed, this chapter will be updated in future editions. 

• Achieving many of these transformational capabilities will require more 

than the combination of key programs and future system concepts listed 

here. Many programs associated with these capabilities are too small (and would 

be too numerous to list here comprehensively) and/or classified and, thus, are not 

included in this document. Where possible, the chapter groups smaller programs 

into broad categories. As a result, any comprehensive cost analysis of what the Air 

Force spends on programs that will enable the sixteen transformational capabilities 

would need to extend beyond the programs listed here. 

• In addition to the key programs listed here, realizing these sixteen capabilities 

will also require the development of relevant DOTMLPF and concepts of 

operations that maximize their transformational potential. The right people 

must be organized, trained, and supported the right way to realize the transformational 

potential of these programs and future system concepts. This will also require 

additional costs that are not reflected in funding figures for these capabilities.

• The capabilities described here do not represent a comprehensive look 

at all the capabilities under development by the Air Force. They only 

focus on what the Air Force now considers “transformational” capabilities. 

There are numerous other critical capabilities under development by the Air 

Force not included in the Flight Plan. That they are not listed does not make 

them less important. 

A.Information Superiority 

Air Force doctrine defines information superiority as the “degree of dominance that 

allows friendly forces the ability to collect, control, exploit, and defend information 

without effective opposition.” Put simply, this means getting the right information in the 

right format to the right place at the right time while denying the same to the adversary. 

Information superiority combines robust, tailored C4ISR, and weather capability with 

effective information operations. At the operational level of war, IO are comprised of 

Network Warfare Operations, Influence Operations, and Electronic Warfare Operations. 

Most operations rely on achieving and maintaining information superiority. 

A Key Enabler of Transformation 

Information superiority is a key enabler of the type of revolutionary change described 

by RMA advocates in Chapter II, including effects-based operations and parallel 

warfare. It would allow US forces to select the precise targets necessary to achieve 

desired effects and focus on the quality, rather than the quantity, of targets attacked. 

For example, American forces could identify an adversary’s key centers of gravity and 

relay that information to combat forces in near real-time. Combined with precisionguided weapons, information superiority will enable US forces to attack and destroy 

the adversary’s centers of gravity in a particular sequence that would be the most 

devastating to the adversary. This capability can defeat an enemy’s forces by disabling 

its ability to function rather than by traditional mass attrition warfare (or achieve “demassed forces” to use TPG terminology).

Developing Transformational Capabilities
52

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Similarly, information superiority, coupled with rapid precision strike and global 

attack capabilities, would enable the United States to deny sanctuary to its adversaries 

by being able to strike elusive, mobile targets such as terrorists, targets in urban 

environments, or CBRNE-related materials as soon as they emerge. Recent operations 

in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated the immense potential of this capability. 

In Afghanistan, when targets presented themselves, special operations forces on the 

ground immediately communicated their locations to B-52s loitering in the vicinity 

armed with precision-guided weapons. Similarly, Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicles 

(UAVs) relayed live video images of enemy targets to AC-130 gunships patrolling in 

Afghanistan, which then could rapidly engage the targets before they could hide 

again. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, when a ground source reported that Iraqi 

leader Saddam Hussein and his sons might be in a particular building, it took less 

than twelve minutes for an airborne B-1B bomber to strike the building with four 

Global Positioning Satellite (GPS)-guided munitions. Future global strike capabilities 

will greatly expand this “quick strike” capability beyond the theater-level to the 

strategic-level. 

Even if these effects were not possible, information superiority would also enable 

the US military to achieve “decision cycle dominance” through speed of command, 

shared awareness, self-synchronization, and eliminating process and structural lines. 

This would allow friendly forces to act and react much more rapidly and effectively 

than any adversary who lacks these capabilities, creating significant military 

advantages. Information superiority can provide the commander information on 

adversary intentions and courses of action before and during crises, identify and 

develop target solutions that enable him to achieve his objective, position ISR assets 

to provide him a clear battlespace picture, and provide him a means to assess the 

results of his actions. This capability is enhanced through the integration of sensors, 

command and control, and Tasking, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination

(TPED) systems to provide the commander with situational awareness in all 

conditions to enable increased speed of command as well as Blue Force Tracking to 

minimize fratricide. While technology will never completely overcome the “fog of 

war,” achieving information superiority could certainly minimize that fog for US 

forces and maximize it for the enemy. 

Information superiority enables additional transformational benefits: 

• Because it would enable the United States to conduct operations with smaller forces 

in many situations, it would greatly enhance America’s ability to rapidly deploy 

forces abroad, which is key in the post-Cold War security environment. 

• By avoiding the need for massive attrition tactics, information superiority would 

also result in far fewer casualties and collateral damage under most circumstances. 

• Under the right circumstances, effective IO capabilities, to include network attack, 

electronic warfare, PSYOP, military deception, and public affairs operations, could 

prevent hostilities by influencing adversaries to capitulate before the shooting starts, 

thus greatly enhancing America’s “deter forward” capability. 

• Information superiority will significantly enhance virtually all types of operations 

ranging from high intensity combat to counterterrorism, urban operations, 

homeland security, peace operations, and special operations. 
53

2

 Robert Haffa, Christopher Bowie, and Robert Mullins, “Future War: What Trends in America’s Post-Cold War Military 

Conflicts Tell Us About Early 21st Century Warfare,” Northrop Grumman (January 2003), 50-51.

• Information superiority can provide commanders with the flexibility to adjust 

ISR support between theaters as the worldwide situation dictates, while allowing 

national-level leadership adequate time to develop plans on how to employ all 

elements of national power. 

Information superiority capabilities will also provide the foundation of the 

Space&C4ISR CONOPS, whose goal is to achieve horizontal machine-to-machine 

integration of manned, unmanned, air, surface, information, and space systems to 

provide executable decision-quality knowledge to commanders in near real-time. 

Information superiority is also essential to achieve the other new Air Force CONOPS. 

For example, the Global Strike CONOPS has the requirement to employ persistent, 

all-weather C4ISR prior to and during conflict. In the initial hours of a conflict, the 

Global Strike CONOPS would also use IO, among other tools, to gain access to denied 

areas and proactively establish an information battlespace friendly to further operations. 

Similarly, the Global Response CONOPS intends to use IO as a tool to rapidly strike 

terrorist targets anywhere in the world. The Homeland Security CONOPS has the 

requirement for the defense of critical infrastructure including information systems, 

which will require IO capabilities. 

Progress Towards Information Superiority

During the 1990s, the Air Force made significant progress in improving its information 

superiority capabilities. It has greatly increased the number of quality sensors, multisensor platforms, and the capability to process, analyze, and distribute data quickly over 

vast distances. This has led to an order of magnitude increase in situational awareness 

and the capability to conduct operations more flexibly and rapidly. The Air Force has 

made substantial gains in communicating information through the Global Information 

Grid and should have a small-scale horizontal integration capability as soon as 2006. 

ISR sensors have been mounted on air breathing platforms such as the E-3B/C 

Airborne Warning and Control System, RC-135, and U-2. The United States also 

developed the E-8C JSTARS, which can detect moving targets over an area 10,000 

times greater than the same radar attempting to provide a high-resolution image. The 

computational power onboard the JSTARS also increased 200 times from the Gulf War 

to Serbia and continues to rise today. In addition, in 1991, sensor data transmitted over 

line-of-sight links encountered routine delays. By 1999, U-2 imagery was transmitted 

instantly to the United States via satellite links, analyzed, and promptly relayed 

electronically to the Combined Air Operations Center in Italy.2

Recent operations recently demonstrated the incredible effects that information 

superiority can have on the battlefield. Weapons conceived in the 1970s and 1980s, and 

fielded in the 1990s, now are having a revolutionary effect on combat. A variety of joint 

systems and precise weapons, aircraft like the JSTARS, remotely piloted aircraft, UAVs, 

a generation of space assets, and the ability to integrate them all proved decisive in 

Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
54

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

In addition, this improved integration of sensors, networks, and the TPED process has 

enabled very flexible and adaptive operations. During Operation Desert Storm, only 20 

percent of sorties received their targets or had their targets changed after launch. This 

increased to 43 percent during Operation Allied Force and 80 percent during Operation 

Enduring Freedom. Initial data shows that more than 90 percent of sorties during 

Operation Iraqi Freedom received updated target information enroute. This gave the 

joint commander immense flexibility to adjust to the rapidly changing operational and 

tactical situation and enhance effects-based operations. 

Remaining Obstacles

Despite these gains, however, there are still many obstacles to achieving the full 

potential of information superiority under many circumstances today: 

• There is still significant progress to be made in rapidly getting timely, 

accurate, and relevant intelligence from sensors-to-shooters (actionable 

intelligence in a usable format) in single-digit minutes. 

• Battlespace awareness information is often reactive in nature and rapidly 

loses relevance. Targeting decisions often are made too far away from the 

warfighter to effectively engage mobile targets. 

• It is still very difficult to integrate rapidly expanding data streams from 

multiple sources in a timely manner. 

• Commanders often do not have a clear, accurate real-time picture of the 

battlespace. 

• The military still cannot assess, plan, and direct air and space operations 

from anywhere or from multiple locations in near real-time, something the 

Air Force believes will be necessary in the future to give the commander the 

greatest flexibility to meet national tasking.

• Computer network and information systems are often vulnerable to attack. 

• There is limited ability to disrupt adversary C4ISR assets and information flow. 

• “Tribal” platforms and procedures within the Air Force still must be 

integrated using information technology. 

• New and planned C4ISR systems require a lot of additional bandwidth. 

• Lack of data standards inhibits use and exploitation of Artificial 

Intelligence capabilities.

• The Air Force lacks a scalable C4ISR system that can support operations 

across the spectrum of conflict.

• The Air Force has not developed all necessary protocols for machine-tomachine interfaces. 

• The Air Force still needs to evaluate its current systems and determine 

what they can contribute to its capabilities and what tools are necessary to 

transform those systems from a collection of platforms into a networked 

system that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. 
55

Related Transformational Capabilities

The following related transformational capabilities, when achieved simultaneously, will 

address these shortfalls and enable information superiority under most circumstances:

1. Seamless joint machine-to-machine integration of all manned, 

unmanned, and space systems

2. Real-time picture of the battlespace 

3. Predictive Battlespace Awareness 

4. Ensured use of the information domain via effective information 

assurance and information operations

5. Denial of effective C4ISR to adversaries via information operations

The seamless joint machine-to-machine integration of all manned, 

unmanned, and space systems, not just Air Force systems, will ensure that the 

right information gets the right place at the right time and numerous DoD and 

national assets are interfaced. This includes integrating multi-spectral information 

across the intelligence disciplines. The Air Force, as directed by the Air Force Strategic 

Planning Directive for Fiscal Years 2006-2023, will develop a master plan to achieve this 

machine-to-machine integration. 

While machine-to-machine interfacing is one step to reducing decision cycles, 

decomposing data into readily accessible items by any information technology 

capability is vital as it lays the foundation for future developments, encourages 

advancements in artificial intelligence capabilities, and eliminates the need to re-engineer 

data as these capabilities evolve. Industry and government research into neural networks 

and artificial intelligence would be significantly enhanced if there were structured data 

to process against. Using technology to make even first-degree correlations would 

greatly reduce manual research processes.

Real-time picture of the battlespace includes the following two transformational 

capabilities from the recently completed Strategic Master Plan: FY04 and Beyond by Air 

Force Space Command: (1) an initial space-based Ground Moving Target Indicator 

capability in the mid-term to provide US global strike forces with the ability to identify 

and track moving targets anywhere on the surface of the earth and (2) a far-term 

capability to detect, locate, identify, and track a wide range of strategic and tactical 

targets that the United States currently has minimal capability to detect. These include 

weapons of mass destruction, hidden targets, and air moving targets. Real-time picture 

of the battlespace also includes Blue Force Tracking capabilities that enable the Joint 

Force Commander to know where all friendly forces are to both better coordinate 

operations and avoid fratricide. 

Predictive Battlespace Awareness, discussed in the last chapter, is a commanderdriven process to predict and preempt adversary actions when and where we choose. 

PBA is an integrated process involving Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, 

Target Development, ISR Strategy and Planning, ISR Employment, and Assessment 

that provides the commander a multidimensional understanding of the battlespace in 

time, space, and effect, regardless of the adversary, location, weather, or time of day. 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

PBA is continuous and achieved by the commander through possession of relevant, 

comprehensive, knowledge, including an accurate forecast of pertinent influences 

in the battlespace. This knowledge of the operational environment, in concert with 

command and control, permits commanders to anticipate future conditions, assess 

changing situations, establish priorities, exploit emerging opportunities, and act with a 

degree of speed and certainty not matched by adversaries. PBA-derived insights allow 

the United States to use critical ISR assets for confirmation rather than pure discovery 

once hostilities begin. Additionally, the PBA process enables Space Situation Awareness 

to function as the foundation of offensive- and defensive-counterspace operations, 

by preparing to conduct operations in, from, through, and to space, utilizing cyber-, 

space-, air-, land-, and sea-based capabilities. PBA will be a key enabler of DoD’s goal 

to “deter forward.”

These three transformational capabilities can provide a revolutionary advantage for US 

forces only if the joint commander can ensure that the adversary: (1) cannot disrupt, 

manipulate, or destroy the associated friendly information, information systems, and 

information processes on which they rely; and (2) cannot achieve the same capabilities 

or enjoy the advantages of advanced C4ISR. 

Achieving the first requires effective information operations that ensure friendly 

use of the information domain. As the world’s most information-dependent fighting 

force, the US military must use the IO capabilities of network defense, information 

assurance, operations security, counter-deception, counterintelligence, and counterpropaganda to reduce the ability of adversaries to exploit its reliance on information 

and assure jam-resistant, secure, survivable C4ISR. By integrating these defensive 

capabilities to protect or project the commander’s objectives and themes, military 

operations have a much greater chance at success. 

Against adversaries with effective C4ISR, achieving the second requires effective 

information operations capabilities that can deny, manipulate, or significantly 

degrade adversary C4ISR. These capabilities include network attack, electronic 

warfare, military deception, public affairs operations, operations security, and 

psychological operations. 

In addition to the information superiority efforts described in the box below, the Air 

Force is also installing capabilities in virtually all of its new (such as the F/A-22, F-35, 

and unmanned vehicles) and existing (perhaps the most well known examples during 

recent operations is the B-52 and the AC-130) weapon systems and platforms that will 

enable them to fully integrate with the joint C4ISR network envisioned by OSD and 

participate in time-critical targeting.

Please refer to Appendix B for details on Air Force information superiority efforts 

required by the TPG, especially in the areas of interoperability, information operations, 

and intelligence. 
57

Key Programs/Future System Concepts

Enabling Transformational Capabilities 1-5:

Near-Term (until 2010): Advanced Extremely High Frequency system, 

Advanced Tactical Targeting Technology ACTD, Airborne Networking 

capability, Air and Space Operations Center, Air Force Network 

Operations and Security Center, Air Force Satellite Control Network 

upgrades, Air Force Transformation Center (formerly CAOC-X), 

Automated ISR, Combatant Commanders Integrated Command and 

Control System, Combat Information Transport System (ongoing into 

long-term), Distributed Common Ground System, eXtensible Markup 

Language, Family of Interoperable Operational Pictures (Common 

Relevant Operational Picture), Family of Small Unmanned Systems, 

Global Broadcast System, Global Hawk, Global Positioning System 

Block IIF/III, Ground Warrior Modernization, ISR Management capability, 

Integrated Broadcast Service, Joint Mission Planning System, Joint 

Tactical Radio System, Link 16, Multi-Platform Common Data Link, 

Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program, Single Integrated 

Air Picture, Situational Awareness Data Link Gateway, “Smart Platforms” 

(including Roll-on Beyond Line of Sight Enhancement and family of 

Scalable, Modular, Airborne, Relay Terminals), Tactical Data Link 

Architecture enhancements, Transformational Communication Terminals, 

Transformational Satellite, numerous information operations programs

Mid-Term (2010-15): Adaptive Battlespace Awareness ACTD, Adaptive 

Joint C4ISR Node ACTD, Command and Control Constellation, 

Deployable Theater Information Grid, Digital Imagery Request and 

Distribution System, F-35, Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft, 

Network Centric Collaborative Targeting ACTD, Space-Based Radar, 

Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Initiative, Time-Critical Targeting 

Functionality ACTD, additional IO programs 

Long-Term (past 2015): Biofeedback System, Biomarker System, 

Enhanced Human Performance, High Powered Microwave Airborne 

Electronic Attack, Military Intelligence Tactical Element—Urban Surveyor, 

Theater Air Control System, additional IO programs 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B. Air and Space Superiority

Six transformational capabilities the Air Force is pursuing support the Air and Space 

Superiority distinctive capability from Air Force Vision 2020. They fall into three major 

subcategories: Negating Enemy Air Defenses, Space Superiority, and Missile Destruction 

in Flight. 

Negating Advanced Enemy Air Defenses

The proliferation of advanced, radar-guided SAMs and air-to-air missile systems among 

potential adversaries puts the ability of legacy aircraft to operate in enemy airspace 

in the future in question. This new generation of “double digit” SAMs are far more 

capable than existing systems in acquiring and engaging multiple legacy aircraft. They 

also use shorter times to emit radar energy and are mobile, making them much more 

difficult to detect. They are also resistant to jamming, use high mach missiles, and are 

more mobile. But perhaps most dangerous of all is their significantly increased range, 

which would require legacy aircraft to fly within range of the SAMs to deliver their 

weapons. Maintaining the ability to perform unrestricted operations within heavily 

defended airspace into the future is an essential precondition to successful US joint 

power projection operations. 

In addition to IO capabilities that can affect enemy air defenses, the Air Force is 

developing two complimentary transformational capabilities to achieve this goal: 

6. Penetration of advanced enemy air defenses to clear the path 

for follow-on joint forces

7. Effective and persistent air, space, and information operations beyond 

the range of enemy air defenses under adverse weather conditions

While it might be tempting to invest solely in standoff weapons instead of stealthy 

penetrating platforms to defeat advanced integrated air defense system, a mix of both is 

required for several reasons. First, standoff weapons are extremely expensive compared 

to direct attack weapons. Second, standoff weapons take far more time to strike targets 

than penetrating platforms, allowing adversaries adequate time to conceal or move 

targets out of harm’s way or intercept the US weapon in flight. There are also various 

situations in which time-critical strikes are required, which long-range standoff weapons 

cannot provide. Third, standoff weapons are not as versatile as penetrating platforms at 

striking all types of targets, especially mobile ones. 
59

Penetrating Advanced New Air Defense Systems 

This capability is required to gain entry into denied battlespace and clear the way for 

joint follow-on forces by rapidly degrading, and then defeating, the adversary’s C4ISR, 

anti-access weapons, and CBRNE delivery systems. Hopefully, such a capability will 

also dissuade adversaries from investing in such new air defenses to begin with. The 

key to penetrating the next generations of advanced enemy air defense systems is 

producing systems that are survivable against them at all times and in all weather. 

This is achieved by using advanced space force applications systems and capabilities 

as well as by combining improved “stealth” with state of the art speed, avionics, 

radar, and maneuverability. Currently, the Air Force’s stealthy fleet is limited to a 

small force of B-2 bombers and F-117s, which may be inadequate to defeat future 

generations of air defense systems coming online. In addition, they can only exploit 

their stealthy qualities at night, as they cannot effectively defend themselves during 

the daylight if spotted visually. 

Negating Advanced Enemy Air Defenses also includes the ability to conduct deep, 

clandestine special operations missions in support of the Joint Force Commander’s 

operational preparation of the battlespace. The Air Force’s capability to conduct longrange, clandestine, or covert infiltration and exfiltration of special operations forces 

and equipment is rapidly degrading with advances in air defense systems and long-range 

aircraft detection technology. The 2001 QDR states special operations forces need to 

have the “ability to conduct covert deep insertions over great distances.” These two 

points, when combined with the joint doctrine of early introduction of special forces 

deep in denied, hostile, or politically sensitive areas to help prepare the battlespace, 

drive the required capability for airpower to penetrate advanced enemy air defenses 

and enable special forces to achieve critical tactical surprise deep in denied airspace. 

The required capability can be approached from the “platform” or what performs the 

clandestine penetration of denied, hostile, or politically sensitive airspace, or it can be 

viewed as a means to deliver joint special operations capabilities that can strike strategic 

targets, before or during conflict—to include terrorists. 

Standoff 

The United States has had significant standoff precision strike assets for some time. It 

began with cruise missiles, which were first used to strike land targets during the Gulf 

War. However, while effective at precisely striking targets at long range, they are too 

expensive to use more than in limited numbers. Reducing the cost of the weapons 

while maintaining long-range has proven very difficult. Current cruise missiles also have 

limited ability in bad weather and against mobile targets. Developing an affordable 

standoff weapon that would enable large scale, persistent standoff operations against 

fixed and mobile targets in all weather would create a huge transformational effect 

in defeating future advanced air defenses. Standoff will also be a key enabler of the 

Joint Commander’s ability to use the Global Strike CONOPS’ capabilities to operate 

successfully in heavily defended airspace at the start of a conflict and the Global 

Response CONOPS’ capabilities to conduct rapid response operations against terroristrelated targets. 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Key Programs/Future System Concepts

Enabling Transformational Capabilities 6-7:

Near-Term (until 2010): F/A-22, Joint Air To Surface Standoff Missile—

Extended Range, Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles

Mid-Term (2010-2015): Common Aero Vehicle, F-35

Long-Term (past 2015): Advanced Standoff Cruise Missile, Air 

Expeditionary Force Weapon, Extended Range Strike Aircraft, Hypersonic 

Standoff Weapon, Hypervelocity Missile, Long Range Cruise Missile, M-X 

Low Observable Advanced SOF Air Mobility Platform, Robust Autonomous 

Attack Missile, advanced Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles 

Space Superiority

Space capabilities are integral to modern warfighting forces, providing critical 

surveillance and reconnaissance information, especially over areas of high risk or 

denied access for airborne platforms. They also provide weather and other earthobservation data, global communications, precision position, navigation, and timing 

to troops on the ground, ships at sea, aircraft in flight, and weapons enroute to 

targets. Space assets are critical to achieving information superiority as they enable 

predictive and dominant battlespace awareness, C4ISR integration, and reducing the 

“sensor-to-shooter” cycle to minutes or even seconds. Space assets are also critical in 

reducing the forward footprint and enabling standoff attacks. Space superiority is 

also very important in enabling the integration of C4ISR and PBA required by the 

Space&C4ISR CONOPS and Global Strike CONOPS. The part of space superiority 

focused on protecting space assets is also critical for one mission of the Homeland 

Security CONOPS—the protection of critical infrastructure, which includes groundbased space assets. The remaining CONOPS will also rely heavily on space-based 

C4ISR assets. The United States cannot effectively exploit space for joint warfighting 

in these ways if it does not have responsive, reliable, and assured access to space, 

which requires achieving and maintaining space superiority. It is important to 

emphasize that space superiority does not include the actual use of space for C4ISR 

and other purposes. Instead, like air superiority, space superiority consists of activities 

that enable us to use space for those activities without interference from adversaries 

and prevent adversaries from using space for the same purposes. 

The advantages these space assets provide are at risk because adversaries are acquiring 

equivalent systems and abilities to exploit space that would either deny America’s 

use of space or enable similar capabilities. Commercial space capabilities, especially 

hi-resolution imagery, are now easily available to most nations. Foreign governments 
61

constitute 40-80 percent of the commercial remote sensing market. In addition, the 

cost of launching and maintaining effective satellites is no longer cost prohibitive for a 

growing number of countries, especially with the advent of microsatellites. 

Another area undergoing rapid change is the attention potential adversaries are applying 

to denying America’s space advantage. They are greatly expanding their capabilities to 

exploit the vulnerabilities of American space assets. The designs for GPS and satellite 

communications jammers fill several Internet sites. GPS jammers are also readily 

available for purchase over the Internet.

Having a complete grasp of what is affecting the battlespace with respect to the space 

arena is critical to allowing the United States to exploit space and protect its assets 

from exploitation. Space Situation Awareness combines command, control, intelligence, 

surveillance, reconnaissance, and the environment to understand space operations, 

threats to operations, and impacts. Space Situation Awareness enables the Air Force 

to conduct offensive and defensive operations to gain and maintain space superiority. 

The Space AOC, in conjunction with theater AOCs, is the focal point that will have 

the situational awareness necessary to perform tasking deconfliction and Predictive 

Battlespace Awareness for space systems and to build target folders, among other duties. 

Achieving and maintaining space superiority in the future requires the following 

transformational capabilities:

8. Protection of vital space assets

9. Denial of an adversary’s access to space services

These capabilities incorporate the transformational capabilities described in Space Command’s 

recent Strategic Master Plan associated with Mission Support and Counterspace.

The ability to protect vital space systems is essential to ensure that an adversary 

cannot disrupt, deny, or destroy America’s ability to exploit space-based C4ISR assets 

as previously described. This capability encompasses: (1) space-based space surveillance 

systems that provide details of space objects unattainable by ground-based systems; 

(2) an attack detection and reporting architecture capable of detecting, characterizing 

(identify and geo-locate), and reporting attacks on space systems and of assessing the 

resulting mission impacts; (3) active on-board capabilities to protect friendly space 

systems from man-made or environmental threats; and (4) adequately protecting 

key ground systems, to include backup command and control capabilities. This 

transformation will be enabled by both material solutions as well as doctrinal and 

organizational changes.

The ability to deny an adversary’s access to space services is essential so that 

future adversaries will be unable to exploit space in the same way the United States 

and its allies can. It will require full spectrum, sea, air, land, and space-based offensive 

counterspace systems capable of preventing unauthorized use of friendly space services 

and negating adversarial space capabilities from low earth up to geosynchronous orbits. 

The focus, when practical, will be on denying adversary access to space on a temporary 

and reversible basis. 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

In addition, both protecting space systems and denying access to space requires the 

rapid launch and repair of space vehicles, a transformational capability discussed in 

more detail under the “Rapid Global Mobility” section. 

Key Programs/Future System Concepts

Enabling Transformational Capabilities 8-9:

Near-Term (until 2010): Counter Satellite Communications System, 

Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance System, Rapid Attack 

Identification Detection and Reporting System, Single Integrated Space 

Picture, Space-Based Space Surveillance System, Space Control Range

Mid-Term (2010-15): Common Aero Vehicle, Compact Environmental 

Anomaly Sensor II ACTD, Communication/Navigation Outage 

Forecasting System ACTD, Orbital Deep Space Imager, Space Tracking 

and Surveillance System

Long-Term (past 2015): Air Launched Anti-Satellite Missile, Ground 

Based Laser, Orbital Transfer Vehicle, Space-Based Radio Frequency 

Energy Weapon, Space Maneuver Vehicle, Space Operations Vehicle 

Missile Destruction in Flight

One key component of Homeland Defense, a key transformation objective of the 

2001 QDR, as well as the Homeland Security CONOPS, is the ability to protect 

the territorial United States from ballistic missile attack. It is also essential to protect 

deployed forces from such attack. Therefore, the Air Force is pursuing the following 

transformational capability:

10. Detection of ballistic and cruise missile launches and destruction of 

those missiles in flight 
63

3

 Circular Error Probability is the circle in which there is a 50% probability the bomb will land on the target. 

Key Programs/Future System Concepts

Enabling Transformational Capability 10:

Near-Term (until 2010): Airborne Laser, F/A-22, Multi-Platform Radar 

Technology Insertion Program, Space-Based Infrared System—

High, Space Tracking and Surveillance System

Long-Term (past 2015): Evolutionary Aerospace Global 

Laser Engagement

C. Precision Engagement

Technology has enabled munitions to strike with incredible accuracy. Before precisionguided munitions (PGMs), the only option to strike a target with air power was to send 

numerous sorties to drop a large amount of ordinance. The number of sorties required 

put many aircrews at risk, required extensive forward basing, and often resulted in extensive 

collateral damage around the target. Precision strike capabilities today require few weapons 

per aimpoint (often as few as one), and the accuracy of the munitions means less exposure 

for aircrews and significantly reduced potential of collateral damage. 

1943 1970 1991

Bombs 9000 176 1

Sorties 1500 88 1

Circular Error Probability3 3300 feet 400 feet 10 feet

TABLE 3: Quantity of 2000 Pound Bombs Assigned for 90% Probability of Kill of One Target

Source: DIA

As shown by the table above, the transformational effects of PGMs are obvious as 

they have greatly reduced the number of sorties required to strike a target successfully. 

This means that, in many instances, the United States doesn’t need to deploy as many 

forces (air, sea, and ground) to achieve the same capability and, thus, can deploy more 

rapidly, which is a key goal of DoD’s transformation overall. Conversely, it means that 

the same number of forces armed with PGMs can strike many more targets successfully 

than a force without PGMs, enabling orders of magnitude improvement in overall 

firepower. PGMs also greatly reduce collateral damage, which is especially critical in 

today’s operations—especially those that are less than “total war,” such as those that 

prevail in the post-Cold War security environment. Precision strike is also a key enabler 

of efficient effects-based operations and parallel warfare, which, in turn, is critical to the 

ongoing “revolution in military affairs” discussed in Chapter II. The number of PGMs 

as a percentage of air-delivered weapons has steadily increased from 7.7 percent during 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
64

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Operation Desert Storm, to 40.5 percent during Operation Allied Force, to 60.4 percent 

during Operation Enduring Freedom, to 68 percent during Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

The results have been devastating. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, US precision 

air strikes reportedly destroyed 1,000 Iraqi tanks and reduced the combat strength of 

several Republican Guard divisions by fifty percent or more in less than one week—

a feat that took six weeks of air strikes in the initial Gulf War. 

The next steps of this ongoing transformation involve the following two 

transformational capabilities:

11. Order of magnitude increase in number of targets hit per sortie

12. Achievement of specific, tailored effects on a target, short of 

total destruction

The increased accuracy of today’s precision weapons reduces the need for explosive 

power to destroy a target. In most cases, this means that smaller munitions can be 

deployed to strike targets. Smaller munitions means that more can be deployed per 

sortie. Instead of measuring how many sorties it takes to destroy one target, the 

standard is now how many targets can be destroyed per sortie. This magnitude of 

increase in strike capability would enable the United States to conduct an even higher 

volume of attacks against hundreds of critical targets in the early hours of conflict with 

a small number of platforms (thus requiring a smaller footprint) with a lower amount 

of collateral damage. The Air Force is beginning to explore the next obvious step: to 

develop miniature munitions that can loiter on their own to detect and destroy timecritical targets as they emerge.

Achieving effects without destruction will significantly enhance America’s ability to 

minimize collateral damage. At present, the usual option to affect a target is to destroy 

it with a kinetic weapon. By creating effects short of total destruction, the United 

States could conduct more precise EBO that match capabilities to desired effects. Such 

a capability is critical in the post-Cold War operations that are short of traditional 

conventional warfare, such as urban and peace operations, which often require 

capabilities that can deliver timely desired effects while minimizing collateral damage 

to infrastructure and people. Tailoring effects is also critical to disable weapons of mass 

destruction without catastrophic collateral damage.

Various non-lethal weapons, directed energy weapons (which include lasers and high 

powered microwave), and other IO capabilities, discussed in more detail under Section 

A of this chapter regarding information superiority, are the key to this capability. 

Together, they also enjoy the following transformational characteristics compared to 

traditional systems:

• Long-range force application capabilities

• Near-instantaneous and new classes of target effects

• Potentially unlimited magazines in some cases

• Enablers of new missions 

• Significantly smaller logistics footprints than non-directed energy weapon systems 

• Reduced operational costs and lower manpower requirements
65

The Air Force recently completed a “Directed Energy Master Plan,” which articulates 

its strategy to develop and transition directed energy applications such as precision 

engagement as well as information superiority, space superiority, and ballistic missile 

defense. It also identifies six directed energy science and technology programs that 

offer near-term transformational capabilities to the Air Force if funding was accelerated: 

Advanced Tactical Laser, High Powered Microwave Airborne Electronic Attack (see 

Information Superiority section), Airborne Active Denial System, the Evolutionary Air 

and Space Global Laser Engagement, and the 100 Kilowatt Solid State Laser. 

Key Programs/Future System Concepts

Enabling Transformational Capabilities 11-12:

Near-Term (until 2010): Small Diameter Bomb; various IO capabilities 

and agent defeat weapons

Mid-Term (2010-15): Active Denial System ACTD, Advanced Tactical 

Laser ACTD 

Long-Term (past 2015): Airborne Active Denial System, Cooperative 

Persistent Surveillance Strike Vehicle, Evolutionary Air and Space 

Global Laser Engagement (EAGLE) Airship Relay Mirrors, Guardian 

Urban Combat Weapon, Low Cost Persistent Area Dominance Miniature 

Missile, Next Generation Gunship, Solid State Laser (100 Kilowatt), Wide 

Area Search Autonomous Attack Miniature Munition

D. Global Attack

Currently, striking conventional targets across the globe from the United States requires 

employing long-range bombers, which takes many hours and enables mobile targets to 

hide before the strike force arrives. The key to achieving DoD’s current transformational 

objective of denying sanctuary to adversaries is:

13. Rapid and precise attack of any target on the globe with persistent effects 

A non-nuclear, prompt, global attack capability will provide the United States with a 

range of options for deterrence and flexible response when rapid response is absolutely 

critical, risks associated with other options are too high, or when no other courses of 

action are available. Such rapid global attack would likely be used against extremely 

high value targets such as hardened command and control facilities, terrorists, fixed and 

mobile integrated air defense system elements, theater ballistic missile launchers, and 

CBRNE production, storage, and delivery. 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

This capability would be a key enabler of the Global Response CONOPS’ mission of 

holding terrorist-related targets at risk everywhere. It would also allow the United States 

to project power almost immediately in areas with no forward-deployed forces or easy 

access. Indeed, the traditional US method of deploying air and ground forces at or 

through ports and airfields will grow more problematic as national and commercial 

satellite services, missiles, and CBRNE technology rapidly evolve. This capability would 

also buy valuable time should additional forces need to be deployed to the theater. 

Key Programs/Future System Concepts

Enabling Transformational Capability 13:

Near- to Mid-term (up until 2015): Common Aero Vehicle, 

Various IO capabilities 

Long-Term (past 2015): B-X Bomber, Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle, 

Hypervelocity Rod Bundles, New Long-Range Platform

E. Rapid Global Mobility 

Rapid global mobility is the ability to establish air base operations and quickly position 

forces and equipment where they are needed. Airlift, spacelift, air refueling, and dynamic 

global command and control are crucial components in America’s capability to operate 

around the globe. It allows the United States to reach out and influence events around the 

world, not only during combat but also during peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. 

The immediacy of terrorist and other asymmetric threats to US interests at home and 

abroad, as well as the fleeting, often ephemeral nature of emerging targets, demand the 

timely deployment of US military forces anywhere in the world and rapid projection 

of CONUS-based combat power. The Nation must be able to rapidly respond globally 

to support the full spectrum of operations. Quick and effective military response can 

mitigate instabilities harmful to the security interests of the US and its allies.

As the Army pointed out in its June 2002 transformation roadmap, American forces 

must become increasingly more responsive, deployable, agile, versatile, lethal, survivable, 

and sustainable. Some relevant transformational Air Force efforts in these areas are 

discussed in other sections, especially in the following Agile Combat Support section. 

It also requires the following transformational capabilities:

14. Rapid establishment of air operations, an air-bridge, and movement 

of military capability in support of operations anywhere in the world 

under any conditions 

15. Responsive launch and operation of new space vehicles and refueling/

repair/relocation of existing vehicles.
67

Achieving the first will require that the United States be able to provide airlift, aerial 

refueling, en route infrastructure, global command and control, and bare base opening 

to respond within hours of tasking to support peacetime operations or a crisis (up 

to a major theater war) while maintaining the ability to rapidly swing high priority 

forces to another major theater war. Such a capability is critical to the Global Strike 

CONOPS’ requirement of being able to employ directly from continental United States 

and forward-bases with little or no warning as well as the Global Mobility CONOPS’ 

requirement to provide austere air base operations and rapid and effective air mobility 

support to combatant commanders supporting the full spectrum of operations, 

from global strike to humanitarian relief and noncombatant evacuation operations. 

In addition, several rapid deployment tasks will contribute to the Global Response 

CONOPS’ mission of holding terrorist-related targets at risk with SOF. Achieving 

this capability would also significantly enhance the US military’s ability to conduct 

operational maneuvers from strategic distances. 

The “way ahead” to improve rapid global mobility is contained in the Mobility Air 

Forces’ strategic plan, Air Mobility Master Plan 2004 (AMMP 04). This plan compiles 

and identifies the future requirements of over 20 organizations and components making 

up the Mobility Air Force Partnership. All partners play a crucial role in defining future 

mobility requirements. The AMMP 04 is a capabilities-based plan looking out 25 years 

to ensure air mobility remains capable of rapidly establishing air operations, establishing 

air bridges, and providing movement of forces anywhere on the globe under increased 

threat and adverse weather conditions that have historically restricted Mobility Air 

Force access. Modernization efforts are intertwined with the transformation process to 

provide an increase in overall mobility capability. 

The plan first calls for increasing lift capabilities and improving the Air Forces refueling 

capabilities. It also calls for various technological improvements. Enhanced defensive 

systems will allow operations in hostile threat environments. Autonomous approach 

and landing equipment will enable operations to be conducted regardless of weather 

conditions and independent of ground-based navigation aids. Automated air refueling 

technologies will permit the refueling of manned as well as unmanned air vehicles on 

fueling tracks obscured by clouds. Mobility, strike, and ISR operations would not be 

degraded by weather in the refueling areas. Interoperable Mobility/Combat Air Force 

command and control systems will enhance global mobility operations. In the future, a 

family of transport category aircraft will significantly improve mobility support to the 

warfighter. They will be capable of transporting the Future Combat System, regardless 

of weather conditions, over intercontinental ranges to unimproved landing areas in a 

threat environment. Variants, with common engines, airframes, and cockpits, could 

be built to fly a variety of airlift, special operations, ISR, and refueling missions. With 

this approach, aircraft development and sustainment costs would be minimized. The 

next generation advanced tanker will have a reduced signature and improved defensive 

systems to permit refueling closer to the target area, thus extending strike aircraft ranges 

or time on station. 

The Mobility Requirements Study (both for 2005 and the next version in development) 

and ongoing US Transportation Command request prioritization balance and impact 

demands on air mobility.

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

The ability to launch, operate, and maintain space vehicles responsively is essential 

because the United States cannot afford the loss of space-based capabilities or the 

luxury of waiting months to put a replacement satellite in orbit after a system failure. 

It will require: (1) robust and responsive spacelift and rapid satellite initialization 

providing quick-turn, on-demand, assured space access for time-sensitive military 

operations; (2) orbital transfer vehicles to reposition or boost on-orbit access; and (3) 

space-based elements of the launch and test range to increase coverage while reducing 

operations and maintenance costs associated with the ground-based infrastructure. 

On 1 March 2003, the Air Force Space Command began a year long Operationally 

Responsive Spacelift Analysis of Alternatives focused on how to put payloads into 

space on short notice. The capabilities of the other Services have already been 

factored into spacelift requirements.

Rapid global mobility depends greatly on the following command and control 

systems described in the “Information Superiority” section of this chapter as well as 

in Appendix D: Airborne Networking capability, Integrated Broadcast Service, Joint 

Tactical Radio System, Link 16, and the Transformational Satellite. 

Key Programs/Future System Concepts 

Enabling Transformational Capabilities 14-15:

Near- to Mid-Term (until 2015): Advanced Situational Awareness/

Countermeasures System, Automatic Air Refueling, Autonomous 

Approach and Landing Guidance, C-17, CV-22, Global CONOPS 

Synchronization, Integrated Flight Management ATD, Large Aircraft 

Infrared Countermeasures

Long-Term (past 2015): Advanced Mobility Concept Aircraft (AMC-X), 

Advanced Mobility Tanker (KC-X), Advanced Propulsion Systems, Air 

Launch System, Global Launch & Test Range, M-X Low Observable 

Advanced SOF Air Mobility Platform, Orbital Transfer Vehicle, Precision 

Extended Glide Aerial Delivery System, Space Maneuver Vehicle, Space 

Operations Vehicle

In addition to these programs and future system concepts under consideration, the Air 

Force, starting with Operation Iraqi Freedom, has embedded its Assessment Teams

(also known as Contingency Response Groups), which assess forward airfields in a 

theater of operations, with the initial ground assault force. These Assessment Teams will 

implement Integrated Base Defense measures that provide Force Protection across the 

ground dimension of the Battlespace. This allows a seamless integration between airfield 

seizure and operations enabling forward airfields to be set up significantly faster than 

before in theater and thus significantly enhancing the combat power available to the 

Joint Force Commander and joint operations. 
69

F. Agile Combat Support 

Agile Combat Support provides the foundational capabilities operational Air Force Task 

Forces translate into the responsive, flexible, and precision application of air and space 

power. It is more than deployed combat capabilities. Agile Combat Support prepares 

deployed Air Force assets for quick response and sustains engaged forces in persistent 

operations. More specifically, it entails the following:

• Readying the force by organizing, training, and equipping to produce 

combat capability across the range of military operations

• Preparing the battlespace by assessing, planning, and posturing for 

employment in specific mission scenarios

• Positioning the force within the required response timing by assembling 

modular and scalable capabilities, flowing them incrementally, and 

establishing effective beddown and force support

• Employing the force by providing immediate launch and/or strike 

operations, creating right-sized essential generation capacity, and ensuring 

regeneration of mission capability

• Sustaining the force by maintaining effective capacities of mission support 

for the duration of operations worldwide beginning on the first day of 

employment operations

• Recovering the force by accomplishing redeployment and reconstitution

• Ensuring that the instruments of air and space power are tools that can 

effectively be applied repeatedly

Presently, the Air Force cannot fully accomplish these tasks in a way that maximizes 

the full potential of air and space power and achieves the “focused logistics” goals of 

Joint Vision 2020. Focused logistics is the ability to provide the joint force the right 

personnel, equipment, and supplies in the right place, at the right time, and in the 

right quantity, across the full range of military operations in all conditions—to include 

CBRNE environments. It will result from revolutionary improvements in information 

systems, innovation in organizational structures, reengineered processes, and advances 

in transportation technologies. To address this shortcoming, the Air Force is currently 

pursuing the following transformational capability: 

16. Significantly lighter, leaner, and faster combat support that 

enables responsive, persistent, and effective combat operations 

under any conditions 

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

Key Programs/Future System Concepts

Enabling Transformational Capability 16:

Near-Term (until 2010): Air Force WMD Emergency Response 

Program, Centralized Intermediate Repair Facilities, Deployable 

Oxygen System, Deployment Readiness System, Integrated LOGCAT/

GeoReach-Expeditionary Site Planning/Mapping, Expeditionary Combat 

Support Modules, Expeditionary Medical Support System, Full Spectrum 

Threat Response Program, Global Combat Support System—AF, 

Integrated Base Defense Security Systems, Joint Biological Agent 

Identification and Diagnostic System, Joint Biological Point Detection 

System, Joint Chemical Agent Detector, Joint Chemical-Biological Agent 

Water Monitor, Joint Container Refill System, Joint GUARDIAN Program, 

Joint Modular Chemical-Biological Detection System, Joint Service 

Family of Decon Systems, Joint Service Installation Pilot Project, Joint 

Service Light NBC Recon System, Joint Service Lightweight Standoff 

Chemical Agent Detector, Joint Service Sensitive Equipment Decon 

System, Joint Transportable Collective Protection System, Joint Warning 

and Reporting System, Regional Supply Squadrons, Restoration of 

Operations ACTD, Supply Chain Common Operating Picture

Mid- to Long-Term (past 2010): Advanced Planning and Scheduling, 

Agile Force Accountability, Agile Transportation (AT 21) ACTD, Condition 

Based Maintenance, Enhanced Human Performance, Full Spectrum 

Threat Response, Future Single Supply System, Ground Contingency 

Medical Support System, Logistics Financial Management re-design, 

Medical CBRNE Defense, Purchasing and Supply Chain Management

 

Many of the programs and efforts associated with achieving this transformational 

capability are a part of the Expeditionary Logistics for the 21st Century (eLog21) 

campaign. This campaign is coordinating the implementation of several major process 

transformation initiatives that will increase weapon system availability and reduce 

logistics cost to the warfighter. 

The Air Force will also soon develop a separate transformation roadmap to provide 

effective and efficient combat support for the new Air Force CONOPS (described in 

Chapter VI) per direction of the new Air Force Strategic Planning Directive for Fiscal Years 

2006-2023.
71

Significant Advances During 

Operation Iraqi Freedom 

Preliminary, unclassified “lessons learned” analyses from Operation Iraqi Freedom 

indicate that the Air Force achieved significant advances in many of the capabilities 

described in this chapter since Operation Enduring Freedom as well as improvements in 

joint warfighting. Key examples include:

• Joint Warfighting: OIF was the first war that executed a campaign as designed by 

the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986: a truly joint warfighting effort from planning 

to execution. Air, ground, maritime, and space forces worked together at the same 

time for the same objective—not just because they occupy the same battlespace. For 

example, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army Tactical Missile System and Patriot units, 

coalition air forces, and space assets were all included in a combined Air Tasking 

Order. In addition, ground forces were able to bypass major enemy formations 

because, according to General Peter Pace, (Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff), 

of the “trust our ground forces had in precise and timely airpower.” To avoid 

repeating the mistakes made in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, the Air Force 

enjoyed unprecedented coordination with the land component commander to 

ensure air and space forces were fully integrated with the Army and Marines, as well 

as British troops. Two key related initiatives included:

Air Component Coordination Element. During OIF, an ACCE team was 

located within each component (land, maritime, and special operations) force 

headquarters to allow the air component to better integrate air and space power 

with the operations of the other components to better achieve the Joint Force 

Commander’s objectives. 

Ground Warrior Modernization: During OIF, two-thirds of Tactical Air 

Control Parties (the airmen embedded in Army ground units for close air 

support) were outfitted with standardized SOF equipment. This significantly 

improved their ability to enable time-critical targeting and timely close air 

support of ground forces.

• Blue Force Tracking: Blue Force Tracking is the identification and tracking of 

friendly forces for the purpose of providing the Combatant Commander enhanced 

battlespace situational awareness and reducing fratricide. American forces enjoyed 

unprecedented situational awareness during OIF. Common operating picture 

capabilities enabled much improved area of responsibility battle management and 

targeting deconfliction. However, fratricide remains an issue.

• UAVs: American forces used multiple Predators during OIF to provide a far more 

comprehensive operational perspective across the theater to the Combined Air 

Operation Center by integrating the Predator common operating picture with the 

Falcon View. The Predator has become a de facto theater ISR asset and has evolved 

from a “tactical soda straw.” They also enabled time-critical targeting via streaming 

videos to strike platforms.

• Time-Critical Targeting: OIF demonstrated the Global Hawk UAV’s ability to 

handle dynamic tasking with actionable intelligence to reduce sensor-to-shooter 

times down to minutes (though not yet single-digit minutes). In addition, Central 

Command delegated time-critical targeting decision execution authority to the air 

components in the theater. 

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

• Expeditionary Force Modules: Instead of being reactive and ad hoc, Expeditionary 

Force Modules, which represent what it takes to open, operate, and maintain a base, 

were proactive during OIF. This enabled tailored packages to meet the mission.

• Embedded Contingency Response Groups: These groups provide the air 

component a combat advance team to facilitate a full operating capability from a 

seized or austere airfield. During OIF, they participated in the seizure of airfields 

and therefore closed the transition seams that existed between airfield seizure 

(Combined Force Land Component Command) and the commencement of air 

operations (Combined Force Air Component Command).

• More Agile Logistics: Advances in logistics tracking technology, investments 

in new air and sea lift assets, and the prepositioning of military equipment in 

the region allowed US forces to deploy with unprecedented speed. In addition, 

traditional TPFDDs lacked utility because American forces did not know where 

they were going until the last minute. Therefore, US Transportation Command 

used a crisis deployment process known as a request for forces deployment order, 

which entails moving smaller combat units able to begin fighting quickly rather 

than moving all the pieces of a fighting force at once, as under a TPFDD. 

• Special Operations: Operation Iraqi Freedom was a coming-out party for Special 

Operations Forces. During OIF (as well as in Afghanistan), they controlled large 

areas with limited forces; timely, accurate and relevant ISR; and the strength of 

rapid, precise airpower. They were a light, yet lethal mobile force and were truly 

joint in how they operated. In Iraq, special operators were integrated into the 

theater commanders campaign plan as an independent maneuver element. Strategic, 

operational and tactical objectives were linked to their operations. 

• Unprecedented command and control: OIF demonstrated that with the right 

training, technology, organizations, and concepts of operation, US forces can 

command and control warfare better than ever before and produce decisive effects 

faster, farther, and with greater precision than at any time in the history of armed 

conflict. OIF also demonstrated the incredible effects that advanced technology 

could have on the battlefield exploiting this unprecedented command and control. 

Weapons conceived in the 1970s and 1980s, and fielded in the 1990s, are now 

having a revolutionary effect on combat.

• Integration of space operations at the strategic, operational, and tactical 

levels: For the first time, the Air Force designated a Space Coordinating Authority 

in the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), bringing a senior space advisor 

and his reachback support network to the Combined Forces Air Component 

Commander’s leadership team. 

What the Air Force Needs from the 

Other Services and Agencies

In addition to the ways the other Services already support the Air Force (described in 

Chapter III), the Air Force requires additional support to enable these transformational 

capabilities. This includes (most, if not all, of which is already occurring):

• Jointly developed communications and information systems to satisfy all 

Services’ requirements and to ensure a common operational picture and a single 
73

interpretation of processed information. All Services should jointly pursue 

common hardware and software development to ensure interoperability and to 

reduce development, procurement, and overall Operation and Maintenance costs.

• All Services should follow the new Defense Information Systems Agency 

Net-Centric Operations and Warfare and the Net-Centric Enterprise Services 

processes. This will ensure better machine-to-machine interfaces and system 

interoperability between the Services and joint commands.

• A joint fire control system of systems that enables the Joint Force Commander 

to seamlessly access the sensor-to-shooter assets of all the Services to put a cursor 

over a target in a timely manner.

• Common, coordinated understanding of ISR requirements of all the Services.

• Coordinated information operations efforts, to include ensuring that all information 

systems are effectively protected against adversary information operations.

• Continued improved coordination of air operations and combat air support 

between the Services. This includes coming to a common agreement with 

the Navy on metrics to measure capabilities packaged in an Air and Space 

Expeditionary Force and a Carrier Strike Group.

• Coordinated missile defense networks. Air Force missile defense capabilities 

must effectively combine with the Navy’s Aegis Cruiser Ballistic Missile Defense; 

Army’s Ground Based Interceptors, Theater High Altitude Air Defense, and 

Patriot Advanced Capability—Phase 3 missile systems; and the Marine’s TPS59v3. They must also coordinate with the Federal Aviation Administration, Coast 

Guard, and Aerostat.

• Effectively detecting cruise missiles will require effective coordination with Navy 

Aegis Spy Radars and the E-2, the Army Sentinel Radar, the Department of 

Homeland Security, and counternarcotic air surveillance assets. Destroying cruise 

missile threats will require effective teamwork with Army Air Defense Artillery as 

well as Navy/Marines fighters and cruisers.

• Coordination of space control activities with the Army and Navy.

• Continued efforts to minimize airlift demands. This includes increased 

prepositioned assets, forward based logistics, and leveraging sea and land 

transportation capabilities to augment or offset the need for air transportation 

and refueling.

• Improved TPFDD development and interface with US Transportation Command. 

• Continued efforts to improve joint training, experimentation, exercises, 

professional military education, etc.

• Effective coordination on the development of the new Joint Operating Concepts 

to ensure that the US military can most effectively execute the US National 

Military Strategy.

• Agreement on the standards by which all Services will provide human resources 

services to employees. The seamless delivery of human resources services will 

ensure that the right people are at the right place and time regardless of Service. 

For example, if the Air Force needs to employ Army or Marine soldiers to help 

secure an Air Force Base, or position airmen on a naval vessel, there should not 

be a gap or seam in personnel servicing. In addition, Active Duty, Reserve, Guard, 

and DoD civilians should receive the same level of customer service, regardless of 

Service, from requirements to accountability. 

Developing Transformational Capabilities
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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

• Predictive Sustainability Awareness. Services and Agencies (likely with the Defense 

Logistics Agency and the Army in the lead) need to coordinate to anticipate 

support challenges and resolve them before they become showstoppers. This 

includes developing triggers to determine when commitments are exceeding 

sustainable levels during surge periods to mitigate impacts and respond quickly.

• Integrated Combat Support Situational Awareness. Services and Agencies need to 

better define Service/Agency support requirements to properly size the force for 

major operations to reduce demand for forward presence and be more responsive. 

This includes integrating multi-Service In Transit Visibility capabilities.

• Coordination on future joint urban operations. The Air Force recently conducted 

a two-part forum to explore air power’s role in future joint urban operations. The 

forum formed the basis for the ongoing development of a new Air Force urban 

operations concept of operation. The Air Force looks forward to working with 

JFCOM and the other Services to eventually integrate this new CONOPS into 

future joint urban operations. 

• Improved coordination with other Services and Agencies on homeland security 

issues. This includes a broad-based, intelligence-sharing program with the other 

federal departments and agencies to enhance homeland security. 

Appendix E describes how the Air Force is supporting the transformation plans of the 

other Services. 
75

VIII. Transforming 

How The Air Force 

Does Business 

The Air Force operates in a world in which the United States has global 

interests, responsibilities, and commitments. It is a world entering a period 

of dynamic and rapid change with threats to the United States, its interests, 

and its people—both at home and abroad. America’s enemies are increasingly 

non-state actors who employ novel and rapidly changing modes of attack 

and weapons. The Air Force will meet these new challenges because of the ability of 

Airmen to innovate, adapt, and lead-turn the enemy in the development of operational 

concepts, doctrine, and tactics. Implementing the warfighter’s visions through the 

development and delivery of forces, systems, and support demands equal flexibility and 

agility in the Air Force’s business operations. 

Although many of the business processes have been incrementally reformed and 

modernized over the last thirty years, the underlying philosophy and basic architecture 

of these processes have not changed. They are labor intensive and lack the required 

agility, flexibility, and speed. To sustain the Service’s warfighting advantage, the Air 

Force must ensure that its business processes and operations are efficient and effective, 

focused on war-fighting capability, and reinforce and support the Air Force’s three core 

competencies, which are the source of its warfighting advantage.

The Air Force business transformation vision for the future is a single, capabilityfocused enterprise that serves the warfighter’s needs and closes the seams dividing the 

Service’s capabilities today. The principal goal of this vision is to fashion a fast, flexible, 

agile, horizontally integrated business infrastructure that supports and enables fast, 

flexible, agile, and lethal combat forces. The Air Force must be as business efficient as it 

is combat effective.

Business Transformation Objectives

The Air Force seeks—relative to the current baseline: 

• A twenty percent shift in business operations resources (dollars and people) to 

combat operations and new/modern combat systems

• Work processes and a work load enabling Air Force personnel to accomplish routine 

(non-crisis and non-exercise) organizational missions within a 40 to 50 hour work week

• A compression of average process cycle time by a factor of four (relative to current 

established process baselines)

• An improvement in the effectiveness of operations resulting in higher customer 

satisfaction ratings

• Empowerment of personnel and enrichment of job functions

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

The objectives are derived from the Secretary of Defense’s direction to shift resources 

from the “bureaucracy to the battlefield” while continuing to attract innovative and 

creative thinkers in the DoD. Thus, a staff with reduced resources necessitates an 

enterprise-wide business transformation. 

Measuring the success of these business transformation objectives will be a considerable 

challenge for the Air Force. The success of business transformation should not be 

measured solely in terms of reductions in staff or the number of hours worked per 

week or measured against the standards of commercial industry. In addition to these 

benchmarks, the Air Force must realize how best to enable its combat capabilities 

and measure its products and services against what is needed to enable joint combat 

capabilities. A mindset change is essential to success.

Business Transformation 

Background and Leadership

In July 2003, the Secretary of the Air Force chartered the Air Force Business 

Management Modernization Program (BMMP), which parallels its DoD 

counterpart. The DoD BMMP had reached an important milestone in April 2003 with 

the completion of the Business Enterprise Architecture. This Architecture provides the 

framework for managing the continuing transformation of DoD business processes and 

systems (both financial and non-financial). 

To guide Air Force business transformation and to achieve the aforementioned objectives, 

the Secretary also created a Senior Business Modernization and Systems Integration 

Group (SBIG) to provide oversight of Air Force BMMP initiatives, Enterprise Resource 

Planning-related implementations, and other business transformation. 

Business Transformation Execution

In addition to the SBIG, the Air Force chartered Business Domain Owners and an 

integration office to achieve the business transformation vision. The domains and their 

owners are:

• Finance, Accounting Operations & Financial Management (SAF/FM)

• Strategic Planning and Budgeting (SAF/FM and AF/XP)

• Acquisition (SAF/AQ)

• Human Resource Management (SAF/MR and AF/DP)

• Installations and Environment (SAF/IE)

• Logistics (AF/IL)

• Technical Infrastructure (AF-CIO and AF/XI)

• Health Services (AF/SG)

The Air Force Business Domain Owners will interface with their DoD domain 

counterparts to:
77

• Lead transformation of their domain business area

• Refer cross-domain issues to the Air Force Business Modernization and Systems 

Integration (BMSI) Office for resolution

• Provide a full-time domain subject matter expert to the Air Force BMSI Office to 

assist in the integration activities

• Establish governance within the domain

• Advocate and support change within the business domain and reengineer 

business processes

• Comply with guidance, standards, and policy issued by the Air Force BMSI Office

The Air Force BMSI Office serves as the Service integrating and coordinating 

arm with the OSD BMMP, manages Air Force enterprise solutions, and ensures 

all enterprise-wide activities are coordinated and consistent with the Air Force 

Enterprise Process View, Air Force Enterprise Architecture and technical standards. 

It is responsible for developing options and evaluating alternatives to maximize the 

efficiency of the Air Force Enterprise by identifying the expected value of proposed 

solutions and providing recommendations to the senior Air Force leadership. 

The Air Force Business Domain Owners will use their functional representatives 

at the Air Force BMSI Office to integrate and coordinate the development of 

Air Force enterprise business capabilities across all functional domains and their 

synchronization with Air Force operational processes. 

Business transformation objectives will also be accomplished by promoting strategies 

that leverage the flexibility and innovation of US Small Businesses. The Air Force 

recognizes that Small Businesses continually serve as market laboratories for conceiving, 

testing, and demonstrating innovative ideas that directly support the Secretary of 

Defense’s business transformation vision. 

Tools for Business Transformation

A wide range of tools, techniques methods, approaches as well as extensive skill, 

experience and exposure to new ways of thinking will be needed to bring about 

the envisioned transformation of Air Force business processes. The Air Force is just 

beginning the execution phase of business transformation. This section highlights some 

of the initial tools. 

Enterprise Process View (EPV)

Establishing the Air Force BMMP, with a SBIG, and a BMSI Office, provides a 

governance structure from which to promote and achieve the Air Force business 

transformation vision. It is equally important to provide a logic, framework, and 

enterprise context with which to guide relevant transformation projects. Consequently, 

the Air Force developed a conceptual architecture for an enterprise-wide approach to 

business transformation that would support the three Air Force core competencies. The 

EPV creates a single enterprise perspective that is critical to supporting a capabilitiesbased approach to business transformation. An EPV will instill a disciplined enterprise 

process orientation that is capability-focused rather than individual platform, program, 

system, or function focused. In order to optimally reinforce the Service’s core 

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

competencies, the Air Force needs to understand how its core business processes across 

the enterprise integrate to support the development of warfighting capabilities. This 

new view provides a way for the Service to organize its thinking, analysis, and decisionmaking around the warfighting capabilities. 

The EPV captures the Air Force’s core processes, those processes that provide 

governance of the core, and those that enable the core process to work. The core 

processes are those that most directly strengthen and reinforce the three core 

competencies. In the near term, this will discipline Service business transformation 

efforts. For the long term, it will provide a context to: (1) standardize, rationalize, 

and improve processes across the Air Force; (2) guide enterprise architecture efforts; 

(3) provide a framework to rationalize multiple and redundant processes, tools, and 

systems; and (4) facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration—all focused on one goal: 

sustainable warfighting competitive advantage.

Business Enterprise Architecture 

The Air Force BMSI will employ the EPV in the development of the Air Force Business 

Enterprise Architecture. This architecture will integrate existing transformation efforts 

with a focus on identifying cross-domain efforts and targets for enterprise solutions. 

The Air Force BMSI will leverage this architecture in the development of a phased road 

map to enable the Air Force to proceed rapidly from pilot programs to an incremental 

enterprise-wide modernization supported by commercial off-the-shelf components.

Enterprise Solution Integration Strategy

In order to realize its charter from the Secretary, the Air Force BMSI will develop an 

Enterprise Solution Integration Strategy that will support the issuing of guidance and 

standards necessary to achieve integrated Air Force-wide enterprise solutions across 

all business domains where such solutions and related business practice reforms are 

ongoing or proposed. 
79

IX. Long-Term 

Transformation: 

Future Challenges for 

Science and Technology 

Attaining solutions for the warfighter depends in large measure on research 

and development. Through robust investment and deliberate focus in 

science and technology, the Air Force invigorates its core competency of 

technology-to-warfighting. The Air Force is improving its S&T planning 

and collaboration with other Services and Agencies to ensure that it:

• Encourages an operational pull that conveys to the S&T community a clear 

vision of the capabilities the joint commander needs in the future

• Addresses the full spectrum of future needs in a balanced and well thoughtout manner

• Enhances the Air Force’s ability to demonstrate and integrate promising technologies

As already discussed, the Air Force Vision challenges the Service to maintain 

global air and space power supremacy, not only today but also well into the 21st 

Century. This vision realizes that while the United States possesses a world-class 

Air Force, constant S&T vigilance is essential to maintain its superiority and better 

meet the security demands of an increasingly complex world. In a broad sense, 

long-term Air Force S&T is focused on: (1) moving the Service’s capabilities from a 

theater to a global focus; (2) integrating air, space, and information capabilities to 

take advantage of the synergy between these three domains; (3) rapidly projecting 

capability to anywhere on the Earth and into space while still retaining the ability to 

be expeditionary; (4) creating effects on demand anywhere, anytime; and (5) creating 

a rapidly composeable environment able to accurately replicate potential battlespace 

anywhere in the world through the use of rapid scenario generation tools—and 

providing that ability to the warfighters in a timely manner.

The Air Force developed six long-term challenges to help focus the S&T investment 

beyond the 2020 horizon. The challenges are deliberately expressed in broad terms to 

avoid specifying solutions that could limit the scope of future S&T research. The six 

long-term challenges are:

• Finding and Tracking: provide quality information from anywhere in near real-time

• Command and Control: monitor, assess, plan, and direct operations anywhere, 

from anywhere

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

• Controlled Effects: create precise effects, rapidly, anywhere, any time, for as long as required

• Sanctuary: allow friendly forces to operate anywhere with the lowest risk possible

• Rapid Air and Space Response: respond as quickly as necessary and relocate rapidly

• Effective Air and Space Persistence: sustain force application and supply flow as 

long as required

This chapter briefly outlines each challenge and notes some exciting new possibilities 

that long-term Air Force S&T is exploring over the next few decades.

Finding and Tracking

Precision is one of the fundamental requirements that underpin the effectiveness of 

air and space power. To be precise in the application of force requires knowledge. 

For this reason, the United States needs the ability to provide a decision maker target 

quality information from anywhere in the world in near real-time at any moment 

in time, something not possible today. In addition, there are items that cannot be 

reliably found and tracked today even when sensors are present. Although finding and 

tracking is not the sole purview of the Air Force, airborne and space-borne sensors 

will fill key roles. 

In the long-term, Air Force S&T is exploring exciting possibilities that could 

be derived from extrapolations of current technologies. One is to control the 

availability of latent sensory data and integrate it with real-time detection, which 

would enable unprecedented characterization of potential targets. Another is to 

understand how to net large arrays of individual sensors to create nearly invulnerable 

sources of information. Yet another possibility is to dispatch at will a swarm of very 

small sensors to enter tunnels, look under camouflage cover, listen behind lines, 

electronically eavesdrop, or sniff out chemical and biological presence or threats. 

This would put eyes, ears, noses, and antennas wherever they are most needed 

for threat warning, assessment, and, if armed with high-energy-density munitions, 

even neutralization. The Air Force is also addressing the scientific barriers to 

miniaturization of components through coordinated research on micro mechanics 

nanoelectronics, nanopropulsion, and the role of smart skins and flight dynamics. 

This would enable the development of sensors at the molecular level. These 

microscopic sensors or “sensor dust” could be used for novel swarm detection, 

tagging, tracking, and the identification of difficult targets. This could lead to major 

extensions of present eyes-in-space through air launch on demand of both “nanosats” 

and swarms of long endurance mini UAVs. Such capabilities would enable reductions 

in time and extensions in space to achieve target quality information in near real-time. 

The Air Force is also exploring techniques for assessing global conditions and events 

so that the United States can be forewarned of potential adversarial actions. 

Command and Control

Control of military force is central to the American way of war. The United States will 

always need to improve its ability to gather and assimilate vast amounts of data, discern 

pivotal information and communicate knowledge to the right place at the right time. 
81

Inherent in this capability is the need to gather data from multiple sources, fuse that 

data, and expertly assimilate and display critical information to give joint warfighters 

knowledge when they need it, where they need it, and how they need it. While the 

American military has made significant progress in the command and control area, 

there is a long way to go. 

In the long run, the Air Force is trying to find a way to move knowledge through 

a global grid in order to develop a true “reach anywhere” command and control 

ability. The Service is focusing the cross-disciplinary research areas of joint battlespace 

infosphere, information flow, information assurance, network modeling, and 

monitoring local information systems. Equally intriguing is the potential of a “master 

caution panel” for the joint commander that would proactively tap him on the 

shoulder whenever a new critical situation developed in the battlespace and offer 

alternative courses of action. This could significantly help the commander control 

the tempo of the conflict. Research areas include: bio, nano, quantum information 

processing, storage and retrieval; intelligent dynamic software agents; human cognitive 

enhancement; and high-level fusion tools and algorithms. The Air Force is also pursuing 

quantum computing with a breakthrough potential of atomic-level computing a 

million times faster than today’s silicon chip. If realized, this would leap the command 

and control infosphere into the realm of contextual interpretation and proactive 

projection of alternate futures from which the commander could choose, keeping 

the tempo of conflict ahead of any adversary. In addition, the Air Force is exploring 

advanced technological means in artificial intelligence, neural networks, and fuzzy logic 

capabilities to apply to business and battlefield mission areas to keep the United States 

inside the opponent’s decision cycle in the long-term.

Controlled Effects 

Military power is a coercive force. The threat of the destruction of national resources 

may compel an adversary to reevaluate strategic intent and goals. To achieve this into the 

foreseeable future, the United States must be able to create precise effects rapidly, with 

the ability to retarget quickly, against complex target sets anywhere, anytime, for as long 

as required. It also needs the ability to tailor the type and amount of energy on target to 

create the desired effect, whether it is lethal or non-lethal, precise or dispersed. While there 

has been significant progress in the past decade with precision, directed energy, and nonlethal weapons, there is yet a long way to go to reach the full potential of these abilities.

Long-term Air Force S&T efforts in this area are exploring various promising possibilities 

to achieve real control of battlespace effects. For example, the Air Force is beginning 

to understand how to create temporary and even reversible effects. The emergence of 

information operations techniques has added yet another dimension of capability. These 

capabilities are central to the strategic concept of Rapid Aerospace Dominance and enable 

the idea of Rapid Aerospace Strike. Air Force S&T is also exploring the possibility of 

putting a warning energy “spot” on any target worldwide that could be rapidly followed 

with varying levels of effects. This could significantly enhance the value of conventional 

deterrence to the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Force Commander. 

Another area of possible breakthrough deals with solid-state directed energy. If the 

generation of large quantities of heat could be managed, the Air Force could develop 

highly effective, cheap, high power energy weapons. 

Long-Term Transformation
82

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

The Air Force is also looking for ways to provide measured global force projection via highpowered microwaves (HPM). Within HPM, it is investigating how to enhance the lethality 

of HPM systems, conformal array antennas (in order to put these systems on tactical 

platforms), and air breakdown mitigation (the physics of propagating HPM through the 

atmosphere). The Service is also identifying enabling technologies for directed energy for 

“from tap on the shoulder, through to toast” those we wish to control.

In addition, the Air Force is aggressively identifying areas of application of an extremely 

high density material recently unveiled by Air Force research, N-5, the first new stable 

compound of Nitrogen discovered in over 100 years. Combining this with tailoredshape munitions manufactured from nano-particles, whose virtually all-surface structure 

yields unprecedented “burn-rates” (extreme explosiveness), promise far greater control of 

battlespace effects than previously imagined. 

Sanctuary

Because the American way of war is to take the fight to the adversary, it is natural that 

the United States should expect future adversaries to develop anti-access strategies that 

place deployed US forces at unacceptable risks, even within the United States. The US 

military must be able to protect its total force from natural and man-made hazards 

or threats, allowing it to operate anywhere with the lowest risk possible at affordable 

costs in an increasingly dangerous environment. Inherent in this function is the ability 

to take appropriate actions to include threat neutralization, CBRNE protection, and 

information operations. The long-term challenge to the United States is to be able to 

continue to counter these constantly evolving efforts by potential adversaries. Staying 

one step ahead of an adversary in a rapidly evolving technological world will challenge 

Air Force S&T for some time to come. 

Some key Air Force S&T efforts in this area include producing a safe source of fuel 

from water and engaging precisely without kinetic weapons. Both could dramatically 

increase survivability inside a threat envelope through true dispersed operations. In 

other domains, the Air Force is exploring new abilities to assure rapid, cheap access 

to space to provide much more flexibility for protecting increasingly important space 

assets. It is also looking at how to provide an invulnerable force so that the total 

force is protected from both natural and man made threats. Areas of research within 

electromagnetic spectrum manipulation include: stealthy materials, camouflage skins, 

active camouflage, and dynamic jamming.

The Air Force has also begun work in nanoelectronics to enable more versatile payloads 

that could be “air-launched” for rapid, cheap space-launch as well as swarms of UAVs 

and UCAVs of the future. The potential appears limited only by the rate at which the 

Air Force is choosing to progress in spiral advances towards greater sensing, time on 

target, and destruction capability for less weight, delay, and cost. The promise for the 

future is a ring of awareness, then protection, then safety around sites of our choice, or 

denial of the same to an adversary.
83

Rapid Air and Space Response

There will always be political and policy reasons to go “forward.” It is for this reason 

that the ability to move quickly anywhere in the world is critical to the effectiveness 

of military power. Part of the challenge to Air Force S&T will be to meet the Vision’s 

mandate to reduce the forward footprint by fifty percent by the year 2020. Another 

aspect of rapid air and space response is access to space. Today the United States cannot 

quickly get into space, and US space presence is not assured as space assets grow more 

vulnerable over time. 

Air Force S&T is examining possible solutions to these problems as technology matures. 

For example, it is looking at ways to collect or generate large quantities of energy on orbit 

in order to rely on space-based platforms for more missions and provide a greater degree 

of true global presence. This would change many equations about traditional ideas of rapid 

response. In addition, the Air Force is pursuing research to enable rapid global reach. One 

key area of basic research is in Advanced Structural Systems, which includes research in 

adaptive structures, structural efficient materials based on beryllium, magnetic flow paths 

and nozzles, and lightweight, high temperature structures.

Air Force S&T is also engaged in plasma dynamics studies that have already 

demonstrated significant air-drag reduction on vehicles and missiles. If such plasmas can 

be generated with sufficient energy efficiency on leading edges of aircraft or missiles, 

they can significantly increase range and reduce time to target, aircraft time-on-target, 

and fuel consumption. Pulse-detonation rockets have demonstrated changes in pressures 

and wave-speeds in rocket engines that project be increased payload by up to 50 percent 

in boost, upper stage, and orbit transfer, all at increased reliability. 

Effective Air and Space Persistence

Closely linked to the ability to respond is the military imperative to persist once there. 

Persistence applies to the ability to keep an adversary at risk in his own territory for as 

long as necessary, to do “air and space occupation.” A key aspect of American deterrent 

credibility is the belief by the adversary that the United States will persist until it 

capitulates. While this is possible today under certain circumstances, Air Force S&T is 

focusing on how to achieve this in all circumstances, anywhere on the globe in air and 

space, against all potential threats.

Some areas that long-term Air Force S&T is examining include: (1) on-orbit 

maintenance, repair, and upgrade of space systems to enable true persistence; (2) 

“recovering” space vehicles on demand, to protect space assets as well as improve the 

currency of technology in space; (3) routinely operating at 30 to 70 miles above the 

earth to give the Joint Force Commander unparalleled operational flexibility and 

persistence at very low risk; (4) dramatically reducing the time to move anywhere on the 

globe from CONUS not only to make dramatic improvements to America’s ability to 

respond, but also to create many opportunities for ways to persist. 

Long-Term Transformation
84

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

In addition, access to space is one of the areas the Air Force is researching within this 

long-term challenge. Various architectures are being studied for future constellations. 

This research would include satellite clustering; adaptive satellites; micro, nano, and pico 

satellites; and miniature satellite mechanical systems.

Revolutionary polynitrogen compounds for all-nitrogen propellants, strained-ring 

hydrocarbons for liquid boosters, and energetic monopropellants for launch and 

satellite propulsion are converging on the goal of reducing space delivery costs (for a 

fixed payload) by half at increased burn rates. This, combined with a miniaturizationscience for space (to reduce weight to orbit, where applicable) may significantly enhance 

space persistence, with spin-off enhancements to UAV and UCAV persistence. 
85

X. Conclusion 

I

t is an exciting time for the Air Force. It is engaged in developing new strategies 

and new concepts of operation to meet an entirely different set of challenges 

and vulnerabilities. Technology is creating dynamic advances in information 

systems, communications, and weapon systems, enabling the joint commander 

to understand the enemy, deploy forces, and deliver more precise effects faster 

than ever before. Airmen are more educated, more motivated, and better trained and 

equipped than any time in the past. 

The Air Force is fully committed to the transformation process and to maximizing 

joint combat capabilities. It is using the Secretary of Defense’s construct, expressed 

by the new defense strategy, the Transformation Planning Guidance, FY03-07 Defense 

Planning Guidance, and the 2001 QDR’s six operational goals for transformation and 

risk framework to guide its transformation efforts. The Air Force Transformation Flight 

Plan lays out the Service’s ongoing transformation efforts, which, in concert with the 

other Services, will help achieve the effects required by the Joint Force Commander in 

the changing security environment.

The Air Force of today is facing numerous challenges within the new security 

environment. Networking of air, space, and ground systems is limited. The amount 

and type of ISR assets needed for time-critical and simultaneous targeting in 

most cases is limited. Legacy air capabilities are vulnerable to the next generation 

of advanced air defense systems. Rapidly striking anywhere on the globe and 

conducting persistent operations is very difficult. In most cases, the only option 

to affect a target is to destroy it with kinetic weapons, which is not appropriate in 

all situations. Critical information and space systems are vulnerable to attack. The 

United States has a limited capability to affect adversary C4ISR and deny space 

to adversaries if necessary. In most cases, forces cannot be deployed abroad in a 

timely manner. American territory and forces are also highly vulnerable to ballistic 

and cruise missile attacks. The threat from the continued proliferation of chemical, 

biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons creates a continuous need to ensure 

that US forces can survive, fight, and win in a contaminated environment.

In overcoming these shortcomings, the ongoing transformation of the Air Force will 

help enable the Joint Force Commander to: 

• Achieve decision cycle dominance to strike adversaries before they can mount an 

effective defense

• Deny sanctuary to adversaries through time-critical targeting 

• Design campaign actions based on desired national security outcomes 

• Use smaller forces to disable an adversary rather than having to destroy it with 

mass attrition

• Maximize the power, lethality, and flexibility of a truly joint force

• Successfully neutralize mobile targets

• Integrate air, space, and land systems across all Services

• Predict and preempt adversary actions when and where we choose 

Conclusion
86

The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

• Deploy with significantly smaller combat support footprints

• Penetrate and defeat the next generation of advanced air defense systems to sustain 

air superiority into the foreseeable future

• Strike targets anywhere on the globe in a timely manner

• Affect targets short of destroying them

• Protect its information systems 

• Disrupt adversary C4ISR—effectively making the enemy fight blind, deaf, and dumb

• Protect space systems and deny space to adversaries if necessary

• Rapidly deploy forces abroad

• Defend against ballistic and cruise missile attack

• Protect resources on the ground for forces both within the United States and abroad

In turn, these capabilities strongly support DoD’s transformation goal, articulated 

in the Transformation Planning Guidance, to produce military forces capable of the 

following type of operations by the end of the decade:

• Standing joint force headquarters will conduct effects-based, adaptive planning 

in response to contingencies, with the objective of defeating enemy threats 

using networked, modular forces capable of distributed, seamlessly joint and 

combined operations.

• US forces will defeat the most potent of enemy anti-access and area-denial 

capabilities through a combination of more robust contamination avoidance 

measures, mobile basing, and priority time-critical counterforce targeting.

• US forces will leverage asymmetric advantages to the fullest extent possible, 

drawing upon unparalleled C4ISR capabilities that provide joint common 

relevant operational situational awareness of the battlespace, rapid and robust 

sensor-to-shooter targeting, reachback, and other necessary prerequisites for 

network centric warfare.

• Combined arms forces armed with superior situational awareness will maneuver 

more easily around the battlefield and force the enemy to mass where precision 

engagement capabilities may be used to maximum effect.

These capabilities will not only revolutionize high intensity combat operations, but also 

enable the United States to face new non-conventional threats and the future security 

environment. For example:

• Rapid global attack, rapid global mobility, persistent ISR, standoff, ballistic and 

cruise missile defense, information operations, and stealthy air defense penetration 

capabilities will counter various anti-access strategies by adversaries.

• Information operations capabilities will protect critical C4ISR systems and networks 

against adversary attacks and counter adversary PSYOP campaigns.

• Space superiority capabilities will protect critical space assets against growing 

adversary threats to them.

• Information superiority capabilities will counter advanced dispersal and 

deception techniques and enable tracking of targets under the cover of night 

and in adverse weather. 

• Information superiority, non-lethal, and rapid global mobility capabilities will 

greatly enhance future urban operations. 
87

• Rapid global attack, loitering munition, information superiority, and rapid global 

mobility capabilities will be essential in the ongoing global war on terrorism.

• Ballistic and cruise missile defense and force protection capabilities will protect US 

forces from new technologies available to adversaries and defend the US homeland.

• Agile combat support capabilities will enable US forces to conduct responsive, 

persistent, and effective combat operations under any conditions, to include 

CBRNE environments.

• Predictive Battlespace Awareness capabilities will significantly mitigate the 

unpredictability of threats in the new security environment.

• Information superiority, rapid global mobility, agile combat support, and rapid 

global attack capabilities will significantly mitigate the greatly reduced access to 

forward bases.

In addition to developing capabilities, the Air Force has robust strategic planning, 

innovation, and long-term S&T processes in place to support the development of these 

transformational capabilities. It is creating flexible, agile organizations to facilitate 

transformation and institutionalize cultural change. The Air Force is transforming the 

way it educates, trains, and offers experience to its airmen so they understand the nature 

of the changing security environment and are encouraged to think “outside the box.” It 

is continuing the transformation of how it integrates the Air National Guard, Air Force 

Reserve, and civilian force with its Active Duty force. The Air Force is continuing to 

transform into a capabilities-based force through the new CONOPS and the CRRA. It 

is working with the Joint Staff, OSD, and the other Services and Agencies to improve 

joint warfighting and develop the new Joint Operating Concepts. 

The Air Force will always excel at providing air and space focused capabilities to the 

joint warfighter, while enhancing the capabilities of soldiers, sailors, and marines. 

The diversity and flexibility of Air Force efforts and capabilities through concepts of 

operation, technology, and organizational structure provide unparalleled value to the 

Nation and make the whole team better. DoD must integrate the existing capabilities of 

the Services in a way that is most efficient and effective to address the rapidly changing 

security environment. The Air Force will continue to work with the rest of DoD to 

develop the new Joint Operating Concepts and keep transformation focused to provide 

the capabilities required for the Nation in the 21st Century.

The key themes of the Flight Plan can also be found in the Air Force pamphlet “The 

Edge: Air Force Transformation.” 

Conclusion

A-1

Appendix A: 

TPG GUIDANCE FOR SERVICE 

TRANSFORMATION ROADMAPS 

This appendix reproduces the text of Appendix 3 of the Transformation Planning 

Guidance, which details OSD requirements for Service transformation roadmaps 

beginning with this version. Where applicable, it cites the chapters and sections where 

the requested information can be found within the Flight Plan in bold parentheses.

As described in the body of the TPG, the Services and Joint Forces Command will build transformation 

roadmaps to achieve transformational capabilities (as represented in the six operational goals) in 

support of joint operating concepts and supporting operations. The transformation roadmaps will plot 

the development of capabilities necessary to support these concepts and will serve as baseline plans for 

achieving the desired joint operating concepts. They will outline the concrete steps organizations must take 

in order to field capabilities for executing joint and Service concepts.

To ensure that the transformation roadmaps provide a level of consistency for the purpose of 

comparison and analysis, it is important that the roadmaps adhere to certain fundamental 

guidelines. The updated transformation roadmaps will:

• Use the definition of transformation presented in this guidance; [See Chapter II] 

• Utilize timelines consistent with the development of joint operating concepts as explained in the 

body of this document; [See Chapter III]

• Describe how the organization plans to implement transformational architectures for future 

operating concepts, consistent with the joint operating concepts and supporting joint and service 

mission concepts, to include:

When and how capabilities will be fielded;

§ Identify critical capabilities from other Services and Agencies required for success; 

§ Identify changes to organizational structure, operating concepts, doctrine and skill sets 

of personnel. 

[See Chapters III and VII]

• As possible, include programmatic information that includes appropriation breakouts through 

the FYDP necessary for the desired capabilities; [See separate classified annex]

• Unclassified or collateral roadmaps will be supplemented with a compartmented annex when 

required to expand identification of key capabilities and fully represent the spectrum of Service 

and Agency capabilities. [Briefing to be presented to Director, OFT]

A central element of transforming our force is interoperability—the ability to bring all relevant 

information and assets to bear in a timely, coherent manner. All roadmaps will directly address 

the interoperability priorities listed on page 16 of [the TPG]. Additionally, Services will explicitly 

identify initiatives undertaken to improve interoperability in the following areas: deployment of a 

secure, robust and wide-band network; adoption of “post before process” intelligence and information 

concepts; deployment of dynamic, distributed, collaborative capabilities; achievement of data-level 

interoperability; and deployment of “net-ready” nodes of sensors, platforms, weapons and forces. 

Appendix A
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

A-2 

Roadmaps will identify plans for achieving these critical capabilities by ensuring that:

• Systems are capable of participating in a Joint Technical Architecture collaborative environment;

• Systems are tested and evaluated to determine actual capabilities, limitations, and 

interoperability in realistic Joint Warfare scenarios and in performing realistic missions;

• New C4ISR, weapons and logistics systems incorporate [Internet Protocol] IP-based protocols;

• Systems are capable of “post before processing” functionality;

• Selected legacy systems are retrofitted with these capabilities.

[See Appendix B]

In addition to adhering to the guidelines above, the roadmaps will address plans to implement other 

aspects of transformation to include:

• Incentives to foster concept-based experimentation, the use of prototyping methodologies, and 

development of training and education programs; [See Chapter IV]

• Information superiority, the identification and employment of all its elements, how it should 

be represented in war plans and joint experimentation, and how to achieve it; 

[See Chapter VII, Section A and Appendix B]

• Seamless integration of operations, intelligence and logistics; [See Appendix B]

• Support Standing Joint Force Headquarters and joint command and control;

[See Appendix B]

• Metrics to address the six transformational goals and transformational operating concepts; 

[See Chapter VI]

• Transformational intelligence capabilities, specifically those mentioned on page 16 of [the TPG]; 

[See Chapter VII, Section A—especially regarding “Predictive Battlespace 

Awareness” and Appendix B]

And how experimentation programs meet the TPG experimentation criteria (on page 17-18 of [the 

TPG]) and support the priorities for experimentation. [See Chapter IV] 
B-1

Appendix B: 

ADDITIONAL DETAILS REQUIRED 

BY TRANSFORMATION PLANNING GUIDANCE

This appendix includes most of the specific details about ongoing and planned efforts 

in the Air Force required by Appendix Three of the TPG. They are included here 

because their scope and detail did not fit the broader, more strategic level focus of the 

body of the Flight Plan.

The information is organized in three sections. 

• The first section addresses “the interoperability priorities listed on page 16 of 

the TPG.”

• The second section addresses the following guidance from Appendix III on Service 

interoperability efforts:

A central element of transforming our force is interoperability—the ability to bring all relevant 

information and assets to bear in a timely, coherent manner....Additionally, Services will 

explicitly identify initiatives undertaken to improve interoperability in the following areas: 

deployment of a secure, robust and wide-band network; adoption of “post before process” 

intelligence and information concepts; deployment of dynamic, distributed, collaborative 

capabilities; achievement of data-level interoperability; and deployment of “net-ready” nodes of 

sensors, platforms, weapons and forces. 

Roadmaps will identify plans for achieving these critical capabilities by ensuring that:

§ Systems are capable of participating in a Joint Technical Architecture 

collaborative environment;

§ Systems are tested and evaluated to determine actual capabilities, limitations, 

and interoperability in realistic Joint Warfare scenarios and in performing 

realistic missions;

§ New C4ISR, weapons and logistics systems incorporate IP-based protocols;

§ Systems are capable of “post before processing” functionality;

§ Selected legacy systems are retrofitted with these capabilities.

• The third section addresses the following TPG guidance on Air Force efforts 

regarding information superiority, to include “the identification and employment of 

all its elements, how it should be represented in war plans and joint experimentation, and 

how to achieve it.”

For convenience, the following graph charts the primary Air Force interoperability 

efforts discussed in the first two sections of this appendix associated with the 

information required by the Transformation Planning Guidance. 

 

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-2 

TPG Requirement Associated Air Force Efforts 

INTEROPERABILITY PRIORITIES on p 16

Standard operating procedures 

and deployable joint command 

and control processes, orgs, 

and systems for Standing Joint 

Force HQ

AOC Formal Training Unit, Command and Control Constellation, 

Distributed Ground System-neXt, Warfighting HQ 

Common Relevant Operating 

Picture for joint forces

Family of Interoperable Operational Pictures, Single Integrated Air Picture, 

Multi-Sensor Command and Control Aircraft, Combatant Commanders Integrated 

Command and Control System

Enhanced ISR Distributed Common Ground System, Network Centric Collaborative Targeting, 

National Tactical Integration, Integrated Broadcast Service, Extended Tether 

Program, ISR Management, National Electronic Intelligence into Distributed 

Common Ground System, Project SUTER, Space-Based Radar, UAVs, 

Multi-platform Radar Technology Insertion Program, Command and Control 

Constellation, Automated ISR, National Tactical Integration, Integrated Broadcast 

Service, Global Broadcast Service, Multi-Sensor Command and Control Aircraft, 

Space-Based Infrared System, Multi-Platform Common Data Link, Advanced 

Wideband Terminal

Selected sensor-to-shooter 

linkages prioritized by 

contribution to the Joint 

Operations Center

Combined Air Operations Center, Multi-Sensor Command and Control Aircraft

Reachback capabilities 

that provide global 

information access

Airborne Networking capability, Bandwidth Sharing, Multi-Sensor Command 

and Control Aircraft, Distributed Common Ground System

Adaptive mission planning, 

rehearsal, and joint training 

linked with C4ISR

Most of the programs/future system concepts discussed in Chapter VII, 

Sections A and F; Distributed Mission Operations, Distributed Mission Training; 

Joint Synthetic Battlespace, Joint Mission Planning System

INTEROPERABILITY INITIATIVES in Appendix Three

Deployment of a secure, robust, 

and wideband network

Laser communications (Transformational Satellite, Joint Tactical Radio System 

Wideband Networking Waveform, Bandwidth Sharing, Quality of Service, 

Distributed Common Ground System, Combatant Commanders Integrated 

Command and Control System

Adoption of “Post Before 

Process” intelligence and 

information concepts

Distributed Common Ground System, ISR—Management, Multi-Sensor 

Command and Control Aircraft

Deployment of dynamic, 

distributed, collaborative 

capabilities and achievement 

of data-level interoperability

AOC as a weapon system, Link-16, Joint Tactical Radio System, Multi-Sensor 

Command and Control Aircraft, AF Transformation Center, Tactical Data Link 

Roadmap, Army Deep Operations Center functionality embedding into the Family 

of Interoperable Operational Pictures, Leadership of JEFX process, Standing 

Joint Force HQ prototype, Battle Management Command and Control, SIPRNET 

Portal, Airborne Networking Management, Command and Control Constellation, 

Global CONOPS Synchronization, Distributed Common Ground System, 

Multi-Platform Common Data Link

Deployment of “Net-Ready” 

sensors, platforms, weapons, 

and forces

AWACS Block 40/45 Upgrade, Joint STARS Attack Support Upgrade and 

Improved Data Modem, Distributed Common Ground System, numerous efforts 

associated with UAVs/UCAVs, Situational Awareness Data Link Gateway, 

Digital Imagery Request and Distribution System (BRITE), Space-based Radar, 

Adaptive Joint C4ISR Node ACTD, Agile Transportation (AT 21), Joint Tactical 

Radio System, Multi-Sensor Command and Control Aircraft, Roll-on Beyond Line 

of Sight Enhancement

TABLE 4: Mapping Air Force Efforts with TPG Interoperability Requirements

 
B-3

Addressing TPG’s “Interoperability Priorities”

This section outlines Air Force efforts that support each of the interoperability 

priorities listed on page 16 of the Transformation Planning Guidance.

Standard Operating Procedures and Deployable Joint 

Command and Control Processes, Organizations, and 

Systems for the Standing Joint Force Headquarters 

Future Air Force Component theater battle management command and control systems 

will meet Global Information Grid Capstone Requirements Document requirements 

to support interoperability with C4ISR and information systems and sources and those 

developed in the future for US, allied, coalition (multinational), and joint forces and 

Agencies. Deployable Air Force command and control systems are designed to be 

interoperable with allied and host nation command and control systems to support 

combined joint operations. Database standardization, digital production, and semantic 

tagging of data and information are critical enablers for operating in this multi-level 

security environment.

The Air Force Air and Space Operations Center (AOC) Formal Training Unit 

reinforces standard operating procedures for joint command and control processes, 

organizations, and systems. Training joint common process standards for Air 

Tasking Order generation and dissemination allows integration with the current and 

future command and control and information systems of all other expeditionary 

command and control nodes to enhance AOC processes and functions. Joint and 

combined command and control exercises, such as Blue Flag and Ulchi Focus Lens, 

further refine standardized tactics, techniques, and procedures, securing essential 

Service core competencies while ensuring cross-functional compatibility during 

worldwide contingencies.

The Air Force Command and Control Constellation infrastructure and 

communications architecture will be an open-architecture, Global Information Grid 

(GiG)-compliant network capable of serving all command and control mission 

applications. New command and control systems will identify and use common 

standards for data and metadata presentation. These systems will also comply with 

applicable IT standards contained in the DoD Joint Technical Architecture and the 

security standards of the Air Force Department of Defense Intelligence Information 

System. All of the system’s data that will be exchanged, or has the potential to be 

exchanged, shall be tagged in accordance with the current Joint Technical Architecture 

standard for tagged data items (Extensible Markup Language), and tags will be registered 

in accordance with the DoD Extensible Markup Language Registry and Publisher’s 

Clearinghouse policy and implementation plan. The network will be designed to 

interoperate with compatible future to-be-determined systems.

The proposed Warfighting Headquarters construct (detailed in Chapter V) will 

enable the Air Force to proactively integrate with the proposed Standing Joint Force 

Headquarters while evolving to a fully joint air and space headquarters of the future. 

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-4 

Common Relevant Operational Picture for Joint Forces

The Common Relevant Operational Picture will present timely, fused, accurate, and 

relevant information that can be tailored to meet the requirements of the joint force 

commander and the joint force. The Air Force is working to achieve this through 

their Family of Interoperable Operational Pictures effort. The Air Force is also 

supporting JFCOM’s Joint Interoperability Plan to achieve interoperability priorities, 

including the Common Relevant Operational Picture.

The Family of Interoperable Operational Pictures is a multi-Service program with new 

funding provided by OSD that will close the seams between existing legacy C4ISR 

systems and extend the capability of systems under development in order to exploit 

the full data collection and management abilities of current C4ISR assets. In order to 

provide an all-source picture of the battlespace containing actionable, decision-quality 

information to the warfighter through a fusion of existing databases, it will implement 

data-sharing and fusion among heterogeneous, stovepiped systems in support of both 

operational and tactical users. It will facilitate the establishment of interoperability 

standards and architectures to guide future acquisitions. The Air Force is the lead agent 

for this program and serves as the systems engineer for Joint Forces Command in 

coordinating joint battle management command and control programs.

The Single Integrated Space Picture will provide global and regional awareness 

of space forces to the warfighter to enable the Air Force to command and control 

space forces and present space forces to support effects-based operations. It will 

evolve into a seamless component of the Family of Interoperable Operational 

Pictures, along with a Single Integrated Air Picture, Single Integrated Ground 

Picture, Single Integrated Maritime Picture, Common Relevant Operational Picture 

and Common Tactical Picture.

The Multi-Sensor Command, Control Aircraft (MC2A), designated the E-10A, 

is the next generation wide area surveillance platform designed to provide a near 

real-time, horizontally integrated view of the air and surface battlespace through 

the use of advanced sensors, network centric systems and high-speed, wide band 

communication systems. It will provide a focused Air Moving Target Indicator 

capability for cruise missile defense, robust Ground Moving Target Indicator 

capabilities, and an open systems architecture to facilitate Battle Management 

Command and Control. The MC2A will achieve decisive operational capability 

through the rapid integration of information from manned, unmanned, and spacebased sensors. The E-10A is a key enabler of joint rapid decisive operations and 

the joint theater air and missile defense architecture. The aircraft will also be a key 

node of the Multi-Sensor Command and Control Constellation, which will enable 

the horizontal integration of ground, air, and space sensors and battle management 

platforms such as strike aircraft and ground troops.
B-5

The Combatant Commanders Integrated Command and Control System

(CCIC2S) is a command and control system that supports the Commander, NORAD 

to execute the aerospace warning and control missions and supports the Commander, 

US Strategic Command to execute space missions through Air Force Space Command. 

The system also provides space situation awareness to Combatant Commanders and 

government agencies. Additionally, it is the command and control capability supporting 

the National Security Space Plan. 

Enhanced Intelligence, Surveillance, 

and Reconnaissance Capabilities 

The Air Force-Distributed Common Ground System (AF-DCGS) weapon system 

is a central component of Air Force efforts to transform the ISR infrastructure 

to a net-centric enterprise. The foundation of AF-DCGS is a robust space and 

terrestrial communications network. The terrestrial backbone is a high-speed, widearea network that will ultimately connect at least 22 DCGS nodes around the 

world. The communications backbone provides added flexibility to deliver ISR data 

to DoD nodes to allow dispersed and distributed entities to share information, 

thereby generating synergy. This cross section of capabilities and expertise result in 

a shared knowledge base that permits AF-DCGS elements to self-synchronize as the 

environment changes. The result is near real-time multi-sensor tip-offs and crosscues that facilitate dynamic retasking of sensors available to the Joint Task Force 

commander. The AF-DCGS concept results in a reduced forward footprint, reduced 

airlift requirement, and an increased level of timely support to Joint Task Force 

commanders. Speed of command is enhanced as AF-DCGS provides the warfighter 

an actionable awareness of the accelerating changes in the environment, contributing 

immeasurably to Information Superiority.

The Air Force is also integrating an ISR Management capability into the AFDCGS and Air Operations Center weapons systems. The ISR management function 

enables the operators and collections managers in the AOC to visualize the status 

and capabilities of ISR assets in the area of operations and dynamically retask them 

in near real-time based on battlefield activity. The ISR Manager prototype system 

allows visualization of National assets, the U-2, and Predator, Global Hawk, and 

JSTARS navigation tracks and sensor footprints. It can also display JSTARS navigation 

tracks on a separate visualization tool. This visualization is then combined with a 

cross-intelligence database with feeds from Tactical Related Applications, Tactical 

Information Broadcast Service, U-2, JSTARS, Predator, and National assets. The ISR 

Management program will allow near real-time display of U-2, Global Hawk, and 

JSTARS moving target indicator tracks, Predator video, and collaboration among the 

program’s analysts and operators at multiple geographically separated locations via 

Information Work Space, an on-line collaboration tool.

Another technical effort is the successful modification of the Predator UAV’s 

near real-time-video feed so that the time needed to find and prosecute targets 

has been drastically reduced. The Rover I modification allows an AC-130 gunship to 

directly receive the streaming video from the Predator for targeting and situational 

awareness purposes. In much the same fashion, the Rover II modification allows the 

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

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UAV to transmit its video directly to forces on the ground. Both modifications allow 

engaged forces to rapidly identify targets, engage them, and view real-time battledamage assessment.

In the long-term, the Space-Based Radar will provide the capability to look deeply 

and persistently into areas that are inaccessible to current platforms due to political 

restrictions, geographical constraints, or the technological limitations of legacy systems. 

The continuous global access of Space-Based Radar and the extended-loiter capability of 

intercontinental range UAVs such as Global Hawk, combined with near real-time data 

transfer to multiple relevant command and control elements and the Multiplatform 

Radar Technology Insertion Program, will allow constant imaging or tracking of all 

relevant mobile or fixed surface targets in any weather conditions in all types of terrain 

as well as within urban areas. 

In the long-term, the Space-Based Infrared System will be a responsive, taskable, and 

steerable platform that can provide near real-time Overhead Non-Imaging Infra-Red (i.e., 

sensor-to-shooter connectivity) data to warfighters.

The MC2A, described above, also will provide important capabilities in this area.

Architectural Efforts

While the Air Force has committed to ISR integration through the establishment 

and funding of organizations dedicated to this goal, it is also advancing architectural 

improvements described below.

The Air Force is transitioning from collecting data through a myriad of independent 

systems (such as Rivet Joint, AWACS, JSTARS, and space-based assets) to a Command 

and Control Constellation capable of providing the Joint Force Commander with 

real-time, enhanced battlespace awareness. It will provide Ground Moving Target 

Indicator capabilities along with focused Air Moving Target Indicator capabilities for 

Cruise Missile Defense. Additionally, every platform will be a sensor on the integrated 

network. Regardless of mission function (command and control, ISR, shooters, tankers, 

etc), any data collected by a sensor will be passed to all network recipients. This requires 

networking all air, space, ground, and sea-based ISR systems, command and control 

nodes, and strike platforms to achieve shared battlespace awareness and a synergy to 

maximize the ability to achieve the JFC’s desired effects. 

The capabilities needed to exchange tactical information derived from multiple sensors 

is being addressed by multiple initiatives. They include: Multi-Platform Common 

Data Link System (for point-to-point and point-to-multi-point wideband operations) 

and the Advanced Wideband Terminal (for beyond line-of-sight operations).

The Automated ISR initiative will use technology to automate the TPED process to 

speed the delivery of finished intelligence to the user. It includes upgrades such as 

Distributed Common Ground System Block 10 and 20 upgrades, Network Centric 

Collaborative Targeting, Link 16, Automated Geo-Precise-Positioning of sensors, and 

Computer Aided Target Detection.
B-7

Network Centric Collaborative Targeting is an ACTD that will demonstrate a 

network centric operating system designed to horizontally integrate air, space, and 

surface ISR assets at the digital level. By providing a seamless, machine-to-machine 

interface, this ACTD can dramatically improve geo-location accuracy, timeliness, and 

combat identification of time sensitive targets. With an enhanced wideband battle 

management C4ISR network, it will ultimately enable a network centric, distributed 

processing environment by leveraging existing sensors, communications, and processing 

systems to dramatically reduce the time required to detect, identify, locate, and designate 

fleeting targets. The ACTD continues to work with the Airborne Overhead Integration 

Office to expand its initial capabilities. The long-range goal is to expand this capability 

to additional ISR sensor systems to create a greater network centric approach to find, 

fix, and track time-sensitive targets.

The mission of Global Network Centric Surveillance and Targeting (funded by 

the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and 

Intelligence) is to deliver a near real-time, actionable multi-sensor ISR output to the 

warfighter through automated upstream correlation and fusion of airborne and national 

data to detect, locate, and identify and prosecute previously undetected mobile timecritical targets. This program is initially focused on surface-to-air missiles and mobile 

theater ballistic missile launchers. The Air Force is providing operational expertise to the 

National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which is executive agent.

National Tactical Integration is an 8th Air Force initiative to improve information 

flow between national-level intelligence producers and tactical warfighters. The objective 

is to improve the timeliness and quantity of information available to air component 

staffs. Sensitive source information is stripped off and the remaining relevant tactical 

information is inputted into collateral level warfighter channels, making it more useable 

to the targeting and execution nodes in the kill chain. National Tactical Integration 

personnel imbedded in the AOC will understand the battle rhythm and critical 

information requirements by actively pulling information from national sources. This 

will improve the push system to a smart push-pull system.

Another Air Force effort to improve dissemination of actionable information is the 

Integrated Broadcast Service. It is a Ultra High Frequency satellite-based capability 

that will disseminate near real-time intelligence (threat avoidance, targeting, maneuver, 

force protection, target tracking, and battlefield situation awareness) to users in a 

given AOR and relayed to sites around the globe. The migration capability will also 

provide a single message format across DoD and will enable increased interoperability 

with Australian, British, Canadian, and New Zealand partners. The Air Force is the 

Executive Agent for the Integrated Broadcast Service, which is an umbrella program for 

the following intelligence systems: (1) the Air Force’s Tactical Information Broadcast 

Service, (2) the Navy’s Tactical Related Applications Data Dissemination System, and (3) 

the National Security Agency’s Near Real-Time Dissemination System. 

Global Broadcast System provides a true global and fully mobile communications 

architecture to DoD operators. Its satellite-based (Ka-band) architecture transcends 

previous geographic limitations to allow relatively high bandwidth transmission of 

mission critical information to forces virtually anywhere in the world with relative 

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simplicity. The Global Broadcast System was and continues to be used to support 

Operation Enduring Freedom in various locations throughout the CENTCOM area of 

responsibility. It is used extensively to transmit perishable high-bandwidth intelligence, 

such as UAV streaming video, and operational support data to aid combat air force 

and special operations personnel to fuse strategic and tactical operational views of the 

battlespace improving the ability to tighten the kill chain.

Another significant Air Force communications initiative is the Extended 

Tether Program. This program provides a high bandwidth, beyond line-of-sight 

communications relay for the U-2 and Global Hawk programs and is an integral 

component of the DCGS, discussed earlier. The Air Force is providing Extended Tether 

Program capabilities to the Global Hawk for the first time and increasing the number 

of simultaneous orbits flown by the Global Hawk and U-2 to four. This is a huge step 

towards providing persistent multi-source ISR to combatant commanders anywhere 

it is needed. It increases imagery, signals, and measurement and signature intelligence 

collection; reduces delivery time for raw data for analysis and fusion; and ultimately 

gets decision-quality information to the warfighters more quickly. The program will 

also dramatically reduce the forward footprint, which minimizes force protection 

concerns and reduces airlift requirements making forces lighter, leaner, and more lethal. 

The Extended Tether Program architecture will transition to the Transformational 

Communications Architecture after 2010.

The Air Force is also working on developing a communications gateway to extend and 

integrate the datalink architectures within the battlespace. The capability to provide 

limited Link-16 information to Situational Awareness Datalink equipped 

platforms for issuing commands, providing situational awareness, and reducing the risk 

of fratricide are the goals of this effort. The capability not only will allow aircraft with 

varying communications architectures to communicate with each other, but provide 

machine-to-machine interface and permit CAOC-to-cockpit digital command and 

control and extend CAOC fusion beyond line-of-site.

The Transformational Air and Space ISR Project is an Undersecretary of Defense 

(Intelligence)- and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence-chartered study to look at air 

and space transformational ideas for 2008-2018 timeframe. The study is on a fast track 

and will be completed in time to affect the FY05-09 Amended POM. The project has 

five working groups: CONOPS (Air Force lead), Information Needs, Scenario, Metrics, 

and Research and Evaluation. The plan is to create candidate force-mix architectures to 

evaluate against the CONOPS, information needs, metrics, and scenarios. The resulting 

recommendations will propose air and space trade-offs to aid executive decisions for the 

National Foreign Intelligence Program build.

Future ISR Integration Efforts

While some integration of ISR sensors has already taken place, there is still a long way 

to go. The Air Force ISR integration strategy is transitioning to align with the new Air 

Force CONOPS and associated CRRA process (described in Chapter VI) to define 

ISR integration requirements. Once these requirements are validated, the Air Force will 

develop and acquire new methods for ISR integration according to an ISR technology 

roadmap. New doctrine and/or tactics, techniques, and procedures will need to be 
B-9

developed to accompany the new technology. All of these new efforts will fit within the 

OSD C4ISR architecture since the Air Force owns a majority of the low density-high 

demand ISR platforms and supports component commanders and other Services. 

In addition, the Air Force will expand its efforts at integration across processed data 

networks through multi-discipline intelligence product networks. The capacity of 

communication lines and on-board processing capabilities used to distribute and 

process ISR data needs to be increased to handle the large bandwidth and processing 

demand that sensor data places on the network. Continued use of compression, preprocessing of sensor data before transmission, and fiber optics will help to alleviate 

this shortfall. Even if the bandwidth issues are resolved, once the data arrives, there are 

often multiple terminals necessary to access all relevant sources of information. The Air 

Force is emphasizing the need for common user interfaces that allow analysts to access 

multiple sources from one terminal to alleviate this problem. In addition to procuring 

more horizontally integrated systems, the Air Force acknowledges the need to continue 

wargaming and experimentation of future ISR concepts. The focus of JEFX 04 is battle 

management command and control, with an emphasis on air and space integration. 

Three focus areas will be Network Centric Infrastructure, effects-based operations, and 

Predictive Battlespace Awareness. 

Selected Sensor-to-Shooter Linkages Prioritized by 

Contribution to the Joint Operations Center (JOC)

The theater CAOCs and the functional area managers of the AOC and E-3A will work 

with the Joint Operations Center (JOC) to ensure the JOC Air Operations Cell has the 

information it needs to prioritize required air-to-ground and air-to-air sensor-to-shooter 

linkages and can access these selected sensor-to-shooter links. Specifically, the CAOC 

Time Sensitive Targeting Teams and E-3A units can provide lessons-learned information 

on using sensor-to-shooter links to help the JOC Air Operations Cell to prioritize these 

links based on JOC requirements.

The MC2A, described earlier, also will provide important capabilities in this area. 

Reachback Capabilities that Provide 

Global Information Access 

A new Airborne Networking capability is now operational on Distinguished Visitor, 

Special Air Mission, and Combatant Command support aircraft. Significant capability 

is being provided with the operational validation of the C-32s(2), C-40Bs(2), and 

VC-25 aircraft equipped with integrated classified and unclassified Local Area Networks, 

“Connexion,” and High Speed Data International Maritime/Marine Satellite air-toground data service. This supplements the very limited legacy capability (16K fax/data 

and low speed dialup). The requirement was to enable access to unclassified and 

classified email, shared files, and applications hosted on their home station networks 

as well as view-live television and participation in secure video teleconferences. The 

intent of the Airborne Networking capability is to provide an “office in the sky” and 

extend the Global Information Grid (GIG) into the airborne platforms. The Nation’s 

most senior leadership is now enjoying this quantum leap and applying it directly to 

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-10 

continuity of governance and operations. The Air Force has established Air-to-GIG 

gateways and an Air Network Operations and Security Center to support these airlift 

platforms mentioned above. The next step in this effort is to expand this capability to 

more airborne platforms.

On 31 March 2001, an OSD memo requested that the Air Force provide a plan to 

implement a ground infrastructure to support modifications to the Distinguished Visitor 

fleet that included both primary platforms and smaller assets such as the 

C-37As. Therefore, Block I focused on initial support to the primary platforms. With the 

initial infrastructure operational, it is now necessary to focus support to the remaining 

Distinguished Visitor aircraft with robust global infrastructure, increase performance, 

and begin the support other platforms equipped with the antenna systems. This effort 

emphasizes three major objectives to homogenize capability across platforms, maximize 

performance, and ensure continuous availability to senior leadership.

The Air Force selected high-speed data International Marine/Maritime Satellite as the 

most viable solution to extend the GIG to smaller platforms such as C-37As. For a small 

investment, the Air to GIG gateways can be enhanced to support Dial access into the 

Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router Net and Secure Internet Protocol Router Net via 

Integrated Services Digital Network Remote Access Servers. In doing so, not only can 

distinguished visitor aircraft be support but the Air Force can also extend GIG services to 

other platforms such as C-17s and KC-135s that implement high-speed data International 

Marine/Maritime Satellite antennas. It may even be possible to provide support to the 

Joint Enroute Mission Planning and Rehearsal System with this small investment. 

This project builds upon its prior success and applies “lessons learned” from the initial 

effort to take the next step in extending the GIG to all airborne platforms. 

Bandwidth sharing is another key associated Air Force effort. Bandwidth sharing 

is a technique to provide more throughput, a higher rate return channel, and greater 

bandwidth efficiency. It provides an “always on” connection for network access, central 

server or database access, video streaming, voice services, and other multimedia services 

while economizing on satellite bandwidth. 

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is DoD’s future solution to implement a bandwidth 

sharing scheme and resolve contention for resources. DoD is currently using IPv4. 

Today’s circuit-based satellite communication systems provide communications 

services by provisioning satellite resources to support specific user missions. Certain 

measures (e.g., priority, preemption, and fencing) are taken in order to guarantee such 

communications services. In an IPv6-based communications system, Quality of Service 

mechanisms can be employed to provide and guarantee equivalent communication 

services in order to support numerous user missions by providing bandwidth sharing. 

In comparison, the mechanisms employed in an IP-based environment can enhance 

the quality of service experienced by allowing the network to be flexible enough to 

dynamically react to user needs and offer better service. 

The MC2A and DCGS, both described earlier, also would provide important 

capabilities in this area. 
B-11

Adaptive Mission Planning, Rehearsal, 

and Joint Training Linked with C4ISR 

Achieving adaptive mission planning, rehearsal, and joint training linked with C4ISR 

will require efforts in several key areas. First, the C4ISR architecture must continue to 

evolve to enable more robust network centric warfare. Second, modeling and simulation 

tools must continue to evolve. A synthetic, realistic environment through the Joint 

Synthetic Battlespace initiative will allow better integration between units—coalition, 

joint, and Air Force—through Distributed Mission Operations and Distributed Mission 

Training. Third, developing and embedding new and improved Decision Support Tools 

will allow commanders to leverage advantages in communications and intelligence to 

maintain decisive advantages over future enemies. 

C4ISR Architecture

Commanders rely increasingly on surveillance to gather information on targets in realtime—and then get the information to the shooter fast enough for that asset to act. 

Maturing the C4ISR architecture will allow developmental teams to identify shortfalls 

and build a more robust and persistent ISR capability. Improving C4ISR provides 

National Command Authorities with greater asset capability, shorter kill cycles, and 

quicker battle damage assessments. The concepts of parallel warfare and EBO depend 

greatly on measuring opponent reactions, identifying opposing capabilities, and 

frustrating efforts to protect key infrastructures. C4ISR gives commanders the ability 

to respond quickly to opportunities to destroy critical enemy assets. The recent PGM 

attacks on Iraqi leadership exemplify the increased benefits associated with shortening 

the kill chain.

Leveraging existing capabilities creates a more persistent and robust technology. 

Network centric warfare gives commanders unprecedented insight into enemy actions 

as well as a more complete picture of assets being arrayed. For example, UAVs linked 

to Air Operations Centers gave commanders real-time images of potential targets and 

allowed them to respond to opportunities that emerged. Architecture will allow the 

systematic linkage of existing systems to occur, thereby increasing capabilities. Most 

of the programs and initiatives discussed in Chapter VII, Section A on “Information 

Superiority” will support this. The Command and Control Constellation Architecture is 

the foundation for transformation of Air Force C4ISR.

Modeling and Simulation

The increased sophistication and robustness of modeling and simulation creates the 

trade space for transformation to happen in a low threat, yet realistic environment. 

The keys for this to continue will be the development of a joint synthetic environment 

that allows for the Rapid Scenario Generation for various theaters of operations. Such 

scenario generation will allow for mission rehearsal, testing of new capabilities, and 

Course of Action Development in a Distributed Mission Operations environment.

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-12 

Creating a Joint Synthetic Battlespace will allow DoD to train tailored forces to any 

scenario imaginable. Using Distributed Mission Operations, forces can be selected to 

meet national objectives, and train together in a live, virtual, and constructive forum 

through the entire chain of command in a realistic and meaningful way. This capability 

will allow commanders the ability to test strategies and tactics in a way that is not 

possible today.

Modeling and simulation needs to continue developing in two areas to effect 

transformation. First, the ability to create realistic scenarios quickly enough to allow 

commanders to prepare for operations anywhere in the world is critical. Current 

capabilities allow for desert scenarios but do not allow for sorties. 

Second, the Distributed Mission Operations and Distributed Mission Training

initiatives will allow commanders to train forces with a realistic mix of capabilities 

from the strategic level (joint battle staffs) to the tactical level (individual sorties). 

Through simulation, assets that are seldom available live can be incorporated into a live 

exercise and/or rehearsal. For example, a JSTARS simulator located at Warner Robins 

Air Force Base might be “connected” to a Red Flag strike package so that the JSTARS 

is a seamless part of the live fly operation. In other words, the same JSTARS sensor 

information is available to the exercise participants that would be available had the 

E-8 been located in an orbit supporting the Red Flag shooters. Expanding from the 

JSTARS-Red Flag example enables the Air Force to visualize a capability to practice 

missions requiring a “total team” environment where all the players and command and 

control are part of a realistic “virtual” battlespace where it is impossible to determine if 

a particular input comes from a live or virtual source.

Embedding Decision Support Tools

The next frontier of transformation is embedding decision-support tools for the 

commander. Selected sensor-to–shooter linkages prioritized by their contribution 

is a capability that is needed for the Joint Operational Commander. The ability 

for machine-to-machine communications to acquire targets, assign assets against 

opportunities, and conduct battle damage assessment will provide commanders with 

unimagined opportunities to shape the battlespace. The tediousness of such operations 

is rife with opportunities for mistakes. Freeing up manpower, like the air tasking order 

automation process, improves efforts and further enhances system capabilities.

Second, developing reachback capabilities allowing global information access will allow 

the Joint Operational Commander more rapid decision-making and better optimization 

of force mix. Commanders in the states can follow logistical support, munitions 

expenditures, medical requirements in real-time, empowering “just in time logistics” to 

function in global operations.

Most of the initiatives discussed both in Chapter VII, Sections A (Information 

Superiority) and F (Agile Combat Support) will achieve these goals.
B-13

Addressing TPG Guidance in Appendix III 

Regarding Interoperability Initiatives

This section addresses TPG guidance in Appendix III on pages 29-30 for Services to 

“explicitly identify initiatives undertaken to improve interoperability in the following 

areas [which comprise the sections below]...” 

Deployment of a Secure, Robust, and Wideband Network

The primary Air Force effort to deploy a secure, robust, wideband network involves 

new laser communications. Laser communications offer new potential for extremely 

high capacity as well as secure means of communication using different frequencies and 

propagation means. They are inherently jam-resistant, providing much greater security. 

Laser communications will also transform the way data flows through the military 

satellite communications system by making it more network (rather than platform) 

centric, so data will flow more like it does on the Internet. Key associated programs 

that will operationalize laser communications include the Transformational Satellite. 

In addition, Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) networking will include or support:

• Interoperability between the Services

• Seamless delivery of video, voice, and data services

• Adaptation to user message requirements or network conditions

• Ad hoc formation of scalable networks

• Automatically (waveform controlled) and manually (user controlled) adaptable radio 

frequency or routing features

• Standard protocols and interfaces, if possible

• Evolutionary implementation of requirements and simple insertion of new capabilities

The JTRS networking design process uses the JTRS Application Programming 

Interfaces and modularity features. The design includes standardized Application 

Program Interfaces at each layer of the waveform to provide an easy mechanism for 

iterative performance improvements and overall waveform evolution with advancing 

technology developments.

The Air Force will use JTRS networking to provide a seamless extension of the Global 

Information Grid to Air Force users requiring wireless network connectivity. The JTRS 

networking will:

• Provide high throughput, dynamically adaptable connectivity for exchange of 

IP-based voice, data, and video traffic.

• Support efficient and reliable interconnection between terrestrial (fixed and mobile) 

and airborne users of the Global Information Grid in a changing network topology 

without introducing gateway bottlenecks.

• Support network nodes on mobile and airborne platforms (as well as deployed 

and fixed platforms) without the need of intervention by the personnel on 

those platforms. 

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The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

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• Be robust and adaptable to support communications connectivity during rapidly 

changing distances and orientations between nodes and will support operation 

in the following environments: (1) co-site environments typical of command and 

control, ISR, and other communications-intensive airborne and ground platforms; 

(2) tactical radio frequency propagation environments; and (3) radio frequency 

spectrum utilization suitable for worldwide operation.

In addition, the JTRS networking routing capability will be robust and sufficiently 

flexible to support dynamically changing network topologies and radio silent 

subscribers. The routing capability in both ground and airborne nodes must interface 

to commercial routing and network planning and management processes and systems 

used by the Air Force (including those used with wideband satellite communications 

networks) that are provided externally to JTRS.

JTRS networking will also provide network services to ground (fixed, deployed, and 

mobile) and airborne nodes operating in a theater-size geographical area. The network 

will include intra-Air Force as well as joint participants. The total number of Air Force 

JTRS platforms in the network could range between 100 and 250 based on deployment 

of an Aerospace Expeditionary Force of 75 aircraft, ground support and command and 

control operational facilities, an on-call Aerospace Expeditionary Wing of 100 aircraft, 

high demand/low density aircraft, and fixed and/or deployed operational facilities. Up 

to 75 airborne nodes could participate in a network at any given time. The remainder 

of the nodes will be ground-based. Some nodes may participate in more than one JTRS 

WNW network simultaneously.

JTRS networking will provide network services to ground (fixed, deployed, and mobile) 

and airborne nodes in a theater-size geographical area of approximately 1000 by 1000 

nautical miles. Minimum node-to-node line-of-site ranges that must be supported within 

this area of operation are as follows:

• Air-to-Air—at least 370 kilometers (200 nautical miles)

• Air-to-Ground/Surface—at least 370 km (200 nautical miles)

• Ground-to-Ground—at least 10 km (5.4 nautical miles)

JTRS networking will support theater and worldwide network connectivity by 

internetworking with IP-based networks on wireless and terrestrial media.

In simplest terms, Quality of Service is the ability of a network to differentiate between 

traffic types and provide differential treatment to them without adversely affecting its 

function or performance. In addition, the concept of networks and interconnectivity 

between networks through an IP infrastructure introduces the situation of “weakest link” 

where a single network can limit the quality of service by a) implementing poor schemes 

within its domain or b) implementing schemes so unique they cause poor Quality of 

Service translations across the network boundaries. The IP-based Quality of Service 

framework helps the Transformational Communications network (which includes laser 

communications-related systems such as the Transformational Satellite) efficiently and 

reliably support a variety of operational needs, e.g. emergency services, time-sensitive 

applications, and high priority communication channels, across a complex network.
B-15

The DCGS, bandwidth sharing, and CCIC2S, all described previously, also play a 

key role in this area. 

Adoption of “Post Before Process” 

Intelligence and Information Concepts

The primary Air Force effort to address this subject is the DCGS, which is a central 

component of Air Force efforts to transform the ISR infrastructure to a net-centric 

enterprise. It was described in greater detail earlier in this appendix.

The Air Force is also integrating an ISR Management capability into the AF-DCGS 

and Air Operations Center weapons systems. The ISR management function enables the 

operators and collections managers in the AOC to visualize the status and capabilities of 

ISR assets in the area of operations and dynamically retask them in near real-time based on 

battlefield activity. The ISR-Manager prototype system allows visualization of National asset, 

U-2, Predator, Global Hawk, and JSTARS navigation tracks and sensor footprints. This 

visualization is then combined with a cross-intelligence database with feeds from Tactical 

Related Applications, Tactical Information Broadcast Service, U-2, JSTARS, Predator, and 

National assets. The ISR-Management program allows near real-time display of U-2, Global 

Hawk, and JSTARS moving target indicator tracks, Predator video, and collaboration 

among ISR Management analysts and operators at multiple geographically separated 

locations via Information Work Space, an on-line collaboration tool.

The MC2A, described earlier, also would provide important capabilities in this area. 

Deployment of Dynamic, Distributed, 

Collaborative Capabilities and Achievement 

of Data-Level Interoperability

Most key Air Force efforts to deploy dynamic, distributed, collaborative capabilities 

and achieve data-level interoperability fall under one of the following categories: (1) 

eXtensible Markup Language implementation or (2) operational collaboration and data 

interoperability initiatives.

eXtensible Markup Language (XML)

The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board recommended the Joint Battlespace 

Infosphere concept in 1999 as an infrastructure to integrate, aggregate, and distribute 

information to all combat echelons. XML is a tool that will enhance machine-tomachine information exchange and help the Air Force achieve timely and accurate 

decision making during operations. It is the key enabling technology to create 

the link between content creators and content consumers to deliver the “right 

information to the right user at the right time in the right format” to multiple 

devices, including personal computers and wireless mobile devices. XML can be 

used to describe metadata for content and “fuselets”—a Joint Battlespace Infosphere 

construct for simple processing applications.

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-16 

The Infostructure Architecture Council will lead an Air Force-wide implementation 

strategy. The Air Force is currently developing XML implementation guidelines 

and procedures to ensure consistency and to avoid duplication of effort across Air 

Force commands. The first set of implementation guidance should be complete and 

disseminated in late 2003.

The Air Force Departmental Publishing Office recently selected PureEdge’s XML-based 

electronic forms product that will enable personnel worldwide to file electronic forms 

with electronic signatures. It is converting 18,000 forms that are used by more than 

700,000 Service members worldwide.

In addition, the Air Force plays a leading role in migrating the US and NATO 

Message Text Formats to XML representations and has developed an Air Force 

XML-Message Text Format roadmap to guide future work on this and related DoD 

XML messaging activities. 

Operational Collaboration and Data Interoperability Initiatives

The Air Force has and/or participates with the Services in a host of initiatives to 

improve operational collaboration and data interoperability. These include: 

• The Air Force has designated the AOC as a weapon system to provide the 

Joint Force Air and Space Component Commander a standardized capability 

to command and control air and space forces. This action will greatly enhance 

horizontal integration and provide a much improved capability to support joint 

operations with planning, tasking, command and control, data fusion, and near 

real-time common operating pictures of the battlespace. 

• Link-16: Provides jam-resistant, secure communications that can be relayed over 

long distances for integrated operations and supports the concept of machine-tomachine interface for horizontal integration. It is currently being installed in attack 

aircraft beginning with the F-15 and F-16 Blocks 40/50. The goal is to put Link-16 

on all attack aircraft enabling digital interface with command and control aircraft 

and a variety of joint command and control ground forces.

• Joint Tactical Radio System Migration. The Joint Tactical Radio System, 

described in more detail previously in this appendix, is a joint program in which 

the Air Force participates. It will provide a software reprogrammable joint Services 

radio and data transmission system.

• Air Force Transformation Center. Previously, an AOC used its own unique 

hardware, software, and servers that were often incompatible with other systems in 

other Centers. The Air Force Transformation Center will ensure that the latest new 

technologies to achieve the capability to provide the commander a clear, coherent, 

real-time picture of the battlespace are incorporated into the global and theater 

AOCs in a timely and standardized manner.

• The Global CONOPS Synchronization will demonstrate ability to and benefits 

of sharing real-time information among Mobility Air Forces (global) and Combat 

Air Forces (multi-area of responsibility centric) command and control planning and 

execution systems, and flying assets via machine-to-machine data exchange.

• The Multi-Platform Common Data Link will provide point to multi-
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point, network enabled, secure, wideband data dissemination operations. It is 

compatible with all of the Services’ data links and was specifically developed to 

disseminate information from an airborne platform to both the Army and Air 

Force Distributed Common Ground Systems. This common data link will be 

installed onto the Global Hawk, Rivet Joint, E-10A, and ultimately in every Army 

Distributed Common Ground System. 

Additional Air Force efforts in this area include: 

• Tactical Data Link Roadmap

• Army Deep Operations Center functionality embedding into Family of 

Interoperable Pictures 

• Leadership of Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment process 

• Standing Joint Force Headquarters prototype 

• Battle Management Command and Control 

• SIPRNET Portal

• Airborne Networking Management 

• Advanced technology communications/connectivity solutions

• MC2A

• DCGS 

Deployment of “Net-Ready” Sensors, 

Platforms, Weapons, and Forces

The Air Force is pursuing a wide range of efforts to deploy “net-ready” sensors, 

platforms, weapons, and forces:

E-3A is the Air Force’s preeminent airborne wide area surveillance and battle 

management platform providing persistent and survivable surveillance, battle 

management, weapons control, threat warning, and combat identification in support of 

commander taskings. Programs are in place to enhance machine-to-machine interfaces 

and decrease the kill chain timeline. The E-3A Block 40/45 Upgrade will integrate 

and fuse all E-3 sensor data (and off-board data) into a single target-single track 

via Multi-Sensor Integration software. Priority tracks will be quickly transmitted to 

shooters/decision makers with reduced data link latency via Data Link Infrastructure 

software, enhancing time-critical-targeting and providing net-ready sensor.

The JSTARS is the nation’s premier provider of ground battlespace situational 

awareness—a critical capability to provide persistent ISR capability to US and allied 

warfighters. JSTARS’ wide area surveillance operations, using ground moving target 

indicator, fixed target indicator, and synthetic aperture radar capabilities enables a wide 

variety of effects-based operations and gives theater commanders command and control 

and battle management of air-to-ground forces. The JSTARS Attack Support Upgrade

digitally links JSTARS information directly into the F-15E cockpit, which increases 

aircrew situational awareness, efficiency, and safety. Additional information that will 

be provided to the F-15E includes: target sorting, attack assignments, prioritization, 

and weather over the target. JSTARS will be able to digitally assign a specific target 

resulting in a significant decrease of the timeline for time-critical-targeting. In addition, 

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-18 

the Improved Data Modem will provide critical JSTARS data to Army Apache attack 

helicopter gunships, which will dramatically reduce the kill chain timeline for air-toground targeting. The JSTARS mission crew will be able to provide moving target 

indicators directly into cockpits of over 500 Apaches while simultaneously providing 

this information to the Air Operations Center over satellite communications radio.

The Distributed Common Ground System, described in great detail elsewhere in this 

appendix, will be an open architecture, net-centric system that will enable the support 

of multiple, simultaneous, worldwide operations from in garrison and through scalable, 

modular system deployments. DCGS is also developing a common Services backbone 

of which other Service partners can leverage in utilizing their own TPED assets, to 

include AF DCGS Block 10.2

The Roll-on Beyond Line-of-Sight Enhancement, informally referred to as the 

“Smart Tanker,” is the first in a family of Scalable, Modular, Airborne, Relay Terminals, 

which will reside on tankers, but will also be suitable for a variety of other platforms to 

include unmanned and ground- or sea-based vehicles. Initially, it will be a Link-16 relay 

that will allow line of sight-beyond line of sight communication between participants 

in the network. It will become a vital part of a global network to provide critical data 

to warfighters more quickly for faster decision-making and time-sensitive engagement of 

critical targets. 

As the result of the Air Force Chief of Staff’s Task Force for Link-16 Acceleration, the 

Air Force has taken several steps to improve the Tactical Data Link Infrastructure. 

These include the Interim Joint Interface Control Officer toolsets, common software, 

Tactical Data Link management tools, and improvements to the joint/combined 

Tactical Data Link Infrastructure.

The Air Force has also taken numerous initiatives to improve interoperability in 

deploying “net-ready” UAV and ISR assets:

• The Air Force participates in the DoD UAV Interoperability Working Group to 

pursue joint-Service and international cooperation in UAV programs to support 

system development. Its goal is to implement a standards-based approach for UAVs, 

including combat support and combat applications, to satisfy joint interoperability 

requirements and allow rapid integration into combat operations.

• A Joint Program Office is being stood up on 1 October 2003 to address Air 

Force and Navy UCAV issues. Its goal is to create standards that will allow 

UCAVs to be built along common lines in hopes of decreasing costs while 

retaining interoperability.

• All production version Global Hawk air vehicles and existing U-2s will be able 

to relay sensor data via the High Altitude Endurance ISR Beyond Line of Sight 

communications architecture. This will allow adequate bandwidth to download ISR 

images from more than a single Global Hawk at a time.

• Global Hawk UAV can downlink imagery directly to the US Army Tactical 

Exploitation System for exploitation by the US Army. This shows improved 

interoperability of “net-ready” sensors and platforms to meet Warfighter requirements.
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• The Air Force is developing air and ground terminals in the Family of Airborne 

Terminals program that will allow both the Global Hawk UAV and U-2 systems 

to be interoperable with the Wideband Gapfiller System Ka-band satellite 

communications constellation. These terminals will allow these systems to retain 

backward compatibility with current beyond line-of-sight communications options.

• The UCAV program is about to begin a compatibility study for operations with the 

next generation of Extremely High Frequency Milstar satellite communications and 

the Advanced Extremely High Frequency system.

• Global Hawk is adding a Signals Intelligence capability to its current Imagery 

Intelligence payload.

• UCAV is being designed to be more net-centric with up to four air vehicles being 

controlled simultaneously by a single ground station. Currently it requires one 

ground station to control a single UAV.

• Global Hawk will possess an Ultra High Frequency military satellite 

communications data interoperability capability in 2004, with voice interoperability 

being added in 2007. 

• The Air Force is upgrading U-2 data capabilities from the current serial data transfer 

mode to Asynchronous Transfer Mode, which will improve interoperability of 

sensor data transfer.

• The Air Force is installing Link-16 on U-2s and in DCGS, which will improve 

interoperability with the airborne datalink command and control network.

• Global Hawk UAV and the U-2 are currently reviewing options and planning to 

migrate to the JTRS, which will improve interoperability with the airborne network.

• Predator UAV has just completed a major initiative that improved interoperability 

and “net-ready” operations by implementing a robust, CONUS-based, reachback 

architecture. The Predator Operations Center is fully operational and is the central 

Predator UAVs control facility that takes maximum advantage of access to CONUS 

communications and classified intelligence networks. This has resulted in having 

to forward deploy only the air vehicles and the launch and recovery station, which 

has greatly reduced the amount of communications network infrastructure that is 

required at the forward operating location.

• Predator UAV is implementing the Triple Digital Encryption Standard, which will 

increase net-centric security. The Air Force desires to migrate Predator UAV to 

a National Security Agency approved encryption algorithm to further enhance 

network security and take advantage of encryption standards used throughout the 

networks. Remote split operations also reduced the personnel tempo, the force 

protection footprint, airlift requirements, and deployment timing while providing 

networking operational synergy.

• Predator UAV is implementing a secure voice capability that will allow enhanced 

interoperability with airborne voice networks.

• Predator UAV has moved away from specialized point-to-point video dissemination 

circuits and now uses the Global Broadcast System network as the primary Predator 

UAV video dissemination path back to the warfighter.

• Predator UAV is implementing a Tactical Common Data Link solution to replace 

the current analog C-band line-of-sight communications architecture. This will 

migrate Predator UAV to Common Data Link, which is the DoD standard for 

unprocessed imagery data. (Global Hawk and the U-2 currently employ Common 

Data Link).

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-20 

• The Tactical UAV Initiative, which will embed a small tactical UAV squadron 

within Air Force Special Operations Command, includes the seamless integration 

of smaller unmanned systems with the established mainline systems the Air Force 

currently employs.

In the near-term, the Air Force is pursuing a number of initiatives to improve the kill 

chain timeline by linking the sensor and shooter and linking the shooter into a network 

of information. This includes accelerating installation of Situational Awareness Data 

Link Gateway and Near-Term Enhancements to the Tactical Data Link Architecture. 

These combine to allow greater numbers of combat aircraft to access the Tactical Data 

Link Architecture and give access to a wider variety of Air Force and Navy platforms 

from Active, Guard, and Reserve components. The Air Force has also installed Digital 

Imagery Request and Distribution System at a number of locations to give friendly 

forces national and theater imagery faster. In the long-term, programs such as SpaceBased Radar will provide unprecedented persistence and send critical target location 

information to a network of users worldwide to find, fix, track, target, engage, and 

assess targets anywhere on the globe and send that targeting information to the right 

network of shooters at the right time. 

Associated Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations

Adaptive Joint C4ISR Node: This ACTD will integrate, demonstrate, and transition 

a single, multi-mission, morphable radio frequency system that provides seamless 

interoperable communications, signals intelligence, electronic, and information 

capabilities. It will be demonstrated in an aircraft for the ACTD, but can be employed 

in a variety of platforms—manned and unmanned air, sea or land in a theater-wide 

networked constellation providing ubiquitous multi-mission support of radio frequency 

operations. This ACTD will enable interoperability among the Services and coalition 

partners, reduce reliance on high demand/low density assets (e.g., Rivet Joint), improve 

timeliness in responding to emerging requirements and threats and disseminating 

intelligence collection, increase fidelity in battlespace picture and broad situational 

awareness, significantly increase access for conducting network warfare operations, and 

reduce the logistics burden through common hardware.

Agile Transportation (AT21): This ACTD will demonstrate total visibility of all 

transportation requirements, available lift assets, personnel, and equipment moving to 

and within the various theaters of operation. Advanced scheduling decision-support tools 

will be used for mode determination and optimization of strategic lift assets resulting in 

reduced force closure times, smaller theater logistics footprint, and approximately $40 

million annual cost avoidance. US Transportation Command is the operational sponsor. 
B-21

Joint Tactical Radio System Networking Requirements 

and Capabilities in Relationship to the GIG

To achieve the specific and derived requirements of Joint Vision 2020 and the 

Global Information Grid CAPSTONE Requirements Document requires a single 

interconnected, end-to-end information transport network. The Joint Tactical Radio 

System, as the OSD designated network enabler of the deployed operational area, 

provides the GIG transport for the deployed force commander. It will provide a 

seamless, highly flexible, and adaptive communications capability, offering the 

means for total horizontal and vertical C4 systems interoperability, for all radio sets 

and networks at all echelons for the 21st Century warfighter, to ensure full spectrum 

dominance in peacetime and in war.

While a JTRS radio or JTRS Network node may not serve every user across the 

deployed area, the JTRS Network will service every mobile user and the majority of 

large stationary users. All nodes connected to the deployed area will be JTRS Network 

compatible/compliant, including those of existing or planned deployed static wide area 

networks and supporting networks such as Transformational Communications.

The JTRS has primary responsibility for providing the deployed portion of the 

GIG’s information transport and network operations functions, along with other 

supporting systems. 

The JTRS network is a collection of JTRS-enabled user nodes. When connected, 

these nodes will create an information mesh across the battle space. Each node, 

whether moving (orbiting satellite, aircraft, surface ship, submarine or vehicle) or 

static (geosynchronous satellite, fixed or stationary command post, fixed sea or land 

sensor) will provide a portion of the network. Each node not only provides for its own 

information needs, but as a part of the network, provides transit and other support 

for the overall network. The sum of the nodes will create the network. The nodes will 

establish and use discrete connections with one another to disseminate information. 

Connections may not be direct, but may be virtual through other nodes. The key to 

this adaptable network connectivity will be nodal network awareness. Each node in 

the network constantly will query its surrounding nodes for changes of network status 

and will conduct self-queries to establish internal status and provide information for its 

surrounding nodes. This will provide the network information necessary to maximize 

the information transport capabilities given the resources allocated to each node and 

the network. 

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-22 

Addressing Information Superiority 

Guidance in TPG Appendix III:

Page 30 of the TPG requires that Service transformation roadmaps “address plans 

to implement...information superiority, the identification and employment of all 

its elements, how it should be represented in war plans and joint experimentation, 

and how to achieve it.” Much of this is directly addressed in Chapter VII, Section 

A (“Information Superiority”) and in earlier sections of this Appendix addressing 

interoperability and intelligence. This section addresses the remaining key aspect 

of information superiority: information operations. As described in Chapter VII, 

information superiority can provide a revolutionary advantage for US forces only by 

ensuring that the adversary: (1) cannot disrupt, manipulate, or destroy the associated 

friendly information, information systems, and information processes on which they 

rely and (2) does not have effective C4ISR of its own. 

Achieving the first requires effective information operations that ensure friendly use of 

the information domain. In fact, as the world’s most information-dependent fighting 

force, the US military, must use the IO capabilities of network defense, information 

assurance, operations security, military deception, counterintelligence, and counterpropaganda to degrade, disrupt, deny and destroy the ability of adversaries to exploit 

this reliance on information and assure jam-resistant, secure, survivable C4ISR. By 

integrating these IO capabilities to protect or project the commander’s objectives and 

themes, military operations have a much greater chance at success.

Against adversaries with effective C4ISR, achieving the second requires information 

operations capabilities that can effectively degrade, disrupt, deny, and destroy an 

adversary’s C4ISR capability. These include network attack, electronic warfare, military 

deception, public affairs operations, Operations Security, and PSYOP.

The Air Force is leading efforts to present many more of these classified IO 

capabilities to the Combatant Commanders either as apportioned capabilities or by 

making Combatant Commanders aware of limited combat capabilities presented by 

development programs. Most programs are very small in nature and would collectively 

be too numerous to list comprehensively here. Determining even unclassified funding 

for IO is extremely difficult at the present time as most funds are embedded in 

larger Program Elements that contain non-IO funding or, in the case of information 

assurance, is built into new C4ISR systems. The Air Force, however, is in the process of 

attempting to determine actual IO funding levels. 

The Air Force is currently redefining its Information Operations mission area. It 

has initiated a two step process that will align it better with OSD and Joint Staff 

terminology and better define its components. First, the Air Force is in step with the 

OSD and Joint Staff efforts to refocus IO into five core capabilities: electronic warfare, 

network warfare operations, operational security, MD, and psychological operations. 

This will essentially refine a mission area that has been too broadly defined in past 

doctrine and was difficult to operationalize. In addition, the Air Force will move away 

from the information warfare (IW) and information-in-warfare construct and move 

to a doctrinal framework that defines information warfare as theory and IO as the 
B-23

application of that theory. Second, the Air Force has taken the five core IO capabilities 

and applied them to the operational level of war. This has resulted in the following Air 

Force understanding of the joint IO definition: “Information operations is the integrated 

planning, employment, and assessment of Influence Operations, Electronic Warfare Operations, 

and Network Warfare Operations capabilities, in concert with specified integrated control enablers, 

to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while 

protecting our own.” Influence Operations, Electronic Warfare Operations, and Network 

Warfare Operations are the “operational-level functions” associated with IO. The IO 

Mission Area Plan will reflect this structure, and ultimately Program Elements will 

reorganize to give greater insight into the programming and budgeting for IO. These 

doctrinal refinements should leave the Air Force better poised to seamlessly integrate 

into the joint community.

The Air Force’s current focus in IO via the effects-based IO Mission Area Plan reflects a 

mix of materiel and non-materiel solutions: These efforts include:

• Information Warfare Flights: The Air Force trains, equips, and fields units to 

provide IO combat power to the Combat Air Forces, Mobility Air Forces, Special 

Operations Forces, the space community and combatant commanders. The Flights 

provide integrated IO planning capabilities to air and space operations at the 

operational and tactical levels for planning and execution monitoring, including 

IO support for AEFs. Each Flight includes experts in network attack/defense, 

operational security, military deception, PSYOP, electronic warfare, information 

assurance, counter-intelligence, and intelligence, who are trained to synchronize 

the planning and execution of IO actions in support of the Joint Force Air 

Component Commander, Joint Force Commander, and/or functional AOC (e.g., 

Tanker Airlift Control Center) commander. While Information Warfare Flights have 

existed for several years now, the Air Force is currently in the process of evaluating 

the force and command and control structure for these Flights to provide better 

support to the warfighter and incorporate Operation Enduring Freedom and 

Operation Iraqi Freedom lessons learned. It is also working to better integrate the 

Flights into the Air Operations Center planning by exploring a better chain of 

command than currently exists. For example, the Electronic Warfare Coordination 

Cell made significant contributions as a formally organized entity operating on 

the AOC staff during OIF. The Air Force is taking steps to ensure this functional 

capability, representing a traditional stand-alone function, exists in all future 

operations and is able to contribute meaningfully to the Information Warfare 

Flights in whatever form it takes in the future.

• Information Warfare Planning Capability: This capability is currently being 

developed as an integrated set of information warfare campaign planning and 

execution applications to support analytical collaboration, data fusion, event 

sequencing, and synchronization, targeting, situational awareness and information 

domain visualization to support IO course of action development in the AOC. 

In the future, the IW Planning Capability will need to address the specific needs 

of the Air Force IO defined operational functions (Electronic Warfare Operations, 

Network Warfare Operations, and Influence Operations) to ensure functional needs 

are met. In December 2002, OSD recommended that the IW Planning Capability 

suite of tools be adopted as the joint standard for IO planning.

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-24 

• Integrated Information Operations Training: In the future, the key to 

achieving information superiority is to integrate the planning and execution 

of information operations and to develop and foster a robust, trained, and 

experienced IO workforce. The Air Force has established the only DoD school 

for advanced hands-on IO training. It provides experienced communications, 

intelligence, counterintelligence, space, information assurance, public affairs, and 

PSYOP personnel with specialized technical training in IO and IO support. In 

addition, the Air Force will develop standard procedures and techniques to more 

fully plan, integrate, employ, and assess the operational functions of IO. The Air 

Force is working to more closely align this training with AOC weapons system 

crew training. It is also working to make it available to a wider Air Force audience 

and to the joint warfighter community through expanded classroom education 

and training, mobile training teams, distance learning, virtual exercises and 

experimentation, increased red teaming, etc.

• Influence Operations Capabilities: IO uses multiple influence capabilities to 

shape the cognitive battlespace prior to and during crisis/conflict and return to 

peace. The objective of influence operations is to promote synergy with the full 

range of air and space operations and to ensure Air Force influence capabilities 

are synchronized, interoperable, and integrated to increase overall joint influence 

capabilities and avoid redundancy. In peacetime, influence operations communicate 

the objective of American, allied, and coalition forces and exhibit the overwhelming 

power inherent in air and space forces with the objective of achieving a decisive 

outcome, negating the requirement for more traditional military operations, thereby 

reducing friendly casualties and lowering operating costs. The Air Force is working 

to develop, produce, distribute, and disseminate influence operations messages 

across the technological spectrum—sophisticated to primitive—and maintain the 

ability to operate successfully in “no tech/low tech” while developing techniques 

to operate successfully in high tech areas of the world to include denied and 

permissive areas.

• Counterintelligence Support to Network Operations and Security Centers: 

Counterintelligence expertise is needed to recognize threats and mitigate the 

vulnerabilities of US and allied information and information systems. Critical nodes 

must be monitored and protected by regional counterintelligence experts to catch 

and prevent intrusions and ensure the integrity of Air Force information systems. 

Increased emphasis on the human intelligence aspect of counterintelligence must 

be rejuvenated within the Air Force to effect understanding of the vulnerabilities 

associated with the re-defined threat to the Air Force global mission.

• Enhanced Air Force PSYOP: PSYOP is an important perception management 

tool throughout the spectrum of conflict. Psychological preparation of the 

battlespace permits identification of psychological vulnerabilities, effects-based 

targeting, and PSYOP measures of merit. Automated tools, increased emphasis on 

analytical techniques and tools, and improved delivery mechanisms will significantly 

enhance the effectiveness of Air Force and DoD PSYOP capabilities.

• Information Superiority Range: The Air Force is currently working to develop 

full-spectrum research, development, test, engineering, and experimentation range 

infrastructure to support IO that is integrated with existing ranges used for RED 

FLAG and other force-on-force exercises and training. Such a range is needed 

to support transformational changes in the technological environment. It must 
B-25

leverage existing combat training ranges and encompass policies and programs in 

all mediums of warfare to allow total integration of sensor-to-shooter activities vice 

mere de-confliction in time. This is the only way to ensure successful development 

of multi-platform weapons and create an environment for commanders to practice 

the integration of all ground, maritime, air, space, and information capabilities.

• IO Normalization: The Air Force has several initiatives completed and in progress 

to operationalize and normalize IO for effective force presentation and warfighting 

planning/execution. Among them: 

Policy: Several Air Force policy documents have been published to guide IO 

development and operation. This includes drafting a new Air Force Policy 

Directive 10-7 to tie together IO policy guidance previously split between 

several documents into a single IO policy document. The Air Force has 

identified Air Combat Command as the lead command to oversee and 

guide Air Force IO capability. ACC is creating an overall IO CONOPS to 

describe the integration of IO and formalize the conduct of IO throughout 

the Air Force. It will provide clear guidance on cross-functional IO support 

to the Joint Force Air Component Commander, Joint Force Commander, or 

functional AOC Commander.

Career Force and Progression: To ensure field commanders have trained, 

experienced, mission-ready personnel, the Air Force is determining the 

feasibility of a stand-alone IO career field, with a desired skill set for an IO 

career force and guidelines for career progression. Headquarters Air Force, 

in coordination with Air Combat Command, 8th Air Force, and the Air 

Intelligence Agency has established technical training curricula, fundamental 

career progression guidelines, and classification tools to build and track IO 

warriors. This is essential to develop a trained, experienced IO career force, and 

is being integrated with broader OSD efforts as they begin to develop a Joint 

IO career force.

The Air Force will also take steps to capture lessons learned from recent operations 

and define and develop relations and objectives toward which the IO team will 

achieve.

• Electronic Warfare Revitalization: Several initiatives focus on improving Air 

Force electronic warfare capabilities. There is now a single office responsible for 

all electronic warfare matters across the Air Force (AF/XORE), bringing together 

previously scattered duties and responsibilities. In summer 2000, a 4-star Air 

Force summit reviewed and reaffirmed the importance of Air Force electronic 

warfare programs. Action items to address people, equipment, intelligence, ranges 

and exercises, metrics, organization, future roadmaps, and doctrine issues are in 

progress. 

In addition, the Air Force was fully engaged in the Airborne Electronic Attack 

Analysis of Alternatives study, and it conducted an Electronic Warfare Long 

Range Assessment to ensure appropriate electronic warfare capabilities are available 

to meet a full-range of future military requirements. Using this study as the catalyst, 

the Air Force is addressing the joint need for airborne electronic attack as part 

of a broader context. The concept for airborne electronic attack is a network of 

Appendix B
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

B-26 

systems capability adequate to sustain the AEF and joint air, ground, sea, and space 

operations across the spectrum of conflict in 2010 environment. Along with the 

Navy’s EA-6B ICAP III and EA-18G, the Joint Network of Systems will include B52s with electronic attack pods, UCAVs with electronic attack capabilities, Active 

Electronically Scanned Array with electronic attack capability in the F/A-22 and 

F-35, miniature air launched decoy jammer, and Compass Call. The joint solution 

to this problem is a balanced approach based on capabilities and not platforms and 

a network of systems rather than a stand-alone program.

• Air Force IO School: The Air Intelligence Agency’s 39th Information Operations 

Squadron runs the IO Integration Course to train Air Force information warriors 

in the latest information gain, exploit, attack, and defend methodologies. Graduates 

from the IO Integration Course are assigned to IO integration positions worldwide, 

providing IO products and services to field combatant commanders.

• Air Force Network Operations and Security Center: Currently the Air Force 

Computer Emergency Response Team defends Service networks, and the Air 

Force Network Operations Center enables information flow. Base network control 

centers reporting to the major command network operations and security centers 

are the gatekeepers for information flow within the MAJCOM. The Air Force 

Network Operations and Security Center will unite these nine MAJCOM Network 

Operations and Security Centers, as well as other communications agencies, to 

provide a single command and control authority. This will completely change 

the way the Air Force handles the command and control of network warfare 

operations. It will enable the Air Force to maintain its information superiority by 

giving the Air Force one organization to handle both Service-specific and joint 

computer responsibilities. 
C-1

Appendix C:

HOW THE AIR FORCE SUPPORTS 

THE QDR’S “CRITICAL OPERATIONAL 

GOALS OF TRANSFORMATION” 

“Our job is to close off as many...avenues of attack as possible. 

We must prepare for new forms of terrorism, to be sure, but 

also for attacks on U.S. space assets, cyber-attacks on our 

information networks, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and 

nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. At the same time, the 

United States must work to build up its own areas of advantage, 

such as our ability to project military power over long distances, 

our precision strike weapons, and our space, intelligence, and 

undersea warfare capabilities.”

—The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense 

The Transformation Planning Guidance states that this and future roadmaps “will 

address capabilities and associated metrics to address the six transformational goals 

[the “QDR-6”] and the joint operating concepts.” This chapter describes how the Air 

Force’s ongoing transformation strongly supports the six “critical operational goals of 

transformation” articulated in the 2001 QDR. 

For each QDR transformation goal, this appendix begins by quoting the portions of 

the QDR in italics describing the goal. It then briefly summarizes how the Air Force 

transformation efforts discussed in the Flight Plan are addressing those goals. To avoid 

repeating information, it makes references to relevant details discussed in other parts 

of the Flight Plan. In those cases in which there are key relevant Air Force efforts not 

already discussed in the Flight Plan, this chapter describes them in more detail. This 

information is charted at the end of the appendix. The chart lists all of the Air Force 

programs, future system concepts, organizational changes, and other efforts discussed in 

the Flight Plan and signifies which of the QDR goals each supports.

Please refer to Chapter VI for more details on specific CONOPS. 

It is important to emphasize that this appendix focuses on identifying key ongoing 

and future Air Force procurement and R&D efforts discussed in the Flight Plan that 

address the QDR’s critical operational goals of transformation. There are numerous 

Air Force legacy systems and capabilities not discussed that are also critical 

enablers of these broad objectives. An initial assessment in late 2001 revealed 

that nearly 80 percent of all Air Force programs and funding support the QDR’s six 

operational goals of transformation in some way. However, including them all here did 

not appear to be consistent with guidance from the Office of Force Transformation not 

to rehash legacy programs in the Flight Plan and, instead, focus on future efforts. 

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-2 

A. Protect bases of operation 

at home and abroad and defeat 

the threat of CBRNE weapons

Protecting the American homeland from attack is the foremost responsibility of the U.S. Armed 

Forces and a primary mission for the Reserve Components. Future adversaries will have a range of 

new means with which to threaten the United States. It is possible to identify some of these means, 

including new techniques of terror; ballistic and cruise missiles; weapons of mass destruction, 

including advanced biological weapons; and weapons of mass disruption, such as information 

warfare attacks on critical information infrastructure. Others, like those used to attack the United 

States on September 11, 2001, may be a surprise. Defenses against known and emerging threats must 

be developed. New approaches to achieving early warning of new threats are a high priority. 

[Page 30 of QDR]

The continued proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles poses a threat to U.S. territory, to U.S. 

forces abroad, at sea, and in space, and to U.S. allies and friends. To counter this threat, the 

United States is developing missile defenses as a matter of priority. Integrating missile defenses with 

other defensive as well as offensive means will safeguard the Nation’s freedom of action, enhance 

deterrence by denial, and mitigate the effects of attack if deterrence fails. The ability to provide 

missile defenses in anti-access and area-denial environments will be essential to assure friends and 

allies, protect critical areas of access, and defeat adversaries. DoD must be prepared to provide nearterm capabilities to defend against rapidly emerging threats and more robust capabilities that evolve 

over time.

DoD has refocused and revitalized the missile defense program, shifting from a single-site “national” 

missile defense approach to a broad-based research, development, and testing effort aimed at 

deployment of layered missile defenses. These changes in the missile defense program will permit the 

exploration of many previously untested technologies and approaches that will produce defenses able 

to intercept missiles of various ranges and in various phases of flight. These defenses will help protect 

U.S. forward-deployed forces. Moreover, they will provide limited defense against missile threats not 

only for the American people, but also for U.S. friends and allies. [Page 42 of QDR]

Efforts to defeat the CBRNE threat are focused on protecting US and friendly 

forces and civilian personnel while maximizing operational capabilities, including 

sortie generation, in CBRNE threat environments. Managing the CBRNE threat 

must be accomplished with a layered offensive and defensive capability. Success in 

deterring a potential adversary from acquiring or developing CBRNE capabilities 

will reduce the requirements for counterforce and active and passive defensive 

capabilities. If the adversary� CBRNE capability is severely degraded or destroyed 

through effective counterforce targeting and strike operations, then the burden 

placed on missile and ground defense elements is reduced. If missile and ground 

defense elements are able to deny, divert, or destroy inbound CBRNE attacks, 

there is less of a burden on nuclear, biological, and chemical passive defense 

assets, thereby making it easier for forces to sustain operations in contaminated 

environments. If CBRNE attacks reach the fixed operating sites, forces must 

be organized, trained, and equipped to continue mission-critical operations in 

a complex, but manageable, environment. These elements of offensive strikes, 
C-3

active missile and ground defense, and Counter-CBRN passive defense operations 

must work in concert to ensure that the Air Force is prepared to operate against 

adversaries armed with CBRNE. 

Key programs that will enable next-generation missile defense capabilities include: SpaceBased Infrared System—High, which will track missile launches, as well as the Airborne 

Laser to intercept and destroy missiles over enemy territory. More long term, the Air 

Force is exploring concepts of deploying a “postulated space-based laser system dubbed 

Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement System, which could provide 

global 24-hour coverage of enemy missile launch sites. In addition, the Air Force is 

developing Agent Defeat weapon systems designed to improve target lethality over 

current inventoried systems and mitigate the negative collateral effects of a direct strike 

against chemical or biological agents. In the long run, it is also looking to develop rapid 

global attack capabilities such as the Common Aero Vehicle to rapidly destroy critical 

targets, such as CBRNE-related targets, at the onset of conflict. 

In the area of cruise missile defense, the MC2A, equipped with the Multi-Platform 

Radar Technology Insertion Program sensor, will greatly enhance the Air Force’s ability 

to detect, track, and identify cruise missiles. The F/A-22’s highly capable radar and 

supercruise capabilities will enable the aircraft to track, rapidly close in, and engage 

enemy cruise missiles. 

The Air Force is also developing and exploring various programs and future system 

concepts that are vital in counter-CBRNE operations: the Advanced Standoff Cruise 

Missile, Advanced Tactical Laser ACTD, Cooperative Persistent Surveillance Strike 

Vehicle, CV-22, Low-Cost Persistent Area Dominance Miniature Missile, M-X Low 

Observable Advanced AF SOF Air Mobility Platform, and the Robust Autonomous 

Attack Missile. 

In cooperation with the Joint Program Executive Office-Nuclear Biological and 

Chemical Defense, the Air Force is leading development of, or participating in the 

development and fielding of, many passive defense capabilities. The Full Spectrum 

Threat Response Program will provide the cornerstone of the Air Force effort in the 

CONUS Weapons of Mass Destruction emergency preparedness and response and 

Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense outside the continental United States. 

Key programs that support current and future capability include: the Air Force 

Weapons of Mass Destruction Integrated LOGCAT/GeoReach-Expeditionary Site 

Planning/Mapping, Emergency Response Program, Biofeedback System, Biomarker 

System, Joint GUARDIAN Program, Joint Biological Agent Identification and 

Diagnostic System, Joint Biological Point Detection System, Joint Chemical Agent 

Detector, Joint Chemical-Biological Agent Water Monitor, Joint Container Refill 

System, Joint Modular Chemical-Biological Detection System, Joint Service Family of 

Decon Systems, Joint Service Installation Pilot Project, Joint Service Light Nuclear, 

Biological, and Chemical Recon System, Joint Service Lightweight Standoff Chemical 

Agent Detector, Joint Service Sensitive Equipment Decon System, Joint Transportable 

Collective Protection System, Joint Warning and Reporting System, and the 

Restoration of Operations ACTD. 

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-4 

The Air Force is also participating with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and other 

Services in Science and Technology efforts to investigate new technologies for transition 

into equipment developments that will keep the Air Force well ahead of any future 

potential adversaries contemplating the use of CBRNE weapons.

The Air Force is also expanding its anti-terrorism and force protection efforts. It 

has developed a Force Protection and an Integrated Base Defense CONOPS to 

compliment the Air Force CONOPS and implement transformational technologies 

as well as Tactics, Techniques and Procedures that address the new asymmetric threat 

to bases in both CONUS and abroad. The Force Protection Battlelab and other 

Air Force Battlelabs have expanded their foci to identify innovative concepts to 

combat terrorism and have instituted programs to address physical security, explosive 

detection and blast mitigation, and chemical and biological detection. The latter 

programs follow DoD-established standards for decontamination and containment 

operations to enable continuity of operations in nuclear, biological, and chemical 

environments. In cooperation with its DoD partners, including the Joint Program 

Office for Biological Defense, the Force Protection Battlelab is experimenting with 

the next generation package of test equipment and logistics concepts designed to 

compress the time required to detect the presence of chemical or biological agents 

from hours to a few minutes to significantly enhance the protection afforded troops 

in areas susceptible to attack.

Drawing upon lessons learned from past events, the CONOPS for Integrated Base 

Defense and Force Protection defines a role for every Airman as a force protector 

and a sensor. Besides these changes to training, tactics, techniques, and procedures, 

the Air Force is also developing a wide range of offensive and defensive capabilities in 

the Integrated Base Defense Security Systems. These include new sensors, command 

and control systems for a common operating system, and a suite of remotely operated 

sensors, weapons, and robotics. Also included are a group of non-lethal weapon systems 

like the Active Denial System ACTD, which will enable a revolutionary new set of 

capabilities for the commanders.

The Homeland Security CONOPS will integrate Air Force capabilities into joint and 

interagency efforts to effectively prevent, protect against, and respond to a variety of 

threats to the homeland. The AEF support elements will have organic force protection 

capabilities and be capable of defending against conventional air attack and surveillance, 

deploying robust theater missile defenses, protecting bases against unconventional 

threats to equipment and personnel, maintaining adequate force protection in high 

threat environments, and mitigating damage for attacks that get through. With air 

refueling support, the Global Strike and Global Response CONOPS will provide the 

preemptive capability to defeat the threat of CBRNE weapons at their source, thereby 

allowing the Global Mobility CONOPS to rapidly deploy follow-on combat forces to 

sustain combat operations.

The Air Force also recently stood up the Directorate of Homeland Security to develop 

and implement the Air Force’s HLS strategy, lead HLS efforts at the headquarters, and 

coordinate HLS efforts between the headquarters and the Air Force MAJCOMs. The 

Directorate’s ultimate goal is to incorporate homeland security into every aspect of 
C-5

Air Force policy, procedure, and doctrine. The Air Force, as directed by the Air Force 

Strategic Planning Directive for Fiscal Years 2006-2023, will identify specific required Air 

Force capabilities to support the National Strategy for HLS objectives of preventing 

terrorist attacks within the United States, reducing vulnerability to terrorism, and 

minimizing the damage and recovering from attacks on the United States that do occur.

Predictive Battlespace Awareness capabilities, especially those associated with persistent 

ISR, will also contribute significantly to this QDR goal. Key efforts include Space-Based 

Radar and various UAVs. 

B. Assure information systems 

in the face of attack and conduct 

effective information operations

The increasing dependence of societies and military forces on advanced information networks 

creates new vulnerabilities and opportunities. Potential adversaries could exploit these 

vulnerabilities through means such as computer network attack and directed energy weapons. The 

emergence of these new tools of warfare also provides opportunities for non-kinetic attack by U.S. 

forces. [Page 31 of QDR]

Information operations provide the means to rapidly collect, process, disseminate, and protect 

information while denying these capabilities to adversaries. Such operations provide the capability 

to influence perceptions, perform computer network defense and attack missions, conduct electronic 

warfare, and carry out other protective actions. Information operations represent a critical capability 

enhancement for transformed U.S. forces. 

The QDR highlights both the imperatives for the United States to maintain an unsurpassed 

capability to conduct information operations, as well as the need to strengthen U.S. capabilities 

in these areas. DoD must also develop an integrated approach to developing information system 

requirements, acquiring systems, and programming for the force of tomorrow. The ability to conduct 

information operations has become a core competency for the Department. [Page 43 of QDR] 

The Air Force is developing a wide range of IO capabilities to be employed across 

the spectrum of conflict and in every phase of a campaign. These capabilities will 

be planned, presented and executed within responsive but normalized organizational 

constructs that support Joint Force Air Component Commander and Joint Force 

Commander objectives. Many details of these capabilities and programs are classified 

and too numerous to list. The Global Strike, Global Response, and Global Mobility 

CONOPS underscore the requirements for IO; the Homeland Security CONOPS 

includes the requirements to protect “critical infrastructure,” which includes 

information systems; and the Space&C4ISR CONOPS describes a full-range of critical 

IO activities. The Air Force has made significant progress in formalizing IO doctrine 

and policy and integrating IO into operational air and space missions. Specific efforts 

include: The reorganization of the Eighth Air Force to incorporate the IO capabilities, 

the formation of Information Warfare Flights, the Electronic Warfare Coordination 

Cell, the development of an IO planning tool called IW Planning Capability, Integrated 

IO Training, Counterintelligence Support to Network Operations and Security Centers, 

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-6 

enhanced Air Force PSYOP and Influence Operations, an Information Superiority 

Range, IO CONOPS, IO Career Progression, electronic warfare revitalization, 

IO Integration, and the Air Force IO School. In addition, the Air Force Network 

Operations and Security Center will unite the nine MAJCOM Network Operations 

and Security Centers as well as other communications agencies to provide a single 

command and control authority to significantly improve network defense. Please see 

Appendix B for details. 

C. Project and sustain US forces in distant 

anti-access and area-denial environments

Future adversaries could have the means to render ineffective much of our current ability to 

project military power overseas. Saturation attacks with ballistic and cruise missiles could deny 

or delay U.S. military access to overseas bases, airfields, and ports. Advanced air defense systems 

could deny access to hostile airspace to all but low-observable aircraft. Military and commercial 

space capabilities, over-the-horizon radars, and low-observable unmanned aerial vehicles could 

give potential adversaries the means to conduct wide-area surveillance and track and target 

American forces and assets. New approaches for projecting power must be developed to meet these 

threats. [Page 31 of QDR]

The defense strategy rests on the assumption that U.S. forces have the ability to project power 

worldwide. The United States must retain the capability to send well armed and logistically 

supported forces to critical points around the globe, even in the face of enemy opposition, or to 

locations where the support infrastructure is lacking or has collapsed. For U.S. forces to gain the 

advantage in such situations, they must have the ability to arrive quickly at non-traditional 

points of debarkation to mass fire against an alerted enemy and to mask their own movements to 

deceive the enemy and bypass its defenses. Consequently, DoD must carefully monitor attempts by 

adversaries to develop capabilities that could detect and attack U.S. forces as they approach conflict 

areas or hold at risk critical ports and airbases with missiles and CBRNE attacks.

The QDR emphasizes the need for new investments that would enable U.S. forces to defeat anti-access 

and area-denial threats and to operate effectively in critical areas. Such investments will include: 

addressing the growing threat posed by submarines, air defense systems, cruise missiles, and mines; 

accelerating development of the Army Objective Force; enhancing power projection and forcible 

entry capabilities; defeating long-range means of detection; enabling long-range attack capabilities; 

enhancing protection measures for inter-theater transport aircraft; and ensuring U.S. forces can 

sustain operations under chemical or biological attack. [Pages 43-44 of QDR]

The Air Force is developing numerous transformational capabilities to address the many 

capabilities encompassed by this objective. According to the QDR guidance outlined 

above, this goal can be subdivided into the following categories, which are followed by 

a short summary of relevant Air Force efforts:

• Rapid Deployment: The “way ahead” to achieve improved rapid global mobility is 

contained in the Air Mobility Master Plan 2004. Technological improvements, such 

as enhanced defensive systems, will allow operations in hostile threat environments. 

Autonomous approach and landing equipment will enable operations to be 
C-7

conducted regardless of weather conditions and independent of ground-based 

navigation aids. Automated air refueling technologies will permit the refueling of 

manned as well as unmanned air vehicles on fueling tracks obscured by clouds. 

Mobility, strike, and ISR operations would not be degraded by weather in the 

refueling areas. Interoperable Mobility/Combat Air Force command and control 

systems will enhance global mobility operations. In the future, a family of transport 

category aircraft will significantly improve mobility support to the warfighter. They 

will be capable of transporting the Future Combat System, regardless of weather 

conditions, over intercontinental ranges to unimproved landing areas in a threat 

environment. Variants, with common engines, airframes, and cockpits, could be 

built to fly a variety of airlift, special operations, ISR, and refueling missions. 

The next generation advanced tanker will have a reduced signature and improved 

defensive systems to permit refueling closer to the target area, thus extending strike 

aircraft ranges or time on station. The Rapid Global Mobility section of Chapter 

VII contains further details.

• Monitoring adversary anti-access capability development: This will require 

a wide range of improved persistent ISR capabilities across the board. The SpaceBased Radar and UAVs will be critical to this goal with their ability to penetrate 

deep into adversary territory. The Information Superiority section of Chapter VII 

contains more details.

• Defeating air defense systems: This is addressed squarely in the Negating Enemy 

Air Defenses section of Chapter VII. Stealthy platforms such as the F/A-22 can 

penetrate air defense systems without being seen. Unmanned combat air vehicles 

can be used against high-risk, high-value air defense system targets. Standoff 

capabilities such as the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range will 

enable the United States to strike critical targets without being subject to their 

air defenses. The Air Force is also exploring future system concepts in standoff 

weapons such as Advanced Standoff Cruise Missile, Air Expeditionary Force 

Weapon, Common Aero Vehicle, Extended Range Strike Aircraft, Hypersonic 

Standoff Weapon, Hypervelocity Missile, Long Range Cruise Missile, and a Robust 

Autonomous Attack Missile. In addition, IO capabilities, especially net warfare 

operations and electronic warfare, constitute a new effective tool to defeat air 

defenses. New capabilities to rapidly locate and target enemy air defenses, such as 

the fiber-optic towed decoy and advanced tactical targeting technology, are now 

emerging and have the potential to enable legacy fighter aircraft to contribute to 

this mission. The Global Strike CONOPS is designed, among other tasks, to defeat 

air defense systems. 

• Enhance power projection and forcible entry capabilities: Virtually all Air 

Force transformational capabilities described in Chapter VII will significantly 

enhance power projection in some way. Stealthy platforms (such as the F/A-22), 

standoff weapons, IO, and UCAVs are at the heart of forcible entry capabilities. 

New capabilities demonstrated during Operation Iraqi Freedom include Embedded 

Contingency Response Groups and Expeditionary Combat Support Modules. 

In addition, both the Global Strike and Global Response CONOPS are designed 

primarily for this purpose.

• Defeating long-range means of detection: Relevant Air Force transformational 

efforts include IO (see the Information Superiority sections of Chapter VII and 

Appendix B for details) and space superiority (see the Space Superiority section of 

Chapter VII) capabilities to deny space to adversaries. 

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-8 

• Long-range attack capabilities: The Air Force is exploring a wide range of 

future system concepts: the Common Aero Vehicle, Hypersonic Standoff Weapon, 

Hypervelocity Missile, Advanced Standoff Cruise Missile, Extended Range Strike 

Aircraft, B-X Bomber, Hypervelocity Rod Bundles, Long Range Cruise Missile, 

Robust Autonomous Attack Missile, New Long-Range Platform, and, potentially, 

the Airborne Laser.

• Protection measures for transport and air refueling aircraft: The Large 

Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures and Advanced Situational Awareness/

Countermeasures System will enhance protection measures for air mobility aircraft.

• Ensure US forces can sustain operations under chemical or biological 

attack: Primary Air Force efforts include the Restoration of Operations ACTD 

and the Medical CBRNE Defense concept. Section A of this appendix discusses 

additional relevant efforts.

• Defeat adversary cruise missiles: In addition to interoperable joint C4ISR (see 

the Information Superiority section of Chapter VII) to rapidly locate cruise missiles, 

the Air Force is pursuing two key programs. The MC2A, equipped with the MultiPlatform Radar Technology Insertion Program, will increase the ability to detect, 

track, and identify stationary and moving ground vehicles and cruise missiles. 

Second, the F/A-22’s highly capable radar and supercruise capabilities will enable 

the aircraft to track, rapidly close in, and engage enemy cruise missiles. In addition, 

both the Global Strike and Global Response CONOPS are designed, in part, to 

accomplish this mission. See Section A of this chapter and the “Missile Destruction 

in Flight” section of Chapter VII for more details.

• Send well armed and logistically supported forces to critical points 

around the globe, even in the face of enemy opposition, or to locations 

where the support infrastructure is lacking or has collapsed: Air Force 

efforts to develop significantly lighter, leaner, and faster combat support (see 

Agile Combat Support section of Chapter VII) strongly support this objective. 

Such enhancements are vital to enable responsive, persistent, and effective combat 

operations into the future. These initiatives include: Advanced Planning and 

Scheduling, Agile Transportation (AT 21) ACTD, Condition Based Maintenance, 

Future Single Supply System, Global Combat Support System—Air Force, 

Logistics Financial Management re-design, Supply Chain Common Operating 

Picture, Purchasing and Supply Chain Management, and Centralized Intermediate 

Repair Facilities. In the area of significantly enhancing medical support 

operations in a way that contributes directly to agile combat support, the Air 

Force is also developing the Expeditionary Medical Support system in the nearterm and the following future system concepts in the long-term: Theater Medical 

Planning and Control System and the Ground Contingency Medical Support 

System. The Air Force will also develop a separate transformation roadmap for 

effective and efficient combat support to the new Air Force CONOPS per the 

new Air Force Strategic Planning Directive for Fiscal Years 2006-2023.

In addition, the Global Strike CONOPS will serve as the initial, leading edge force 

designed to conduct operations in an intense anti-access environment. It will pave the 

way for persistent follow-on forces by rapidly rolling back adversary anti-access threats, 

thereby allowing the Global Mobility CONOPS to rapidly deploy follow-on combat 

forces to sustain combat operations.
C-9

Finally, the Air Force, per direction by the new Air Force Strategic Planning Directive, will 

develop joint operational concepts for defeating the full range of anti-access threats, 

force sequencing, and reductions in the first-deployer footprint.

D. Deny enemies sanctuary 

by providing persistent surveillance, 

tracking, and rapid engagement

Adversaries will also likely seek to exploit strategic depth to their advantage. Mobile ballistic missile 

systems can be launched from extended range, exacerbating the anti-access and area-denial challenges. 

Space denial capabilities, such as ground-based lasers, can be located deep within an adversary’s 

territory. Accordingly, a key objective of transformation is to develop the means to deny sanctuary to 

potential adversaries. This will likely require the development and acquisition of robust capabilities 

to conduct persistent surveillance, precision strike, and maneuver at varying depths within denied 

areas. [Page 31 of QDR]

Likely enemies of the United States and its allies will rely on sanctuaries-such as remote terrain, 

hidden bunkers, or civilian “shields” for protection. The capability to find and strike protected 

enemy forces while limiting collateral damage will improve the deterrent power of the United States 

and give the President increased options for response if deterrence fails. Such a capability would not 

only reduce the likelihood of aggression, but would offer the National Command Authorities the 

ability to respond immediately in the event of hostilities.

Achieving this objective will require investments in a wide range of cross-Service programs. 

Investments in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance initiatives must be bolstered. Also 

emphasis must be placed on manned and unmanned long-range precision strike assets, related 

initiatives for new small munitions, and the ability to defeat hard and deeply buried targets.

DoD will procure unmanned combat aerial vehicles and intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles such as Global Hawk. The Department will also increase 

procurement of precision weapons.

Special Operations Forces will need the ability to conduct covert deep insertions over great distances 

and will need enhanced C4ISR capabilities to remain in contact with their commanders and to 

ensure access to real-time intelligence in a number of forms. These capabilities will enable Special 

Operations Forces to access additional communication, intelligence, and firepower assets in support 

of their missions deep in hostile environments and to aid in the reduction of friendly losses and 

casualties. These capabilities will also enhance the strategic and operational agility of Special 

Operations Forces. [Page 44 of QDR] 

This objective asks the Services to develop or improve the following list of capabilities, 

which are accompanied by brief summaries of key Air Force efforts to address them:

• Persistent ISR: The Air Force is pursuing various programs to conduct persistent ISR, 

seamlessly transition from global to focused persistent ISR, and effectively integrate 

and manage ISR platforms and sensors, which are all discussed in the Information 

Superiority section of Chapter VII and Appendix B. Key future programs to achieve 

persistent ISR include the Space-Based Radar and various UAVs such as Global Hawk. 

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-10 

• Capability to find and strike protected enemy forces while limiting 

collateral damage: A combination of virtually all Air Force efforts described 

in Chapter VII sections entitled Information Superiority, Precision Engagement, 

Standoff, and Global Attack will significantly enhance this capability. Together, 

they will enable the United States to almost immediately strike any target, to 

include mobile, hard, deeply buried, and information targets, in all weather and 

all-terrain before they can escape or hide. Specific programs and future system 

concepts are listed under other bullets in this section. Several classes of weapons 

not already listed in this section that would achieve this capability are various nonlethal weapons and weapons designed for urban warfare. Some examples of relevant 

ACTDs and future system concepts under examination are: Active Denial System 

ACTD, Next Generation Gunship, Advanced Tactical Laser ACTD, the Military 

Intelligence Tactical Element—Urban Surveyor, and the Advanced Tactical Targeting 

Technology ACTD. More near-term, the Air Force is developing an “Urban Target 

Array” and is examining the integration of manned and unmanned systems, 

precision terminal guidance operations, and high technology to aid joint forces on 

the ground within the urban environment. 

• Manned and unmanned long-range precision strike assets: These include 

all the standoff weapons and global attack programs and future system concepts 

discussed in Chapter VII: B-X Bomber, Common Aero Vehicle, Hypersonic 

Cruise Vehicle, Hypervelocity Rod Bundles, New Long-Range Platform, Joint 

Air to Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, UCAVs, Advanced Standoff 

Cruise Missile, Air Expeditionary Force Weapon, Extended Range Strike Aircraft, 

Hypersonic Standoff Weapon, Hypervelocity Missile, Long Range Cruise Missile, 

and the Robust Autonomous Attack Missile.

• New small munitions: The primary ongoing Air Force effort is the Small 

Diameter Bomb. The Air Force is also exploring some additional miniature 

munition future system concepts such as the Low Cost Persistent Area Dominance 

Miniature Missile, Cooperative Persistent Surveillance Strike Vehicle, Air 

Expeditionary Force Weapon, Guardian Urban Combat Weapon, and the Wide 

Area Search Autonomous Attack Miniature Munition.

• Ability to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets: Defeating these targets 

will likely require a combination of new or modified, more lethal munitions 

utilizing advanced technologies such as thermobaric weapons that generate highly 

sustained blast pressures in such confined spaces as tunnels and underground 

facilities. These munitions release energy over a longer period of time than standard 

explosives, thereby creating a long-duration pressure pulse when detonated in 

confined spaces. Also required will be IO capabilities that can cut off power, life 

support, and other critical services to such targets. The Common Aero Vehicle 

would also be effective against these targets.

• UAVs: The Air Force is developing UAVs such as the Global Hawk and PredatorB (see the Information Superiority section of Chapter VII). The Air Force 

complements their larger system with increased emphasis on smaller systems to 

improve last minute target verification and “around the corner” information 

superiority for special forces. Such smaller UAVs include: the Desert Hawk, Force 

Protection Aerial Surveillance System, the Pointer UAV, and the BatCam Micro 

UAV, which is part of the Battlefield Air Operations Kit. 
C-11

• Ability to conduct covert deep insertions over great distances: In the nearterm, the CV-22 is the key platform under development to achieve this objective. 

In the longer run, the Air Force is examining a concept called the M-X, a covert 

transport aircraft with increased speed, range, and agility that is capable of 

undetected infiltration. 

The Space&C4ISR CONOPS will harness Air Force capabilities to achieve horizontal 

integration of manned, unmanned, air, surface, information, and space systems, 

eventually through machine-to-machine interface of ISR and command and control, 

to provide executable decision-quality knowledge to the commander in near real-time 

from anywhere—critical to denying sanctuary to adversaries. In addition, the Global 

Response CONOPS will provide an integrated joint air, space, maritime ground, and IO 

capability to respond globally to fleeting targets using precise and decisive force in an 

attack window ranging from minutes to hours. 

E. Enhance the capability and 

survivability of space systems

In addition to exploiting space for their own purposes, future adversaries will also likely seek to deny 

U.S. forces unimpeded access to space. Space surveillance, ground-based lasers and space jamming 

capabilities and proximity microsatellites are becoming increasingly available. A key objective for 

transformation, therefore, is not only to ensure the U.S. ability to exploit space for military purposes, 

but also as required to deny an adversary’s ability to do so. [Page 31 of QDR]

Because many activities conducted in space are critical to America’s national security and 

economic well being, the ability of the United States to access and utilize space is a vital 

national security interest. During crisis or conflict, potential adversaries may target U.S., allied, 

and commercial space assets as an asymmetric means of countering or reducing U.S. military 

operational effectiveness, intelligence capabilities, economic and societal stability, and national 

will. Ensuring the freedom of access to space and protecting U.S. national security interests in 

space are priorities for the Department.

The mission of space control is to ensure the freedom of action in space for the United States and its 

allies and, when directed, to deny such freedom of action to adversaries. As the foundation for space 

control, space surveillance will receive increased emphasis. DoD will pursue modernization of the 

aging space surveillance infrastructure, enhance the command and control structure, and evolve the 

system from a cataloging and tracking capability to a system providing space situational awareness.

In recognition of the high-technology force multipliers provided by space systems, the QDR places 

increased emphasis on developing the capabilities to conduct space operations. Ensuring freedom of 

access to space and protecting U.S. national security interests are key priorities that must be reflected 

in future investment decisions. [Page 45 of QDR]

The Air Force is the primary Service charged with achieving this objective. Achieving 

space superiority is the essential component of this objective. Space superiority 

combines the following three capabilities: protect space assets, deny adversaries’ 

access to space, and quickly launch vehicles and operate payloads into space to 

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-12 

quickly replace space assets that fail or are damaged/destroyed. All of these depend 

on first establishing effective space situational awareness in order to sense and track 

actual threats to space assets and ascertain whether problems are actually attacks or 

something else. As described in Chapter VII in the Space Superiority section and the 

Rapid Global Mobility section (which includes rapid space launch), the Air Force is 

very active in developing the key capabilities required to maintain space superiority 

against increasing threats. 

Key unclassified Air Force programs and future system concepts to establish effective 

space situational awareness include: Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance System, 

Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System, Orbital Deep Space 

Imager, Space-Based Space Surveillance System, Space Tracking and Surveillance System, 

Compact Environmental Anomaly Sensor II ACTD, and Communication/Navigation 

Outage Forecasting System ACTD. 

Key unclassified Air Force offensive counterspace programs that will provide 

combatant commanders the ability to achieve space superiority include the Counter 

Communication and the Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems. Future 

system concepts include the Counter Satellite Communications System, short pulse 

laser technology, the Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missile, Ground Based Laser, SpaceBased Radio Frequency Energy Weapon, and various other information operations 

capabilities. 

Defensive Counterspace capabilities will be greatly enhanced through both a change in 

concepts of operations of satellite constellations as well as a fleet of active and passive 

defensive capabilities. The Air Force is also exploring various future system concepts to 

launch, operate, and maintain space assets responsively. These include: the Air Launch 

System, Orbital Transfer Vehicle, Space Maneuver Vehicle, Global Launch and Test 

Range, and the Space Operations Vehicle.

The Space Control Range will be essential to enable a full spectrum exercise and 

training environment for these capabilities. 

F. Leverage information technology 

and innovative concepts to develop 

interoperable Joint C4ISR

Finally, new information and communications technologies hold promise for networking highly 

distributed joint and combined forces and for ensuring that such forces have better situational 

awareness—both about friendly forces as well as those of adversaries—than in the past. Information 

technology holds vast potential for maximizing the effectiveness of American men and women in 

uniform. [Page 31 of QDR]

Information technology will provide a key foundation for the effort to transform U.S. armed forces 

for the 21st century. The recent U.S. experience in Kosovo underscored the need for high-capacity, 

interoperable communications systems that can rapidly transmit information over secure, jamresistant datalinks to support joint forces. In the near future, the United States must also develop 
C-13

alternatives capable of overcoming current and projected bandwidth constraints. The Department 

must stay abreast of the new communications landscape and leverage it to maximize U.S. 

advantages in this area.

Future operations will not only be joint, but also include Reserve Components, civilian specialists, 

and other federal agencies and state organizations. Most likely they will involve a coalition effort 

with other countries. The effectiveness of these operations will depend upon the ability of DoD to 

share information and collaborate externally as well as internally. Interoperability, which enables 

joint and combined operations, is a key element in all DoD operational and systems architectures. 

It must include the ability to overcome language and cultural barriers. Experience shows that fixing 

systems after the fact to achieve interoperability is typically costly and often fails to satisfy mission 

requirements and creates security problems. The better approach is to incorporate interoperability at 

the outset in designing new systems. However, the Department will continue its efforts, where cost 

effective, to bring its legacy systems up to interoperability standards.

Based on QDR deliberations, funding will be focused on achieving end-to-end Command, Control, 

Communication, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capabilities. An integrated 

joint and combined C4ISR capability is necessary to ensure that accurate and relevant information can 

be gathered swiftly from various sources and then securely transmitted to forces and their commanders. 

Improving communications must be a priority for U.S. conventional, special operations, and strategic 

forces. Information technology offers U.S. forces the potential of conducting joint operations more 

effectively, with smaller forces and fewer weapon systems. [Pages 45-46 of QDR] 

All of the Air Force transformation efforts associated with the first three 

transformational capabilities described in the Information Superiority section of 

Chapter VII and Appendix B address this critical goal, which arguably is at the center of 

the US military’s ongoing transformation. Those transformational capabilities include: 

• Complete joint integration of all manned, unmanned, and space systems

• Real-time picture of the battlespace 

• Predictive Battlespace Awareness 

The Air Force is investing more than $50 billion over the FYDP in the FY04 President’s 

Budget in joint C4ISR. Key unclassified programs and future system concepts include: 

Advanced Extremely High Frequency System, Airborne Networking capability, 

Advanced Situational Awareness/Countermeasures System, Air and Space Operations 

Center, Air Force Satellite Control Network upgrades, Air Force Transformation Center 

(formerly CAOC-X), Automated ISR, Combatant Commanders Integrated Command 

and Control System, Combat Information Transport System, Distributed Common 

Ground System, Integrated LOGCAT/GeoReach-Expeditionary Site Planning/Mapping, 

Enhanced Human Performance, eXtensible Markup Language, Family of Interoperable 

Operational Pictures (Common Relevant Operational Picture), Global Broadcast 

System, Global CONOPS Synchronization, Global Hawk, Global Positioning System 

Block IIF/III, Ground Warrior Modernization, Integrated Flight Management ATD, 

ISR Management capability, Integrated Broadcast Service, Joint Tactical Radio System 

Wideband Networking Waveform, Link-16, Multi-Platform Common Data Link, MultiPlatform Radar Technology Insertion Program, Single Integrated Air Picture, Single 

Integrated Space Picture, Situational Awareness Data Link Gateway, “Smart Platforms” 

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-14 

(including Roll-on Beyond Line of Sight Enhancement and family of Scalable, 

Modular, Airborne, Relay Terminals), Space-Based Radar, Supply Chain Common 

Operating Picture, Tactical Data Link Architecture enhancements, Transformational 

Communication Terminals, Transformational Satellite, Deployable Theater Information 

Grid, Tactical UAV Initiative (which includes the Desert Hawk, Force Protection Aerial 

Surveillance System, Pointer UAV, and BatCam Micro UAV), Theater Air Control 

System, Digital Imagery Request and Distribution System, Multi-sensor Command 

and Control Aircraft, and the Command and Control Constellation. The Air Force 

is also pursuing several related ACTDs: Network Centric Collaborative Targeting, 

Adaptive Battlespace Awareness, Adaptive Joint C4ISR Node, Time-Critical Targeting 

Functionality, and Advanced Tactical Targeting Technology. In addition, the Air Force 

is exploring future system concepts of biomarkers that can track individual locations 

(Biomarker System and Biofeedback System) and improve the cognitive performance 

of decision-makers (Advanced Cognitive Aid). In addition, during Operation Iraqi 

Freedom, the Air Component Coordination Element allowed the air component to 

better integrate air and space power with the operations of the other components to 

better achieve the Joint Force Commander’s objectives.

It is important to emphasize that the Air Force is also pursuing numerous small and/or 

classified programs that together are essential to achieve advanced C4ISR for air, space, 

and ground and the horizontal integration of all C4ISR and weapons platforms.

The Air Force, as directed by the Air Force Strategic Planning Directive for Fiscal Years 

2006-2023, will develop a master plan to achieve the horizontal integration of manned, 

unmanned, space, and information systems to provide decision-quality knowledge to the 

joint commander in near real-time. 

In the area of training, Distributed Mission Operations will integrate live, virtual, and 

constructive aspects into a single seamless joint and coalition training environment. 

Through simulation, assets that are seldom available live can be incorporated into a live 

exercise and/or rehearsal. Connectivity to the Global Information Grid will allow LD/

HD assets to participate in training, exercises, or mission operations even when those 

assets are not available in the area of operation. 

The Space&C4ISR CONOPS is the primary concept driving the requirements of 

these systems. In addition, the Global Strike CONOPS includes extensive details and 

guidance regarding the types of capabilities required to achieve this QDR goal.

The following table maps the Air Force transformation efforts described in the Flight 

Plan with the QDR’s six “Critical Operational Goals of Transformation.” Many 

programs and efforts strongly support more than one QDR goal. However, given 

that certain analyses are sometimes forced to bin them under just one of the QDR 

goals, the capital “X” denotes the QDR goal under which the Air Force recommends 

binning the program/effort if forced to select one—based on QDR’s own description 

of the capabilities it ties to these QDR goals. These descriptions are included earlier 

in this appendix. 
C-15

Air Force Program/ 

Future System Concept/ 

Effort/Organization

QDR’s Six Critical Operational Goals of Transformation:

Address 

CBRNE 

Threat

Conduct 

Effective 

IO/IA

Defeat 

AntiAccessDeny 

Sanctuary

Maintain 

Space 

Superiority

Interoperable 

Joint C4ISR

Active Denial System ACTD x X

Adaptive Battlefield 

Awareness ACTD X

Adaptive Joint C4ISR 

Node ACTD X

Advanced Extremely 

High Frequency system X

Advanced Mobility 

Concept Aircraft X x

Advanced Mobility 

Tanker (KC-X) X

Advanced Planning 

and Scheduling X

Advanced Situational 

Awareness/Countermeasures 

System

X x

Advanced Standoff 

Cruise Missile x X x

Advanced Tactical 

Laser ACTD x X

Advanced Tactical Targeting 

Technology ACTD X x

Agile Force Accountability X

Agile Transportation ACTD X

Air and Space 

Expeditionary Forces x x x x x x

Air and Space 

Operations Center X

Air Component 

Coordination Element X

Air Expeditionary 

Force Weapon X x

Air Force IO School X

Air Force Network 

Operations and 

Security Center

X

Air Force Satellite Control 

Network upgrades X

Air Force 

Transformation Center X

Air Force WMD Emergency 

Response Program X

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-16 

Air Launch System X

Airborne Laser X x

Airborne Networking 

capability X

Air-Launched 

Anti-Satellite Missile X

Automated ISR x X

Automatic Air Refueling X x

Autonomous Approach 

and Landing Guidance X x

Biofeedback System x X

Biomarker System x X

B-X Bomber X x

C-17 X x

Centralized Intermediate 

Repair Facilities X

Combat Information 

Transport System X

Combatant Commanders 

Integrated Command and 

Control System

x X x

Command and Control 

Constellation X

Common Aero Vehicle x x X x

Communication/Navigation 

Outage Forecasting 

System ACTD

X

Compact Environmental 

Anomaly Sensor II ACTD X

Condition Based 

Maintenance X

Cooperative Persistent 

Surveillance Strike Vehicle x X

Counter Satellite 

Communications System x X

Counter Surveillance and 

Reconnaissance System x X

Counterintelligence Support 

to Network Operations and 

Security Centers

X

CV-22 x x X

Air Force Program/ 

Future System Concept/ 

Effort/Organization

QDR’s Six Critical Operational Goals of Transformation:

Address 

CBRNE 

Threat

Conduct 

Effective 

IO/IA

Defeat 

AntiAccessDeny 

Sanctuary

Maintain 

Space 

Superiority

Interoperable 

Joint C4ISR
C-17

Deployable Theater Info Grid X

Digital Imagery Request and 

Distribution System (BRITE) X

Distributed Common 

Ground System X

Distributed Mission 

Operations and Training X

Electronic Warfare 

Coordination Cell X

Electronic Warfare 

revitalization X

Embedded Contingency 

Response Groups Capability X

Enhanced AF PSYOP X

Enhanced Human 

Performance X

Evolutionary Air And Space 

Global Laser Engagement X x

Expeditionary Combat 

Support Modules X

Expeditionary Medical 

Support system X

Extended Range 

Strike Aircraft X x

eXtensible Markup 

Language X

F/A-22 x X

Family of Interoperable 

Operational Pictures X

Family of Small 

Unmanned Systems x X

F-35 X x

Force Development x x x x x x

Full Spectrum 

Threat Response X

Full Spectrum Threat 

Response Program X

Future Single 

Supply System X

Future Total Force X

Global Broadcast System X

Appendix C

Air Force Program/ 

Future System Concept/ 

Effort/Organization

QDR’s Six Critical Operational Goals of Transformation:

Address 

CBRNE 

Threat

Conduct 

Effective 

IO/IA

Defeat 

AntiAccessDeny 

Sanctuary

Maintain 

Space 

Superiority

Interoperable 

Joint C4ISR
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-18 

Global Combat 

Support System-AF X

Global CONOPS 

Synchronization X

Global Hawk x x X x

Global Launch 

and Test Range x x X

GPS Block IIF/III X

Ground-Based Laser X

Ground Contingency 

Medical Support System x X

Ground Warrior 

Modernization X

Guardian Urban 

Combat Weapon X

Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle x X

Hypersonic 

Standoff Weapon x X

Hypervelocity Missile x X

Hypervelocity Rod Bundles x X

Influence Operations 

capabilities X

Info Superiority Range X

Information warfare 

capabilities (numerous) X x x

Integrated Base Defense 

Security Systems X

Integrated Broadcast 

Service X

Integrated Flight 

Management ATD x X

Integrated IW Training X

Integrated LOGCAT/

GeoReach-Expeditionary 

Site Planning/Mapping

x X

IO Career Progression X

IO Integration X

ISR Management capability X

IW Flights X

IW Planning Capability X

Air Force Program/ 

Future System Concept/ 

Effort/Organization

QDR’s Six Critical Operational Goals of Transformation:

Address 

CBRNE 

Threat

Conduct 

Effective 

IO/IA

Defeat 

AntiAccessDeny 

Sanctuary

Maintain 

Space 

Superiority

Interoperable 

Joint C4ISR
C-19

Joint Air to Surface Standoff 

Missile—Extended Range X x

Joint Biological Agent 

Identification and 

Diagnostic System 

X

Joint Biological Point 

Detection System X

Joint Chemical 

Agent Detector X

Joint Chemical-Biological 

Agent Water Monitor X

Joint Container 

Refill System X

Joint GUARDIAN Program X

Joint Mission 

Planning System X

Joint Modular ChemicalBiological Detection System X

Joint Service Family 

of Decon Systems X

Joint Service Installation 

Pilot Project X

Joint Service Light 

NBC Recon System X x

Joint Service Lightweight 

Standoff Chemical 

Agent Detector 

X

Joint Service Sensitive 

Equipment Decon System X

Joint Tactical Radio 

System Wideband 

Networking Waveform

X

Joint Transportable 

Collective Protection 

System 

X

Joint Warning and 

Reporting System X x

Large Aircraft Infrared 

Countermeasures X

Link-16 X

Logistics Financial 

Management redesign X

Long Range Cruise Missile X x

Air Force Program/ 

Future System Concept/ 

Effort/Organization

QDR’s Six Critical Operational Goals of Transformation:

Address 

CBRNE 

Threat

Conduct 

Effective 

IO/IA

Defeat 

AntiAccessDeny 

Sanctuary

Maintain 

Space 

Superiority

Interoperable 

Joint C4ISR

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-20 

Low Cost Persistent Area 

Dominance Miniature Missile x x X

Medical CBRNE Defense X x

Military Intelligence Tactical 

Element—Urban Surveyor X

Multi-Platform 

Common Data Link X

Multi-Platform Radar 

Technology Insertion 

Program

X x x x

Multi-Sensor Command 

and Control Aircraft x x X

M-X Low Observable 

Advanced AF SOF 

Air Mobility Platform

x x X

Network Centric 

Collaborative 

Targeting ACTD

X

New Combat 

Wing Organization X x

New Long-Range Platform X x

Next Generation Gunship X

Orbital Deep Space Imager X

Orbital Transfer Vehicle X

Precision Extended Glide 

Aerial Delivery System X

Predator B x x X

Purchasing and Supply 

Chain Management X

Rapid Attack Identification 

Detection and 

Reporting System

X

Regional Supply Squadrons X

Restoration of 

Operations ACTD x X

Robust Autonomous 

Attack Missile x x X

Roll-on Beyond Line 

of Sight Enhancement X

Single Integrated Air Picture X

Single Integrated 

Space Picture X

Air Force Program/ 

Future System Concept/ 

Effort/Organization

QDR’s Six Critical Operational Goals of Transformation:

Address 

CBRNE 

Threat

Conduct 

Effective 

IO/IA

Defeat 

AntiAccessDeny 

Sanctuary

Maintain 

Space 

Superiority

Interoperable 

Joint C4ISR
C-21

Situational Awareness 

Data Link Gateway X

Small Diameter Bomb X

Solid State Laser (100 kW) X

Space-Based Infrared 

System—High X

Space-Based Radar x x X x

Space-Based Radio 

Frequency Energy Weapon X

Space-Based Space 

Surveillance System X

Space Commission 

implementation x x x x X x

Space Control Range X

Space Maneuver Vehicle x X

Space Operations Vehicle x x X

Space Tracking and 

Surveillance System X

Supply Chain Common 

Operating Picture X x

Tactical Data Link 

Architecture enhancements X

Tactical UAV Initiative x X

Theater Air Control System X

Theater Medical Planning 

and Control System X

Time Critical Targeting 

Functionality ACTD X x

Transformational 

Communication Terminals X

Transformational Satellite X

Unmanned Combat 

Aerial Vehicles x X

Wide Area Search 

Autonomous Attack 

Miniature Munition

X

Air Force Program/ 

Future System Concept/ 

Effort/Organization

QDR’s Six Critical Operational Goals of Transformation:

Address 

CBRNE 

Threat

Conduct 

Effective 

IO/IA

Defeat 

AntiAccessDeny 

Sanctuary

Maintain 

Space 

Superiority

Interoperable 

Joint C4ISR

Appendix C
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

C-22 
D-1

Appendix D: 

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF PROGRAMS, 

ACTDs, AND FUTURE SYSTEM CONCEPTS 

Appendix D includes brief descriptions of each of the programs, ACTDs, and future 

system concepts (listed in italics) that the Air Force believes, based on preliminary 

analysis, will be likely be the key enablers of the 16 “transformational capabilities” 

discussed in Chapter VII. For funded programs, the descriptions include an indication 

of an approximate time frame in which they are expected to be completed. “Near-term” 

denotes between now and 2010. “Mid-term” denotes 2010-2015. “Long-term” denotes 

beyond 2015. These are subject to change as the new CONOPS and CRRAs mature 

(discussed in Chapter VI). 

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)

Active Denial System ACTD This nonlethal antipersonnel weapon transmits high power microwave energy that is 

absorbed in the first layers of skin, producing a near-instantaneous, severely painful 

sensation. ADS will not cause long-term damage to the targets. Research is ongoing 

on both land and airborne variants of ADS.

Adaptive Battlespace 

Awareness ACTD

Will demonstrate the potential of the Global Command and Control System Common 

Operating Picture to provide relevant information to support situational awareness, 

decision-making, execution, and planning for future operations.

Adaptive Joint C4ISR 

Node ACTD

Will integrate, demonstrate, and transition a single, multi-mission, morphable radio 

frequency system that provides seamless interoperable communications, signals 

intelligence, electronic, and information capabilities.

Advanced Extremely 

High Frequency system

Will allow secure, jam-resistant, worldwide, satellite-based communications 

independent of ground relay stations and distribution networks.

Advanced Mobility 

Concept Aircraft

Would provide world wide, all-weather, high speed, direct delivery to the battlefield with 

a more survivable airlifter capable of airliner speed, oversized cargo, and short take off 

and landing coupled to Autonomous Approach and Landing Guidance. This aircraft will 

be able to carry the full spectrum of US Army Future Combat Systems.

Advanced Mobility 

Tanker (KC-X)

Would be a long-range, long-endurance tanker that can also carry significant cargo 

loads. Its range would allow bombers and tankers to leave CONUS simultaneously 

and eliminate the need to pre-deploy tankers, greatly enhancing rapid global mobility.

Advanced Planning 

and Scheduling

Leverages commercial best practices and commercial off-the-shelf products to 

provide a new collaborative, enterprise-wide process focused on translating weapon 

system requirements into integrated executable buy, repair, and distribution plans 

and schedules. Goal is to minimize maintenance downtime and improve warfighter 

readiness by having the right parts in the right place at the right time. 

Advanced Propulsion 

Systems

Would provide Mobility Air Forces with advance propulsion systems featuring a 

quantum leap in specific fuel consumption of hydro-carbon based fuels, far greater 

ranges with less reliance upon tanker forces, and significant increases in the 

efficiencies of rapid mobility capability.

Advanced Situational 

Awareness/ Countermeasures 

System

Is the Air Force’s long-term vision for enhanced situational awareness, threat 

detection, and radio frequency countermeasures and threat mitigation for mobility 

assets to help enable mobility assets into defended areas. The system will include on 

board Precision Location and Identification Radar Warning Receivers and an open 

architecture for off-datalinks (Link-16, etc.), on- and off-board radio frequency warning 

systems, and countermeasures to defeat radio frequency missile engagements. 

The system features an EW processor to fuse (machine-to-machine) all data into 

actionable information for a ‘two pilot’ crew.

Appendix D
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

D-2 

Advanced Standoff 

Cruise Missile

Would provide persistent air-to-ground operations beyond the range of enemy IADS. 

It would utilize a Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System to ensure 

precision strike and receive mission updates and course correction information from 

off-board sensors. A laser radar search sensor would enhance target identification. 

Its stealthy airframe and advanced target identification system would provide a huge 

tactical advantage. 

Advanced Tactical 

Laser ACTD

Will demonstrate a high-energy laser weapon system for precision tactical airborne 

applications. This laser will provide warfighters with ultra precision and the ability to 

manage precise effects on an operator’s target of choice. It will have a range of more 

than 10 km and a one second-to-kill capability.

Advanced Tactical Targeting 

Technology ACTD

By sharing the measurement of radar signals, this ACTD will leverage data from any 

airborne platforms, such as fighters, to detect and locate enemy surface-to-air radars 

to an accuracy of 50 meters, from 50 miles away, and within ten seconds after the 

enemy’s radar turns on. This would enable transformational persistent ISR capabilities 

to the battlespace without reliance on current high-density, low-demand platforms. 

Using data links to connect them to strike platforms, every sensor would become a 

shooter or linked to a shooter.

Agile Force Accountability Would significantly improve force accountability through the development of a single 

software suite and classified database (along with scanner technology) for deployed 

military personnel.

Agile Transportation (AT 21) 

ACTD

ACTD sponsored by US Transportation Command that will demonstrate total visibility 

of all transportation requirements, available lift assets, personnel, and equipment 

moving to and within the various theaters of operation. Advanced scheduling decision 

support tools will be used for mode determination and optimization of intertheater 

lift assets, resulting in reduced force closure times and a smaller theater logistics 

footprint. 

Air and Space 

Operations Center

The Air Force has designated the Air and Space Operations Center as a weapon 

system to provide the Joint Force Air and Space Component Commander a 

standardized capability to command and control air and space forces. This action 

will greatly enhance horizontal integration and provide a much-improved capability to 

support joint operations with planning, tasking, command and control, data fusion, and 

near real-time common operating pictures of the battlespace. 

Air Expeditionary 

Force Weapon

Would be a small, low cost standoff weapon using the Small Diameter Bomb concept 

with a 250 pound warhead and 500 nautical mile range that could be launched from a 

variety of platforms.

Air Force Network 

Operations and 

Security Center

Will provide a single command and control authority over information flow in AF by 

uniting the nine MAJCOM Network Operations and Security Centers. It will provide AF 

one organization to handle both service specific and joint computer responsibilities.

Air Force Satellite Control 

Network upgrades

The Air Force Satellite Control Network provides the earth and space connections 

required to launch, initialize, operate, and maintain all military satellites and recover 

critical warfighter data. It is being significantly enhanced over the next ten years to 

provide DoD-level network assured access from distributed users to and from space 

assets with a new dual band capability for the widest compatibility among all DoD 

space systems.

Air Force 

Transformation Center

Previously, an AOC used its own unique hardware, software, and servers that were 

often incompatible with other systems in other AOCs. The Air Force Transformation 

Center (formerly the CAOC-X) will ensure that the latest new technologies to achieve 

the capability to provide the commander a clear, coherent, real-time picture of 

the battlespace are incorporated into the global and theater AOCs in a timely and 

standardized manner.

Air Force WMD Emergency 

Response Program

This pilot program provides selected bases with WMD equipment, training and 

exercises. The program is designed to enhance cooperation/coordination between 

key players from the base and federal/state/local/host nation emergency responders. 

(Near-term)

Air Launch System Would be a dedicated, all azimuth, weather avoiding, on-demand (within 48 hours) 

system capable of launching a Space Maneuver Vehicle, Common Aero Vehicle, or a 

Conventional Payload Module.

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)
D-3

Airborne Active 

Denial System

Will be an airborne application of the Active Denial System for special operations and 

other missions.

Airborne Laser Will use a high-energy laser mounted on a modified 747 aircraft to destroy ballistic 

missiles in their boost phase (currently under control of the Missile Defense Agency).

Airborne Networking 

capability

Enables access to unclassified and classified email, shared files, and applications 

hosted on their home station networks as well as view live TV and participate in secure 

video teleconferences from airborne platforms. The intent is to provide an “office in 

the sky” and extend the Global Information Grid into the airborne platforms. US senior 

leadership enjoys this capability at present. The Air Force intends to expand this 

capability to more airborne platforms.

Air-Launched AntiSatellite Missile

Would be a small air-launched missile capable of intercepting satellites in low earth 

orbit.

Automated ISR Will use technology to automate the TPED process to speed the delivery of finished 

intelligence to the user. It includes upgrades such as Distributed Ground System 

Block 20 upgrades, Network Centric Collaborative Targeting, Link-16, Automated GeoPrecise-Positioning of sensors, and Computer Aided Target Detection. (Near-term)

Automatic Air Refueling Will permit the refueling of manned as well as unmanned air vehicles on fueling tracks 

obscured by clouds. This would ensure that mobility, strike, and ISR operations would 

not be degraded by weather in refueling areas. 

Autonomous Approach 

and Landing Guidance

Will enable mobility operations to be conducted regardless of weather conditions and 

independent of ground based navigation aids by allowing mobility aircraft to land on 

normal surfaced runways as well as unimproved landing zones in adverse weather (to 

include smoke, fog, rain, and snow) conditions. 

Biofeedback System Would provide real-time vital sign information to individuals, first aid givers, and 

medical personnel to enable rapid self-aid and buddy care and triage of casualties 

entering the medical system.

Biomarker System Would track individual location and vital signs to reduce fratricide, rapidly recover ill or 

injured airmen, and detect potentially harmful exposures.

B-X Bomber Would be a stealthy long-range, supersonic bomber with a 5000 nautical mile 

unrefueled range.

C-17 The C-17 has transformed the way the Air Force does mobility by blending strategic 

and tactical airlift missions into one to better support the warfighter. It can also fly 

intercontinental missions, operate into short, semi-prepared landing zones, move 

patients, outsized cargo, and complete airdrops. Equipped with defensive systems, 

it can move cargo and passengers over long and short distances, from ports of 

embarkation directly to assault zones in the battle area—avoiding the delays 

associated with transferring cargo to theater airlift aircraft for final delivery to the 

combat forces. 

Centralized Intermediate 

Repair Facilities 

Key element of the agile combat support strategy to significantly improve support to 

warfighting commanders. Regional repair facilities are established based on critical 

needs to reduce deployment footprint, increase deployment flexibility and speed, and 

reduce overall maintenance manpower requirements. 

Combat Information 

Transport System

Will provide a network centric, fiber-optic system to move, process, and protect all Air 

Force information. (Ongoing effort starting in the near-term and continuing into the 

long-term)

Combatant Commanders 

Integrated Command 

and Control System

Will provide the command and control of current and future space forces and space 

situation awareness via the Space common operational picture. (Near-term)

Command and Control 

Constellation

Will enable the horizontal integration of ground, air, and space sensors and battle 

management platforms such as strike aircraft and ground troops. (Mid-term)

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)

Appendix D
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

D-4 

Common Aero Vehicle Will be an unpowered, maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle deployed from a 

possible range of delivery vehicles such as an expendable or reusable small launch 

vehicle to a fully reusable Space Operations Vehicle. It will guide and dispense 

conventional weapons, sensors, or other payloads worldwide from and through space 

within one hour of tasking. It would be able to strike a spectrum of targets, including 

mobile targets, mobile time sensitive targets, strategic relocatable targets, or fixed hard 

and deeply buried targets. The Common Aero Vehicle’s speed and maneuverability 

would combine to make defenses against it extremely difficult. (Mid-term)

Communication/Navigation 

Outage Forecasting 

System ACTD

Will demonstrate the ability to combine data from ground- and sea-based sensors to 

provide real-time products predicting when ionospheric disturbances will affect satellite 

communications and navigation systems, which will help distinguish between an attack 

on space systems and natural phenomenon.

Compact Environmental 

Anomaly Sensor II ACTD

Will demonstrate the ability of on-board space environment sensor suites to reduce 

satellite downtime and assist in ruling out hostile attack as the cause of satellite 

malfunction and provide warnings of dangerous space environment conditions.

Condition Based 

Maintenance

A new support concept that would exploit engineering and technical knowledge 

combined with actual failure experience and condition data that would move toward 

predictive maintenance practices vice reactive practices. Key to this capability are 

a robust systems engineering process, exploitation tools based on the EDW, serial 

number tracking of key components, and on board diagnostics. 

Cooperative Persistent 

Surveillance Strike Vehicle

Would be a light weight search and destroy system to perform near all-weather 

surveillance and attack.

Counter Satellite 

Communications System

Will provide the capability to deny and disrupt an adversary’s space-based 

communications and early warning. (Near-term) 

Counter Surveillance and 

Reconnaissance System

Will provide offensive counterspace counter surveillance/reconnaissance weapon 

acquisition program to deny, disrupt, and degrade adversary space-based surveillance 

and reconnaissance systems. (Near-term)

CV-22 Will rapidly insert large numbers of special operations forces or other small units over 

long distances with its high speed and unique capabilities. (Near-term)

Deployable Oxygen System Will dramatically reduce the footprint of medical expeditionary forces by eliminating the 

need to resupply liquid oxygen to deployed medical forces. (Near-term)

Deployable Theater 

Information Grid

Will operate as a deployable, mobile information dissemination grid generating 

increased combat power through information superiority by integrating networks, 

sensors, decision-makers, and shooters. It will also enable commanders to 

dynamically plug and play sensors, engagement systems, weapons, command and 

control, and support capabilities into task-organized packages across the combat 

theater. (Mid-term)

Deployment 

Readiness System

Web-based solution to significantly reduce deployment scheduling time, track 

personnel training requirements and status, and facilitate the management of Unit 

Type Code qualification throughout the Air Force.

Digital Imagery Request and 

Distribution System (BRITE)

Will give U.S. forces national and theater imagery faster. (Mid-term)

Distributed Common 

Ground System

Will be an open architecture, network-centric system that will enable the support of 

multiple, simultaneous, worldwide operations from in garrison and through scalable, 

modular system deployments. It will be interoperable with spaceborne, airborne, and 

surface ISR collection assets and intelligence producers and it will be able to access 

intelligence databases from these ISR resources to optimize ISR capabilities. As 

a key component of the GIG, this system will provide the backbone through which 

disparate ISR assets will be horizontally integrated. It will transform the Air Force’s ISR 

infrastructure to a net-centric enterprise. (Near-term)

Enhanced Human Performance Would significantly improve cognition, strength, endurance, and perception of individuals.

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)
D-5

Evolutionary Air and 

Space Global Laser 

Engagement (EAGLE) 

Airship Relay Mirrors

Will significantly extend the range of both the Airborne Laser and Ground-Based Laser 

by using airborne, terrestrial, or space-based lasers in conjunction with space-based 

relay mirrors to project different laser powers and frequencies to achieve a broad 

range of effects from illumination to destruction. 

Expeditionary Medical 

Support System

Would significantly increase the theater preventive, primary, and emergent care 

capabilities of expeditionary medical platforms and systems while dramatically 

reducing airlift requirements and the theater medical footprint.

Extended Range 

Strike Aircraft

Would be a modified 747-400 capable of standoff strikes against hardened and deeply 

buried targets while beyond the range of theater air defenses as well as counterCBRNE and SEAD missions. A simultaneous attack by 20 aircraft could destroy 1500 

targets in less than 15 minutes.

eXtensible Markup Language Will be a key enabler to the free exchange of information between systems and their 

associated databases. (Near-term)

F/A-22 In addition to its revolutionary first-look, first-launch, and first-kill air-to-air capabilities, 

the F/A-22’s combination of all-aspect stealth, supercruise speed, and integrated 

avionics that enable it to engage mobile ground targets in any weather will be essential 

for the United States to penetrate the next two generations of rapidly advancing 

enemy air defenses and clear the way for follow-on joint forces day or night. These 

capabilities will also track, rapidly close in, and engage enemy cruise missiles. The 

F/A-22 is also pioneering the capability for one platform to connect all the links the “kill 

chain”: find-fix-track-target-engage-assess. Its on-board sensors and communications 

systems will detect and track enemy systems, allowing immediate self-targeting or 

engagement by other platforms that receive the battlespace picture on a shared 

network, followed by an immediate assessment of effects. (Near-term) 

Family of Interoperable 

Operational Pictures

A joint program with new funding provided by OSD that will close the seams 

between existing legacy C4ISR systems and extend the capability of systems under 

development in order to exploit the full data collection and management abilities of 

current C4ISR assets. Its goal is to achieve a Common Relevant Operational Picture: 

an all-source picture of the battle space containing actionable, decision-quality, 

information to the warfighter through a fusion of existing databases. It will achieve this 

by implementing data sharing and fusion among heterogeneous, stovepiped systems 

in support of both operational and tactical users. It will facilitate establishment of 

interoperability standards and architectures to guide future acquisitions. (Near-term)

Family of Small 

Unmanned Systems

Will provide Special Tactics personnel increased battlespace awareness through 

employment of small, tactical UAVs. (Near-term)

F-35 The F-35 will be a new fighter aircraft that has transformational sensor capability 

that enables non-traditional ISR and sensor integration that will help enable the 

transformational capabilities of machine-to-machine integration and real-time picture 

of the battlespace. It also will possess low-observable characteristics that will enable 

persistent combat air support over the future battlefield. Furthermore, F-35 will help 

enable the negation of advanced enemy air defenses because it will possess the 

ability to perform unrestricted operations within heavily defended airspace. (Mid-term)

Full Spectrum 

Threat Response

Program will be how the AF will plan for, respond to, and begin recovery from full 

spectrum threats at the installation and MAJCOM level. It includes program elements 

such as Terrorist Weapons of Mass Destruction Response; the Weapons of Mass 

Destruction Pilot Installation Program; Joint Service Installation Pilot Program/

Guardian; Hazardous Material Emergency Response; Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, 

and Conventional Defense; and non-Medical CBRNE defense. (Near-term)

Full Spectrum Threat 

Response Program

This program includes policy and guidance to help commanders confront the full 

spectrum of physical threats and provide for the protection of installation resources. 

It captures the complete incident response cycle, from planning to response and 

recovery. It includes guidelines for training, exercising, equipping, and assessing the 

installation’s capability for successful operations. It provides the Air Force approach 

to planning, organizing, training, and equipping personnel and protecting the critical 

infrastructures needed to accomplish the mission for the possibility of a nuclear, 

biological, chemical, or conventional enemy attack, major accident, natural disaster, or 

terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction. (Near-term)

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)

Appendix D
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

D-6 

Future Single Supply System Would reengineer the AF supply processes to leverage commercial best practices 

and enterprise systems. Goal would be to replace 76 current supply or supply related 

systems and enable single entry, instantaneous common operating picture and real 

time visibility over all AF supply assets worldwide. 

Global Broadcast System Will provide a true global and fully mobile communications architecture to DoD 

operators. Its satellite-based (Ka-band) architecture transcends previous geographic 

limitations to allow relatively high bandwidth transmission of mission critical data to 

forces virtually anywhere in the world with relative simplicity. (Near-term)

Global Combat 

Support System-AF 

Delivers real-time, worldwide asset, equipment, and weapon system status. Deployed 

troops have praised the Air Force logistics capabilities on the portal and said that it is 

the only way they have had asset visibility and access to their logistics applications 

at bare base locations. The fleet asset status tool provides real-time status of aircraft 

worldwide, with drill-down capabilities for parts and maintenance status. Additional 

capabilities and tools continue to be added through spiral development. (Near-term)

Global CONOPS 

Synchronization

Will demonstrate ability to and benefits of sharing real-time information among Mobility 

Air Force (global) and Combat Air Force (multi-area of responsibility centric) command 

and control planning and execution systems and flying assets via machine-to-machine 

data exchange.

Global Hawk The Global Hawk is a high endurance UAV with an ISR payload for intercontinental 

coverage. When combined with the continuous global access of Space-Based Radar 

and near real-time data transfer to multiple relevant command and control elements, 

the Global Hawk will allow constant imaging or tracking of relevant mobile or fixed 

surface targets in any weather conditions. (Near-term)

Global Launch 

and Test Range

Would broaden the region over which the launch and test ranges are able to execute 

Telemetry, Tracking, and Commanding during spacelift operations as well as test and 

evaluation activities. It will also support the current military spaceplane plan calling for 

launches from the interior of the US, away from the coasts. Would provide necessary 

Command and Control for the Space Maneuver Vehicle and the Space Operations 

Vehicle. Would be a key enabler of responsive launch and operation of new space 

vehicles and refueling/repair of existing vehicles.

GPS Block IIF/III Will greatly expand current GPS navigation and targeting capabilities and enhance its 

jam-resistance in conjunction with anti-jam margins provided by user equipment. (GPS 

IIF is near-term; GPS III is mid-term)

Ground Based Laser Would propagate laser beams through the atmosphere to Low-Earth Orbit satellites to 

provide robust defensive and offensive space control capability. 

Ground Contingency 

Medical Support System

Would significantly increase the preventive, primary, emergent care, and mass 

casualty management capabilities of individual ground medical systems.

Ground Warrior 

Modernization

Will standardize (with special forces) and significantly improve the equipment used by 

Tactical Air Control Parties (ground spotters for air strikes), who are critical enablers of 

time-critical targeting and timely close air support in many instances.

Guardian Urban 

Combat Weapon

Would be an air launched lurk and loiter reconnaissance, rotary winged, unmanned, 

combat air vehicle designed for urban warfare.

High Powered Microwave 

Airborne Electronic Attack

Will develop and demonstrate an anti-electronics high powered microwave weapon 

against “soft” electronic-containing targets from an airborne platform at military 

significant ranges.

Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle Would operate like an aircraft from conventional runways within the CONUS and reach 

time-critical targets up to 9,000 nautical miles away within two hours with payloads up 

to 12,000 pounds.

Hypersonic Standoff Weapon Would be an air-launched, deep-strike weapon capable of delivering munitions and 

unitary warheads. Missile launch would be subsonic, typically at altitudes between 

30,000-40,000 feet. It is expected to travel up to 1000 nautical miles and then deploy 

submunitions (e.g., WASAAMM or Small Diameter Bomb) or perform direct attack. 

Hypervelocity Missile Would be an air-launched missile that travels at hypersonic speeds with 1000 nautical 

miles of range. It would provide a rapid response capability against high-value and 

emerging targets, arriving at its target in less than 30 minutes from maximum range.

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)
D-7

Hypervelocity Rod Bundles Would provide the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space.

Integrated Base Defense 

Security Systems

A wide range of offensive and defensive capabilities associated with the new Integrated 

Base Defense and Force Protection CONOPS that include new sensors, command 

and control systems for a common operating system, and a suite of remotely operated 

sensors, weapons, and robotics. 

Integrated Broadcast Service Would facilitate the provision of instant access to complete, accurate, and timely tactical 

intelligence and targeting information while supporting battle managers, intelligence 

centers, air defenders, fire support elements, and aviation nodes for airborne, sea-going, 

subsurface, and ground mobile platforms.

Integrated Flight 

Management ATD

The IFM-ATD technology development effort is a multi-part process ultimately designed 

to enhance current and future command and control systems used by flight managers, 

planners, and schedulers. Objectives of this effort include developing the methodology 

for accomplishing intelligent search, retrieval and storage of mission planning data used 

by Air Force planners and schedulers, the improvement of Air Mobility Command’s 

flight planning system, and the optimization of current and future command and control 

capabilities within Air Mobility Command and other major commands. 

Integrated LOGCAT/

GeoReach-Expeditionary 

Site Planning/Mapping

Will provide a common process and operational picture for planning Air Force 

expeditionary operations. Leverages commercial off the shelf products to provide detailed 

tabular and geospatial data on potential operating locations and calculates combat 

support capability requirements for planners at all levels—to include CBRNE vulnerability 

assessments.

ISR Management capability Will enable the operators and collections managers in the AOC to visualize the status and 

capabilities of ISR assets in the area of operations and dynamically retask them in near 

real-time based on battlefield activity. (Near-term) 

Joint Air to Surface Standoff 

Missile-Extended Range

Will be a stealthy precision cruise missile designed to launch from outside area defenses 

to kill a wide variety of targets, including hardened targets, both fixed and mobile. It 

will extend the current production Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile range from 200 

nautical miles to over 500 nautical miles. (Near-term) 

Joint Biological Agent 

Identification and 

Diagnostic System 

A three-block program for a reusable, portable, modifiable biological agent identification 

and diagnostic system for simultaneous, reliable identification of multiple biological 

warfare threat agents. Block I: analytical device, device consumables, and protocols for 

identification of ten biological warfare threat agents/ten biological agents of operational 

significance. Block II produces capability to identify five toxins. (Near-term)

Joint Biological Point 

Detection System 

Active laser system that will detect biological organisms from 3-15 kilometers and 

discriminate biological warfare organisms from naturally occurring biological organisms 

from 1-3 kilometers. (Near-term)

Joint Chemical Agent 

Detector 

Point detector for chemical agents/toxic industrial chemicals that allows for masking prior 

to symptom on-set. (Near-term)

Joint Chemical-Biological 

Agent Water Monitor 

A portable water agent sample/detection device that allows the user to sample with the 

device for chemical and biological agents as well as chemical and biological agents as 

well as toxic industrial chemicals and materials. (Near-term)

Joint Container Refill System Simple-to-operate system capable of refilling containers such as canteens and five-gallon 

water cans with water in the nuclear, biological, and chemical environment; compatible 

with a variety of water distribution systems. (Near-term)

Joint GUARDIAN Program Program replaces the Joint Service Installation Pilot Program and expands the former 

program from nine to 200 installations (64 Air Force). This approximately $1 billion 

program is designed to beef up chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear protection 

at military installations worldwide. (Near-term)

Joint Mission Planning 

System

Will replace older, stove-piped, costly-to-maintain systems now used by the Services with 

a standardized, plug-and-play, user-friendly joint mission planning capabilities to support 

tomorrow’s warfighter.

Joint Modular ChemicalBiological Detection System 

Combined lightweight, handheld chemical, biological, and Toxic Industrial Materials 

detector or network of detectors capable of detecting, identifying, quantifying, and warning 

of hazards. (Mid-term)

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)

Appendix D
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

D-8 

Joint Service Family 

of Decon Systems 

A four-block strategy that groups decontamination for non-personnel items, 

applicators, casualties/personnel, and emerging technology integration and provides a 

means to remove, neutralize, or eliminate CBRNE and toxic hazards. (Near-term)

Joint Service Installation 

Pilot Project 

Congressionally mandated program implemented through Program Budget Decision 

289, dated 10 Dec 2001. The program is designed to enhance the counter-CBRNE 

capabilities of nine DoD Installations, three per Service. The approach is to provide 

equipment and training solutions tailored to each installation and evaluate the 

improvement in capability. The Air Force has designated Robins, Barksdale, and Pope 

Air Force Bases. (Near-term)

Joint Service Light 

NBC Recon System 

HMMWV-based collective protective system with a suite of nuclear chemical and 

biological legacy and standoff detectors designed for mobile reconnaissance/

surveillance and marking. (Near-term)

Joint Service Lightweight 

Standoff Chemical 

Agent Detector 

Provides passive standoff detection capability for chemical agents/toxic industrial 

chemicals and detect-to-warn capability. It allows for masking prior to symptom on-set. 

(Near-term)

Joint Service Sensitive 

Equipment Decon System

System block approach allows decontamination of sensitive equipment, i.e., avionics, 

electrical, electronic, and environmental systems, then aircraft/vehicle interiors, 

and associated cargo while in-flight or during ground/shipboard operations without 

degradation. (Near-term)

Joint Tactical Radio System A joint program in which the Air Force participates, it will provide a software 

reprogrammable joint Services radio and data transmission system. (Near-term)

Joint Transportable 

Collective Protection System 

Contamination Control Area module, Toxic Free Area module and capability to 

collectively protect fixed facilities; provides protection from chemical and biological 

warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals. (Near-term)

Joint Warning and 

Reporting System 

A network link for all nuclear, biological, and chemical detectors with all nuclear, 

biological, and chemical and reporting echelons warning. It provides defense planning 

and toxic industrial chemical event plotting and reporting. (Near-term)

Large Aircraft Infrared 

Countermeasures

Will defend US cargo, tanker, and other heavy aircraft from attack by infrared missiles 

and greatly enhance the ability to defeat anti-access strategies. (Near-term)

Link-16 Provides jam-resistant, secure communications that can be relayed over long 

distances for integrated operations and supports the concept of machine-to-machine 

interface for horizontal integration. It is currently being installed in attack aircraft 

beginning with the F-15 and F-16 Blocks 40/50. The goal is to put Link 16 on all attack 

aircraft enabling digital interface with command and control aircraft and a variety of 

joint command and control ground forces. (Near-term)

Logistics Financial 

Management redesign

Would reengineer the Air Force logistics financial operations from a unit-based, 

transaction-dominated financial environment to a more centralized enterprise-wide 

resource construct. The goal would be to manage and control costs across the 

enterprise to improve overall warfighter support while reducing costs. 

Long-Range Cruise Missile Would be a stealthy, air-launched cruise missile designed to accommodate multiple, 

independently targetable conventional warheads that can strike well defended targets 

greater than 2000 nautical miles away. 

Low Cost Persistent Area 

Dominance Miniature Missile

Would be a light-weight search and destroy system in which up to 16-36 missiles 

would join to form a cooperative grid to detect and destroy time critical targets under 

most weather conditions.

Medical CBRNE Defense Would provide significantly enhanced CBRNE prophylaxis, identification/detection, 

medical surveillance, and casualty treatment capabilities.

Military Intelligence Tactical 

Element—Urban Surveyor

Would add to overall urban situational awareness by looking into individual structures 

and determining as best as possible the internal layout of the structure and the activity 

of people inside the structure as well as match individuals with those on a database. It 

could also attack targets in those structures with a 300 kilowatt laser.

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)
D-9

Multi-Platform Common 

Data Link

Will be a critical network-enabled wideband link for the Multi-Platform Radar 

Technology Insertion Program and the Network Centric Collaborative Targeting ACTD. 

(Near-term)

Multi-Platform 

Radar Technology 

Insertion Program

Will greatly increase the Air Force’s ability to detect, track, and identify stationary and 

moving ground vehicles. (Near-term) 

Multi-Sensor Command 

and Control Aircraft

Will enhance the capabilities of Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System 

and the Airborne Warning and Control Systems as well as various other signals 

intelligence and command-and-control aircraft. It will provide Ground Moving Target 

Indicator capabilities along with focused Air Moving Target Indicator capabilities for 

Cruise Missile Defense. The aircraft will be a key node of the Command and Control 

Constellation. (Mid-term)

M-X Low Observable 

Advanced AF SOF 

Air Mobility Platform

A conceptual aircraft required to support and improve SOF rapid, global mobility 

beyond 2015. The M-X would defeat sophisticated integrated air defense systems with 

low-observable/stealth design technology and/or active signal management combined 

with advanced air defense electronic countermeasures for increased survivability. It 

would need to deliver and recover personnel and equipment deep in hostile, denied, or 

politically sensitive airspace while maintaining the critical elements of tactical surprise 

and speed. It also would require “agility in the objective area” or ultra short takeoff and 

landing or vertical capability.

Network Centric 

Collaborative 

Targeting ACTD

Will demonstrate a network centric operating system designed to horizontally integrate 

air, space, and surface ISR assets at the digital level and dramatically reduce the time 

required to detect, identify, locate, and designate fleeting targets. 

New Long-Range Platform Would be a modified, wide-bodied aircraft that could launch 40 long-range 

conventional cruise missiles and/or standoff hypervelocity missiles. In a permissive 

environment, it could penetrate enemy airspace and drop various PGMs. It would be 

able to reach 97 percent of the countries of the world from CONUS with one aerial 

refueling or one stopover without entering hostile territory. It requires no in-theater 

basing and can be refueled at nearly any large airfield.

Next Generation Gunship Would provide persistent application of tailored precision firepower to defeat, destroy, 

disperse, and deny using lethal and/or non-lethal means. Its utility would be measured 

by its ability to integrate lethality, connectivity, and survivability through a persistent 

presence to achieve the desired effects.

Orbital Deep Space Imager Will provide a predictive, near real-time common operating picture of space to enable 

space control operations. (Mid-term)

Orbital Transfer Vehicle Would significantly increase the flexibility, warfighting utility, and protection of US 

space assets while enabling on-orbit servicing of those assets. 

Precision Extended Glide 

Aerial Delivery System

Would be a fast, worldwide logistics support system with minimum inventory, response 

time, and manpower. It has a global range (9-12,000 nautical miles) with payloads 

of 150,000 to 250,000 pounds and is air refuelable. It could make precision airdrops 

and would have advanced counter-measure capability to do rapid resupply in hostile 

territory. It would be able to serve as the primary supply system for ground troops, 

replacing ground vehicles.

Predator B An updated version of the Predator UAV that would used as a UCAV to strike time 

sensitive targets.

Purchasing and Supply 

Chain Management

Will reengineer Air Force supply chain processes to incorporate commercial best 

practices and integrate the purchasing and supply processes into a single end-toend enterprise process that significantly reduces supply chain operating costs and 

improves war fighter readiness.

Rapid Attack 

Identification Detection 

and Reporting System

A family of systems that will provide the capability to automatically identify when a 

space system is under attack. (Near-term) 

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)

Appendix D
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

D-10 

Regional Supply Squadrons Key element of the agile combat support strategy to significantly improve support to 

warfighting commanders. Regional supply squadrons are established based on critical 

needs to reduce deployment footprint, improve spares command and control, and 

reduce overall supply manpower requirements.

Restoration of Operations 

(RestOps) ACTD

An ACTD designed to help fixed military sites, such as air bases, protect against 

and recover from the consequences of chemical or biological attacks. The fiveyear ACTD is divided into two phases, a three-year demonstration phase, recently 

completed, followed by a two-year transition phase. During the first phase, the 

ACTD demonstrated improved chemical and biological defense technologies and 

operational procedures.

Robust Autonomous 

Attack Missile 

Would be an air-launched interdiction weapon that would provide autonomous, standoff capability against a variety of mobile land and sea targets. Different versions under 

consideration could carry small diameter bombs, SEAD micro missiles, or surveillance 

equipment.

Roll-on Beyond Line 

of Sight Enhancement

The first in a family of Scalable, Modular, Airborne, Relay Terminals, which will 

reside on tankers, but will also be suitable for a variety of other platforms to include 

unmanned and ground or sea-based vehicles. Initially, it will be a Link-16 relay that 

will allow line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight communication of participants in 

the network. It will become a vital part of a global network to provide critical data to 

warfighters more quickly for faster decision-making and time sensitive engagement of 

critical targets. Informally referred to as “Smart Tanker.” (Near-term)

Single Integrated Air Picture Will provide improved air awareness in the battlespace to the warfighter, reduce 

or eliminate the potential for fratricide due to inaccurate targeting information, and 

significantly enhance the Air Force’s ability to conduct effects-based operations 

through the employment of weapons to their designed capability. (Near-term)

Single Integrated 

Space Picture 

Will provide the “space picture” part of the Family of Interoperable Operating Pictures. 

(Near-term)

Situational Awareness 

Data Link Gateway

When combined with Near-Term Enhancements to the Tactical Data Link Architecture, 

will allow greater numbers of combat aircraft to access a wider variety of Air Force and 

Navy platforms from Active, Guard, and Reserve components to improve the sensorto-shooter kill chain timeline. (Near-term) 

Small Diameter Bomb Will enable strike aircraft to carry far more PGMs per sortie. For example, a B-52 that 

can drop 12 2000 pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions today will be able to drop more 

than 100 small diameter bombs against multiple targets. It will also enable smaller 

platforms such as UCAVs to deploy PGMs and increase the F/A-22’s effectiveness by 

enabling it to carry many PGMs internally so it can remain stealthy and perform the 

transformational capabilities of the Global Strike CONOPS. (Near-term)

Solid State Laser (100 kW) Will enable several shots of high-energy laser per minute on fighters, bombers, 

transports, etc. (Mid-term)

Space-Based Infrared 

System—High

Will be key to enabling the transformational ability to defend the United States against 

ballistic missile attack by greatly enhancing ballistic missile detection. (Near-term)

Space-Based Radar Will provide the capability to look deeply and persistently into areas that are 

inaccessible to current platforms due to political restrictions, geographical constraints, 

or the technological limitations of legacy systems. The continuous global access of 

SBR and the extended-loiter capability of the UAV, combined with near real-time 

data transfer to multiple relevant command and control elements, will allow constant 

imaging or tracking of all relevant mobile or fixed surface targets in any weather 

conditions in all types of terrain as well as within urban areas. (Long-term) 

Space-Based Radio 

Frequency Energy Weapon

Would be a constellation of satellites containing high-power radio-frequency 

transmitters that possess the capability to disrupt/destroy/disable a wide variety of 

electronics and national-level command and control systems. It would typically be 

used as a non-kinetic anti-satellite weapon.

Space-Based Space 

Surveillance System

Will be a constellation of optical sensing satellites to track and identify space forces in 

deep space to enable offensive and defensive counterspace operations. (Near-term)

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)
D-11

Space Control Range Will enable a full spectrum exercise and training environment in realistic “battlefield” 

conditions and augment existing DoD range infrastructure and supports combined air, 

space, sea, and land. (Near-term)

Space Maneuver Vehicle Would be a rapidly reusable orbital vehicle deployed from the Space Operations 

Vehicle or Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle that is capable of executing a wide 

range of space control missions.

Space Operations Vehicle Would enable an on-demand spacelift capability with rapid turn-around, multiple 

standardized payloads, space vehicle maintenance, ISR, offensive and defensive 

counterspace, and space surveillance capabilities. The Space Operations Vehicle 

would also be one of the vehicles that would deploy the Common Aero Vehicle.

Space Tracking and 

Surveillance System

Will develop a series of interoperable research and development satellites and 

supporting ground equipment for the detection and tracking of ballistic missiles 

(formerly Space Based Infrared System-Low). (Near-term)

Supply Chain Common 

Operating Picture

Will integrate all supply chain information to provide a common operational view of 

Air Force supply chain to the manager, customers, and warfighting commanders. 

Establishes framework for e-procurement and future enterprise ERP migration.

Tactical Data Link 

Architecture enhancements

When combined with Situational Awareness Data Link Gateway will allow greater 

numbers of combat aircraft to access a wider variety of Air Force and Navy platforms 

from active, guard and reserve components to improve the sensor-to-shooter kill-chain 

timeline. (Near-term)

Tactical UAV Initiative Will embed a small tactical UAV squadron within Air Force Special Operations 

Command to improve support to the special operations missions and support to joint 

warfighting. Such smaller UAVs include: the Desert Hawk, Force Protection Aerial 

Surveillance System, the Pointer UAV, and the BatCam Micro UAV, which is part of the 

Battlefield Air Operations Kit. (Near- to mid-term)

Theater Air Control System Will be an open-architecture, Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating 

Environment-compliant network capable of serving all command and control mission 

applications. (Long-term)

Theater Medical Planning 

and Control System

Would link theater surveillance, aeromedical evacuation, planning, and response 

capabilities to regional, coalition, and joint health support system.

Time Critical Targeting 

Functionality ACTD

Will demonstrate the ability to provide commanders the manpower and equipment 

necessary to more effectively strike critical fixed and mobile targets.

Transformational 

Communication Terminals

Key enabler of the Advanced Wideband System. (Near-term)

Transformational Satellite Will provide greatly expanded bandwidth and secure communications. (Near-term)

Unmanned Combat 

Aerial Vehicle

The Air Force is pursuing several UCAV platforms. They are highly survivable and 

scaleable attack aircraft with selected specific capabilities for lethal and non-lethal 

suppression of enemy air defenses as well as strike missions. The Air Force is also 

considering a limited near-term electronic attack capability for them and studying 

the longer-term potential to integrate directed energy and precision, all-weather 

capabilities. (Near-term)

Wide Area Search 

Autonomous Attack 

Miniature Munition 

(WASAAMM)

Would be a miniature smart cruise missile with the ability to loiter over and search 

for a specific target, significantly enhancing time-critical targeting of moving or 

fleeting targets. When the target is acquired, WASAAMM can either attack or relay 

a signal to obtain permission to attack. Due to its very small size, the WASAAMM 

has stealth qualities.

Air Force Program/ Future 

System Concept/ ACTD Brief Description (Approximate Time Frame for Programs)

Appendix D
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

D-12 
E-1

Appendix E: 

HOW THE AIR FORCE SUPPORTS 

THE TRANSFORMATION PLANS 

OF THE OTHER SERVICES 

As described in Chapter III, the Services already strongly support each other across 

many areas. However, for each Service to enable its transformation plans, they need 

additional support from the other Services. These needs are described in each Service’s 

2003 transformation roadmaps (for the Air Force, see the end of Chapter VII). This 

appendix describes relevant Air Force efforts that would help enable transformation plans 

of the other Services. This appendix, when combined with similar efforts in the other 

Service roadmaps, is intended to provide an initial starting point to help evaluate Service 

interdependencies—a key OSD goal of the Service transformation roadmaps articulated in 

the TPG. Once the JOCs are completed, they will provide a detailed common framework 

to enable DoD to more comprehensively assess Service interdependencies.

The left column of the table below includes a list of broad needs the Army, Navy, and 

Marines have of the other Services and Agencies to enable their transformation plans 

based on preliminary drafts of their 2003 transformation roadmaps and coordination 

with their roadmap authors. They are organized under the five Joint Warfighting 

Capability Assessments. Those needs required by more than one Service are colored blue. 

Navy-Marine Corps’ needs are in lighter gray and the Army’s are in darker gray. The right 

column lists relevant unclassified Air Force efforts that would likely help address the 

needs of the other Services. In some cases, it refers to specific sections of the Flight Plan 

that describe relevant Air Force efforts in detail. Appendix D includes descriptions of 

most of the programs, future platform concepts, and ACTDs described here. 

Service Needs of other Services/

Agencies to Enable Transformation Plans Relevant Air Force Efforts to Address Need

Battlespace Awareness

Enhanced, robust, timely, persistent 

ISR easily accessible by all

Distributed Common Ground System, Automated ISR, Global 

Broadcast System, UAVs, ISR Management capability, Integrated 

Broadcast Service, Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program, 

Adaptive Battlespace Awareness ACTD, Digital Imagery Request 

and Distribution System, Family of Interoperable Operational Pictures 

(Common Relevant Operational Picture)

Command and Control

Increased range and bandwidth 

of satellite communications

Laser communications, Advanced Extremely High Frequency, 

Transformational Satellite 

Time critical strike—to include joint fire 

control system of systems (any Service 

sensor/spotter can direct fires from 

any Service platform)

Virtually all efforts described in “Information Superiority” section of 

Chapter VII and Appendix B will help enable time critical strike. The 

following efforts would most directly support a “joint fire control system”: 

Joint Tactical Radio System, Link-16, Situational Awareness Datalink 

Gateway, Tactical Data Link Architecture Enhancements, Command 

and Control Constellation, Multi-Sensor Command and Control Aircraft, 

Deployable Theater Information Grid, Network Centric Collaborative 

Targeting ACTD, Time Critical Targeting Functionality ACTD.

Appendix E
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

E-2 

Jointly developed C4ISR systems to 

satisfy all Service requirements and 

ensure COP and interpretation of 

processed info. Includes following joint 

protocols and standards.

Air Force agrees that jointly developed communications and information 

systems to satisfy all Services’ requirements and to ensure common 

operational picture and interpretation of processed information. 

All Services should jointly pursue common hardware and software 

development to ensure interoperability and to reduce development, 

procurement, and overall Operation and Maintenance costs.

Force Application

Coordinated IO efforts—to include 

assured communications

The Services have been taking various steps to improve IO coordination.

Operational fires See Chapter VII sections on Precision Engagement and Global 

Attack. Also see Chapter III for Army-Air Force efforts to improve 

combat air support.

Tactical fires See Chapter VII sections on Precision Engagement. Also see Chapter 

III for Army-Air Force efforts to improve combat air support.

Complementary tactical maneuver

Proliferation of cheap precision munitions

Space defense/anti-satellite systems See Chapter VII section on Space Superiority

Logistics

Collaborative enroute planning 

capabilities for strategic airlift assets

The Air Force components from US Transportation Command, 

European Command, and Pacific Command assist US Transportation 

Command to ensure that en route infrastructure and capabilities exist to 

provide timely support to the warfighter. 

Integrated joint logistics support both to 

and from the sea base

The Air Force is currently supporting the Unified Course effort between 

the Navy and JFCOM exploring the Sea Basing Concept

Strategic airlift for rapid arrival and 

assembly of forces in theater

See “Rapid Global Mobility” section of Chapter VII. The Mobility 

Requirements Study and ongoing US Transportation Command 

transportation request prioritization balance and impact demands on 

air mobility.

Logistics demand reduction See “Agile Combat Support” section of Chapter VII

Casualty evacuation capabilities

Operational/tactical airlift (shallow-draft 

fast sealift, advanced theater airlifter 

such as SSTOL or HLVTOL)

Advanced Mobility Concept Aircraft

Capability to deploy from secure bases 

in US or forward locations by sea via 

unimproved or even impaired 

transportation nodes (and explore 

artificial port capability). Includes JSEAD 

and Aerial Port of Debarkation.

See “Rapid Global Mobility” section of Chapter VII

Protection

Coordinated missile defense capabilities 

and tracking data

Air Force agrees coordinated missile defense networks are needed. More 

specifically, the Air Force needs information from the Army Patriot PAC-3 

(AN/MPQ-53 radar); Navy Aegis (AN/SPY-1 radar), Cobra Judy, and 

Cobra Gemini; and Marines TPS-59v3. Additional coordination required 

with the Federal Aviation Administration, Coast Guard, and Aerostat.

Cooperation from USCG, law 

enforcement, and international 

organizations for force protection

N/A

Service Needs of other Services/

Agencies to Enable Transformation Plans Relevant Air Force Efforts to Address Need
Acr-1

Acronyms 

ACCE Air Component Coordination Element

ACTD Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration

AEF Air and Space Expeditionary Force

AETF Air Expeditionary Task Force

AF-DCGS Air Force Distributed Common Ground System

AMMP Air Mobility Master Plan

AOC Air Operations Center

ATD Advanced Technology Demonstration

BMMP Business Management Modernization Program

BMSI Business Modernization and Systems Integration

BRAC Base Realignment and Closure

C4ISR command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance

CAOC Combined Air Operations Center

CBRNE chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive

CCIC2S Combatant Commanders Integrated Command and Control System)

CONOPS concept(s) of operation

CONUS continental United States

CRRA Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment

DoD Department of Defense

DOTMLPF doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities

DPG Defense Planning Guidance

EBO effects-based operations

EPV Enterprise Process View

FTF Future Total Force

FYDP Future Years Defense Plan

GIG Global Information Grid

GPS Global Positioning Satellite

HLS homeland security

HPM high powered microwave

IEC Infrastructure Executive Council

IO information operations

IP Internet Protocol

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6

IW information warfare

JEFX Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment

JFCOM Joint Forces Command

Acronyms
The U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan

E-2

JOC Joint Operating Concept, Joint Operations Center

JOpsC Joint Operations Concepts

JSTARS Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System

JTRS Joint Tactical Radio System

LD/HD low density/high demand

M&S modeling and simulation

MAJCOM Major Command

MC2A Multi-Sensor Command and Control Aircraft

MCO Major Combat Operation

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense

PA&E Program Analysis and Evaluation

PBA Predictive Battlespace Awareness

PGM precision-guided munition

POM Program Objective Memorandum

PSYOP psychological operations

QDR Quadrennial Defense Review

RDT&E research, development, testing and evaluation

RMA Revolution in Military Affairs

S&T science and technology

SAM surface-to-air missile

SBIG Senior Business Modernization and Systems Integration Group

SEAD suppression of enemy air defenses

SOF special operations forces

TENCAP Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities

TPED Tasking, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination

TPFDD Time-Phased Force Deployment Document 

TPG Transformation Planning Guidance

UAV unmanned aerial vehicle

UCAV unmanned combat aerial vehicle

UCC Unified Combatant Commander

US United States

WASAAMM Wide Area Search Autonomous Attack Miniature Munition

WF HQ Warfighting Headquarters

WNW Wideband Networking Waveform

XML eXtensible Markup Language

“Making the whole team better”