KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- One of the newest initiatives at the 451st Air Expeditionary Wing is the development of a wing strategic plan.
The 451st AEW's strategic plan, on track to be on the street mid- to late October, will be the vision and foundation for the wing's future planning and action. The strategic plan will focus wing activities on accomplishing and supporting the 451st AEW's mission and providing direct support to coalition strategic success in Afghanistan.
The term "strategic plan" conjures images in most Airmen's minds of flowery, glossy coffee-table pamphlets full of what many consider to be buzzwords and empty promises. Given that, why would the Air Force's newest Air Expeditionary Wing want or need a strategic plan? This article is the philosophy behind the strategic plan and describes what the wing aims to accomplish with it.
Strategy is the use of means, or resources, in innovative ways - tactics, techniques, and procedures - to accomplish desired ends, or goals. It requires a good understanding of the environment and how Airmen can best affect that environment. It is the why and how of any endeavor. People employ strategies, often without conscious thought, in everything they do, from playing a football game to saving money for a new car or a child's college education.
Planning is the set of detailed steps required to implement a strategy. Plans are the what, who, and where of any effort. Similarly, people use plans everyday when they think through what they must get done that day or make a list of what needs to be done to buy that new car.
Using the football example above, a coach develops a strategy for how to defeat the opposing team, which includes research to understand the opponent, and then determining its weaknesses and how to exploit them. This determination includes what types of plays and why, which is usually based on the opponent's vulnerabilities. Wrapped all together, the coach has effectively created a strategy. From this strategy flows the game plan itself, which revolves around specific team lineups, developing a playbook and signals, and the practicing of specific skills and plays required to successfully execute the plan.
Both the strategy and plan are important to achieving the desired end (winning the game); without either one, the team might still win but there's no way to know what contributed to the win or if that same method might work against the next team played. The winning coach who plans and executes strategically is most likely to repeat success.
Legendary football coach Tom Landry, with reference to strategic planning in football, said, "Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan."
It's the same with strategic planning in the 451st AEW, except the stakes are arguably much higher, where everything that is done in one way or another contributes to protecting U.S., coalition, and Afghan lives and defeating the enemy (the insurgents in Afghanistan) in combat. While the ultimate goal -- which is a stable, secure, independent Afghanistan free of insurgents and terrorists and friendly to the coalition -- may be clear, how that goal is achieved is the tough part.
A strategy will be developed over the next month to describe why and how everything will be done in the wing over the next one, five, and 10 years. This will be based on guidance from higher headquarters, such as U.S. Central Command and U.S. Air Forces Central, and the NATO International Security and Assistance Force's mission and intent. The wing's mission, vision, and commander's intent will be aligned with higher and supported commands and will describe how the commander envisions conditions in the wing on a 10-year time horizon.
Those conditions are the ends described earlier and are the beacon toward which our strategy and plan will point. A method will be developed for achieving the ends at various points-in-time using available resources such as Airmen, money, equipment, supplies, and time. These are the ways and means of the strategy. A list of high-level tasks that each group will pursue to get to each end (goal, objective, or desired condition) will also be created. These tasks are the basis for implementation, or the wing-level plan from which the groups will develop their purpose, direction, and action.
This may all sound very cosmic, but it's really fairly straight-forward, and a lot of it will look very familiar. For example, the Operations Group may have a task to fulfill 98 percent of Air Tasking Order assigned lines, the Maintenance Group may be tasked to provide an 80 percent aircraft availability rate, and the Mission Support Group may have the task to obtain additional re-locatable buildings for billeting.
While those are just some examples of possible tasks, the important point is that everything that everything that is done here at the wing - in the cockpit, out on the flight line, at an entry control point, at a desk, and elsewhere - should have a connection to the commander's vision and intent through the strategy and plan. It would be unwise to be found in a situation like the football player who focuses on his rushing game on a team whose strategy is play-action passes, or the defensive line that blindly runs the blitz against a strong running-game opponent. Likewise, limited wing resources, such as Airmen, their time, and valuable equipment, need to be focused on accomplishing the mission as expressed through the commander's intent, strategy and plan.
The strategic plan will not be created in a vacuum, but the development will minimize current impact on the wing's Airmen successfully providing persistent, powerful airpower presence whenever and wherever needed in Afghanistan every day. At the wing and group staff level, a working group has been created to develop a concise written document to be vetted through the wing leadership that will clearly express Brig. Gen. Guy Walsh's commander's intent through the next 10 years. The strategic plan will be updated once a year, in July through September, in preparation for execution during the next fiscal year, Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
While document development won't impact wing Airmen negatively, the strategic plan itself should have a very positive impact on day-to-day mission execution and support to that execution. Like all strategies and plans, the wing document is the starting point or "game plan". . . contact with the enemy and the realities of supporting the mission here at Kandahar will necessitate changes and re-vectoring.
As a good sports coaching staff and team would do, wing leaders and Airmen at all levels will adapt to the changing situation to achieve the commander's intent. This is like the football quarterback who, understanding his opponent and his team's strategy, and with seconds remaining on the clock, audibles a play from the huddle on the field, executing successfully. So too, Airmen of the 451st AEW should all be able to use the strategic plan as their playbook to achieve mission success in the complex environment here on Kandahar Airfield and in Afghanistan.