Dear Members and Friends,
Deep in the cradle of the south, in Montgomery, Alabama, is the United States Air War College out of Maxwell Air Force Base where every United States Air Force officer of the 332,000 airmen has received training. Every year since 1946, the Air War College educates around 240 hand-selected advancing Colonel level officers and 44 foreign country officer representatives to develop mastery and advance innovative thought on air, space, and cyberspace in strategic national security.
MDAA participated in the annual week long National Security Forum (NSF) with established war fighters and leaders from the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Foreign Military officers at the Air War College. We were honored to engage with the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Donley and with the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Norton Schwartz, and in strategic thinking into areas concerning the current situation in Afghanistan, Egypt, Russia, China, and the Middle East as well as the national security implications and economic global positioning of the United States with its $14.3 trillion in debt.
It is clear that our nation is living in an era of global rapid change that includes unpredictable evolving threats to our national security. It also remains even more clairvoyant that our nation’s national debt is the single biggest threat to our national security. Therefore, strategic thinking on making serious inroads to the alleviation of the deficit and reduction of the federal budget while retaining a strong military force that is not hollow and has much lighter global footprint is the challenging strategic path ahead. For the United States Air Force, it is about the balance of air superiority to defend air, sea, space, and cyber in allowing freedom of access & action, and the balance of integrating close air support with other services for the transformation of our heavy global force presence into a lighter U.S. global footprint and light-stay counterinsurgency forces.
U.S. military capabilities that are joint and not hollow allow for open international sea, air, space, and cyberspace domains and facilitate the distribution of freedom of trade and implementation of international law. These actions are a necessity to prevent the emerging and current anti-denial and anti-access threats to the national security of the United States and for a more globally secure future. To both these extents and to maximize taxpayer efficiency, the Air Force is integrating with the Navy in a new Air & Sea Battle platform component that offers institutional, conceptual and material changes to improve freedom of movement.
Missile defense plays an increasingly vital role in our military’s future and global economic recovery by preventing countries or entities from threatening or denying access to international waters, air, and space. Missile defense incorporates allied participation to help offset taxpayer costs and create more efficiency in our joint ability against anti-access threats. Furthermore, missile defense integration between the US Navy’s Aegis ships and BMD systems with the Air Force’s overhead persistent space sensors is a natural fit in the new Air/Sea Battle platform being proposed. In addition, the United States forward-operating bases throughout the world that will be supporting the new lighter counterinsurgency military forces needed to be protected and defended.
It was a true honor to debate, listen, and learn from our nation’s selected war fighters at the Air War College.
We are humbly reminded that our nation has been at war for over 10 years and the families and friends of those that serve are to be commended; for it takes a noble person with a noble family around him or her to sacrifice for the public service of our nation.
