USTRANSCOM commander notes collaboration with industry, future power projection during fall meeting

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. – The commander of U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) told the virtual audience that the United States’ strategic advantage is the ability to project and sustain combat power on a global scale anywhere and anytime of choosing, during the National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA) Fall Meeting.

"Our ability as a nation to project the joint force on a global scale is inextricably linked to commercial partners," said U.S. Army Gen. Steve Lyons, commander, USTRANSCOM, during his keynote address, Oct. 7, 2020.

Strength in Collaboration

NDTA provides a platform for collaboration and coordination with these industry partners. So when a crisis hits, like a pandemic, and all transportation entities are affected, military and commercial partners are able to rely on each other.

"The core inherent purpose of USTRANSCOM and the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise will not change," said Lyons. "It’s like the nature of war, it’s enduring. So our ability to project the joint force on a global scale at our time and place of choosing, to present multiple options for our national leadership, and multiple dilemmas for potential adversaries, that is our core and enduring purpose."

Over the past 30 years, the global security environment has changed and the demand for logistics has increased. Lyons discussed how the communication, consumption, and determined adversaries are defining the future approach to power projection and need for integration. This can be demonstrated when joint forces train to adapt to new conditions, enabling forces to bring lethal effects to compel adversaries via air, land and sea.

Earlier this year, the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command exercised its ability to transport 20,000 troops and 13,000 pieces of equipment from 52 stateside locations to Europe during Defender Europe 20, the largest deployment of forces to Europe in the past 25 years. The exercise proved the command's ability to successfully move a surge of forces. Military Sealift Command also took advantage of Defender 20 to exercise convoy operations for first time since the Cold War. This simulated adversarial transit exercise tested the fleet’s movement across the Atlantic while bringing about 1.3 million square feet of Army equipment from the U.S. to ports in Europe. After much practice from joint readiness exercises, Air Mobility Command (AMC) enabled the real-time deployment of the Rapid Response Force, 800 paratroopers within 18 hours, to respond to Iranian aggressions. Together, military and commercial industry supported these efforts. 

“There's only one nation in the world that can scale at that level,” said Lyons. 

COVID-19 Response
 
All of these movements are a demonstration of speed and scale USTRANSCOM is capable of providing, and during a global pandemic USTRANSCOM had to continue its mission. 

As the pandemic spread, USTRANSCOM's global mission continued even as certain events, like exercises, were scaled back.

“At the end of the day, we never had to stop flying our planes or sailor our ships,” said Lyons. “We needed to appropriately mitigate these mission outcomes with the appropriate force protection.”

At the time the coronavirus outbreak occurred, the DOD did not have a highly infectious patient movement capability. AMC was able to fill the joint urgent need by evolving its Transport Isolation System. Within 90 days of Lyons signing the requirement, the need was met with a Negatively Pressurized Conex box to globally transport COVID patients via air.

"I am proud to say to date we have moved nearly 300 COVID-positive patients across the globe successfully and safely," Lyons said. "But in addition, we needed to figure out when we were moving troops and passengers, that we had a way to do it that was safe."

The importance of USTRANSCOM collaboration with industry was again brought to light with the urgent need to conduct testing on air ventilation of particles aboard aircraft. The initiative, led by USTRANSCOM, seeks to enhance its understanding of cabin airflow and particulate spread within commercial aircraft to support the highest level of safety for DOD passengers.

"The results are encouraging on commercial aircraft with HEPA filtration, with very, very high exchange rate of every two to five minutes," said Lyons. “In fact, I would tell you that in my observations, and I've flown commercially since the pandemic started, being on a commercial airplane with HEPA filtration is probably one of the safest places that you can be."

The findings will help to inform cabin occupancy recommendations, seating assignments, and contact tracing procedures. "And those test reports will be out very, very soon,” he said. 

Lyons said, during the COVID crisis, one of the things that has been made clear is USTRANSCOM has had to ramp up its level of collaboration and coordination with industry partners to ensure the command knew how to assist. The outcome was a weekly communication meeting, which still continues.

“When crisis strikes, that’s not the time to be building relationships, you can't surge trust in a crisis. We'll continue to work together through the crisis,” he said.

Future Expectations

Last October, the command’s Turbo Activation exercise resulted in readiness concerns, one of those being sealift modernization. USTRANSCOM, DOD staff, the U.S. Navy and the Maritime Administration immediately began working together to develop a course of action called use-buy strategy to increase the fleet over the next five years. The Honorable W. Jordan Gillis, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, stated Oct. 7, 2020, during his remarks at the Fall Meeting two new vessels may be procured by the year 2021.

Another effort the command has made strides in since last year’s conference  is the delay in the delivery of the KC-46 weapons systems. According to Lyons, air refueling is one of the most stressed components in the mobility enterprise. He said there is positive momentum between the U.S. Air Force and Boeing on a material solution to produce a remote visual system, 2.0, tentatively available in 2023. The agreement will replace the cameras and other significant components of the new tanker.

The newest endeavor is a partnership between  USTRANSCOM, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), and  Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) to explore this emerging capability of rapid transportation through space.

“Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour,” Lyons said to the virtual audience. “Think about that speed associated with the movement of transportation of cargo and people. There is a lot of potential here and I'm really excited about the team that's working with SpaceX on an opportunity, even perhaps, as early as 21, to be conducting a proof of principle.”
USTRANSCOM’s Technology Transfer Office is now building teams of industry and academic agencies through Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, which facilitate direct, voluntary partnerships with the federal government to explore new concepts. To investigate space transportation, USTRANSCOM is teamed with SpaceX and XArc. These partnerships allow the DOD to leverage industry innovation where the bulk of technological innovation is occurring outside the U.S. Government.

In regards to future capabilities, Lyons also challenged the workforce to think about what kind of technology USTRANSCOM should invest in that will bring the lethal effects the command needs to compel our adversary.

"I have high confidence in our ability to as a team, as a team of teams, to be able to project and sustain this joint force on a global scale...and do it knowing we are inextricably linked with our industry partners,” Lyons added.

Lyons finished his remarks with praise for the men and women of the transportation enterprise.

“I could not be more proud of the Airmen, the Soldiers, Sailors and Marines, Coast Guardsmen, the civilians, and our industry partners that make up this power projection enterprise. I am just a proud teammate that stands amongst you.”

USTRANSCOM exists as a warfighting combatant command to project and sustain military power at a time and place of the nation’s choosing. Powered by dedicated men and women, TRANSCOM underwrites the lethality of the Joint Force, advances American interests around the globe, and provides our nation's leaders with strategic flexibility to select from multiple options, while creating multiple dilemmas for our adversaries.