Ref. the Air Combat Command mission statement Joe asks:
"Does this exclude Naval air combat delivery platforms? Does this mission
statement refer only to manned aircraft or could it also be interpreted to
include drones and even missiles?"
The United States Air Force Air Combat Command (ACC) mission statement only
addresses systems under the control of ACC. It does not include other Air
Force commands, Navy, Marines, Army, or Coast Guard. They should have their
own mission statements for systems they own. This is the same as General
Motors' mission statement only addresses General Motors, not Chrysler.
"Combat air forces" is not limited to manned aircraft. Remember, the
mission statement is a broad guiding statement and does not get into the
details. Details become more specific as you move down within the
organization.
Another example is the mission statement for Twelfth Air Force: "Twelfth
Air Force Professionals employing combat ready U.S. air and space power
through effective command and control in support of USSOUTHCOM and CINC's
worldwide." (USSOUTHCOM is U.S. Southern Command, CINC's is
Commanders-In-Chief) Twelfth Air Force provides what is called an Air
Operations Center (AOC) that coordinates all airborne operations (with a few
exceptions) within a theater of operations (example, Haiti operation).
Airborne operations includes drones, missiles, high altitude
reconnaissance, and notice that it also includes space power. As I
mentioned, there are a few exceptions, however, during an operation where an
AOC is deployed, it becomes the central coordinating agency within the
theater of operations. This example shows how the mission statement is
still broad by nature, however, it is more specific than the ACC mission
statement.
Does this provide any more insights?
--Wilson K Maj 12AF/QI <wilsonk@hq12af.dm.af.mil>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>