Norton A. Schwartz

US Air Force general

Norton Allan Schwartz (born December 14, 1951) is a retired United States Air Force general who served as the 19th Chief of Staff of the Air Force from August 12, 2008, until his retirement in 2012. He previously served as commander, United States Transportation Command from September 2005 to August 2008. He is currently the president and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analyses, serving since January 2, 2020. The first Jewish Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Schwartz was a member of the U. S. Air Force Academy Jewish choir before his 1973 graduation. In 2004, Schwartz was awarded the Jewish Community Center's Military Leadership Award. In accepting the award, Schwartz said he was "proud to be identified as Jewish as well as an American military leader."

Schwartz graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1973. He is an alumnus of the National War College, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a 1994 Fellow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Seminar XXI. He has served as commander of the U. S. Special Operations Command Pacific, as well as Alaskan Command, Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and the 11th Air Force. Schwartz is a USAF Command Pilot with more than 4,400 flying hours in a variety of aircraft. He has flown C 130 Hercules and MC 130 Combat Talon I and Combat Talon II aircraft and MH 53 Pave Low III and Pave Low IV, and MH 60 Black Hawk and Pave Hawk special ops helicopters. His operational background goes back to the final days of the Vietnam War; at the time, he was a crew member taking part in the 1975 airlift evacuation of Saigon. By 1991 he was chief of staff of the Joint Special Operations Task Force for Northern Iraq during the first Gulf War. He participated as a crew member in the 1975 airlift evacuation of Saigon, and in 1991 served as chief of staff of the Joint Special Operations Task Force for Northern Iraq in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. In 1997, he led the Joint Task Force that prepared for the noncombatant evacuation of U. S. citizens in Cambodia. On January 12, 2000, Schwartz was promoted to lieutenant general and received his third star upon assuming the command of Alaskan Command and Eleventh Air Force. At that time during the September 11 Attacks all the Air Force Fighter Aircraft which was scrambled and patrolled around the United States Airspace was given the order to shoot down all aircraft that was suspected being hijacked and had the potential to be used to attack several important locations within the United States, knowing that it was hijacked distress signal that was sent by the Korean Air Flight 85 pilot.

Schwartz was appointed to be the commander of the United States Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) in 2005. Schwartz also received his fourth star and was promoted into four star General. General Schwartz is the first Air Force Chief of Staff with a background as an airlift and special operations aircraft pilot. It is speculated that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates selected him because he did not have a background as a fighter or bomber pilot. During his tenure as Air Force Chief of Staff, General Schwartz reaffirmed the importance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), which he believed could be the future of the Air Force. At that time dozens of UAVs were being used in the war on terror, especially in Afghanistan. The Air Sea Battle Doctrine was developed to deal with the unique challenges of the Western Pacific arena. One of the primary goals of Air Sea Battle Doctrine was interoperability of air and naval forces that could execute networked and integrated in depth attacks in order to disrupt, destroy and ultimately cripple or defeat the enemy's anti access/area denial capabilities to sustain and protect the operations area within the Indo Pacific Region. The concept to create a joint Air Force and Navy battle strategy began in the 1990s, when both the Air Force and Navy had institutionalized a joint air operations which eventually led the two services to began exchanging air crews, tacticians and intelligence officers in a joint service partnership following the Gulf War. In 2013, Schwartz became a member of the board of trustees of the Institute for Defense Analyses. In July 2019, Schwartz was selected to become IDA's president and CEO, effective January 2, 2020.

Rating: command pilot. Flight hours: more than 4,400. Aircraft flown: C 130E/H, MC 130E/H/P, HC 130, AC 130H/U, YMC 130, MH 53 and MH 60.