What the DAF Brings to the Fight

Overview

• The DAF and the Joint Fight
• USAF Core Functions
• USSF Core and Enterprise Functions
• Doctrine

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The Role of Airpower

• Purpose: The ability to project military power through control and exploitation in, from, and through the air.
• The employment of airpower is fundamentally different than other forms of military power.
• Over, not through
• Produce operational and strategic effects
• Strike centers of gravity (COG)
• Wrest initiative from enemy
• Set tempo

Service Responsibilities: USAF

• Global Vigilance
• Ability to gain and maintain awareness anywhere.
• Global Reach
• Ability to project military capability responsively–with unsurpassed velocity and precision–anywhere.
• Global Power
• Ability to hold at risk or strike any target anywhere.

The Role of Space Power

• Purpose: The ability to accomplish military objectives in, from, and to the space domain.
• Securing our national interests in space requires:
• Safeguarding and enhancing the ability of US commercial, civil, intelligence, and military entities.
• Safely access, maneuver within, and exploit the space domain without prohibitive interference.

Service Responsibilities: USSF

• Avoid Operational Surprise
• Space forces must be able to detect and preempt any perturbations in the operational environment that could compromise the ability of the joint force to achieve space superiority.
• Deny First-Mover Advantage
• Space forces must have the capability and resiliency to deter or overcome an adversary’s first strike in space, making it impractical and self-defeating.
• Conduct Responsible Counterspace Operations
• Space forces must be able to conduct a sequence of military activities that enable protection of the Nation and the joint force from space-enabled attack without generating long-lived hazardous debris.

Core Functions Purpose

• The DAF core functions contribute to the seven joint functions:
• C2 - Movement & Maneuver
• Information - Protection
• Intelligence - Sustainment
• Fires

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• These functions enable joint force objectives and attain desired end-states.

USAF Core Functions

• Five Core Functions:
• Air Superiority
• Global Precision Attack
• Rapid Global Mobility
• Global Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)
• Command and Control (C2)

Air Superiority

Airpower’s primary role in joint air operations is to achieve control of the air.

• Freedom from attack and the freedom to attack
• Essential precondition to successful military operations
• Allows joint force to operate without threat of attack from enemy aircraft
• Cannot be assumed

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Control of the Air

• Air parity: A condition in which no force has control of the air.

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• Air superiority: Control of the air by one force that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats.

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• Air supremacy: Control of the air wherein the opposing force is incapable of effective interference within the operational area using air and missile threats.

Air Superiority

Offensive Counterair

(OCA)

Defensive Counterair

(DCA)

Integrated Air and Missile Defense

(IAMD)

OCA operations seek to dominate enemy airspace and prevent the launch of threats, resulting in greater freedom from attack and increased freedom of action.

DCA operations defend friendly lines of communication, deny the enemy the freedom to carry out offensive attacks from the air, and provide a secure area from which all elements of the joint force can operate.

IAMD integrates capabilities and overlapping operations to defend the homeland and US national interests, protect the joint force, and enable freedom of action by negating an adversary’s ability to create adverse effects from their air and missile capabilities.

Air Superiority

• OPERATION DESERT STORM

Global Precision Attack

• Any target, any time
• Holding any target on the planet at risk even from bases in the continental US
• Can achieve tactical, operation, and strategic effects in a single mission

Global Precision Attack

Strategic Attack

Close Air Support

Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations

Nuclear Operations

Cyberspace Operations

Air Interdiction

Global Precision Attack

• OPERATION DELIBERATE FORCE

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Rapid Global Mobility

• Delivery on demand
• Deployment, sustainment of equipment and personnel across range of operations
• Enable reach and positional advantage

Rapid Global Mobility

Airlift

Air Refueling

(AR)

Aeromedical Evacuation

(AE)

Airlift provides rapid, flexible, and secure transportation for the joint force.

AR expands options available to commanders by increasing the range, payload, persistence, and flexibility of joint and coalition receiver aircraft.

AE provides time-sensitive, in-flight care of patients or casualties to and between levels of care, with trained medical aircrew.

Rapid Global Mobility

• OPERATION JUST CAUSE

Global ISR

• Eyes and ears on adversaries
• Provides situational awareness of the battlespace & allows decision space for command elements
• Minimizes uncertainty about adversaries and their capabilities
• Global ISR produces data/information – requires an analyst to create intelligence

Global ISR

Airborne ISR

Airborne ISR can provide a unique, taskable, and visible presence to provide real-time, tailorable information during mission execution.

Targeting

Targeting is the process of selecting and prioritizing targets and matching the appropriate response to them.

Global ISR

• OPERATION UNIFIED RESPONSE

Command and Control

• Command and Control (C2) is the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of a mission
• Central joint function that integrates all the other functions and enables operations
• Total flexibility in operations…right info to the right person at the right time
• Access to reliable communications and information networks
• Allows joint teams to operate globally at a high tempo and intensity

Mission Command and CC-DC-DE

Centralized Command

Gives the commander the responsibility and authority for planning,

directing, and coordinating USAF forces for joint operations.

Distributed Control

The delegation of specified authorities from the air

component commander to subordinate commanders to C2 assigned operations.

Decentralized Execution

Delegation of execution authority to subordinate

commanders.

Mission Command

Philosophy of leadership that empowers Airmen to operate in uncertain, complex, and

rapidly changing environments through trust, shared awareness, and understanding of

commander's intent.

Command and Control

• OPERATION ODYSSEY DAWN

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USSF Core and Enterprise Functions

• Space Control
• Global Mission Operations
• Space Access
• Enterprise

USSF Core and Enterprise Functions�(Overview)

Space Control

• Space Control
• Space control comprises the activities required to contest and control the space domain.
• Orbital Warfare
• EM Warfare
• Cyber Warfare
• Space control consists of offensive and defensive actions, referred to as counterspace operations.

Space Control

Orbital Warfare

Combat operations conducted through fires, movement and maneuver to control the space domain.

Electromagnetic Warfare

Combat operations on the segment through electromagnetic spectrum fires to control the space domain.

Cyberspace Warfare

Combat operations conducted in cyberspace through fires, movement, and maneuver to control the space domain.

Global Mission Operations

• Deliver space effects in support of military operations.
• Offers a space-enabled combat edge, ensuring the United States can out-see, out-shoot, out-maneuver, and out-communicate any adversary.
• Includes five mission areas: satellite communication, navigation warfare, missile warning and tracking, space-based sensing and targeting, and theater electromagnetic warfare.

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Global Mission Operations

Navigation Warfare

Missile Warning and Tracking

Space-Based Sensing and Targeting

Satellite Communications

Theater Electromagnetic Warfare

Space Access

• Movement and support of military equipment and personnel into, through, and back from the space domain.
• These activities "set the space theater" for military operations.
• Satellite control, spacelift, and launch range control are the space access mission areas.

Space Access

Satellite Control

Activities necessary to assure the infrastructure, networks, equipment, and connectivity that enables mission control of satellites.

Spacelift

The movement of payloads to and from the space domain.

Launch Range Control

Activities to ensure the provision of a safe and secure range for space launch operations.

Enterprise

• The Space Force recognizes four cross-cutting enterprise functions which are key enablers of the core functions.
• These include intelligence, cyberspace operations, command and control, and space domain awareness.

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Enterprise

Cyberspace Operations

The employment of networked, stand-alone, and platform-embedded information technology infrastructure for the access to and use of data to achieve effects in or through cyberspace.

Command and Control

The exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission.

Space Domain Awareness

The detection, characterization, attribution, prediction, and targeting of activities in the space domain to inform decision making.

Intelligence

The products resulting from the collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, integration, and targeting concerning foreign nations, hostile or potentially hostile forces, and areas of actual or potential operations.

Doctrine

• What is doctrine?
• Fundamental principles by which military forces or elements guide their actions
• Official advice, but not directive – requires judgement in application
• What we believe to be true about the best way to do things based on the evidence to date
• When properly applied, often provides 80-90% solution
• Evolves as theory, experience, and technologies change

Doctrine

• Why is doctrine important?
• Describes and guides proper use of airpower and space power
• Helps Airmen and Guardians answer questions like:
• What is my mission within the joint force? How should I approach it?
• What should my organization look like, and why?
• What are my lines of authority within my organization and within the joint force?
• What degrees of control do I have over my forces?
• How am I supported? Whom do I call for more support?
• How should I articulate what the Air Force provides to the joint force?

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Doctrine

• Key characteristics of good doctrine:
• Warfighting, not physics
• Effects, not platforms
• Using domains, not owning domains
• How to organize, not organizations
• Synergy, not segregation
• Integration, not just synchronization
• The right force, not just equal shares of the force

Bottom Line: Emphasis on integrated whole, rather than any individual part…no one element of the joint force is decisive; it’s the total, tailored joint force that’s decisive.

Summary

• The DAF and the Joint Fight
• USAF Core Functions
• USSF Core and Enterprise Functions
• Doctrine

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