Air-Sea Battle and Beale Air Force Base Published Dec. 20, 2012 By Lt. Col. Bart P. Yates 12th Reconnaissance Squadron BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Tomorrow's security environment will likely be more unpredictable and complex than the world we live in today. As our adversaries grow their own capabilities, our ability to rapidly stay in front of changing conditions worldwide will be challenging. Accurate, timely, and precise intelligence will be vital in allowing our military to stay in front of our adversaries and the changing geo-political landscape. One concept to allow us to counter adversaries and their emerging capabilities is the Air-Sea Battle concept. The Air-Sea Battle concept was developed in response to a directive in 2009 by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Secretary Gates directed that the Departments of the Air Force and Navy develop a concept to counter our adversaries emerging anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities in the world. Anti-access capabilities slow or deny our access into a theater and/or cause us to operate from greater distances in order to access an area. Area denial capabilities reduce our ability to operate or maneuver in areas under our adversary's direct control. By fall 2011, the departments rolled out the Air-Sea Battle concept to counter these A2/AD capabilities. With the introduction of the Air-Sea Battle concept, Beale Air Force Base is well aligned to support this emerging concept. Beale Air Force Base is home to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, U-2 Dragon Lady, and MC-12 Liberty aircraft. These aircraft provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to our nation's leaders as well as our warfighters on the ground and allow the United States to monitor our adversaries in many parts of the world. Adversaries employing A2/AD capabilities such as ballistic missiles, 4th and 5th generation fighter aircraft, integrated air defense systems, and anti-ship missiles will become increasingly common in the coming years. To counter these threats, our ISR aircraft at Beale AFB will be increasingly called upon to provide actionable intelligence that will allow our leaders and warfighters to stay ahead of our adversaries and support our commanders out in the field. Air-Sea Battle's intent is to fuse actionable intelligence from an integrated and interoperable joint force from all of our military services. Beale aircraft will provide imagery, video, and other intelligence products to our nation's leaders and commanders. With this intelligence, commanders will be able to assess local conditions enabling them to concentrate our forces at the right time and place. Commanders will also use the intelligence gathered by Beale aircraft to slow or prevent adversary A2/AD capabilities against our forces. In a time of fiscal constraints, our ability to spread permanent forces throughout the world as a deterrent will be reduced due to tighter defense budgets. As a result, having our expeditionary forces at the right time and right place will be essential. Accurate, timely and precise intelligence provided by our aircraft at Beale will be vital to our military's ability to employ the Air-Sea Battle concept and counter our adversaries emerging A2/AD capabilities.