Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. spoke with Editorial Director John A. Tirpak on Sept. 3 about the challenges of operating in the
Pacific Theater, deterring China and Russia, a new force dispersal strategy, and lines of responsibility between regional commands. (The conversation has been edited for length and clarity)
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Q. How is USAF responding to Chinese and Russian longrange missiles?A. The ability to disperse—historically, we’ve gone to places where we’ve got a big base with a big footprint. But I need to be able to go someplace that simply has a runway, a ramp—a place that I can put fuel bladders, some munitions trailers, and some airmen. They can operate that airfield and also bring in folks to reload, rearm, and move on.
We’ve been working on … a
hub-and-spoke concept. I’ll disperse over a number of different airfields, over a number of different islands, and work the command and control between those to create a little more flexibility.
The more airfields I prove I can operate from, the more airfields our adversaries have to account for. We need to shift and move. At the same time, I want to do some
counter-ISR and deception to make it more challenging for the adversary. It’s all about affecting their decision-making cycle [and] where they might target us. I want to spread out, so if we do get attacked, we’re able to recover very quickly, and still put pressure on our adversary.
Q. What are your biggest investment requirements for PACAF?A. Multi-domain operations and command and control—I need a robust way to push information.
Tied to that, a
long-range kill chain. It’s good to have
long range weapons, but also to have the
supporting ISR to target the right locations. As our ranges and speeds increase, we start going down the path of
hypersonics. In command and control, I need a
self-healing network; it’s going to be contested.
The last piece is fifth-generation capability. Our partners, and we are bringing F-35s [to the Pacific]. We’ll get the first of ours here at Eielson [AFB, Alaska] next spring. But it’s also how we take advantage of that capability and think differently about how to do things. Since Desert Storm … we’ve had a fairly permissive air environment, and now the dynamic is changing. We’re going to have to take a few risks here and there, and we’ll probably take some losses. But a different mindset is important. We have to counter the advanced capabilities that our adversary has.
Q. How do you counter the stealth capabilities China and Russia are beginning to field?A.
Infrared search and track is one. The AIM-260 missile with increased ranges is good. But it’s also how I take information off an F-35 and push it to my other assets or platforms.
We’re using the
Loyal Wingman concept and others to advance our thinking on how we would employ. Because, again, I want to create dilemmas.
It’s not just the F-35 or F-22 or B-2 or B-21, it’s how do we bring the team together so that our adversary has to consider all the different platforms. And we have to take advantage of those capabilities today, and not just hope [a conflict] will kick off in the future. Because it could kick off sooner than later.
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Q. A shortcoming of fifth-generation aircraft is their limited number of shots. Are you interested in an arsenal plane?A. It gives us more options. We’re going to test the concept, and it shows a bit of promise, and that will help us in the long run.
This goes to the whole concept of innovation. We want to get ahead and test this and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Various options are in play. We just had this test with the
XQ-58, the Valkyrie, that’s starting us down a path a bit faster to some new platform, whether it be an arsenal plane or a Loyal Wingman.
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