Space Force Asks for ‘Flexibility’ to Manage Effects of Yearlong CR

March 13, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

With Congress considering another continuing resolution to cover the rest of fiscal 2025, the Space Force’s No. 2 officer asked lawmakers to give the service “flexibility” to deal with budget uncertainty.

The Pentagon has never operated under a continuing resolution—which for the most part keeps spending levels frozen at the previous year’s levels—for an entire year. But that appears likely to change as lawmakers consider their options ahead of a March 14 funding deadline.

At a Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee hearing on March 12, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) asked Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein about the impact of a yearlong CR.

“It’s a huge challenge. It’s very, very inefficient,” Guetlein said. “We are the smallest force with the smallest budget, so any churn in our budget is a huge hit to us.”

Yet if Congress does pass a yearlong CR, Guetlein echoed other services in asking for flexibility. The CR passed by the House and being considered by the Senate has “anomalies”—special permissions to permit the services to undertake new programs, which are typically prohibited under a CR.

Those would be crucial for the Space Force, Guetlein said.

“On new starts, we are seeing an enormous amount every single year, and it is very hard … when you have to wait two to four years to get the budget to get after those threats,” Guetlein said. “So anything you can do—budget flexibility for new starts, authorities [for program element] consolidation, the ability to move money between programs—would be hugely beneficial.”

Guetlein, who previously led Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s main acquisition arm, said USSF would also also benefit from authority to undertake multiyear procurements, which can save money over time. Congress and the Pentagon have worked on multiyear procurements for munitions, but the Space Force has not previously been deeply involved in discussions around those authorities.

While budget uncertainty swirls, Guetlein did say the Space Force is doing well with recruiting. “We are seeing two volunteers for every recruit that we take in,” he said. “So we’re able to be very, very, very selective for high quality.”

Some 15 percent of recruits join with some college education, and some even have PhDs, he said. The Space Force has met its recruiting goals in each of the past four years, and this year it is already at 104 percent of goal for enlisted and 101 percent for officers.

Better still, Guetlein said the Space Force is keeping its people, retaining them at a 98 percent rate, a level unprecedented in comparison to other military branches.

New Budget Deal Could Cost USAF Up to $14 Billion

March 12, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

A full-year continuing resolution in place of an authorized and appropriated fiscal 2025 budget would cost the Air Force at least $4 billion and potentially up to $14 billion, said Lt. Gen. Adrian L. Spain, deputy chief of staff for operations, in congressional testimony.

“The CR … has impact on our readiness up to the tune of about $4 billion,” Spain said at a Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee hearing March 12. “Without anomalies, and with the Fiscal Responsibility Act kicking in,” he added, the real impact is “closer to $14 billion, which we cannot afford.”

The flexibility and anomalies he referenced have to do with special permissions proposed to permit the services to undertake new programs, which are typically prohibited under a CR.

“We expect and look forward to the final version of this CR, if it were to pass, with flexibility and agility and anomalies, to spend as required, to retain readiness to the maximum possible level,” Spain told the committee.

Spain didn’t elaborate on the specific cuts or reductions necessary to live within the CR’s spending limits. Instead, he discussed the “four primary pillars” of Air Force readiness that could be affected by spending reductions: “parts and supply, people, flying and training, and current infrastructure.”

Other programs impacting future readiness will also be affected, he said, including “rebuilding acquisitions, long-term sustainment, and recruiting and retention at a relevant pace and scale.”

Spain said the Air Force would also benefit from flexibility on quality-of-life accounts “to mitigate those risks” should funding be insufficient in some areas.

While Airmen will always “get the job done,” he said, “they do so at an elevated risk” when budgets are squeezed. “It is … a fact that today’s Airmen [operates] with the oldest airplanes, the smallest force, and with fewer monthly flying hours than at any point in our history.”

He noted that while the U.S. Air Force is being cut, China’s military forces, by contrast, “are expanding and modernizing their nuclear modernization, [and] long-range missile proliferation.” Recent Chinese test flights “of two sixth-gen aircraft is simply further evidence of the elevated threat in the strategic environment,” Spain said.

While the Air Force has traditionally focused on individual elements of readiness, like flying hours for pilots, the service is now trying to look holistically at how those elements “must be synchronized to create a warfighting capability over time.” The Air Force can no longer afford “the luxury of segmented attention,” he said.

“We’ve specifically prioritized parts and supply in the flying hour program,” he said. “We’ve also reconnected our manpower and infrastructure priorities directly to our core readiness outcomes in both our processes and our data. It’s our intent to maintain focus and priority on these pillars to strengthen our readiness and improve our lethality, and we’re moving out.”

SASC Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) joined the readiness subcommittee for the hearing, and noted that the yearlong CR would leave the defense budget underfunded.

“The real flaw in the CR that we’ll be voting on later this week is that it doesn’t provide enough money, regardless of the anomalies and the tiny plus-ups here and there,” Wicker said. The Senate version of the CR has “$150 billion in the reconciliation bill” which he said “may not be enough.”

Wicker said he has heard “some comforting words from the administration that they realize that, too.” The House version of the measure, already passed, contains $100 billion extra for defense.

Wicker ticked off new and increasing threats from China, Russia, and North Korea and said additional funds would be necessary to counter those.

Readiness subcommittee chair Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) focused his questioning on how a yearlong CR would affect each service branch. One by one, each service representative offered a variation on how other accounts would have to be raided to pay for cuts imposed by the CR. Sullivan observed that the only thing worse than a yearlong CR would be “a government shutdown.”

A shutdown looms if Congress does not pass the CR or some other measure this week.

Sullivan indicated military end strength should be increased, noting that doing so would reverse reductions approved when the services couldn’t achieve their recruiting goals in 2023. All the witnesses said their services were above 100 percent of recruiting targets in fiscal 2024, but those goals were smaller than in prior years.

“From a recruiting standpoint,” Spain said, “the Air Force was above glide slope on our recruiting goals for the year. We increased the [goal] by 20 percent and in fact, we’re still above the 20 percent increase. And we have the largest delayed-entry pool that we’ve had in 10 years,” he said.

USAF is further along “at this point in the year [than it has been] in the last 15 years,” Spain added. “So we’re in a good position.” Spain credited the improvement to additional recruiters and increased training.

Pentagon Deploys Air Force Intel Analysts for Border Mission

March 12, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. military is sending approximately 40 Air Force intelligence analysts to beef up its surveillance of the southern border, U.S. Northern Command announced March 11.

Those Airmen, along with approximately 590 engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Army 18th Airborne Corps, will bring the total number of troops deployed for the border mission to 9,600.

The Trump administration has made securing the border a high-priority military mission, and the Air Force, Navy, and other U.S. government assets have been conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico, with some flights occurring as early as January.

Those operations are being carried out by U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft from Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft based in the continental United States, U.S. officials said.

“We are America’s eyes in the skies watching our southern border to protect the homeland in support of [U.S. Northern Command] and our interagency partners within [the Department of Homeland Security] and [Customs and Border Protection],” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin posted on the social media site X on March 12 to acknowledge the latest deployment. “Our ISR pros never blink!”

NORTHCOM has established the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border to oversee the joint service effort. Its intelligence analysts work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. There have previously been at least 140 U.S. military intelligence personnel from multiple services assigned to the command as part of the southern border mission.

“These intelligence personnel will provide full motion video analysis, counter network analysis, and Spanish language translation to the U.S. Border Patrol Office of Intelligence,” NORTHCOM stated on Feb. 4.

A P-8A Poseidon flies near the southwest border of the United States, Feb. 18, 2025. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jacquelin Frost

Allvin said in a Feb. 27 interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine that Airmen “have been doing everything asked for them, most recently, in support of southwest border and the president’s priority of restoring sovereignty and protecting protecting our borders—absolutely part and parcel of that, from the rapid global mobility to be able to transport the illegal aliens to their destination, to surveillance and reconnaissance support, to anything that’s being asked of us.”

Some of the approximately 40 new Airmen assigned to the mission will serve at the headquarters of Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border, which is located at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., a defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Other locations where the intelligence analysts are expected to serve include Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers, which are located in San Diego, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Jacksonville, Fla., the official said.

U.S. Air Force RC-135 intelligence-gathering flights have taken place along the border and off the coast of Mexico throughout February and March, according to U.S. officials and flight tracking data.

Navy P-8 flights, which begin conducting operations around the southern border in January, have been particularly common. At least one Navy P-8 near the border is equipped with the highly-capable AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor radar—a long pod visible on the centerline under the aircraft. That P-8 was based in Europe but was recently moved to Texas. As of March 12, it was located at Fort Carswell at Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, open-source flight tracking data shows. In addition to operations from the Navy air bases, the Department of Defense has acknowledged it has conducted P-8 flights from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the border intelligence headquarters.

U.S. military officials have said other airborne intelligence gathering assets are also being used to provide data, which must then be analyzed and coordinated within the U.S. government.

In addition to intelligence operations, Air Force C-17s and C-130s have been used to deport detainees from the U.S.

“While I cannot get into specifics regarding each Airman, I can confirm that intelligence analysts supporting Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border will be located both throughout the southern border area at various intelligence centers in the continental United States,” a NORTHCOM spokesperson said.

U.S. Soldiers assigned to Task Force Sentinel survey the southern border wall in a UH-72A Lakota at Dona Ana, New Mexico, on Feb. 22, 2025. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Dominic Atlas

Space Force Component Bosses: More Guardians Needed

March 12, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

AURORA, Colo.—Leaders in charge of Space Force components embedded with combatant commands say their organizations are too small to engage with joint force as they need to. In a panel discussion at the AFA Warfare Symposium, the commanders highlighted the manpower and resource crunch they face as the Space Force’s mission and presence grows around the globe.

The Space Force established Space Forces Indo-Pacific in 2022, and has since added subordinate commands—Space Forces Korea and Space Forces Japan. Other component commands are Space Forces Europe and Africa and Space Forces Central. In each case, the component launched with just a small team: 21 in the Indo-Pacific, about 30 in Europe and Africa, and 30 or so for U.S. Central Command in the Middle East.

By comparison, Pacific Air Forces has more than 30,000 Airmen; U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa more than 23,000; and Air Forces Central more than 13,000.

Space Force officials noted from the start that their component commanders would be outranked by other component commanders in each region, a challenge when they have to speak up to advocate for resources and strategic decision making. But at the symposium, the component commanders said the compact size of their commands is also having an ill effect.

“My number one priority, as soon as I can get a few extra folks, is to have a [liaison officer] embedded at [Army Central], AFCENT, etc., across all the components,” said SPACECENT commander Col. Christopher Putman. “Just with everything else we have to do, I just don’t have the bandwidth to do that right now.”

spacecent — SPACECENT Commander Col. Christopher Putman speaking in 2023. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

Without liaison officers, Putman noted, space’s contributions to the joint force can be limited.

“We had a carrier come in from the Pacific. I got on the phone, talked to the skipper, and before they got into the AOR, we flew a team of Guardians and soldiers, because I’ve got soldiers on my team, out to the carrier,” Putman said. “They spent a few days planning the operation and just building that knowledge of what the carrier strike group could bring, and what SPACECENT can bring, and the operations thereafter were just, I don’t want to call them flawless, but much better than I’ve ever seen before, and that’s a relationship you have to nurture and continue to work at. We had another carrier come in later on that we just for a whole host of reasons, we didn’t have the opportunity to fly out there and sit on the boat with them, and it didn’t go as well.”

Space Forces Europe and Africa commander Brig. Gen. Jacob Middleton Jr. cited a similar disconnect with other service components, saying he didn’t have the resources or staff to work out with them the specifics of what the Space Force can do for them. That issue was highlighted recently, he said, when another component gave only a cursory nod to space capabilities, saying they could cover whatever the Space Force could not do.

“We’re not resourced to do it, you don’t understand space,” Middleton said.

Exercises under the combatant commands need more Guardians to inject “realism,” Middleton added. By showing exactly what his component can and can’t do, he hopes to gain support for more resources.

“What I’ve been doing is going to the other components, and I say, ‘Hey, here’s your space dependency. What do you want throughout the span of this conflict, what do you want us to invest in? … And then what do you want and are willing to pay for, not just money and bodies and research? Do you have some empty space I can use? Do you have some desk space and computers?” Middleton said. “And so it’s not just an understanding piece, but it gets them vested in getting after the campaign objectives.”

Brig. Gen. Jacob Middleton, commander of U.S. Space Forces Europe and Space Forces Africa, speaks during the Space Force Association’s 2024 Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla., Dec. 11, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich)

Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir, commander of Space Forces Indo-Pacific, also cited the need to educate other service components on their “space dependencies.” If an attack in space limits the accuracy and effectiveness of a missile, for example, targeting becomes all the more difficult in the critical Pacific region.

Different organizations are working on models to quantify those effects, Mastalir said, but it is critical “to get them into theater so that the warfighters have access to that data.”

By highlighting the need for space in their theaters, the commanders hope to build their case for more resources and manpower. Their components already have grown—SPACEFOR-INDOPAC now has almost 100 personnel, SPACECENT has more than 60—but none are near where they need to be to fulfill all their anticipated obligations.

“When we’ve done all the mission analysis … that went methodically through the battle rhythm of INDOPACOM, looking at all the touch points we have built, baseball cards for every single position that we need on the staff, to understand what are the inputs, what are the outputs, where is this Guardian contributing to the joint force in this particular environment?” Mastalir said. “You roll that up into a programming plan across Space Forces Indo-Pacific and across Space Forces Japan and Korea, which are also under my flag, you’re looking at a headquarter size of somewhere between 400 and 500.”

That’s four to five times the current command’s manning.

Competition for resources will only increase as additional component commands stand up. Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman told reporters at the symposium that Space Forces South will soon launch as a component to U.S. Southern Command. Its headquarters has already begun to take shape.

Retired Missileer Nominated to Be Air Force Manpower Secretary

March 12, 2025 | By David Roza

A former missileer with 30 years of service has been nominated for the position of assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs.

Retired Col. Richard L. Anderson was one of several dozen nominations the White House sent to the Senate on March 10, though it is not clear yet when the Senate Armed Services Committee will weigh the nomination.

Originally from Roanoke, Va., Anderson commissioned into the Air Force after graduating from Virginia Tech in 1979. He served as a Titan II ICBM combat crew combat crew commander at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., and as a Minuteman II squadron operations officer at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., according to his biography at George Mason University.

He also served at the headquarters of Strategic Air Command, U.S. Atlantic Command, U.S. Pacific Command, Headquarters Air Force at the Pentagon, and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense before retiring in 2009.

Anderson served in the Civil Air Patrol even longer, joining in 1969 and receiving the highest CAP cadet honor, the Gen. Carl A. Spaatz Award, in 1972. He served as national commander from 1993 to 1996, then sat on the Air Force auxiliary’s board of governors from 2009 to 2014, including two years as chairman, according to the Civil Air Patrol.

The retired colonel became involved in Virginia politics, representing the 51st House District in the Virginia General Assembly from 2010 to 2018. Anderson told the American Legion in 2015 that serving in the military prepared him for work in the General Assembly.

“In doing international affairs work, I learned to connect and collaborate and reach consensus with people across national boundaries, across cultures, and learn to respect what other people think and to maybe recalibrate what I’m thinking,” he said.

Anderson lost his reelection bid in 2019, then was elected to his current seat as chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia in August 2020.

“I am grateful to the President for his trust and confidence,” Anderson said in a written statement, according to The Washington Post. “President Trump’s nomination is also a reflection of the amazing electoral successes that our party has had in Virginia over the last four years.”

Anderson is the latest Air Force nominee awaiting confirmation by the Senate, and he could be waiting months, given the large number of pending cabinet-level and sub-cabinet-level selections.

On Jan. 16, then-President-elect Donald Trump picked Troy E. Meink to become the next Secretary of the Air Force. Meink is currently the principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, a Department of Defense intelligence agency that works closely with the Space Force. Trump’s pick for Undersecretary of the Air Force, Matthew Lohmeier, is a former Space Force lieutenant colonel who was relieved of command in 2021.

Two Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), sent a letter to Meink late last month after a Reuters report that he showed favoritism to SpaceX—the space technology company owned by Elon Musk, who also advises Trump—in a 2021 government contract solicitation.

“These reports raise concerns about your ability, if confirmed as Secretary, to treat contractors fairly and prioritize the Air Force’s mission over Elon Musk’s business interests,” the senators wrote. Air & Space Forces Magazine could not immediately determine if either has placed a legislative hold on Meink’s nomination.

Gary A. Ashworth, a career Department of Defense civil servant and former Air Force officer, has been serving as acting secretary of the Air Force since Jan. 20.

Watch, Read: CSO on the Need for Space Superiority, Control

March 12, 2025

Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force, delivered the opening keynote of the 2025 AFA Warfare Symposium. Emphasizing the need for the U.S. to maintain space superiority, Saltzman made the case that the Space Force needs to develop capabilities to control the domain, perhaps the most direct message yet from a senior leader on offensive capability in space. Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Gen. B. Chance Saltzman:

Thank you. How’s everybody doing? Excited? Excited to be here for the AFA Symposium. This is great. I got to tell you just to put things in perspective, about 56 years ago, March 3rd, 1969, Apollo 9 launched into orbit, low-Earth orbit. This was the first crewed test flight of a lunar module and it laid the groundwork for the first lunar landing that occurred just a few months later on Apollo 11. Now laying the groundwork, building the foundation, these are critical to achieving bigger goals, more enduring achievements. If the hard work, dedicated effort that made Apollo 9 successful doesn’t happen, there’s no way Apollo 11 lands on the Moon, certainly not in the way we recall it today. So I’m inspired by this. People committed to their part of the achievement, particularly those committed to the building of the foundation for future achievements. So it’s a real pleasure to be with you here today, and I mean that more seriously than you might think.

Doing my part of building the foundation for the Space Force means I spend most of my time advocating in Washington, inside the Department of Defense with the joint staff, the other services across the interagency, working with Congress. This is good. This is important. These conversations need to happen. They turn ideas into policy, they turn them into resources and legislation, but there’s no audience I appreciate speaking to more than the one assembled here. You see, you are the “doers of the deeds,” as Teddy Roosevelt said. To those who spend themselves in a worthy cause, to people who take all the policies, all the resources, all those laws and turn ideas into outcomes, into concrete capabilities that secure our nation’s interests in, from and to space. They deter our adversaries and they defeat anyone who might threaten us, our allies, our partners. You’re a special group of people because when the time for talk is over, the responsibility to act falls squarely on your shoulders.

Inside the Space Force, you have a lot of diverse jobs. Intelligence analyst, cyber defender, program manager, contracting officer, satellite operator, ground terminal technician, network administrator, engineer, personnelist, knowledge manager, range operator, I could keep going. They’re all different jobs, but they require a wide range of expertise. But all these jobs are done by Guardians, officers, enlisted civilians. All these jobs contribute directly to our mission to secure our nation’s interests. So let’s take a moment and reflect on what it means to be a Guardian, especially in the context of a conflict in space. Because each and every one of you, regardless of the job you do, is directly responsible for the success of our mission.

And I’ve spoken recently about what I consider to be six foundational truths of the Space Force. I’ve told you that our capabilities are vital for the security and prosperity of the American way of life, that we are therefore obligated both to protect those capabilities as well as to defend the joint and combined force against space-enabled attack. As a result, I’ve said that we must think of space as a war-fighting domain rather than just a collection of support activities, that the Space Force must organize, train, equip, and conduct war-fighting operations as an integral part of the joint and combined force. And for this reason, Guardians are the warfighters with the unique education, training and experience required to achieve space superiority.

Now, whenever I speak to folks outside the Space Force, and this is a wide spectrum of people from an interested student at dinner in Chicago just the last weekend to the President of the United States, I refer back to these truths because I think they encapsulate our identity in just a few simple ideas. But just among ourselves from one Guardian to another, let’s take a moment to focus on only a few of these truths, to consider them in greater detail, the practical level rather than the philosophical one.

Specifically I want to call your attention to two truths, truths numbers two and three, to the idea that we must simultaneously be ready to defend American space power as well as to protect our forces against hostile space power because that is the true essence of space superiority, which is the formative purpose of the U.S. Space Force. Space superiority is the fundamental difference between a civil space agency and a war-fighting space service. It is the distinction between a company’s employees operating commercial satellites and Guardians conducting combat operations to achieve joint objectives. If you want to understand the evolution from Air Force Space Command into Space Force, it all comes down to this fundamental shift. It is now our job to contest and control the space domain, to fight and win so that we assure freedom of access for our forces while denying the same to our adversaries.

And doing so under stressing conditions of crisis and conflict requires a purpose-built organization, tailor-made with the institutions, the equipment, the tactics, the training, the warrior ethos required to use military force to control the space domain. In other words, it requires a space force. Without this mission, we might not be so different from any other space agency, a collection of talented individuals doing good work for the government. Admittedly, we’d have snazzier uniforms than them and a deep love of acronyms. But that’s really the difference between the Space Force and others. With this mission, everything changes. The way we think, decide and act, our doctrine, our organizing principles, our equipment, our processes, everything. Because it’s not enough to just deliver services from orbit anymore, it’s not enough to monitor health and status in a benign environment, to design satellites to last in the harsh environment of space. While this is still necessary, it’s no longer sufficient. We must be ready to contest and control our domain to overcome threats and outwit a thinking opponent, to build our systems to withstand a determined adversary. In short, to be space-minded warfighters.

Space superiority is the reason that we exist as a service and the vagaries of warfighting must inform everything we do if we’re going to succeed. So if you want to understand why the Space Force has been making so many changes since its establishment, well with new responsibility comes new requirements. And believe me, I hear it all the time. Other senior leaders will say, “Hey, the Space Force has so many things going on. We need to catch our breath. Why can’t we just slow down, wait a while, consolidate some of our gains?” And I really do wish it was that easy. I get it, I do.

But the answer is right there. The Space Force we have is still not the Space Force we need. We’ve come a long way, but I think we can all acknowledge that there’s still work to be done. We’ve been called up to the major league. We can’t get away with using minor league gear or little league tactics. And to complicate matters, we need to play a game tonight while keeping one eye on the World Series down the line. In other words, we need to conduct day-to-day operations while we prepare for the high-end fight. Everything we’re doing, every new initiative, every project, every task is designed to get us where we need to go while threading that needle. And I’ve spoken on many of these things before, but let me highlight it just a few examples through the lens of space superiority.

If we’re going to be agile enough to outthink and outsmart our opponents, then we’ve got to maximize unity of command within our mission areas. So we created integrated mission deltas, which combine operations, capabilities development and sustainment to enhance the delivery of combat effects. They empower mission owners with the authority and resources they need to gain and sustain readiness. We started small with just two IMDs, but we just activated two more and we’ll be standing up more right behind those. Likewise, we’re working hard to formalize systems deltas which focus acquisition activities within mission areas to further enhance delivery and collaboration. Paired together, IMDs and system deltas will create a more effective responsive feedback loop between capability delivery, employment and sustainment. But if those IMDs are going to create and generate combat-credible forces, then they need to carve out the time to allow for advanced threat-based training. So we designed a force generation process to account for reconstitution of our force elements to deliberately create space for the training needed for the high-end fight.

Likewise, we consolidated the efforts to build our operational test and training infrastructure, providing an O-6 level focus and expertise to the acquisition of a modern space test and training capability. But if our combat-credible forces are going to effectively employ the mission command required for complex and variable operations, then we need leaders with a broad awareness of all the disciplines of space power. So we created the officer training course which provides 12-month initial skills training for new officers just to lay these foundations so that once they graduate, junior officers will have the baseline understanding of all disciplines needed for effective mission operations. In the future, regardless of their career path, all officers will have the training and experience to speak fluently and engage collaboratively across all essential functions of U.S. Space Force missions.

The future vision is that Guardian leaders in acquisition roles will have operations credibility and Guardian leaders in operations roles will have the credibility to deliver combat capability. But if Guardians are going to integrate Space Force capability into the joint force by design, then we need to expand and normalize our touch points with the combatant commands. So we created component field commands to align service forces under each combatant commander. We have already established six components in Space Command, Indo-Pacific Command, Europe and Africa, Central Command, Korea and Japan. The remainder of these critical units are deep into the planning phase and will be coming soon.

Finally, if the integrated capability we provide to the joint force is going to remain relevant, then we need a long-term institutional mechanism to ensure our technical advantage. So we’re proposing Space Force’s Futures Command to take responsibility for the design of the objective force to envision, validate, and describe in detail the force we need to win wars and maintain our space advantage into the future. Our idea is for this command to bring together the best and brightest among our cyber, intel, space, acquisition experts. It will ensure that we are identifying and investing in innovation, leveraging the tremendous technological advancements we’re seeing in the commercial sector. Taken together, all of these initiatives lay the groundwork for a space force with a capacity to win space superiority and secure our nation’s interests in, from, and to space.

And now like the blocks in an arch, each of these efforts builds upon one another distributing the load of transformation as we bridge from the Space Force we have to the one we need for tomorrow. And the keystone in that arch, the thing that holds it all together are the Guardians. It’s you. But that means that our efforts are putting a particularly heavy strain on you. So I want to speak very honestly with you here. We’re building an incredibly complex system and it takes time to get everything just right. I’m not going to stand here and pretend we have all the details of these initiatives perfectly planned prior to implementation. My experience is that if you wait until you have it perfectly planned, you never get to execution and when you do, the plan is somewhat obsolete.

So going fast means finding a minimum viable product. It means sketching out a vision and then adding details as you learn. It means adapting the plan to make it better through experience. Change is never easy, but I promise you it’s vital and we need it. This is the challenge we face. It’s a generational challenge. Transform into a warfighting service now. The nation needs us. The enemy’s not waiting. We must succeed. We will succeed because so much is riding on our success. As an ancient proverb goes, “Time isn’t free, but it is priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. And once it’s lost, you can never get it back.”

For that reason, at the headquarters level, we’ve leaned forward, we’ve accepted risk by rolling many of these initiatives out as soon as possible. Our plan is to go fast, iterate, improve, because we think that’s the quickest way to learn. And that can be particularly challenging for those who are holding it all together, folks down in the trenches doing the day-to-day operations and activities who don’t have all the context or even the time to understand the entire service-level picture. And without that understanding, all these things we’re doing seem like change for change’s sake. I get it. But please fight the urge to judge the effort by the amount of work it requires, the degree of change necessary or even short-term results. Nothing of consequence is built without these kinds of sacrifices and we are truly building something of consequence.

My hope is that by sharing all of this with you, by explaining that space superiority is our prime imperative, that we do not yet have the service we need, that you might understand a little better while we are asking you to do so much so quickly. It will get better and it will be worth it. These are the growing pains, but the alternative is so much worse. Fighting against a near-peer threat that has unfettered access to space, while we do not is a recipe for death and destruction. Even in a stalemate where both we and our adversary retain space power, there will be an unacceptable cost in American blood and treasure. It is our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.

So our only way forward is to change and keep changing, but rebuilding ourselves from the ground up was never going to be easy. For now, all I can do is say thank you for what you’ve done to get us where we are today and to tell you that our nation needs us to keep going, but where are we going? How are we going to get there? Precisely. We talk about space superiority, about the initiatives designed to help us achieve space superiority, but how exactly are we going to achieve it? The answer to that lies in our newest core function: space control. Domain control is the special province of warfighters, a unique responsibility that only military services hold. It is the thing that distinguishes the Navy from the Merchant Marine and the Air Force from Southwest Airlines. It is the purpose of the Space Force to achieve space superiority, then space control is the tool by which we do so.

Admittedly compared to our other core functions of global space operations and assured access to space, space control is a new function for our fledgling service. And it’s my number one priority whenever I speak to executive and legislative leaders because we currently don’t have the resources to perform it as effectively as the joint force requires. Put simply, space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain, employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities by disruptions and degradation, even destruction if necessary. It includes things like orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, its counter space operations can be employed for both offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands.

Historically, we’ve avoided talking too much about space control, but why would you have a military space service if not to execute space control? If we’re going to truly embrace our status as space warfighters, then we need to also embrace our fundamental responsibility for space control. Now shortly, we will publish Space Force Doctrine Document 1. As the name implies, this release articulates the doctrinal concepts that will shape the Space Force moving forward, space control among them. And if you take away one message from my remarks today, then let it be that the Space Force will do whatever it takes to achieve space superiority. And if you take away one request from my remarks, then let it be to read Space Force Doctrine Document 1 as soon as it’s available. Think about what it means to you, your daily activities, discuss it with your fellow Guardians because this is only the step in a much longer journey.

The first war in space has yet to be fought, but doctrine is inherently backwards looking. So our only option is to use logic, reason and training as a substitute for practical combat experience and there are bound to be things that we miss. As we continue to learn and grow, we will publish more doctrine and very likely revise what we’ve already released in Space Force Doctrine Document 1. That will always be our starting point though.

But what about our work today? We can’t lose sight of the fight tonight because we’re preparing for tomorrow’s conflict. So where should we focus in the interim? Hopefully this won’t be a surprise to this audience of warfighters, but my answer to that question is always going to be readiness, understanding it as well as enhancing it. When astronaut Rusty Schweickart came back from space, he said this about getting ready for the Apollo 9 mission. “It involves simulation after simulation, going through launch after launch, memorizing all those millions of procedures.” Millions of procedures. That seems like a lot. “Memorizing all those millions of procedures required to save your life and the life of your fellows if you run into a problem. You spend another 100 hours or more in practicing and thinking about everything that could possibly happen, everything that can break, can malfunction, can go wrong so that when the time comes, you don’t have to go through that debate, but you carry out what you’ve already decided. These are mission rules. They will keep you alive or will kill you if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Now that’s what readiness looks like. Preparing today for the crisis tomorrow, putting in the work now to make sure that we come out on top in whatever challenge we face. And in the Space Force, that means we need to sharpen every one of the components of readiness. Personnel, training, equipment, and sustainment. If any one of these elements is lacking, then our readiness as a whole is impacted. But let’s get one thing clear. While headquarters supports your readiness, at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, it doesn’t own it. You do, the Guardians in the field. That’s how it has to be. Sure headquarters are responsible for advocating for more people, money, setting policy, enabling your success. But headquarters is not on crew. We’re not living the mission day to day. We are not making sustainment decisions. The space staff simply does not have the same level of understanding, awareness or daily insight to direct the activities for readiness.

We know space superiority is an end goal. It’s the headquarters’ job to provide the means to achieve it, to create the environment, set the conditions for victory, but it’s the job of the warfighters in the field to define the way to connect the two. What do I mean by that? Let’s take training as an example. I told you that advanced threat-based training is critically important, but I also told you that our operational test and training infrastructure effort is still only part way through acquiring modern simulators and training capabilities. So we have a disconnect between the plan and the operational reality, between the end and our means. That’s where I need your help. I would love to wave a wand and give every crew advanced virtual reality trainer that incorporates the latest and greatest threat data, but I can’t.

So does that mean the solution is to shrug, mark it red, move on? Absolutely not. In the field, you’re going to have to figure it out because that’s what you do because that’s what the nation needs you to do. If advanced training is nothing more than a whiteboard, whiteboard sessions talking about tactics and threats, that’s fine. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing. And while something better works its way into the field, we have to do what we can. Now at the headquarters level, we will not be satisfied with that solution and we’ll continue to push hard to develop the systems that enhance our ranges, simulators, training venues. But you cannot afford to wait on the headquarters to deliver the better answer.

So how about equipment? Every squadron has an equipment table that lists the critical tools it needs to accomplish its mission. Are we confident that every table is accurate, complete? Does it include things like infrastructure, the power, the cooling we need to actually employ our weapons systems? If not, why not? I’m willing to bet there are things we should be funding or at least accounting for in our budget that we aren’t. The headquarters can’t fix problems it doesn’t know about. And as much as I would like to, I’m not on the ops floor anymore to find out. And readiness is not just a matter for operators by the way. Acquirers, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. Equipment and sustainment, half the elements of readiness fall inside your job jar. I need the skills you bring to the table to ensure our systems are up to speed. Are you tracking deficiencies sufficiently to predict equipment failure? Do delivery schedules meet expected timelines? Are systems secured from changes in the cyber threat environment?

Every Guardian is a warfighter regardless of your functional specialty. And every Guardian contributes to Space Force readiness. Whether you built the gun, pointed the gun, pulled the trigger, you are a part of a combat capability. That’s what it means to put on the uniform in a military organization. And we all need to take pride in our roles.

I will continue to spend every chance I get telling our nation’s senior leaders that we need more people, more money, more policy support, and based on every engagement I’ve had, they are committed to helping us. But it won’t be tomorrow. Until that help arrives, I need Guardians in the field to find a way. This is a partnership. The headquarters will drive everything it can from the top down, but I need you to meet us from the bottom up. And I’m confident there will come a day where we finally put the institution’s processes in place to take the heroics out of our daily activities. But until then, I need your ideas, I need your effort. If headquarters can help, let me know. If there’s a Space Force policy we need to change or something we need to do differently, I want to hear about it. The caveat is that whatever we do, it has to move us closer to the end, to our ultimate goal of space superiority and performing our role in the joint force.

So long as that remains true, I’m willing to take risk and try new things because I know that old processes don’t always yield new results. You may not believe me, but I remember what it was like to be a junior officer. No smiling. I saw you down there, Wilsbach. I remember what it was like to be a junior officer trying to get things done in spite of all the stuffy senior leaders who just didn’t get it. Now, I’m one of those senior leaders. You’ll notice I didn’t say stuffy. But I know I’m out of touch with the daily life on the front line. If there’s one thing I hope we can agree on it’s this: space superiority is our core mission. And I need your help to evolve the service so it can deliver.

Thankfully, I’ve got a room full of warfighters listening. They’re listening to me today and they understand the challenge. They’re going to pass it along to their colleagues back at home, and I never get tired of saying this. It’s you, the Guardians that are the Space Force’s single greatest resource. We have so many brilliant minds powered by commitment to service, and I appreciate every day, and I’ll never take that for granted.

Things are probably going to get a lot harder before they get easier, but I choose to believe we have the strength to get through them. That’s what we signed up for. The challenge, the call to duty. That’s what it means to live and work in the greatest military the world has ever seen, to be warfighters regardless of the uniform we wear or the job we hold. So let’s embrace it. Let’s make the most of it. I assure you, when it’s all said and done, when you hang up the OCPs for the last time, you will be proud. You’ll be proud because you did something hard, you did something of consequence, and you built a service that this nation needs. Thank you. Semper Supra.

Air Force Revives Air Race With an F-22 ACE Twist

March 11, 2025 | By David Roza

After an 89-year hiatus, the Air Force brought back a historic air race meant to prepare F-22 pilots and ground crews for future conflict while competing for bragging rights.

The Mitchell Trophy Air Race saw three squadrons from the 1st Fighter Wing send two F-22 fighters each from Langley Air Force Base, Va. to Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., where one pilot from each team had refuel and inspect their team’s jets while the second pilot ran 1.6 miles through below-freezing temperatures and winds up to 30 mph on their way to the Selfridge Military Air Museum to sign the guest register, which has been signed by “former presidents, high-ranking military officials and aviation heroes dating back to 1987,” the public affairs office for the Selfridge-based 127th Wing wrote in a press release.

The pilots had to find the museum on their own, then run back to the flight line and jet back to Virginia, where the trophy waited. The contest was a far cry from its humble beginnings in October 1922, when pilots of the 1st Pursuit Group, progentior of the 1st Fighter Wing and based at Selfridge at the time, flew five laps around a 20-mile course marked with pylons in six open-cockpit biplanes.

Named after 1st. Lt. John Lendrum Mitchell Jr., a 1st Pursuit Group pilot who died in a flying accident in France during World War I, the Mitchell Trophy Air Race was held 12 times between 1922 and 1936, with five editions at Selfridge.

“His brother, Col. Billy Mitchell, introduced the trophy to commemorate his brother’s legacy and promote airpower innovation,” wrote the 1st Fighter Wing in its press release about the event.

“The competition was fierce, and winning the race was one of the greatest honors a pilot could achieve,” added Joshua Lashley, the 1st Fighter Wing historian.

An F-22 Raptor aircraft, assigned to the 94th Fighter Squadron, departs Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan, Mar. 6, 2025. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Drew Schumann

Save for brief appearances at other bases in 1960, 1962, and 1998, the contest was for the most part abandoned until this year, when planners sought a new way to get Airmen ready for Agile Combat Employment (ACE). Using ACE, Airmen disperse to smaller air bases to complicate targeting for near-peer adversaries such as Russia and China.

“This is about replacing the logistical challenges we will face in a peer conflict, where our ability to move, adapt and fight in the face of numerous maintenance, support, weather and intelligence challenges, may very well determine mission success,” Col. Brandon Tellez, 1st Fighter Wing commander, said in a release.

The Mitchell race is not the first yesteryear tradition to get a recent refresh. In 2023, Air Combat Command brought back the William Tell Air-to-Air Weapons Meet, where fighter squadrons, maintainers, weapons loaders, intelligence analysts, and command and control experts from across the Air Force competed to be the best in the business in the world’s best Air Force.

“One of the feedback comments from one of the surveys was, ‘If William Tell ’25 doesn’t come back, there’s going to be a mutiny,’” Capt. Roberto ‘Super’ Mercado, an F-35 pilot from the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing, told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the time.

Lt. Col. Devil, a pilot assigned to the 94th Fighter Squadron, runs across the flight line at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan, Mar. 6, 2025. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Drew Schumann

The three teams in the Mitchell race represented the 27th, 71st, and 94th Fighter Squadrons, also known as the “Fightin Eagles,” the “Ironmen,” and the “Hat-in-the-Ring,” respectively.

The pilots and crews didn’t receive the mission until the morning of the race on March 6, wrote the 127th Wing, though the race writ large had been announced on social media in the weeks prior. The ground crews had to hustle to launch and arm the jets, which forced maintainers and pilots to work together “under realistic, stressful conditions,” wrote the 1st Fighter Wing.

After landing at Selfridge, it took about 30 minutes for the first pilot to sign the guest register, which was Capt. Marbro of the 27th Fighter Squadron. The two releases referred to the pilots by their rank and callsign for security reasons.

Capt. Marbro, an F-22 Raptor pilot with the 27th Fighter Squadron, signs the Selfridge guest book at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan, Mar. 6, 2025. U.S Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Chelsea E. FitzPatrick

The second pilot to reach the museum, Lt. Col. Devil, commander of the 94th Fighter Squadron, took the time to shake the hands of 20 bystanders there before returning to his jet, the Selfridge released noted.

A spokesperson for the 127th Wing declined to share how fast the F-22s flew to Michigan and back, citing security reasons, but the wing’s release said the jets made the whole trip, including ground time at Selfridge, in less than five hours. That’s much faster than the 1922 race, where the winner Lt. Donald Stace flew 100 miles at 148 miles per hour, the wing noted.

Despite his hand-shaking at the museum, Devil and his teammate, Capt. Rizz won the race for the 94th Fighter Squadron and the 94th Fighter Generation Squadron. While only one team could win the trophy, all seemed to enjoy the experience.

“We saw a level of excitement from Airmen that we don’t normally see, and competitors executed new tactics that we could implement in the future and possibly make us faster and more lethal fight,” said Lashley, the 1st Fighter Wing historian. “This is the benefit of true competition.”

Airmen from the 94th Fighter Squadron and Fighter Generation Squadron celebrate the unit’s victory and pose for a photo with the John L. Mitchell trophy at the end of the Mitchell Trophy Air Race at Langley Air Force Base, Va., Mar. 7, 2025. Photo via Facebook/1st Fighter Wing

LC-130 ‘Skibird’ Lands on Freshwater Ice as Air Force Prepares for More Arctic Operations

March 11, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Air Force’s LC-130 touched down on freshwater ice for the first time in decades, signaling the service’s leap in flexibility for “defensive or offensive operations” in the Arctic, according to a USAF official.

The New York Air National Guard landed the C-130 variant “Skibird” aircraft on frozen Parsons Lake in Inuvik, Canada on March 5, with support from Canadian forces. The landing was part of the joint exercise called Nanook-Nunalivut, designed to test the two nations’ Arctic force projection.

This marks the first freshwater ice landing of the tactical heavy-lifter in the 109th Airlift Wing’s history. In the late 1950s and early 1960s however, the early variant of C-130, the LC-130D was tested on frozen lakes near Bemidji in Minnesota, the wing spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The D models were later replaced by the H models in the 1980s.

Freshwater ice is denser and purer than seawater ice, which is more prone to cracks due to salt disrupting its crystal structure.

“Although our current regulations treat them the same, freshwater is structurally stronger, leading to thinner ice required to operate from,” the spokesperson said.

An aerial photo of the ski landing area and Arctic Camp on Parsons Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada, March 4. A ski landing area allowed the LC-130 Hercules to land on snow and ice using skis. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Jocelyn Tuller

While most of the Arctic is covered by saltwater ice, freshwater ice can form in lakes, rivers, and glacial areas within the region. The ability to land the Skibird on thinner ice opens up significant tactical advantages, providing “more locations to conduct defensive or offensive operations in the High North,” the spokesperson said.

“We are excited to see what the future holds for the LC-130 Hercules and 109th Airlift Wing as we continue to evolve our capabilities in the Arctic,” Lt. Col. Matthew Sala, the 109th deployed commander said in a release, noting the Skibird gives the U.S. access to areas otherwise inaccessible by conventional aircraft.

A LC-130 Hercules assigned to the 109th Airlift Wing flies over Parsons Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada, March 4. The LC-130 Hercules can land on snow and ice using skis. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Jocelyn Tuller

This also enables rapid deployment of personnel, equipment, and supplies to remote locations without runways. The Skibird is the world’s largest tactical aircraft capable of landing on snow and ice using skis, with a payload of up to 45,000 pounds. It’s primarily used for large-scale airlift missions in harsh conditions. Today, the 109th Airlift Wing operates all 10 LC-130s in service.

“Future operations may include recovering downed airmen and aircraft, establishing Arctic Forward Operating Locations on the ice, or resupplying land component forces in the High North,” the spokesperson added.

This joint exercise with Canadian forces began last month in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

The team of 12 Airmen from the 109th, Kentucky ANG’s 123rd, and Minnesota ANG’s 133rd Airlift Wings were able to build the ski landing area for LC-130H on the lake in just one day, with support from Canadian CC-138 Twin Otters, CH-147F Chinook, and CH-146 Griffon helicopters, the release noted.

U.S. Air National Guard airmen and Canadian Forces pose for a photo in front of a LC-130 Hercules from the 109th Airlift Wing, New York Air National Guard and a CC-138 Twin Otter attached to the 440 Transport Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force on March 7, Inuvik, Canada. The LC-130 Hercules and CC-138 Twin Otter aircraft are both able to land on snow and ice with skis. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Jocelyn Tuller

The New York ANG’s first participation of the exercise since 2016, comes amid simmering U.S.-Canada tensions following President Trump’s recent tariff hike on Canadian goods. Despite the political climate, the mission underscored a key lesson for the Airmen. “Integration with the joint force and multinational partners is critical to ensuring mission success,” the spokesperson said.

“We come together and operate, to learn from each other’s abilities to find ways to combine our knowledge to make a stronger force,” added Lt. Col. Steve Thompson of the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Air Task Force commander of the joint exercise.

Such collaborative effort is crucial in the region, as the Arctic’s harsh conditions present various logistical challenges, including the constant resupply of essentials like fuel, food, and equipment – all via airlift. Units from the New York and Minnesota ANG often undergo training in harsh weather, learning to set up base camps, conduct Arctic first aid, and groom ski-ways. In recent years, they’ve broadened their training sites to include Greenland and other sub-Arctic regions.

“Expanding training in northern Canada sharpens tactical aviators’ skills by leveraging this unique region, as practice is essential to iron out the joint force’s strengths and weaknesses before a national emergency,” said Houston Cantwell, a Senior Resident Fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Going forward, the Skibird’s expanding landing ability will enable the use of tactical airpower to sustain operations in small forward locations—a vital capability for moving and deploying military forces in these extreme conditions, according to Cantwell.

“The interoperability between the Twin Otter and LC-130 Hercules in the past has proven to be a very successful combination, and we look forward to working together again in the future,” Thompson added.

Both Russia and China have been ramping up their military presence in the Arctic in recent years. Last year, the two countries conducted a joint bomber mission near the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), marking a new level of joint operation. Russia also maintains permanent Arctic military bases and boasts the world’s largest icebreaker fleet, with over 57 ice-capable vessels. As the region warms three times faster than the global average, it will intensify military activity as well as competition for resources like natural gas, Cantwell explained.

“Operating in the High North also shows our commitment to the region and establishes a strong presence, which carries deterrent value,” Cantwell said.

Watch, Read: CSAF’s Strong Case for More Air Force

March 11, 2025

Gen. David W. Allvin, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, shared a revealing vision on the State of the Air Force at AFA’s Warfare Symposium March 3. In a forceful presentation, he made the case for why airpower is crucial to the Trump administration’s defense priorities, and why the nation needs “more Air Force.” Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Gen. David W. Allvin:

Good afternoon! It is great to be here. Great to be back in Denver. Seems like it was just a year ago we were here together.

Before I get started, I do want to mention something. I am reflecting on [Chief of Space Operations Gen. B Chance Saltzman’s] keynote and I got to tell you, I can never let that man in the arena quote pass without saying something about myself. You all should take a look at it. It’s from a speech called Citizens of the Republic, 23rd of April, 1910. It hangs in my office and it’s something that I aspire to all the time. And as Roosevelt talks about that, the man in the arena who dares to actually do the deeds, who his face is marred with dust and sweat and blood. He talks about all what it means. But then he says at the end, “What’s the reward for it?” This is my favorite part of the quote. He says, “At best, in the end, he knows the triumph of high achievement. And at worst, if he fails, he fails while daring greatly. So his place shall never be among those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Who wants to be one of those cold and timid souls? I would tell you that now is the time for daring greatly, and for anyone who wants to come into the arena, come on in, the water’s fine. So thanks for that, Salty.

Last year, we talked about, we were here with the previous administration. We talked about some 20-some decisions that were made and some of these were developed within the year prior with the previous administration and the previous secretary. Some of these were a few of these that have been brewing within me for a lot longer. Some of these are core to my thinking and my development and learning and understanding for almost a decade and sometimes more before. And really, it was this thesis that I think has come to bear out, that absent a galvanizing and focusing threat, our Air Force continued in its excellence to adapt to the environment. And that environment did not demand a unified integrated Air Force. It demanded specialties to have expertise, and we did it. We met that environment, but now we’re back in a different environment.

And so when I was thinking about what are the things that we need to do to ensure that we can meet the moment, it really came around this theme of “One Air Force.” What does “One Air Force” mean? It means an Air Force that trains together and is ready to go and fight on day one. It means an Air Force that has a single force design that can meet the threat. It means an Air Force that comes together with Airmen who are developed with one mindset, one culture ready to meet the threat. And I think I’m very proud of the progress that we made in some of those areas over the past year.

And so when we think about that, we’ve broken into four areas when it came to projecting power. And we talked about that in many ways, we’ve been doing the same thing for the past 20 years, is that we crowdsourced to the fight and we pulled the wings together from the air expeditionary wings from individual wings, and we meet in the fight and say, “Hi, how are [you] doing?” We can’t do that anymore. And so this idea of units of action, of deployable combat wings, is underway. We’ve already designated five of them and assigned the leadership. We have already put together the staffs to be able to have them ready to fight after their AFFORGEN [force generation] cycle in 2027. If you do that in 2027, you’ve got to start in 2025. But it’s a different way. The units train together, understanding they may be in a different environment, one that demands more to get the aircraft airborne than we’ve ever seen before.

Remember we’ve talked about the Air Task Forces that are sort of the building blocks from where we were before to where we’re going, that had some elements training together. We’ve already put three of those through our Combat Support Training Ranges. We have six of those designated. Two of them have already stood up. We put 2,000 Airmen through them. The feedback is unbelievable. The Airmen see where they fit now. They understand what’s going to be expected of them, the morale is high and we’re moving forward on that. Could not be more excited about that. And that continues to move forward.

In the area of generating readiness, remember we talked about mission readiness rather than just functional readiness. We had already started on that path before last year happened. The initiation of the bigger Red Flag exercises and the Bamboo Eagles. It’s got even more and better. I will tell you over the past year, we’ve done two of these capstone Bamboo Eagle exercises. They’re remarkable. [The U.S.] Air Force is leading, but Air Force is not alone in the way that we’ve been exercising these. These have been joint and coalition with our British and Australian counterparts exercising with us. We’ve used aircraft carriers, destroyers, attack submarines have been integrated into it. [U.S. Army] Multi-domain Task Force, satellites all coming together and solving harder problems about complex missions. We’re doing that now in a way we understand where our shortfalls are, where our gaps are, where our vulnerabilities are and where our strengths are. We’re unlocking some difficult things like joint battle management. What does that actually look like to be able to operate in a theater of war and in the context of a high-end war that is going to be more complex than we’ve ever seen?

And this summer, we expect to have that capstone exercise, one we haven’t seen the likes of since the Cold War, where we put it all together in an even larger way in REFORPAC, Resolute Forces Pacific—if we get the money. Come on, Congress, you can do it. Come through for us. That’s going to be like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

But the readiness is not just in the exercises, it’s in the way our mindset, what we inspect. So we have moved away from compliance inspections and unit effectiveness. It’s about mission readiness. And at the command level, we’ve already done 42 combat readiness inspections, and we’ve been learning from every one of these. And at the wing level, the grassroots level, they’ve developed and executed over 70 combat readiness exercises to prepare for these. This is getting the mindset right. This is thinking about how we do the mission rather than our specific function. We are moving forward on generating readiness to meet the threat. And that’s happened over the past year. Could not be more proud.

We talked about developing people. What a banner year. In 2024, I was here and I said, “I think we’re going to make 2024.” We did, even after we moved the goalposts. In 2025, we said, “20 percent more. Can you do it?” Our recruiters are out there, they are getting it done. We’ve had record months in December, January, and February. Airmen are coming into our formation in record numbers. For the last 15 years, we haven’t seen anything like this. And when they come here, they get a different experience than they did five years ago. Our basic military training has doubled the expeditionary time, teaching them different skills, letting our Airmen coming into our formation know that what it means to be an Airman in the United States Air Force now is something different. You have to have a more robust set of mission-set level skills.

Our officer training school is doing the same in their OTS-Victory. Several more of these peer-threat-based scenarios that they’re learning and getting integrated in focusing on what the threat is going to be. And as we do that, our Airmen know that now to be an Airman, you need to understand more things like airfield security. You need to be able to understand how to do things like counter-small UAS, like rapid runway repair, like casualty movement. That’s part of what it means to be an Airman and generate combat power in the theater. And as you saw there at the end, we’re putting the cutting-edge tools in their hands.

More and more, we’re leveraging virtual reality, augmented reality, and the tools that allow our Airmen to learn how they know how to learn, optimized for them so they can be the best Airmen, most competent, as well as rounded out beyond their function, beyond their technical expertise, which they have to be the best to be more mission-ready in a broader area. They’re still coming, folks. They’re still trying out for the team, and our team’s getting better and better every year.

And finally, when it comes to developing capabilities, nobody develops equipment like we do. Nobody develops dominant platforms like we do, exhibit A, but we’re also looking as we’re very excited about the B-21 progress and how it continues to excel in flight tests. We’re looking at different ways to execute the same mission. We’re going beyond just single platforms equal single things. Maybe there’s different ways to provide combat effects, understanding what that is, embracing and leaning into human machine teaming, understanding what autonomy can actually do for us, knowing that’s going to be a part of our future.

And now we have two prototypes of collaborative combat aircraft that were on paper less than a couple of years ago. They’re going to be ready to fly this summer. And for the first time in our history, we have a fighter designation in the YFQ-42A and the YFQ-44A. Maybe just symbolic, but it’s telling the world that we are leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare, and it means collaborative combat aircraft. It means human machine teaming. We’re developing those capabilities thinking mission first.

The other thing that we’ve done is we stood up the Integrated Capabilities Command (Provisional), and that’s commanded by Major Gen. Mark Mitchum. Has a small team under him and we gave him some very specific tasks. And these tasks are on a building block to a larger envisioned Integrated Capabilities Command. And I’ll talk about that in a second. But in this particular Integrated Capabilities Command (Provisional), they have tough task because we are again moving from building capabilities in pieces to understand how they come together in a mission thread, stitching together the great capability development that happens in Langley [Air Force Base, Va., headquaters of Air Combat Command], at Scott [Air Force Base, Ill. headquaters of Air Mobility Command], at Barksdale [Air Force Base, La., headquaters of Global Strike Command], at Hurlburt [Field, Fla., headquaters of Air Force Special Operations Command], at other places, and understanding how that weaves into an overall mission thread. And when you do that, you’re putting together something where the mission outcomes matter and we can see where our shortfalls are because right now, when we’re putting the pieces together, at the very end, we may miss some things as we’re developing all of our capabilities—which MAJCOM is the lead MAJCOM for base defense. These are parts of our mission that we understand whether they’re ours to do or someone else’s to do or ours to do together. The sooner we stitch together what it means to be a mission, to have a mission outcome and where those shortfalls are, whether it’s ours to do or someone else, the clearer the case can be for everyone to understand. And we can build a force that has mission outcomes over platform outcomes. Systems first over platforms, mission over function. This is where we’re going with developing capabilities. But right now, we’re at that point where we just have the Integrated Capabilities Command (Provisional).

There was some planning that was going to be underway going forward to have an Integrated Capabilities Command, but that planning has been on pause. And there are other things that we’ve paused because we have a new administration in place, and soon we’re going to have a new Secretary of the Air Force and a new Undersecretary of the Air Force. And they certainly have the right and the responsibility to be able to look over all of the things that we’ve done. And as we look to future planning, they should be able to have the chance to review that. And we should be able to show them how what we’re doing works for the future. And I believe that when they come in and they’re in place and they look at it, I believe the evaluation criteria should be this. If we look at what’s going on and how we’re moving forward, if it doesn’t align with the Secretary of Defense’s priorities, then we ought to ask ourselves if we’re doing it, why we’re doing it. So what are those priorities? Well, I could tell you, but I’d rather you hear it from the secretary himself.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Audio):

One, restore the warrior ethos to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force. In doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military. Number two, we’re going to rebuild our military, always matching threats to capabilities. This includes reviving our defense industrial base, reforming the acquisitions process as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, no more valley of death for new defense companies, modernizing our nuclear triad, ensuring the Pentagon can pass an audit, and rapidly fielding merging technologies. And number three, we’re going to reestablish deterrence. First and foremost, we will defend our homeland, our borders, and our skies. Second, we will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific from the Communist Chinese. And finally, we will responsibly end wars to ensure that we prioritize our resources to reorient to larger threats.

Gen. David W. Allvin:

Pretty clear. Pretty clear. And I will tell you, when I look at the things I just described, they couldn’t fit more neatly into this. Reviving the warrior ethos? How could it not be more reviving the warrior ethos than to let every Airman know what it means to fight as a unit and what’s going to be expected of them focused on the threat and changing the way we bring Airmen into our formation to make sure they’re aligned and developed with a warrior ethos in mind.

Rebuilding the military, we just talked about that. Absolutely. Unleashing the innovative potential of all of America to be able to build a force that is agile enough to be able to adapt to the threat and understand the missions required. That’s Integrated Capabilities Command.

Reestablishing deterrence, 100 percent demonstrating to our allies, to our partners, and to our adversaries that we have the will, we have the capability, and that we will continue to have an effective deterrence, whether it be a nuclear deterrence or conventional deterrence to meet our national security interests.

So I’m confident, and I actually look forward to when we get a confirmed secretary and undersecretary because I have a hunch that when they see some of these things we’re doing, we’re going to be told to go faster. Don’t have to tell me twice. Definitely looking forward to this.

So that’s really where we are since last year and some of the progress we’ve made at “One Air Force.: But in the meantime, your Air Force continues to kick butt. Our Airmen are doing amazing things every day. They make it look just normal. Six weeks after we were here last year, the events of mid-April, I think people still underappreciate the unprecedented salvo from Iran that our Airmen controlled the skies, worked with their allies and partners in the region, and did something incredible and made it look easy. And ladies and gentlemen, that’s a little bit of a curse. Somebody’s going to applaud it. So go. It was amazing what they did. Never want to get in the way of that. But I’ll tell you, it’s a little bit of a curse.

When you understand and when you peel it back a little bit, it was individual Airmen doing incredible things that the end result was just, oh yeah, they protect the skies again, but I’m telling you, it was amazing. We need to keep that in mind. And that day, in every day since, they’ve controlled the skies in the Middle East and taken a dynamic and dangerous environment and kept it from exploding into a larger war. They’ve been doing that every single day.

Every single day, our Airmen out in the Indo-Pacific are working with their allies and partners, are demonstrating our capability to work together to be more interoperable than our potential adversaries thought we could be, to work together to show that a free and open Indo-Pacific is what we’re committed to, we have the will, we have the capabilities, and we will resolve to continue that. Every single day, they’ve been doing that.

Every single day, we’ve been Operation Noble Eagle protecting the skies of our homeland.

Every single day, we’ve been protecting our nuclear weapons and capabilities and they’ve been down in the silos every single day preserving that nuclear deterrence and ready to turn the key if that worst day ever happens. Every single day, our Airmen are doing that.

We’re a well-used Air Force and we’ve been used well and used often, but our Airmen, every time we ask them to do more, they continue to do more. So we owe them to focus that more on the right things. But that’s what our Air Force has been doing. And that comes at a cost, and some of those costs are coming home to roost. And so we have some challenges that we have to work through.

One of the areas, when we look at some of the levers that we might have, to be able to ensure that our Air Force is the most lethal, is the most capable and continues to be the most dominant force on the face of the planet. And here’s some of those levers, but we don’t often have as much control over those levers as we’d like.

Let’s talk about the first one, infrastructure. Two words: too much. We have too much infrastructure. When you look at that between the vertical, which is structures, and some of the horizontal, that’s the ramp infrastructures, that’s just one depiction of an Air Force that’s carrying 20 to 30 percent too much. All of that is not adding to combat capability. All of that is infrastructure that needs to be maintained, sustained, and doesn’t necessarily provide more combat lethality. And oh, by the way, we need more Airmen to do that as well. That’s Airmen not doing that. So we’ve got work to do.

How did we get here? Well, it’s a long story, a long story in time, but it’s been the same story. Since the ’90s, since the Gulf War, 60 percent fewer fighter squadrons, 40 percent fewer Airmen and only 15 percent fewer installations. That math doesn’t work. So we’ve got to get to work. We need to make better use of the infrastructure and make sure the infrastructure that we have to maintain and we have to have our Airmen protect and support is that which contributes to our lethality and our combat effectiveness.

Force structure, the other tale of woe, trying to have a modernization profile that allows us to keep on the cutting edge of our capabilities. We’ve been less than successful in having the ability to modernize on the path that we’d like, so this is the story. AA equals aircraft availability. Not surprisingly, as the age of the fleet continues to go up, our aircraft availability continues to drop.

You wouldn’t know this on the front line. You didn’t know this in CENTCOM. You don’t know this in Operation Noble Eagle. You don’t know this on the front lines because of the miracles that are going on from our maintainers and those who are sustaining. We’re making it look easy. We’re eating into whatever margin that we had and this is where we are. Our Air Force continues to be the most dominant on the planet. I don’t want to be here next year or have the next Chief or the one after that say we’re no longer. So we’ve got to work on this. We’ve got to work on this.

End strength, that’s another place. That’s another lever you can pull. Well, this goes all the way back since the Cold War, and that first drop is understandable. It seems like it’s marginal with some more decreases, but something a lot of people don’t realize is some of the decisions made by the previous administration for different investments, we’ve dropped quite a bit. So those chickens are going to come home to roost as well. So as we think about that, we just need to be mindful of that as well.

There’s the last lever that’s getting overused. We’ve been using it because you can take it a little bit at a time, and that’s some of these foundational accounts. This is about all the weapons system sustainment, which leads to the flying hour program and the money that it takes to do the facility sustainment, restoration, and modernization of the too much infrastructure that we have. So weapon sustainment costs are growing. We keep trying to put more in, but guess what, team? We’re not getting more out of it because older aircraft find new and interesting ways to break. And newer aircraft have a big glut of initial parts and that sort of stuff that comes with them. So we are not getting more weapons sustainment for the dollar that we have right now, and this is a challenge. And when they’re older, you have to do more maintenance actions on them. Those are maintenance actions per flying hour. And then the other one is these are man-hours to do those maintenance actions per flying hour. It’s not surprising they’re older. It’s more complicated to keep them running. So if you can’t fly, you get less flying hours.

This is not sustainable. This is not sustainable.

We got work to do on all these, but in the meantime, your Air Force is just kicking butt. These are things that we need to do to make sure our Air Force can continue to dominate.

So you’ve heard me say things like, “I think we need more Air Force.” I do think we need more Air Force. Do you think we need more Air Force? A couple of hands up there. Yes, we do need more Air Force. Well, what does that look like? Sometimes it’s, “Wait, Allvin, don’t you understand? We’re doing cut drills here. We’re doing this and that and the other.” Let me tell you more. Air Force doesn’t just mean more of the same, which is one of the reasons we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for the last year. More Air Force means the Air Force you have, more of your Airmen are focused on the threat. More of your infrastructure is all focused on, this is what we need to work on, is all focused on combat, not just excess infrastructure. It means a more agile force design that allows you to leverage more of industry and be able to work across the spectrum in a way that you can sustain. It’s an Air Force that has more options.

It’s also an Air Force that has more people when we need it and we’re able to do that. But more Air Force does not just mean more, but sometimes it does. And I believe we also do need more.

Here’s why I believe that we need more Air Force. I think America needs more Air Force. And why do I say that? Because what more Air Force means is more defense of the homeland, more defense of the homeland. For almost a quarter of century, we’ve been defending the skies against threats, Operation Noble Eagle and the like. But you know what? Those threats are getting more numerous. They’re getting more complex. They’re getting more dense and our country is more and more at risk than we ever have been before. So this is something we cannot take for granted. This is a sacred duty that we have to the nation, is protecting the homeland from threats to the air. And it’s only going to get more complicated. So President Trump’s Golden Dome? Yes, absolutely. There’s a huge part for Air Force to play. So more Air Force means more defense of the homeland. We own the air domain.

It means more effective nuclear deterrence, two-thirds of the triad and three-fourths of the nuclear command and control of communications. We own the nuclear deterrence. So more Air Force means more nuclear deterrence.

Since October 1959, our Airmen have been in the silos. Ever since then, we’ve been developing the bombers, the tankers, the munitions, all those things to ensure that we have an effective and safe nuclear deterrent. We’ve got a third actor that’s had a breakout recently that now we have to think about two near peers in the nuclear era, which means we have to have the most reliable, the most safe, the most effective nuclear deterrent. That means Sentinel, yes. B-21, yes. That means the munitions, yes. That means [E-4C] SAOC, yes. That means all the NC-3, yes—all of those things. I think we need more Air Force because I do believe we need more nuclear deterrence for our nation. Also, a solemn responsibility. It’s not an option. It’s why you have an Air Force.

Finally, I think we need more options for the president, and that’s what airpower provides—everything from rapid response to decisive victory. That is what “Airpower Anytime, Anywhere” means. It’s not just an aspiration; it’s a promise that we have to uphold.

We have to sustain and maintain the ability to go anytime, anywhere in the most dense threat environment and be able to … put a warhead on a forehead anywhere the president might want. That is what we need to do. That’s why we need more Air Force for more options for the president. And this is a more balanced capability mix. So we aren’t necessarily putting million-dollar missiles against thousand-dollar targets. This is a balanced capability mix.

But here’s the real value proposition I want to put by you. Here’s the thing we shouldn’t forget. Here’s something that is unique to the Air Force in my mind. This range of options, this full spectrum is something we do better than anyone else. And in this time we definitely need it.

The Air Force is like a great boxer. When you’ve got a bad guy considering doing bad actions, the Air Force is the most responsive. So we’ve got the ability to pop the jab. And I might give them a shot in the face and they may think, “Maybe I might want to rethink my position. Maybe I might want to reevaluate what I thought was the right move or not.” And you know what that is? Maybe we’re re-establishing deterrence. Yes. But if not, we’re already back in fighting stance.

And you know what? We haven’t committed hundreds of thousands of forces over there, getting entangled in something that may take us years to get out of, and loss of blood and treasure. Your Air Force provides that opportunity without the escalation threat.

And oh, by the way, if that didn’t convince them, we’ve got another jab, we’ve got the hook, we’ve got the uppercut, we’ve got the right cross, and we’ve got the freaking haymaker.

So we can take it across the entire spectrum. And if it’s fighting with a joint force, we take a lot of them there if they’ve got to get fast. That’s what your Air Force does. That’s what airpower does. We can’t lose sight of that. And if we’re in this dangerous and dynamic time, I want to give the President as many options as we possibly can. So that means, yes, keep on the modernization. Yes, NGAD. Yes, CCA. Yes, survivable bases. Yes to all that. And yes to taking care of our Airmen because that’s what it’s going to take. …

I’m sure you’re fired up about this stuff. So we really talked about it’s every day that I’m in this seat, I’m going to be striving to do everything we can with our extant force to make sure we are about “One Air Force.” And when our Airmen are asked to do more, which they have been, we want to make sure that more is focused in the right direction for a warrior ethos, focused on the threat, looking left and right and know that they have the horizontal accountability that they’re about their wingmen, their teammate. That’s what we’re going to do.

I think it’s also my responsibility to advocate for more Air Force of all kinds. The more Air Force I talked about, getting more out of it and making sure all of the things that aren’t adding to combat capability are not there anymore. And we focus on that. And sometimes it’s about asking for more Air Force if you truly believe that we need more Air Force. I think that’s my responsibility as well.

As we do that. The one thing we can never lose sight of [is] these things are great, but the decisive one is the fact that Americans keep signing up saying they want to join the team. And the team that is the United States Air Force continues to be the best in the world. They show up every day, they do what they’re asked, they do it with excellence, they do it in a way that makes us all proud.

This is “One Air Force.” This is more Air Force. This is your Air Force. Thanks very much.