not act as individual services, but in concert as joint warfighters to prevail in the war on terrorism and all military missions required of our nation. With each mission, the joint force grows more capable as we mature our vision, our capabilities, and our joint culture. Our most fundamental mission is to protect America - Homeland Defense. In support of that mission, the Air Force achieved a range of alert postures involving more than 200 military aircraft at over 20 airbases for Operation NOBLE EAGLE (ONE). In conjunction with unprecedented NATO airborne warning support and other U.S. assets, we have provided continuous combat air patrols over sensitive/high risk areas, and random patrols over other metropolitan areas and key infrastructure. In 2002, airmen flew over 25,000 ONE fighter, tanker, airlift, and airborne warning sorties, made possible only through the mobilization of over 30,000 reserve component airmen. Throughout Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF), the Air Force has maintained a continuous, steady-state presence consisting of over 14,000 airmen in Afghanistan and the associated theater of operations. Air Force assets provided crucial intelligence and situation awareness, combat power, and support capabilities for the combatant commander. A key reason for American military success in the region is the performance of Air Force special operations airmen. Working in teams with other special forces, ground units, and coalition elements, “blue-suit" special operators are positioned on the ground to target enemy resources using the full lethality of integrated air and space capabilities. Fully engaged in all aspects of the war on terrorism, from mobility to close air support, our aircraft and crews flew more than 40,000 OEF sorties in 2002 - over 70 percent of all coalition sorties. This includes more than 8,000 refueling missions conducted by the “linchpin” capability for joint warfighters – the tanker force. Simply put, Air Force mobility forces made operations in a distant, land-locked nation possible. Our 2002 combat operations were not limited to ONE and OEF. Iraqi forces fired on coalition aircraft over 400 times during 14,000 sorties supporting Operations NORTHERN WATCH and SOUTHERN WATCH. In support of these missions, the Air Force maintained a continuous, regional presence of more than 9,000 airmen, complementing other air and space assets that provided vital intelligence, situation awareness, and indications and warning to monitor Iraq's compliance with United Nations' directives. Beyond air operations, we operated and maintained several constellations of earthorbiting satellites, and in 2002 we launched 18 missions with a 100 percent success rate including the first space launches using Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles. These activities bolstered America's assured access to space and ensured vigorous, global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), missile warning, precision navigation and timing, communications, and weather systems. In addition, manned, unmanned, and space ISR assets not only delivered unprecedented battlefield awareness, but, with the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), we also introduced transformational combat capabilities. We continue to deliver force protection through the integrated application of counterterrorism and antiterrorism operations, and preparedness for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive incidents. We employ a tailored selection and application of multilayered active and passive, offensive and defensive measures. Intelligence and counterintelligence programs support this integrated effort and remain critical to our success. In this regard, we continued to develop and employ all-source intelligence systems; cross-functional intelligence analysis procedures; and an operational planning process to implement Force Protection operations that deter, detect, deny, and destroy threats. Our goal is to see first, understand first, and act first. Extending A Helping Hand Even though the fight against global terrorism is our national military focus, throughout 2002 airmen joined soldiers, sailors, and marines in the Balkans, South America, Europe, Asia, and around the world to assure our friends while deterring and dissuading our adversaries. In 2002, airlift crews exceeded 2.4 million airdropped daily ration deliveries in Afghanistan, evacuated allied personnel at threatened locations around the world, and flew typhoon relief missions to Guam, while our explosive ordnance specialists removed unexploded munitions in Africa. At the same time that airmen were supporting an unprecedented level of food, medical, civil engineering, and evacuation relief efforts in warring regions, we were also on call to perform critical, quick-response missions during natural or manmade crises at home. Executive Agent for Space The Air Force is proudly performing its role as the Department of Defense Executive Agent for Space with confidence and enthusiasm. In conjunction with the other services and agencies, we are shaping a new and comprehensive approach to national security space management and organization. Our capstone objective is to realize the enormous potential in the high ground of space, and to employ the full spectrum of space-based capabilities to enable joint warfighting and to protect our national security. The key to achieving this end is wholesale integration - through air, land, space, and sea; across legacy and future systems; among existing and evolving concepts of operations; and between organizations across all sectors of government. We will continue to deliver the unity of vision and effort required toward fulfilling our mission of delivering the most advanced space capabilities for America. It is in this context of the widespread and increasing importance of space systems that we strive to meet present and future national security challenges by providing dominant space capabilities that will: • Exploit Space for Joint Warfighting. Space capabilities are integral to modem warfighting forces, providing critical surveillance and reconnaissance information, especially over areas of high risk or denied access for airborne platforms. We are working to enhance existing capabilities and, where it makes sense, pursue new ones such as the Transformational Communications System (TCS), which promises to dramatically increase bandwidth for our joint warfighters; and the Space Based Radar, which will complement the airborne Joint Surveillance Target and Attack Radar System by migrating portions of the Ground Moving Target Indicator capability into space. • Pursue Assured Access to Space. We cannot effectively exploit space for joint warfighting if we do not have responsive, reliable, and assured access to space. In August 2002, the new Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle got off to a strong start with the successful launch of Lockheed Martin's Atlas V booster. Boeing's Delta IV program added to the nation's array of modern launch vehicles with liftoff in November 2002. We are also pursuing advanced and highly versatile reusable launchers and small expendables with extremely short response times to achieve long-term assured access, while taking the necessary steps to maintain and improve our space launch infrastructure. • Preserve Our Freedom of Action in Space. Our nation must be able to act freely in space or risk losing those capabilities essential to joint warfighting. We initiated efforts to increase our space situation awareness, beginning with the new Space Situation Awareness Integration Office at Air Force Space Command, and a similar program at the Space and Missile Systems Center. Future efforts are planned to develop strategy, doctrine, and programs to improve the protection of our own space capabilities while denying the benefits of joint space capabilities to our adversaries. • Develop Our People. The Air Force's Space Professional Strategy fulfills a Space Commission recommendation to develop space professionals and nurture a cadre to lead our national security space endeavors at all levels in the decades ahead. These space-expert airmen will become the core leadership for future space operations, and will shoulder the brunt of the responsibility for advancing joint warfighting capabilities into the high ground frontier. Transforming How We Train Over the past year, we advanced joint and combined interoperability skills with our sister services and those of 104 nations through 111 Joint Chiefs of Staff exercises and Joint Task Force experimentation events conducted in 40 foreign countries. Exercises ranged from large field training events such as BRIGHT STAR, to command post exercises like POSITIVE RESPONSE, and smaller but equally valuable humanitarian exercises, as in school construction, well drilling, and medical clinic visits. Clearly training, while not unique to our military, is a unique American military strength. But we cannot continue to rely on the methods of the past as we face the challenges and opportunities of the future. As our potential adversaries work to overcome our technological superiority, it is imperative that we enhance our "training advantage" by improving our operational proficiency at the tactical level coincident with integrating training at the joint level. To achieve this objective, we remain fully engaged with the other services, unified commands, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense in developing and implementing a training transformation plan. While our vector is new, our goal remains to train as we will fight by increasing the joint content of our exercises in live, virtual, and distributed training environments. Task Force Enduring Look Success in future missions also hinges upon our ability to learn from previous operations. To ensure that we learn from ongoing operations and adapt accordingly, we established Task Force Enduring Look. Task Force Enduring Look is responsible for Air Force-wide data collection, exploitation, documentation, and reporting of lessons-learned from ONE and OEF. Through extensive investigation and analysis, Enduring Look is examining Air Force and joint warfighting effectiveness to help shape the transformation of expeditionary air and space power. Transforming to a 21" Century Global Reconnaissance and Strike Force The Air Force is continually developing new areas of expertise that sustain us as the world's preeminent air and space force. In the past, we have distilled our distinctive capabilities into what we called our six "core competencies" - Air and Space Superiority, Global Attack, Rapid Global Mobility, Precision Engagement, Information Superiority, and Agile Combat Support. Our evolving recognition of the fundamental characteristics from which we derive our strength and sustain our air and space dominance, led us to identify three new institutional core competencies, forming the backbone around which we organize, train, and equip: • Developing Airmen: the heart of combat capability • Technology-to-Warfighting: the tools of combat capability Integrating Operations: maximizing combat capabilities Our core competencies reflect a legacy of transformational thinking - innovation and adaptation focused on accomplishing our mission. This point is underscored by the fact that, in spite of a more than 30 percent reduction in manpower over the past twelve years, we have faced an exponential increase in worldwide taskings. Intensifying operations tempo requires significant changes in the way our force organizes, trains, and equips to support combatant commander requirements. Just as the advent of aircraft revolutionized the nature of warfighting, recent advances in low observable technologies, space-based systems, manipulation of information, precision, and small, smart weapons offer dramatic advantages for combatant commanders. The F/A-22 is an excellent example of our ability to adapt innovative technology to warfighting capabilities and evolving operational requirements. Originally envisioned as an air superiority fighter, it has been transformed into a multirole system. The F/A-22 not only brings to bear warfighting capabilities without equal for decades to come, but also includes those we did not foresee at its inception. Collectively, the platform's supercruise, stealth, maneuverability, and novel avionics will give joint warfighters the ability to achieve crucial battlefield effects - penetrating into anti-access areas, putting precision munitions on target, detecting and intercepting aircraft and cruise missiles, allowing 24-hour stealth - and implement new and evolutionary concepts of operations. Capabilities-based Concepts of Operations As we transform to meet the exigencies of our strategic environment, our principal focus has transitioned from fielding a platform-based garrison force to developing a capabilities-based expeditionary force. The Air Force's Air and Space Expeditionary Force (AEF) construct divides our combat forces into ten equivalent AEFs, each possessing air and space warfighting and associated mobility and support capabilities. The AEF construct is the tool that we use to organize and deploy expeditionary wings, groups, and squadrons. A key element of our ability to deliver these tailored and ready expeditionary forces is the parallel development of concepts of operations (CONOPS) that describe how we fight and how we integrate with our sister services and outside agencies. In short, CONOPS are the fundamental "blueprints" for how we go to war. In addition to guiding our decisions during operational planning, CONOPS help us to provide scalable, quick-reacting, task-organized units from the ten standing AEFs, and sustain our ability to ensure trained and ready forces are available to satisfy all operational requirements. Developing new CONOPS will help us make the shift to a "capabilities-based" force by providing solutions to a variety of problems joint warfighters can expect to encounter in the future. Whether detailing our plans for operating in an anti-access environment or identifying how to deliver humanitarian rations to refugees, Air Force CONOPS lend focus on the essential elements required to accomplish the mission. They cover the complete spectrum of warfighting capabilities (deep strike, information, urban, psychological operations) and enable us to tailor forces (expeditionary wings, groups, or squadrons) from existing AEFs to meet joint requirements. In support of this effort, our new Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment process assesses CONOPS capability shortfalls, health, risks, and opportunities, while prioritizing future capability opportunities. This helps CONOPS developers articulate disconnects between required capabilities and developing programs, while providing senior Air Force leadership an |