USTRANSCOM STRATEGY 2022.pdf
- 2. FOREWORD FOREWORD USTRANSCOM exists as a warfighting command to project and sustain combat power at a time and place of the Nation’s choosing. Within a changing strategic and operational landscape, our logistics and mobility enterprise will play an increasingly critical role in achieving our national defense objectives. Make no mistake, the actions we take today will have a profound effect on our ability to project and sustain a combat credible Joint Force in contested environments, and build resilience against climate change and other transboundary challenges. To remain successful, USTRANSCOM must be ready to project power today and tomorrow, and we will only achieve this together. This is our North Star. Recent successes in Operation Allies Refuge and delivery of aid to Ukraine have validated our reputation and generated momentum; however we cannot rest on our laurels - the risks are too great. Our competitors are watching our every move and quickly digesting lessons learned to improve their ability to disrupt, degrade or deny our capabilities. The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) makes clear that we face real and pervasive threats now. I challenge each of you, from our Command Staff and Components to our agency and commercial partners, to act on our Command Priorities with purpose to close capability gaps and achieve success. Open collaboration and candid dialogue remain crucial as we move forward together. Most importantly, thank you! I am honored to serve alongside each of you and excited to lead the innovative spirit this enterprise brings to every challenge, every day. You remain integral to our success and I need your help to drive the enterprise through the challenges that lie ahead. Let’s move out and get Ready…Ready to Fight, Ready to Deliver, and Ready to Win! Together, We Deliver! JACQUELINE D. VAN OVOST General, USAF Commander 01
- 3. TABLE OF CONTENTS 03 OUR MISSION 04 WHERE WE ARE 05 WHERE WE ARE GOING 06 HOW WE WILL GET THERE 07 OUR PRIORITIES 11 ENABLING NATIONAL PRIORITIES 12 A CALL TO ACTION 13 OUR WARFIGHTING TEAM TABLE OF CONTENTS 02
- 4. OUR MISSION OUR MISSION USTRANSCOM conducts globally integrated mobility operations, leads the broader Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise (JDDE), and provides enabling capabilities in order to project and sustain the Joint Force in support of national objectives. 03
- 5. STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT WHERE WE ARE As the United States and its allies fought the Global War on Terror, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) studied the United States’ way of war and focused its efforts on offsetting our advantages. Beijing rapidly modernized its military and is intent on creating a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific with a longer term goal of global power projection. The PRC is pursuing an aggressive naval shipbuilding program to advance its excessive claims in the South China Sea and undermine freedom of navigation elsewhere around the world. Through these efforts and others, the PRC seeks to diminish U.S. influence and displace the current rules-based international order. This places them as our most consequential competitor, followed closely by Russia and other persistent threats including North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations. Strategic competition is a reality, and our competitors are maneuvering fluidly between conventional and gray-zone activities. We face obstacles and risk at every step, from the homeland to the tactical edge. Over 85% of the Joint Force is stationed in the United States, and our competitors are on a trajectory that will present persistent threats across multiple domains including throughout North America. If these threats are left unresolved, our power projection capability will be put at risk and will force us to “fight to get to the fight.” Logistics realities are also changing alongside the character of war. We are accustomed to sustaining forward-deployed forces across largely uncontested environments. In the future, we cannot presume we will enjoy similar freedom of maneuver. Competitors already possess highly networked anti-access capabilities with the potential to interdict our lines of communication and each link in our global supply chains. We must adapt to transboundary threats that increasingly place pressure on the Joint Force, to include climate change and pandemics. Protecting our ability to project, maneuver, connect, and sustain the Joint Force can no longer be a mere afterthought in planning or execution. It is now an imperative. To deter and win, the 2022 NDS directs the future Joint Force to be lethal, resilient, sustainable, survivable, agile, and responsive. We cannot rest on past successes, nor cede any advantage to our competitors. We must accelerate the momentum we have generated enterprise-wide to meet these challenges. 04
- 6. SUPPORTING THE NDS WHERE WE ARE GOING While our competitors are not invincible, the threats are real, and the imperative to change is urgent. The 2022 NDS outlines the Department of Defense’s path forward into this “decisive decade.” It charges us to develop, combine, and coordinate our strengths to maximum effect in support of four defense priorities: 1. Defending the homeland, paced against the multi-domain threats posed by the PRC; 2. Deterring strategic attacks against the United States and its allies and partners; 3. Deterring aggression, while remaining prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary; prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe; and 4. Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem. Through a PRC-focused, alliance and partnership-centric approach, the Department will implement its strategy through three principal ways – Integrated Deterrence, Campaigning, and Building Enduring Advantages – in support of all instruments of national power. 05
- 7. WARFIGHTING FRAMEWORK HOW WE WILL GET THERE We will orient and synchronize our operations, activities, and investments to balance the enterprise’s attention on today’s requirements while preparing to meet those of tomorrow. To maximize our role across the spectrum of competition and conflict, we will align our campaigning objectives across the primary elements of our Warfighting Framework: Global Mobility Posture is the foundation of power projection and depends on operational access, basing, and overflight (ABO). Posture includes both domestic and internationally-based installations, seaports, railways, and airfields that connect us to the fight. Strong relationships with allies and partners facilitate additional ABO options. We must expand and strengthen our global transportation networks to facilitate our ability to aggregate force packages to fight and then disaggregate to survive during brief periods of domain superiority. Global Mobility Capacity includes rail, motor transport, sealift, air refueling, airlift, and the ability to fully mobilize the Total Force at the point of need. When necessary, we can rapidly increase capacity through emergency preparedness programs like the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA) and Voluntary Tanker Agreement (VTA). USTRANSCOM relies on the ability to transition seamlessly between defense and commercial capacity at the speed of war, in tight coordination with interagency partners, the Joint Staff, Military Departments, and other Combatant Commands. Global Command, Control, and Integration is the exercise of authority and direction to plan, coordinate, synchronize, and control operations at echelon. The proliferation of advanced technologies is shaping an environment where data is a strategic asset. Our ability to transform data into decisions faster than our competitors is paramount. We must leverage these technologies to help sense and make sense of data at scale to create decision advantage for our leaders. Emerging techniques like artificial intelligence and machine learning will allow us to sense demand and push sustainment without prompting, enabling faster tempo and preventing logistics from being the cause for premature culmination on the battlefield. Our Command Priorities are our strategic lines of effort, generating unity and focus across the enterprise. This will enable our global mobility enterprise to be ready with an the ability to project, maneuver, connect and sustain power, strengthened through a competitive, diverse and highly trained warfighting team and backstopped by a secure and resilient cyber ecosystem. 06
- 8. USTRANSCOM PRIORITIES READY NOW AND IN THE FUTURE Warfighting Readiness is our absolute cornerstone – we must never forget that our Command exists to project and sustain combat credible forces whenever and wherever our Nation requires. My expectation is complete commitment to maintaining our “fight tonight” readiness. Simultaneously, we must adapt our operations, shape our capabilities, evolve our operational concepts, and make the investments required to fight and win against our pacing threats in the future strategic environment. These imperatives – ready for today’s missions while evolving to meet tomorrow’s challenges – are mutually supporting and non- negotiable. We operate as a Total Force, harnessing the unique skills resident in our Reserve, National Guard, Merchant Marine, and Civilian teammates to bolster Warfighting Readiness. Likewise, the JDDE’s readiness, and our relationships with Allies and Partners, remain vital to our ability to project a decisive force at a time and place of our Nation’s choosing. We will remain Ready…to Fight, Deliver, and Win. 07
- 9. USTRANSCOM PRIORITIES EMPOWER A COMPETITIVE AND RESILIENT WARFIGHTING TEAM People are our most valuable resource and will make the difference between victory and defeat. Leaders must prioritize investing in our people to build and hone the critical skills required to compete and win. A competitive and resilient team is one which thrives on challenge and “stays hungry,” focused on improving every day, and constantly striving to add value. Our leaders will empower those on our team by providing clear intent and guidance, fostering and rewarding innovative approaches, and using honest mistakes as opportunities to learn and improve. Investing in our people includes promoting an environment in which all are treated with dignity and respect, and in which resilience is strengthened by demonstrating that we value the Families in our command, as well as the personal wellbeing of all. One of our key strengths is the diversity of our team. We will maintain an inclusive environment where we welcome differing backgrounds and encourage varied perspectives. 08
- 10. USTRANSCOM PRIORITIES DRIVE CYBER DOMAIN MISSION ASSURANCE Make no mistake, today malign actors pose a real and persistent threat across our networks…and our global enterprise rests in large part on the connectivity these networks provide. “Driving” mission assurance in this domain starts with everyone on our team embracing the individual responsibility to be a cyber defender, maintaining cyber discipline and vigilance as we operate every day. We will continue to adapt to the evolving cyberspace domain with modernization efforts to afford us a competitive advantage in the digital operating environment. Finally, our cyber defense efforts must encompass the entire JDDE, to include our industry partners, strengthening weak links while maintaining a robust menu of mitigation options. 09
- 11. USTRANSCOM PRIORITIES CREATE DECISION ADVANTAGE Our ability to transform data into knowledge rapidly enables timely decisions and remains critical in outpacing our competitors. Retaining the advantage in decision-making begins by treating data as a strategic asset and transforming ourselves from largely experience-based decision makers to better-informed, data-driven decision makers. Employing data available through sensor networks and logistics information systems, and then applying machine learning and other advanced analytics to transform that data into actionable information, will provide our leaders time, space, and options in decision-making. Our Command must sense, make sense, decide, and act faster than the pacing threat. 10
- 12. SUPPORTING THE NDS ENABLING NATIONAL PRIORITIES As an enterprise, we will be the engine that propels the 2022 NDS approach by underwriting the lethality of the Joint Force and ensuring the viability of deterrence options, providing our national leadership with strategic flexibility. Through integrated deterrence, we seed doubt within competitors that they can achieve their objectives. Through a resilient global logistics posture, we project and sustain combat credible forces at scale and velocity. Strengthening relationships with allies, partners, and commercial industry will expand ABO options – creating positional advantage across all domains. When used in concert, posture and capacity provide a true asymmetric and strategic advantage for the Nation. Through active campaigning, we feed doubt within competitors by gaining and sustaining military advantages, countering malign coercion and aggression, complicating adversary force generation preparations, and adapting against transboundary threats. In response to supported Combatant Commander objectives, we mass our military and commercial capacity to generate tempo in concert with other instruments of national power. Our efforts to recapitalize mobility fleets, modernize systems, and employ new operational concepts will enhance enterprise capabilities that we can deploy rapidly in time and space. Large-scale exercises, fleet readiness activations, and focused wargames will enhance interoperability across the Joint Force and with allies, partners, and commercial industry. By building enduring advantages, we grow doubt within competitors by reducing our critical vulnerabilities and accelerating force development to create and exploit asymmetries that alter their perceptions of the benefits of aggression relative to restraint. Cyber mission assurance and digital modernization will enable our ability to conduct globally integrated command and control and generate decision advantage for leadership. Investing in and hardening a resilient defense ecosystem will strengthen our commercial and military transportation networks and create advantages across multiple domains, especially cyber and space. Developing a warfighting team with a competitive mindset will set the conditions for innovation and accelerated learning. 11
- 13. A CALL TO ACTION A CALL TO ACTION I remain confident we are headed in the right direction, but we will need to accelerate our momentum as an enterprise to generate systemic advantages against our competitors. We have an imperative to provide the Nation with options to deter aggression below the threshold of war and present our competitors with multiple dilemmas to give them pause. Because of the amazing individuals working each day with urgency to advance our priorities, I know we will adapt and innovate to protect our Nation’s vital interests. I see the path ahead clearly – and we will rise together to the challenge! 12
- 14. USTRANSCOM TOTAL FORCE OUR WARFIGHTING TEAM Our warfighting team is a Joint and diverse force, comprising of our component commands, subordinate commands, interagency and commercial partners as part of the broader JDDE. Our entire team works together to move the right capabilities to the right place, at the right time - every time. COMPONENT COMMANDS Air Mobility Command (AMC) Mission: “Rapid Global Mobility – Right Effects, Right Place, Right Time!” by providing unrivaled airlift, air refueling, aeromedical evacuation, global air mobility support, and Global Mobility Mission Command to project, connect, maneuver, and sustain the Joint Force to achieve national objectives. Endstate: Mobility forces able to communicate, navigate and maneuver at the tempo required to win inside the first island chain and anywhere else. Sacredly, America’s peace, prosperity and prestige strengthened. Priorities: (1) Develop Ready Airmen and Families; (2) Advance Warfighting Capabilities; (3) Project and Connect the Joint Force; (4) Ensure Strategic Advantage. Military Sealift Command (MSC) Mission: “Empower Global Warfighting Readiness,” by delivering agile logistics, strategic sealift, as well as specialized missions anywhere in the world, under any conditions, 24/7, 365 days a year. Vision: “United We Sail,” with unified resolve we boldly sail the world’s oceans to execute our “no-fail” mission of sustainment and service support to the warfighter. Priorities: (1) Health and Safety of our Workforce; (2) Mission Assurance; (3) Warfighting Effectiveness. Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) Mission: Provides integrated and synchronized global deployment and distribution capabilities to the point of need. Vision: A command that delivers innovative transportation solutions to the right place at the right time, every time. Priorities: (1) People; (2) Readiness; (3) Modernization; (4) Evolve for Tomorrow. 13
- 15. USTRANSCOM TOTAL FORCE OUR WARFIGHTING TEAM SUBORDINATE COMMANDS Joint Enabling Capabilities Command (JECC) Mission: On short notice, the JECC provides planners, public affairs specialists, and communications capabilities to Combatant Commanders in order to enable the rapid establishment of a Joint Force Headquarters or in support of other missions, exercises, or planning efforts. Vision: JECC is the singular total force trusted expert that provides joint capabilities to enable globally integrated effects, across all domains and the continuum of conflict. Priorities: (1) Readiness for the Pacing Threat; (2) Refine Systems and Processes; (3) Evolve Our Joint Warfighting Team. Joint Transportation Reserve Unit (JTRU) Mission: Provide staff augmentation in support of USTRANSCOM’s ongoing global, emerging, and special mission requirements when needed to manage air, land, and sea transportation and enabling capabilities for the Department of Defense, both in times of war and peace. Vision: JTRU serves as USTRANSCOM’s premier staff augmentation support capability in providing readily available support for both routine and emerging global mission requirements. Priorities: (1) People; (2) Individual/Collective Readiness; (3) Empower Competitive & Resilient Warfighting Members/Teams. INTERAGENCY AND COMMERCIAL PARTNERS U.S. Government Departments and Agencies, such as the Department of Transportation, the Maritime Administration, Defense Logistics Agency, General Services Administration, and others are key logistics partners who provide the funding for deployment and distribution operations, establish the policies which guide our efforts, and are customers of the Defense Transportation System. Commercial Transportation Providers are an indispensable element of our global mobility enterprise in competition and conflict. Annually, our commercial partners contribute approximately 88% of our continental U.S. land transport requirements, 35% of global airlift requirements, and over 97% of global sealift activity. Commercial providers are also valued partners in critical emergency preparedness programs including CRAF, VISA, and VTA. 14
- 16. U.S. Transportation Command Strategic Plans, Policy, and Logistics 508 Scott Drive Scott Air Force Base, IL 62225-3537 Current as of July, 2022. Supersedes all previous versions of the USTRANSCOM Command Strategy