A New Type of Fight: The Air Force
is working with its sister services and coalition partners on a study called “Effective Warfighting in a Contested Environment.” The ultimate goal is to focus the overall discussion on what it takes to operate in a contested environment, recommend new strategies, tactics, and approaches to operating in such an environment, and come up with a list of materiel solutions that can be implemented in the next three to five years, said Randall Walden, director of information dominance programs in the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Office for Acquisition. Speaking at AFA’s Air & Space Conference Sept. 18, Walden said most Air Force operators have never operated in a non-permissive environment. So, officials need to figure out “what capabilities we believe have been degraded and how we can adjust our tactics and/or materiel solutions to allow us to buy back some of that in a contested environment.” The study kicked off in July and is expected to be completed in February.
USAFA Board Seeks More Cadets, New Facilities
Feb. 17, 2026
The U.S. Air Force Academy needs to grow its cadet corps by 10 percent and build a “home” for the U.S. Space Force in lieu of an entirely new service academy, a congressionally mandated oversight committee wrote in a new report, along with a slew of other recommendations.
