Air & Space Forces Magazine
In This Issue
Air & Space Forces Magazine September/October 2026 issue.
ACE’s Defensive Blind Spot
Over the past year, Iranian drone and missile attacks killed American Soldiers at air bases in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, destroyed an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control aircraft, and damaged other aircraft on the ground. The Combined Air Operations...
LAUNCH BOOM
America’s launch enterprise has been outperforming expectations for more than a decade, steadily increasing the missions it can support, the pace of resetting launch pads, and the agility to launch on demand. In 2025 alone, the service’s two spaceports,...
Defeating the Drones
The Airman’s imperative to defend from small uninhabited aerial vehicles. The air base has become a central target set. Small drones have become one of the defining air threats of modern warfare, representing a structural change in the character of...
Reinvigorating USAFA’s Summer Training
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo.— It’s 0459, and Cadet 1st Class Abigail Anderson is already outside the door, hands poised, ready to pound. Up and down the hallway, at every door, other cadets mirror her stance. As 0500 hits, the yelling and...
Rebuilding the U.S. Air Force for Multi-Theater Conflict
In June 2026, airpower experts from the U.S. Air Force, seven allied air forces, and industry convened for a three-day wargame designed to stress notional 2036 USAF combat forces in a series of concurrent crises: a Russian assault against NATO...
Editorial: The Lost Quarter Century
When Al Qaeda terrorists turned commercial airliners into cruise missiles on Sept. 11, 2001, killing more than 3,000 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, our military was ready and ripe for the challenge. The first American bombs struck...