Air Power particular ops chief says it’s time to embrace new missions

ORLANDO — Lt. Gen. Jim Slife is racing the clock.

In June, the Air Power Particular Operations Command boss will hit the three-year mark within the prime put up, across the time when his predecessors have moved on to a different task or headed into retirement. Slife is utilizing his remaining time within the seat to plan for an period in particular operations that would look a lot completely different than the previous 20 years of warfare in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Revamping how AFSOC does enterprise could include rising pains. Critics see the command’s imaginative and prescient as an try to repair a company that isn’t damaged.

Earlier this yr, Slife fended off accusations in an nameless letter posted to social media that management is pushing a feminine candidate by means of the all-male particular ways coaching for the sake of scoring political factors — a declare he denies.

“Our requirements within the working forces are tied to mission necessities, and the one time we should always change the requirements is when the mission modifications,” he wrote in a Jan. 7 letter to the pressure. However he additionally requested the Air Power inspector basic to analyze.

Slife sat down for an unique interview with Air Power Instances at an Air Power Affiliation convention right here March 3. This interview was edited for size and readability.

The place do you see AFSOC going within the subsequent 5 years?

We’re getting into a brand new working setting, and I believe what we’re seeing in Japanese Europe proper now is a superb case examine. Having our lives outlined by the following rotation to Afghanistan or Syria or no matter — whereas we are going to nonetheless be concerned in that work, that’s not the defining factor for the long run. How will we pivot across the human capital for this future working setting? The three traces of effort [in AFSOC’s strategic plan] had been about growing our human capital, organizing our human capital and equipping our human capital with ideas and expertise.

Among the many potential subsequent AFSOC commanders, I believe all of us have a reasonably widespread understanding that we’ve received to vary and that is what the long run seems like. I anticipate that there might be course modifications; I’d be a bit shocked if there was important course change.

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What points of AFSOC are nonetheless related? What’s dropping relevance or is already irrelevant?

The AFSOC airplane fleet is the youngest fleet within the Air Power. We’ve basically recapitalized our whole fleet of airplanes since 9/11. So AFSOC has nice elements, we simply must make completely different recipes for the long run working setting.

If you have a look at issues just like the “Speedy Dragon” take a look at we did in December, the place we launched a JASSM-ER long-range cruise missile out of the again of a C-130, and once you have a look at this MC-130 amphibious functionality, by making the MC-130 float, we flip the complete South China Sea right into a touchdown zone. If the complete South China Sea is a touchdown zone, there are quite a lot of fascinating issues that AFSOC can deliver to the desk for the joint pressure. It’s about, how will we use what we now have in a method that’s related?

Some persons are involved that you’d eliminate particular ways or mix it into one other a part of AFSOC or the Air Power. The place do you see that heading?

Kind has to observe perform. I wouldn’t say pararescue, and I wouldn’t say fight management — these are profession fields. The broader query is, what’s the function of an Air Power Particular Operations floor pressure in that future setting? What are the capabilities that might be carried out? Then we’ll determine the right way to execute these capabilities, whether or not it seems just like the particular ways squadrons that exist immediately, or whether or not it’s completely different Air Power specialty codes. Is there a task for cyber in an Air Power Particular Operations floor pressure? I can consider a number of specialties that aren’t presently natural to our particular ways squadrons that may be related to the long run.

Previous to 9/11, there was a comparatively restricted variety of our particular ways airmen that had been certified as terminal assault controllers — anyone on the bottom that may name in airstrikes. We had just a few airmen in Bosnia that had been certified to try this, and that was the extent of it. After 9/11, the demand for joint terminal assault controllers embedded with particular operations groups on the bottom exploded, and AFSOC bore a lot of the brunt of that. Anyone can undergo the course and grow to be a JTAC. We took massive parts of our particular ways area, notably fight controllers, and made all of them JTACs. If you have a look at the long run working setting, is there worth to offering JTACs to the joint pressure? That could be a part of it. I don’t suppose it will likely be the defining function that it has been for the final 20 years.

Is change afoot in particular ways? Completely, identical to it’s in each different a part of AFSOC. The concept that anyone on the headquarters thinks particular ways is irrelevant and must be disbanded is patently false.

Are you contemplating combining AFSOC aviation and particular ways in any method? What could be the advantages of that change?

This summer season, Col. Mark McGill, who’s a particular ways officer, might be taking command of the 352nd Particular Operations Wing in Europe. That would be the first time {that a} non-aviator has commanded considered one of our wings aside from the twenty fourth SOW, which is our continental U.S. particular ways pressure. AFSOC forces are simpler when the bottom particular ways piece and the aviation particular ways piece are nearer collectively. I can’t envision a squadron that may have these forces built-in, however once you have a look at what we’ve carried out on the 352nd in Europe and the 353rd within the Pacific, there are particular ways squadrons and aviation squadrons side-by-side. I believe that’s a superb mannequin. There are cultural strengths and weaknesses in each neighborhood in AFSOC, and the extra publicity we can provide all of our airmen to different communities, the higher.

There’s quite a lot of of us which might be a bit discomfited by the truth that a non-aviator’s going to be commanding a flying wing, nevertheless it’s not a flying wing. It’s a particular operations wing that occurs to fly — nevertheless it additionally occurs to do floor operations.

What’s distinctive in regards to the 352nd and 353rd SOWs that may very well be a mannequin for the remainder of AFSOC?

Our flying neighborhood tends to be very disciplined with respect to coaching and standardization and analysis applications. Particular ways models are notably expert at executing mission command. They arrange for that very, very effectively. They’ve nice intelligence, analytic capabilities that they apply to executing the mission. These are strengths that completely different components of our formation have that I wish to have delivered to the whole lot of AFSOC.

What I see within the abroad models the place the particular ways squadrons and aviation squadrons coexist in the identical group is quite a lot of that cross discuss, and it’s very encouraging to me. I don’t know whether or not that’s a mannequin for the remainder of AFSOC. Till we clearly outline the capabilities of a future particular operations floor pressure inside the USA Air Power, I don’t suppose we’re going to have the ability to say whether or not that’s the best organizational mannequin.

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What’s the timeline for figuring that out?

I believe this calendar yr. We began this final yr, and we now have a conceptual define, however when it comes to an in depth implementation plan, we’re not there but. A part of what we’re doing is taking concepts in regards to the future and sharing them with our particular ways squadrons and having them assist us [vet them]. We haven’t gone by means of the detailed workers evaluation to know precisely how a lot it’s going to value, when it’s going to occur. That’s but to come back.

How do you intend to persuade skeptics that what you resolve is legitimate?

Typically it’s important to preach a sermon 5 occasions earlier than anyone involves the altar. Loads of occasions, it takes strolling by means of the logic of “why,” and why what we now have been doing for the final 20 years isn’t adequate for the following 20 years. We’ve to maintain speaking about it. There’s no person in the complete main command that’s additional faraway from day-to-day operations than me. I want tactical-level leaders to pay attention, to grasp, to supply their suggestions, however then importantly, to hold the message ahead.

The pressure is motivated by being related to the nation, and if being related to the nation means capturing and killing terrorists, then we’ll be actually good at that. But when being related to the nation means doing different varieties of particular operations missions, I’m completely assured that the pressure will adapt to that and embrace it. So long as we will clarify why the issues that we have to do will make us related to the long run working setting, I believe we’ll come round pretty rapidly.

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Do you’ve any issues about pressure cohesion and AFSOC airmen’s belief in one another? Is AFSOC doing something to reassure the pressure and pull individuals collectively?

Anytime you’ve quite a lot of change occurring, there’ll at all times be skepticism and discomfort. This isn’t terribly completely different from earlier factors in my profession, trying up the chain of command and questioning what idiots had been main us up there. If you don’t perceive one thing, why one thing is occurring, or once you don’t have all of the context behind one thing, oftentimes the primary conclusion you’ll come to is that management doesn’t perceive. It’s going to naturally put the belief that underpins the complete chain of command underneath stress. [Lack of trust] isn’t one thing that I spend a substantial amount of time worrying about. I settle for that it’s, and we proceed to speak.

How would possibly you progress job billets or specialties round inside AFSOC to fulfill future fight wants?

If we’re going to function in additional austere areas, in additional contested areas, in smaller, extra disaggregated groups, what does the pressure appear like that may execute mission command in that setting? We’ve constructed the AFSOC that we now have immediately for effectivity and economic system of scale, figuring out we might at all times depend on all that mounted base infrastructure after we deploy. Now we’ve received to pack it up and carry it with us. It has to have a light-weight footprint. What we discover is that we’re wanting essential specialties inside AFSOC to help these varieties of operations. There’s some motion afoot inside AFSOC as we have a look at our communications and cyber capabilities, our intelligence capabilities, our potential to maintain ourselves in small outposts. We don’t have the best pressure construction for that. The specialties could change, however the complete numbers aren’t actually going to develop.

What specialties do you need to enhance upon?

Final March, we began out at Cannon Air Power Base, New Mexico, with mission sustainment groups of 54 airmen that might be collectively for the following 15 months.

Within the first section, these airmen are of their dwelling squadrons doing their particular person coaching. In that second section, they arrive collectively as a crew of 54 and so they spend the following 5 months cross-training in one another’s jobs. The meals companies airman learns the right way to function the belt-fed machine gun; a vertical development specialist learns the right way to run the Ethernet cable. Once they get to the following section, they combine their crew with all the opposite models they deploy with and help. The final section is the employment section, the place we flip them unfastened on no matter mission we now have assigned. You’re not likely a crew should you’ve by no means met one another, should you haven’t skilled collectively. It’s all about placing collectively these small groups and working by means of the entire force-generation cycle collectively.

We don’t have sufficient communications and cyber airmen, however I believe the Air Power has grow to be overspecialized. We’ve one AFSC who’s allowed to erect the antenna, and we now have one other airman who’s allowed to plug the cable into the antenna. We’ve one other airman who plugs the opposite finish of the cable into the again of the radio, and we now have a fourth airman that’s allowed to show the radio on. Our airmen are higher than that. You possibly can most likely take one airman and train him the right way to do all of that, with out having 4 completely different AFSCs.