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der to align itself more closely with the Air Force’s newly articulated mission and priorities, Air Mobility Command on Monday issued a new mission statement, saying its purpose is to “provide global air mobility . . . right effects, right place, right time.” The command also updated its focus areas to read: “win today’s fight as part of the joint/coalition force, develop and care for our airmen and families, enhance nuclear mission support, optimize mobility partnerships,” and “prepare mobility forces for the future.” All five areas are of equal value, AMC said. Gen. Arthur Lichte, AMC head, said in a release the new mission statement “better illustrates” the effects of AMC’s wide range of activities. “The fact is,” he continued, “the AMC mission often produces intangible deliverables that weren’t captured in the command’s previous mission statement.” Lichte said, although the language of the mission statement and focus areas is new, the meaning of both should be “very familiar” to mobility airmen. “They were not developed as a new direction for Air Mobility Command, but a sharpening of our focus on what we deliver for mission success,” he said. In August, the Air Force leadership issued a new mission statement, stating that USAF’s purpose is “to fly, fight, and win . . . in air, space, and cyberspace.” In September, Gen. Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff, presented the service’s new priorities: reinvigorate the nuclear enterprise, partner with the joint and coalition team to win today’s fight, develop and care for airmen and their families, modernize aging air and space inventories, and acquisition excellence. The language on the nuclear enterprise and acquisition was new at the time.
For the Space Force and the U.S. writ large, the mission of position, navigation, and timing has become synonymous with three letters: GPS. That is likely to change in the coming years, as service officials described plans this week for a whole host of alternative systems, or alt-PNT.