. welcome to this week in defense news. all the u.s. military services are struggling to cut $450 billion in defense spending over the coming decade. last week i met with northon schwartz, the u.s. air force chief of staff who along with the rest of the pentagon leadership is trying to save money but still field forces able to handle wide ranging threats. i started by asking him on the rq 170 sentenel iran claims to have shot down. >> clearly the rt 170 is a reconnaissance asset and as you are aware we don't typically talk about operations in those kind of reconnaissance

activities. the airplane itself is an observable platform designed to provide intelligence and reconnaissance and we have developed, tested and fielded the platform with our partner from lockheed. i think that's the limit of what i'd like to address today. >> some suggest that the aircraft lost its signal due to ground based hacker or something like that. is that the case? was the loss of signal something that was done externally? >> again, i would just indicate that we have had success with the operation of the airplane and and prefer not to go further than that. >> let me ask you, the iranians are showing an aircraft that looks like what the rt 170 looks

like. can it be used against the united states? >> there is, there is the potential for reverse engineering clearly. and ideally, one would want to maintain the american advantage here. that certainly is in our minds. >> but there's not really much we can do about it at this point? >> if in fact this comes in to the possession of a sophisticated adversary, that's correct. >> let me take you to the washington post article discussing the dover mortuary affairs unit, the post-reported the remains of 274 service members that were cremated and disposed of in a landfill. that practice stopped in 2008 so we're talking about something that happened earlier. when the story originally broke about a month ago, we thought that, you know, was far more limited case than it is now. you said this is a sacred obligation for the air force. have we -- is there more to this

dover mortuary affair story that we haven't heard that's going to come out? what was the screwup? and what are you doing in order to help regain trust? >> sure. there's no question but that the air force is accountable to our joint teammates and to the families of the fallen for superb performance at the dover mortuary. i cannot justify what happened in 2008 and prior, but i can offer some context. what we're dealing with, what we're talking about here is portions of remains, and that these portions of remains were discovered or identified after the fallen were returned to their families for proper burial. now clearly the officials at the mortuary at the time believe that it was acceptable to deal with these portions in a manner

identical to that which occurs with medical surgeries or autopsies. now, once again, i can't justify what happened, but it's important to know that the employees at the mortuary came to the conclusion themselves in 2008 that there was a more dignified way to do this, and that is the process we have today which was with proper cremation followed by burial at sea. >> so all -- but are you satisfied that whatever incidents have happened have, you know, that we're -- we've come to the bottom of everything and we're in the process of regaining that trust. >> we conducted the investigation over a period of 18 months and throughout that period we implemented corrective action that we identified as a result of the investigation and the panel, which is empowered by the secretary of defense, will validate that that corrective

action in fact dealt with the problems that needed to be dealt with. >> let me take you to the nuclear mission, something which bring you to office, and you said was a top priority because that's another one of the air forces key operations is nuclear stewardship. you focused on that task to improve the nuclear stewardship, et cetera, inspections are up. there was a damaged missile. are you satisfied that we're making progress and where do you think we still have to work to improve the overall nuclear mission. >> let me clarify one thing. there was a damaged component, not a damaged missile. >> okay. >> if that's okay. >> sure. >> clearly what happened, happened in washington state, was an inspection. and in fact as -- there were four parts to that inspection, three of which were rated excellent. one of which was rated unsatisfactory. one unsat is bad and you fail.

now, this -- we do not want an inspection protocol that is done by santa claus. this is too important an area, too demanding an area for that sort of approach. so we have, we have a demanding inspection protocol that was employed in this case. it identified a deviation. we called it as it was. and the command -- mobility command in this case has done an eight step process to discover root cause and we're addressing that. i do not see this as a systemic issue. this was a deviation, and the inspectors identified it and called it like it was. >> an airman's hand was mispositioned i understand. the courier was not visible to a second individual in what we call a no-loan zone and that was the violation. his hands were not visible.

bottom line is, we're -- you know, this is a validation of the rigor that we want to have on in this mission area and it's one of the reasons why this is so demanding on our people because like dover, the standards here is perfection. >> we'll

. welcome back. last week i sat down with general norton schwartz, the air force chief of staff. administration and pentagon people have worked for months to

shape defense spending cuts. i asked general schwartz what that new strategy will look like. >> i don't want to preview the content of the strategy before it's time when obviously the secretary and the chairman have a chance to roll it out. but importantly just to give you a sense of process, all of us, all the service sectors, all the service chiefs, in addition to the osd principals, participated. >> and the commanding commanders as well. >> and the combatant commanders, you're right. over a series of months. what it does is it gives us the logic for what will follow programatically. instead of looking at this as a numbers exercise, the secretary said we're going to do this as strategy driven. we have been loyal and we have accomplished that. and the plan will be to roll out

the new strategy before the budget, and certainly the secretary and the chairman will do that. >> obviously you guys are working on your 2013 budget right now. the guidance is that you're going $2013 budget right now. the guidance is that you're going to stick with the $4350 -- $450 cut number. what is the framework you're utesing to help say what stays and what goes. >> two things. we're going to get smaller. we're going to get smaller together. that what remains needs to be a superb air force. so that suggests multiroll assets, it suggests readiness as a prime imperative. and this arrangement will drive toward being able to do fewer things simultaneously, we'll have less depth but the compelling air force that people

expect. >> one of the concerns that airmen have is that the air force became smaller as the army and marine corps grew, but the demands on the air force didn't shrink, they increased, and employment rates at 7 months. know more than 90 day deployments and 120 or what have you and there are caps and now there are folks on prolonged deployment and the force is getting smaller. what has to give? what are some of the tradeoffs? >> i think the key thing is is getting the right balance between active duty, guard, and reserve, and we are going to the air expeditionary force next construct which will operate on the six month rotational profile you mentioned. i think the key aspect of this is that we will need to manage tempo and we will be able again to be in fewer places

simultaneously. not only is this a force management issue by it's an issue of managing expectations on potential taskers. >> there is a been a huge increase in reconnaissance. we're able to see far more than we ever have. we have more precision weapons than we ever had that we can strike exactly what it is we're looking at. does that allow you to trade some of that mass off at this point? >> of course it does. the tradition world war ii vision of b-17s and so on, b-29s, mass formations trying to hit the target, now we can do it with one airplane. with you one airplane can only be in one place at a time. so this is a question of optimizing the force and making sure that we use all the capacity at our disposal to produce the effects we need. >> there are those, though, who would argue that the department is still trying to build a $450 billion budget over a decade, that's forcing hard choices but

virtually everybody in washington says this is likely the beginning acts and there will be deeper cuts. there is another $600 billion coming down the pike. how much time are you devoting to worse case scenario plans that could supersede all the hard work you're doing now. >> at the moment not much. we've only had a couple of months to deal with 450. once we conclude the budget process underway, and this will be next spring or summer depending on what the situation looks like, then we'll go to the next step. >> would the see quest it look like? >> it would not be good. it would result in not just less capacity, but it would result in fewer capabilities. >> because of the way it's done, it doesn't mean you would be able to cut more in the future as long as you do it through

thoughtful planning. >> that is certainly the case but we are at the edge where we're not just going to have less depth, but we're going to have less capability if we go further. >> let me go to some of our major modernsation programs. you have very, very large capital modernization programs. you have eisenhower tankers, you have 1950s b-52s in the inventory that you want to replace with the new bomber. which are the most vulnerable programs. >> we will bring a tanker on and a new bomber. >> and those are the three that you're going to shield. >> those are the three that certainly we will do other things, do less of other things in order to protect those

programs. >> one of the questions that folks have raised is a guidance by air force secretary donnelly that some are perceiving as look stop working on new things, no new starts, and focus on sort of getting the most of what you can with what exists and some folks are saying that's going to rob valuable funding from things that would be innovative that would actually increase capacity and help reduce long-term costs. is there a misunderstanding there? >> i think so. our science and technology investments is going to be in excess of $2 billion. i mean, substantial. >> on an annualized basis. >> right. what he is suggesting i think is we might have to be less ambitious in certain areas and there may be able only to do a few good ideas instead of multiple good ideas. that's where we will be. >> stay tuned for more with the u.s. air force chief of

. as budget come under pressure, tensions emerge among the military service over rolls, equipment, and who should pay for them. that appears to be the case with the tactical transport. the air force fought to gain control of it the army agreed and helped to pay for the planes. now with 21 of 38 planned aircraft purchased the air force says it might not be able to afford all of them. the army says it doesn't have the money either and senior leaders are said to be furious. some airmen fear the episode says the air force won't stand by its commitment to support ground troops. during nigh interview last week with the air force chief of staff i asked him what happened. >> in june we deferred the acquisition of the aircraft until this budget settles and we find out where we are at. the thing you need to appreciate is two years ago i made a promise to george casey. >> the army chief of staff.

>> the army chief. that we would do this mission and i wouldn't back out ever the deal. i have personal skin in this. the situation fundmentally is that if we have to take out the c 27 and that is not decided as yet, but if it occurs, i have assured oriano that we are do the missions way he needs to do or we'll die trying and that's where i will do it with c 130s, we'll do it. and that's our assurance to our army. >> that's a temporary thing, not a done deal. >> it is not a done deal until the budget is presented. we understand there's a growing feud between the active duty force and the reserves in general. they are now under the impression that the active duty force is simply going to gut them. what do you say.

>> that's not true. we -- if we gut them weeshgs gut our air force because they are, you know, a very substantial process of both our fighter lift and support kinds of activities. the truth is that the air force is going to get smaller and we're all going to get smaller together. we're going to do this intelligently in a way that balances tetcho, that keeps -- tempo, that keeps the right mix of assets, modern and less modern in each of the components and we're doing this in a collective manner. >> there was a proposal made by the bush administration to get the commander of the guard right now air force general mckinley to sit on the joint staff and yet recently there appears to be dempsey appears to be having misgivings on that. should mckinley sitting on the joint chief of staff or not.

>> i testified and recommended that not be the case, primarily because there were questions about lines of authority and representation with respect to the serving chief of service. >> right. >> and this was true for all the services. the bottom line is we've made the recommendation, we did that before the senate armed services committee a month ago. the congress will decide and we'll implement what they decide. >> the u 2 reconnaissance aircraft, it's busier than it's ever been. years ago it was first was 2009, then in 12, and now in 2015 that the global hawk is to replace the u 2. but there are those who say the global hawk doesn't have the capacity to replace the u 2 and the best approach is to have both of these airplanes because they do different sorts of mission. what do you say? is the u 2 going to be retired

in 2015. >> at the moment we're scheduled to keep the u 2 on board until 2015. it will give us an opportunity to continue to evaluate the global hawk in terms of capacity, in terms of sensor availability and so on. and so we will make a judgement as we move forward here. what we do not want to do is jerk around the kids that are flying the u 2, so they don't think that they have a future. they do have a future. and we just have to make a judgement on what the mix is 'cause as you suggest, both have their advantages. and we'll have both when this is all said and done. >> one of the real growth areas over the past decade has been in intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. your pilot corps has been shrinking, but those assets have been defined by the missions in iraq and in afghanistan. now you're pivoting toward the pacific.

what are the changes you have to make in your isr assets over the long time to operate in a very, very different and less per missive theatre than you've been operating in. >> we will need penetrating kinds of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance and operaable in a benign environment. they will be applicable. and some of the more traditional assets, rivet joints, j stars, and so on, will be back in prominence again. >> you did a major nuclear war game where you looked at a series of dramatic scenarios, and iran is a concern and whether saudi arabia and turkey would follow suit. do we need to rethink this? >> the key thing is not only

central deterrence which we're used to with respect to russia but we needed to think about extended deterrence for regional powers. so the short answer is yes, it's central and extended deterrence.

. tee fence cuts are a top issue on both sides of the atlantic as governments struggle with deblt. these governments are doing too little to coordinate on what to cut. at the halifax international forum last month french natos urged allies to coordinate cuts and reforms to preserve as many capability as possible.

unfortunately few do. sovereign states have jealously guarded the right to shape their own defense plans. it threatens to erode eye liance capabilities. nato is like a pot luck dishes, failure is guaranteed if all you get is 20 bowls of potato salad. nato allies must discuss their plans with one another to keep from irrevirsible cuts that damages them to respond with credible military force in future crisis. i'll be back next week at the same time. until then, have a great week.