The US Air Force Transformation Flight Plan Nov 2003
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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