Watch, Read: Kunkel Talks F-47, CCA Integration & the Future Force Design
April 25, 2025
The Air Force Chief of Staff is demanding “more Air Force”—a clarion call that is heard and executed on every day by the Director of Force Design, Integration, and Wargaming, Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, and his Airmen at Air Force Futures.
Kunkel joined AFA for an Air & Space Warfighters in Action event on April 24, 2025, where he discussed how wargaming informs force design; which capabilities, like AI and autonomy, play the biggest role in the wars of today and tomorrow; how the Air Force plans to integrate new aircraft like the F-47 into its fleet; and more.
Watch:
Transcript:
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Welcome to Air & Space Warfighters in Action. I’m Burt Field, President and CEO of your Air & Space Forces Association. Thank you to everyone joining us online this morning as we talked to Major General Joe Kunkel. As Director of Force Design, Integration and Wargaming, General Kunkel helped shape the future of the Air Force. From force design to capability development to emerging technologies, General Kunkel is focused on making sure the Air Force stays ahead of its adversaries. Before we start, I wanna give special thanks to our industry sponsors listed here on the screen. Because of them, AFA’s Warfighters in Action series is possible. Thank you all for your continued support. And thank you, General Kunkel. I thought as before we started, I’d give you an opportunity to share a few opening remarks with the rest of us, and then we can get into some questions.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Sure, sir. Happy to be here. I just wanted to say thanks so much for allowing us to come tell this Air Force story. You know, we are on the verge of something great. We’ve got the right people in place to develop the right capabilities. We’ve figured out what it takes to win, and we are aggressively pursuing those things. So an opportunity to tell our story is just fantastic. So appreciate you letting us be here.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
You bet. And we’re gonna talk about all of those things, and we’ll just jump right into it.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, sounds great.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So General Allvin’s been pretty vocal at our Warfare Symposium out in Denver. He said, his message was, we need, the nation needs more Air Force. And here at AFA, we couldn’t agree more. But I know with your force design work and the war gaming efforts, you probably have maybe discovered we might need more Air Force, but we also might need a little different kind of Air Force. Different capabilities due to the threat, as well as improved versions of our current capabilities. What are your efforts uncovering in that regard?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, I would like to like take a step back in history and compare ourselves to a different time period. You know, coming out of Vietnam, we looked at an Air Force that was probably just not the right size and the right shape for the fights that we thought we were gonna go to in the future. You know, we were looking across the Atlantic Ocean. We saw the Soviet Union. We saw this great Russian bear in the Warsaw Pact. And you know, we were looking at the Fulda Gap, and we were looking at a massive amount of tanks that were gonna storm into Europe. And we weren’t where we needed to be. And so if you take a look at the capabilities that were developed in the, you know, the late ’70s, early ’80s, that frankly we’ve been operating ever since, that was the last time we took a big swing at a force design, all right? And we built stuff that we’ve dominated our adversaries with ever since. You know, we built low-altitude night navigation. We built precision weapons with laser-guided bombs, and then GPS-guided bombs. We built stealth. We built the F-117, then the F-35, and the F-22, and the B-2. We built all these capabilities that frankly, me and my buddies that have had 30-year careers have been using to dominate our adversaries for that time. So now we look at ourselves coming out of 30 years of fighting, you know, the Middle East fight, and though that force design wasn’t designed for the Middle East, it’s performed pretty dang well over there, but we’re looking at it going, wow, we’re probably not the right size, we’re probably not the right shape for this fight that we might have to fight against a different peer adversary. And so this force design is taking a different look. It’s just like in the past, we’re taking a look at the threat, and we’re looking at how the threat impacts us, and we’re designing to that. And so what you’ll find is, some of the capabilities will be the same, but some of the capabilities will look fundamentally different than what we’ve done in the past.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. So as you look at those capabilities, and you war game this out, I’m sure you’re looking at what other services bring to the fight. So one of those other services close to the Air Force is the Space Force. So how are you guys working with the Space Force and looking at what capabilities we need in the future in space to either support or how we support them as we continue this fight in the future?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
So this is a joint fight, and it always will be. And I don’t think from here on, no service goes out alone, right? So you’ve got to develop capabilities that contribute to joint warfighting. And the capabilities that we’re looking at, weapons ranges are getting longer and longer. And we used to think about platform level integration and having the best platforms as a key to combat success. Well, in the future, our combat success is gonna largely be based on who can develop the best system. And when I say system, I’m talking about kill chains and long range weapons. And when you have long range weapons, you’re not gonna cue the sensor, cue the weapon from your F-22 or your F-35 or your B-2, you’re gonna use other capabilities. And some of those capabilities are gonna be space-based. And so the integration between space and air, and also our other partners in the Marine Corps and the Navy, and potentially the Army as well, the integration of those capabilities is something we’re gonna see more and more of. But our integration with the Space Force couldn’t be closer. They’ve gone through their own change, going from essentially a merchant Marine to a Navy that has combat capabilities, that combat capability integration between space-based, as well as that Air Force air capabilities is what’s gonna be really powerful in the future.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Oh, that’s good. Great.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
We’re close. Very close.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So in keeping with that in the force design, looking broadly, so we can look at two different parts of the spectrum. So one end right now is efforts that are going on, the fight in the Ukraine and the fight in the Middle East. And so you can look at what’s currently happening right now. And then you can look at the promise of the future with autonomy and AI. How do you, in your force design work, reconcile the lessons of today with the promise of tomorrow?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
So we’re looking at both sides of that equation. You look at the current fight in Ukraine and just a couple things. If there was air superiority, if either side had air superiority, that fight would have been over in three weeks. All right, so the Air Force, Air Forces would have totally changed the complexion of that fight. However, so we don’t wanna learn, we don’t wanna take everything from that fight, but there are some things we can learn. And the current fights where we’ve been focusing is, what are the trends? What are the trends that we’re seeing in conflict and how can we adopt some of those trends? What trends need to be adopted? And then what trends are frankly not something that might just be a flash in the pan? What is enduring and what is not enduring? That’s how we’re looking at the current fights. We’re seeing what works and then what doesn’t work. I will tell you the extensive use of drones, that is something that we’re looking at and we’re going, wow, there’s something there. And when we look at what the Air Force does, like what it does, what it does, the Air Force does air superiority. The Air Force does air denial. The Air Force does interdiction. Those are fundamental Air Force missions. But how we do them, we shouldn’t really be stuck on how we do them. You might do them with a B-2, you might do it with a drone. Interdiction, the way it’s completed might be in a completely different manner than it was in the past. And I think that’s something we can learn from those trend lines in other fights. You can imagine if you will, this fight in Yemen, the fight in Yemen right now, that is an air campaign. It is an air campaign. How we conduct that air campaign with a set of capabilities that are performing interdiction, that are performing counter air, that are performing this counter IADS-like mission, we need to think differently about how those things are coming together. So that’s where I think you can start drawing trend lines from current fights. But you’re right, technology is changing. And there are new things coming on board. There’s artificial intelligence, there’s manned, unmanned teaming. All those things are coming together. And we’ve got to take advantage of those and see where the trends and where technology intersects. Those are the areas that we’re looking at for those few things.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So just to follow on to that, we haven’t talked about this earlier, but in the Middle East, two huge attacks on Israel from Iran, one in April, one to follow on in October. And I’m sure there’s some lessons learned from that for the Air Force ’cause you were part of it. And then the way Israel approaches that problem, the way we approach that problem, how that blended together. Is there anything that you can share with us on that in terms of that’s changing or it’s reinforcing how we’re looking in that future?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, there’s a couple of things there and probably some good. And then somewhere we looked at and went, well, maybe we need to change how we’re doing things. First off, the Air Force performed splendidly in that scenario. And if you haven’t heard the story of our Airmen and what they did in April, it’s absolutely incredible. And if it hadn’t been a warfighter talk, it probably needs to be. So there’s just a plug for those guys. They did fantastic work and represented our nation, represented the Air Force fantastically. A couple of things that we saw. One is it was hard to shut down air bases, right? It was hard to shut them down completely. And people talk that, yeah, maybe air bases are gonna be shut down. I think this whole thought and the whole thought of air bases being shut down is probably we’re just not where we need to be on the terminology and what it is. It’s not potentially Air Force bases being shut down, but reliably generating combat power from them on a pace and a consistency and a tempo is something that we need to look at. And so that’s where we’ve approached this differently. It’s like, all right, it may not be shutting the base down, but we need to think about how it impacts reliable generation of combat power. So that’s one area. The other thing that we saw is, I mean, we’re in potentially a cost imposing strategy against us. If we’re shooting multimillion dollar missiles against multi-thousand dollar drones, we’re in this cost imposition that doesn’t make sense for us. And we’ve been pursuing cheaper weapons in a mix of affordable mass for a long time. But that just, it was one more example where it’s like, hey, this affordable mass, there’s something to it. We need to figure out how to do it so we don’t find ourselves on depleting weapons when frankly we don’t need to.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
And that’s part of this force design and wargaming stuff that you guys are looking at for the future.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
It actually is. And it goes into the defense industrial base and how quickly we can produce weapons. And what kind of weapons we can produce. And then how quickly we’re using those weapons on the battlefield. And I’ve said it in other forums. What we don’t want is, we don’t want to put our Airmen in a position where the exquisite weapons they have on day one turn into moderately exquisite weapons on day 15. And then by day 30, they’re out of exquisite weapons and they’re dropping Mark 82s and dumb bombs that we’ve had since World War II. We want to put them in a position where this weapons portfolio we have is pretty solid and you can count on it being the same from day one through day 600 if required.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Great. Okay, so there’s been discussion on the force design as the framework. And that as you iterate it, it maintains its relevancy. So how are you assured that this force design is gonna be really, how does that make you feel better about the future? How does it make you sure that we’re on the right track?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah. Excellent point. And we’ve looked at this force design from a number of different perspectives. And the first thing we did, and we started this force design journey years and years and years ago, right? This isn’t something that just popped up six months ago. But our fundamental assumption and what we were looking at in the past is, hey, the Air Force was created perfectly in 1947. So if you just recreate it over and over again, you’re gonna be in good shape, right? So because we had a P-51, we probably need an F-86, an F-100, an F-4, and replace that with an F-15 and then an F-22, and now an F-47, you’ll be okay. And the same with our bombers and the same with our tankers and AWACS. What we did in this force design is we took a fundamental step back. We didn’t say, hey, all we need to look at is capability and capacity. We said, what we need to look at is how the threat impacts us. How the threat impacts us and how we wanna impact them. And that results in a fundamentally different approach to force design, where you start thinking about attributes of capabilities. You don’t look at specific capabilities. And then from those attributes, you can start designing specific platforms and systems that have those attributes. And when you start designing for attributes, you get yourself to a point where you have something that’s enduring. What we didn’t wanna do is have a force design that works for the next five years and maybe the next 10 years, but then after that, you need to switch to something else. We wanted something that was enduring, and we wanted something that you can mature over time with different platforms and you can plug and play as a strategic environment change. And that’s where we are. And the force design we’re at now, it’s mature. It’s mature. We know what it takes to win. To your point, we’ve used a significant amount of war gaming, we’ve got analysis. And war gaming has matured since the early days of, hey, I argue one point, you argue another, and then we decide who wins. There’s actual mission level modeling, computer-based, model-based simulation that’s going on that’s helping us out to make sure it’s mature. Okay, so with that force design, and you’re talking about capabilities, at some point we have to turn this into a concept of operation. So back to the joint world and kind of flowing that, the joint fight with the force design, 10, 15 years ago we were talking about air-sea battle with the Navy in a Pacific scenario. So now I would assume that you guys are talking about air, sea, space battle type of thing. And so now you’re working on this con-ops. You’re working on how do I bring that force design in? How does that work? Or does it? Or have you guys got that for you? It does work, and we are nascent, but we are getting there. The methodology and the framework that we’ve developed, where we look at the threat and how it impacts us, not only in the air, which is what we’ve always done, we’ve always looked at the threat and how it impacts our air operations, and we’ve developed capabilities to counter the adversary in the air. But we’re also looking at how the threat impacts us and how we force generate. That framework that I’ve passed all to my Navy and Marine Corps and Space Force buddies, they’re all like, there is something to this. And so as we look at the future and we’re fighting as gonna be joint, we talked about that, we’re fighting as gonna be joint, there is something to a new joint framework, a new joint concept, a new joint force design. And you’re seeing not only efforts within the joint staff, but also grassroots efforts among the services as I continue to participate with my peers on developing that.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
And so you’re working actively like with the Navy or with the Army and–
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, that’s right. The Navy, most of their works in N-9 and N-7, so I won’t name them by name ’cause I don’t wanna incriminate them here on this, but I’m working with my buddies there. And then the Marine Corps War Fighting Lab down at Quantico, that’s where their brain trust is, where they’re talking about their futures and we’re working very closely with them. So we’ve got a fantastic relationship. And then I will name out Russ Parch and Dennis Bythewood from the Space Force. And we have regular sinks where we’re making sure that we’re on track. And in addition to that, there’s capability development, joint capability development activities that are happening between the services. We’re in a good place when it comes to that jointness. And I’m confident you will see a new air, space, sea, battle concept, a new joint warfighting design coming from the services where that integration is happening. And most of it is grassroots. The services are recognizing it and then coming together.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So as you guys work together and you go through force design concepts, you talk to each other conceptually, you go through some concept of operations development, you’ve got these concepts, but now how are you gonna take the concepts and then shift them into requirements that are gonna go be acquired by our, the way we do it to actually field things, systems that are gonna go out and actually perform all this. How does that, are you guys looking at different ways of doing that? Are you looking at speeding it up? You’re looking at different ways of how you think about it?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely we are. And a lot of it’s coming from the war games that we’re doing and the war games that we’re doing, they’re joint war games. We’re not going in alone on it. We don’t go, hey, the Air Force is gonna win by itself. So we’re gonna do a joint war game that proves how the Air Force wins. And when we do a war game, we invite all our partners from the other services in so we can have that dialogue and talk about what’s gonna win and what’s not gonna, what’s essentially not gonna win. From these joint war games, we start translating that into, well, hey, we need to go from a concept into actual kit. Things that Airmen, Guardians, sailors, marines can actually utilize, fielded systems. How do you do that? Well, there’s gotta be a capability development that’s a joint capability development. I don’t know that it necessarily needs to be an organization but there does need to be a process where you bring the services together to talk through joint capability development. And we’re doing that through a couple homegrown organizations. These grassroots organizations, we recognized several years ago that, well, the first one we did was long range kill chains. Long range kill chains is gonna be who we are in the future. There’s gonna be longer range weapons. Not one service is gonna own the entirety of the kill chain. There could be like a search from space with tracking initially from space, a weapon that gets released off of an Air Force aircraft that’s taken updates from space. And then eventually it needs to get into terminal guidance and maybe we have some of our Marine Corps friends that have end game sensing or something that can get us to terminal guidance of a weapon. Those types of kill chains, you can’t do those independently. You gotta do them the same. So we built a grassroots effort called the Joint Long Range Kill Chain Organization or JLO. And that JLO organization has matured to a point where we are understanding what the joint standards are that is leading to individual requirements for capabilities. We’ve since expanded that. We’re now looking at long range, I’m sorry. We’re now looking at counter targeting. This counter targeting and how you defeat adversary kill chains in the future is gonna be really important. So that’s another one of those things where no service can go it alone. There’s probably capabilities in space. There’s probably capabilities that the Air Force employs. There’s probably capabilities that the Navy needs to employ so that you’re countering the adversary not just at one point in the kill chain, but along the kill chain. And so we’ve developed another JLO-like entity for counter targeting. And I think you’ll see in the very near term another one for what we’re calling in the Air Force Missionary One capabilities or asymmetric capabilities. I think you’ll see that soon. So there’s a lot of efforts that are going on to ensure that this joint requirements is coming along and joint capability development is coming along.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
That sounds great. It brings up another question. And as you were talking, I was just thinking about it. I don’t know a lot about the long range kill chains, but I’m guessing there’s a lot of things involved in it. And there’s a lot of assumptions there. So because I think some of those things involved might be systems that you don’t control and there’s gonna be policy implications of that. Are you guys discussing inside the joint force the policy changes that need to happen to enable all of these things to actually work in the future?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
We’re not only discussing that within the joint force, but we’re discussing it in a broader government sense as well. ‘Cause some of this mix of Title 10, Title 50, we’re fighting versus ISR type things. There are some policy issues there that we need to work through. There’s some policy issues within the department that we need to work through, but definitely those are things that are actively being worked at this time. Those will not be the things that take this down. We’re well aware of them and actively working on them.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So you said, we talked earlier about force design and air superiority, looking at how we do that in the future. And you’ve cautioned that we may have to change the way we look at it. So can you continue down that road a little bit farther on the air superiority piece? ‘Cause that’s near and dear to a lot of Airmen’s hearts.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, I wouldn’t say caution. I would just say, hey, there’s an evolution in how we do air superiority, right? The joint force counts on the Air Force to provide air superiority. That’s like job one. And the fight looks, and we’ve seen it, the fight looks fundamentally different when you have air superiority and when you don’t. And freedom of maneuver in all domains is all domains, not just the land domain, not just sea domain, but the space domain as well, all domains is enabled by air superiority. So the Air Force must continue to provide it. We will. It’s who we are as Airmen. But there might be places where air superiority, it doesn’t turn into air supremacy. And on the scale that goes from blue or US air supremacy and then goes down to air superiority and then goes down to neutral and then red’s on the other side. There’s probably places where there’s mutual air denial, where no one has air superiority, but we’re denying the air domain to the adversary. And I think in some of these cases, that may be perfectly acceptable, where we don’t have this dominating presence all the time over, we’re not trying to take over a plot of air, but we’re certainly trying to deny it from the adversary and deny its use. Now, is that air superiority? I don’t know. I tend to think it is, but it may not be the traditional definition that we’ve had. I will also say that the what is air superiority, the how may look different as well. I love the F-22, best airplanes ever been built, right? Best airplane that ever will be built, in my humble opinion. But air superiority may not just be done with F-22s and air-to-air missiles. We need to think about how we do air superiority and really what our objectives of this air superiority are. And that might change the types of platforms, the types of systems, the types of capabilities that perform a mission.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Well, listen, I’m with you on the F-22, near and dear to my heart also. However, there may be a couple folks out there that may have a different opinion because they’re building something called the F-47. So we can’t go down the air superiority road without talking about the F-47 and what that’s gonna bring to the fight. I know it’s double secret classified and everything, but what can you tell us about how that’s moving forward and what it’s gonna bring to the fight?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Not much, it’s all secret, it’s all classified. We’re not gonna talk about it in here. No, you know, we, it was a great day for the Air Force when the president announced that we were gonna continue with the F-47 and we announced the source selection, and we revealed the pictures, if you will, of the F-47. That was a fantastic day for the Air Force.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
It was.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
‘Cause what it did is it, one, it showed the confidence of the President of the United States in our United States Air Force, which I think is extremely important, but it also ensured air superiority for generations to come. And the F-47, the capabilities that it brings to the fight are game-changing for us. And we paused and I was part of the group that did the analysis and said, hey, is there a different way to do this? Can we do this with the current capabilities? And we found, and it was, I guess we probably didn’t need to do the analysis because what we found is we found out that we were right, that air superiority, in fact, does matter, that it changes the entire complexion of the fight, and that the F-47, the NGAD, before we called it the F-47, absolutely does matter and changes the character of the fight. I mean, it does. It doesn’t change the character of the fight just for the Air Force, it changes it for the Joint Force. It allows us to get places, allows the Joint Force to get places where it otherwise couldn’t. It allows us to move closer to the adversary, it allows us to counter the adversary in ways we can’t. Now, the F-47 is just, it’s gonna be fantastic bringing game-changing capabilities.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So we’re not talking about the pilot shortage today, but I know there’s a little bit of one out there. So if you need people to come back to fly the F-47, you know, some of us more mature guys are volunteers to do that. Just so you know.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
I agree.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
We’re just trying to help.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
They need expertise, and I’ve been thinking about this hard, and going, man, when that thing’s out, see where am I gonna be? Man, am I still gonna be around? Can I get myself in there? So, I don’t know, we’ll see. But I do know that we need to call people off the bench to come back, and sir, I think you’re first on the list.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you. I owe you 10 bucks. Okay, so the vision’s great. We’re gonna be able to have these new capabilities. We’re gonna operate with acceptable risk out there, I think, the way you guys are looking at it. But we have to get from here to there. And from here to there means that we still have to spend money on fleet readiness and sustainment. We gotta buy this new generation of systems. We have to keep our Airmen ready along the way. So, obviously, this is the hard question. How do you balance out the budget to make sure you’re spending the right money at the right time at the right place? And then, on top of that, that’s the first question. And then on top of that, you got another challenge with the 8% cut that we’re hearing about from the DOD.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Let’s get into it. Let’s get into it. So, when you say balance out the budget, what we can’t do as a nation is say that the Air Force needs to balance out its budget. The department needs to balance its budget. And the resources need to follow the strategy. If the strategy has changed, which I would argue that the strategy for the last 30 years is not the strategy for the future, if the strategy has changed, then the resources need to follow the strategy. Here’s the truth. The truth is that future fights depend on the Air Force to a greater extent than they ever have. All fights have depended on the Air Force since our inception. But these future fights, they are Air Force fights. And so the resources need to follow that. Now, how do you accomplish that? How do you change the allocation of resources? How do you change the allocation of resources within the department? How do you change the allocation of resources within the Air Force? The 8% cut drill, it was not a cut to the Department of Defense’s top line. The 8% cut drill was, hey, services, tell me where you can cut 8%. In the case of the Air Force, we have cut and cut and cut and cut. We have cut readiness, we’ve cut modernization, we’ve cut procurement, we’ve cut everywhere you can. There is nowhere to cut. It is all hard choices. I mean, there are no easy choices. And so we submitted, hey, this is what the Air Force could cut. None of it’s easy. It’s all hard. But it’s gonna force some tough decisions. When I do think about this 8% cut, it is the only way to shift TOA or top line within the department. Right, it’s the only way we’re gonna be able to do that. And the F-47, I think, is a perfect example of a war-winning story, a coherent narrative, a cohesive, hey, this is how we win. This is how the Joint Force wins with Air Force capabilities. That we’re gonna see the 8% buys back into that. And I’m confident through our forces on and the CONOPS that we’ve been developing with it, the Joint CONOPS that we’ve been developing with it, that this 8% cut drill is gonna be good for the Air Force. ‘Cause it’s the only way we’re gonna be able to reallocate top line within the department.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Well, you got our vote for sure here at AFA.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
I’m confident in this story. I’m confident in the capabilities. I’m confident that we’ve got this fixed and the resources we’ve got to follow the strategy.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, with that, what we’ll do right now is we’re gonna open it up to audience questions. So I know that we already have some out there, but you may type your question into the chat and I’ll do my best to get through all of them, or you can raise your virtual hand. If you’re gonna talk to us online, just make sure you unmute yourself when I call on you. First question today goes to John Tirpak from Air & Space Forces Magazine. John.
John Tirpak:
Yes, good morning. Can you hear me gentlemen?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, we can.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Loud and clear.
John Tirpak:
Terrific. General, thanks for doing this. What does your wargaming tell you about Increment 2 and what it needs to be? Industry seems to be waiting on pins and needles to find out what they should be getting ready for Increment 2 on CCA.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, so CCA Increment 2 is something we’re looking at. And when we say CCA, we realized where we started was Increment 1 and what we wanted to do with CCA increment one was like speed the field. How quickly can we field this? And so we’ve got a capability that’s gonna field very quickly. We’re flying the first things this summer, which is absolutely incredible from a timeline perspective. As we continue to do analysis, and some of the analysis that framed this was the analysis that we did for NGAD that ultimately turned into F-47. We’re looking at a range of CCAs. I know that as Secretary Kendall left, he said, “Hey, it’s gonna be more expensive “and it’s gonna be more exquisite.” Well, it might be. But we’re also seeing that there’s gonna be room, John, for other capabilities that aren’t as exquisite, that are cheaper, that provide mass. This whole CCA thing, this started a long time ago. And you had a bunch of baby F-22 drivers sitting around the bar at Elmendorf going, “Man, I ran out of missiles five minutes into the fight. “If only I had this loyal wingman “that wouldn’t talk back to me, “but would also be able to just shoot some missiles.” And we dreamed about this loyal wingman. We didn’t call it CCA back then, but we’re now getting to the point where we’re realizing it. And I think you’ll see a range of options from a low-end to potentially more exquisite. I tend to think that it’s probably gonna be closer to this low-end thing when we start looking at further CCA increments. One thing that we’ve gotta look at, John, is how we generate combat power. And that generation of combat power from bases is important. But there might be other ways to generate this combat power that don’t rely on bases. So that might be something that we might be looking at as we start looking at future increments of CCA. That is a big portion of it. We’re not just looking about how it fights in the air. We’re looking at how we generate combat power as well.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Good.
John Tirpak:
Can I follow up with another one? Lockheed the other day said that they would like to put their NGAD technology into the F-35 and create a capability that’s 80% of NGAD at half the price. Is that something they’ve just popped, or have they posed that to you, and maybe you’ve tried it out in some of your war games?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
I haven’t heard that from Lockheed. And I’m interested in talking to them and seeing what they have. That’s not something that we’ve looked at to a great degree, but I’m interested in taking a look.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Okay, thanks, John. Next one’s come from Joseph Trevetic from the War Zone. “The U.S. Air Force has talked in the past about an expected future force structure with 200 NGAD combat jets. Is it possible to get an update of how many F-47s the Air Force might currently expect to acquire, and how they will fit in with the larger force vision that we’ve heard about today?”
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, we won’t be able to get to F-47 force structure numbers in this conversation, but it does point to a larger, it does point to a larger question of, we’ve got a force design. How do you transition that force design into force structure? And then is there a force sizing construct that needs to accompany it? And that larger force sizing structure or concept is something we’re working on right now. So more to follow on that, but specific numbers of F-47s, not something that we’re gonna be able to talk about in this setting.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Next question comes from General Norm Sipe. General Sipe asks, “Where does CJADC2 and the Air Force’s part of it play into all you’ve discussed today, lagging or leading your efforts?” And I would, knowing General Sipe, I would say that he’s looking at both the J and the C part of that, on how we make sure that the joint forces in there and our coalition partners when we go actually go out and fight.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah. General Sipe, one, thanks for the question. And General Sipe’s been a mentor of mine for a number of years. So great to see him on the webcast today. But CJADC2 as a enabling capability, as the foundation of our capabilities, is gonna be important to us in the future more than it ever has been. And the C as well as the J is also gonna be just a critical piece of it. The work that Luke Cropsey has been doing with the death battle network and the integration of joint partners and understanding what that looks like. So we’re looking at the entirety of, not just command, not just control, but communications and all the pieces that go into it to ensure that it is something that can be used by not just our joint partners, but also our coalition partners and combined partners as well. It’s absolutely critical to the force design, particularly as we start looking at longer range kill chains. Where it’s also critical to the force design is, our force is gonna be a mix of capabilities that include organic kill chains, i.e. the kill chain is completely organic to that platform, and non-organic kill chains, where we’re looking at longer range kill chains and such. The integration of those two kill chains, so on an organic kill chain, you’re de-conflicting the targeting from the organic kill chain and the non-organic kill chain, so you’re not double targeting. That’s gonna be really, really important. So we’re not just looking at it from a C and a J, but we’re also looking at it from an organic and a non-organic as well. Critically important, and I’m confident in the path that we’re taking. We’ve been talking about this for a while, right? We just have.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
A long time.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
A long, long time. And three, four years ago, we were talking about capability release one is gonna be the game changer. We are well beyond that. Understanding what the data link architectures need to look like, understanding what the air-to-air architectures are, what’s going through space, what’s on the ground, what the nodes are. I mean, we’re very mature in getting there.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
The next question, I’m just gonna ask the question. “With the decision to move forward with the NGAD/F-47, how will CCA be incorporated into that?” Are we looking at CCAs with F-47s, with F-35s, with F-22s? Will they work with all the systems, specific to some systems? How does that complicated morass get sorted out?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
So we’re looking at CCA integrated with a range of platforms. And F-47 is gonna be one of those platforms. What CCA does in the fight, it’s twofold. One, it provides affordable mass. But the other thing it does is it complicates the picture for an adversary. And as an air-to-air guy, we all know that the easiest picture is this single axis, single azimuth picture. That the fight, everyone’s coming right at you and it’s like, okay, hey, diddle diddle up the middle, we can take this on. What’s more complex and harder fight is this multi-axis, dense threat environment. And with CCAs, we have the opportunity to do that. So CCA integration with F-47 makes the F-47 better. CCA integration with F-35, F-22, I would suggest potentially in the future, B-21, E-7, and maybe just CCA on its own. Complicates the adversary picture, puts us in a better position where it makes the fight better for all of us. So yeah, CCA integration with a number of platforms is something that we’re looking at.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Zach Rosenberg’s asking a really good question. “Can you discuss the role of tanker and transport as information in ISR nodes? When we’re gamed out, how critical are their capabilities in a near-peer fight?”
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, I think the days of one-trick ponies are over. The days of a tanker being something that delivers gas and that’s it are over. The days of a platform doing one thing only and then it’s out of the mission are over. So to the broader question, I think yes. The integration of different mission sets on different platforms is something that we’ll continue to pursue. I can imagine a day where you’ve got a cruise missile, let’s just say a JASM. And we may not be there yet, but we could be. You’ve got a sensor on this JASM that’s transmitting back and developing this picture and showing everything it sees as it’s going. What we can’t have is just a weapon that’s just cruising all along and we’re not getting utility out of the several hundred miles that it’s cruising down towards a target. It would be great to get off-board information as it’s executing the mission. We’ll continue to do that for all of our platforms. I think maybe a broader question on that tanker issue is survivability. And we need survivable air refueling. It doesn’t mean we need to still tanker potentially, but we definitely need survivable air refueling and tanker connectivity is a big part of that. So getting networks on our tankers is something you’ll see us pursue aggressively, immediately, and then what that does, it allows for a broader set of missions rather than just the UHF radio and the other short range that we have now.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Good. Stephen Schenkel’s asking a good question. “General Kunkel, how is the messaging going from the Air Force and their future force design to combatant commands?” ‘Cause they’re often more interested in short-term requirements and systems versus this long-term force design that’s gonna actually be able to dominate in the future.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, so there is absolutely a time epic to the force design. And we’ve designed this for a 2035 realization. What does that mean? You don’t just instantly snap your fingers and it’s 2035 and we’re in this new force design and we’ve established it and we know exactly where we are and we’ve got all the new capabilities. You need to build that over time. So you will see in our 26th Palm position, capabilities that directly relate to this transition to a new force. So you’ll see that. Those capabilities are gonna start delivering in the 26, 27 timeframe. And there’ll be new capabilities that deliver in that timeframe. And so how the Air Force presents those to combatant commands is something we’re working on right now. We’re obviously mindful of our air components within the combatant commands. And so those are the people that we’re talking to first to have those conversations. I know that with some of the combatant commands, particularly PACOM, that some of our force design work is bubbled up to them. So they’re aware of it. I have not specifically talked to them as we’re working through our components.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, good. Brian Everstein from Aviation Week has his hand up with it to ask a question. Brian.
Brian Everstein:
Hi, can you hear me this time?
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Sure can.
Brian Everstein:
All right, thank you. You had touched on this a little bit before, but I was hoping you can expand on the NGAS analysis and the focus on the family of systems as opposed to just a big stealthy tanker. And broadly, now that you’re going ahead with F-47, how can you effectively prioritize mobility and tankers in the same budget environment?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, Brian. So what you can’t do on the, I’ll answer the prioritization part first. What you can’t do is you can’t pit a tanker against a fighter. And that’s typically what we’ve done when we’ve gone through this, very vertically stove piped. We have different portfolios and they’re all pitted against each other. And you’re either gonna buy tankers or you’re gonna buy new fighters. You’re either gonna buy bombers or you’re gonna buy new fighters. We’ve gotta think about the entirety of the system and we’ve gotta buy the system. The way the chief says it is, hey, we need NGAD, but a critical neighbor to NGAD is the ability to reliably generate combat power from bases and also the ability to refuel, to get survivable air refueling is also a critical neighbor for that. So when you look at this NGAD and NGAD family systems and the AOA that’s brought out of that, you’ll find us talking through this in terms of survivable air refueling and what survivable air refueling looks like. Adversary kill chains is what we’re trying to counter. We’re not trying to counter just at end game. We’re trying to counter the entirety of the kill chain and that could result in a bunch of different things. The adversary kill chain start with some type of surveillance and then that turns into some type of track and that turns into some type of continuing to track and then passing updates to a weapon. There are multiple attack surfaces within that adversary kill chain that we need to look at and that we are looking at and it presents opportunities to do things different that might not be just a stealth tanker or just a end game effector on a tanker or just a networked tanker. There’s a family of things that come together to create survivability.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
That’s the way we’re looking at it. All right. Gary Farai ask a question, “Where are we on hypersonic operations?” So we’ve done successful tests, obviously with Aero on hypersonics and as you’ve seen Israel employ hypersonics recently. I think hypersonics show great promise for us and the adversary is using hypersonics as well. But there’s a number of hypersonic efforts that we are pursuing right now. They’re gonna be important for us, not only from a survivability perspective to get in places faster, but to some of the weapons effects that they can provide. So hypersonics is something that we’ll continue to invest in.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. There’s been a couple of questions online about air-based defense. How do we protect our bases? Are we gonna count on the Army, the allies, partners, or are we gonna invest more in passive and active-based defense capabilities in the US Air Force?
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
So that larger roles and missions question about air-based defense and point defense is something that we’ve been discussing in the Air Force. And I know that Army has had these discussions as well. The specific to air-based defense, we’re not just gonna focus on the end game, how do we kill a missile with a missile? There’s gotta be more to it than that. And so we’re looking at the entirety of this kill chain and how do you affect all parts of the kill chain? How do you decrease the weapons inventory of the adversary? There are ways to decrease the weapons inventory of the adversary. So there are a number of ways that we can protect our bases that are not just having a Patriot sitting on the base. And so we’re pursuing all of those things. And some of those have a higher return on investment than others. But the reliable generation of combat power from bases is something that has been part of the Air Force and will be part of the Air Force. How we achieve that through a mix of air-based defense and other capabilities is something that we’re developing. I do see the air-based defense as, I think that’s an Air Force mission. The joint function of protect is a service mission. And the fact that we’ve depended on the Army for protection of air bases is probably something we need to relook.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah, okay. Joe Kunzler has a hand up.
Joe Kunzler:
Good morning, gentlemen. Joe Kunzler, Simple Flying here. Thank you for taking the time to take our questions on the USAF force design. I’m particularly concerned about two platforms on the table here. The F-15EX Eagle II, built by Boeing. It’s a fourth generation plus super fighter, and also the F-35 Lightning II, a fifth generation fighter jet. I’m concerned how a generation fighters are gonna work in the force design. And that’s my first question. Thank you.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, fantastic question. Well, the nation depends on the Air Force to do three basic things. Strategic deterrent, which the chief staff of the Air Force will call his priority one. And Homeland Defense, which the chief staff of the Air Force will call his other priority one. And then projecting power. And so the F-15EX and the F-35 are deeply embedded in Homeland Defense as well as power projection. And I won’t talk to conventional nuclear integration in this forum. But when you look at our force design, and we’ve developed three types of capabilities, and you can look at the public affairs releases for a description of missionary one, missionary two, missionary three. But the F-15EX and the F-35 are both missionary three type capabilities that provide dominating mass in a conflict for power projection that provide that decisive advantage. But there’s also some exquisite kill chains that could be integrated on F-15EX that probably can’t be integrated on other platforms just due to size and constraints. And the F-15E has been America’s, my other love, F-15E, has been America’s workhorse for the last 50 years. I think the F-15EX and the capabilities it brings in terms of the amount of stuff you can put on it is gonna make it important in the future. F-35 obviously has been critical and will continue to play a huge role in the way we power project. As well as it’s got a fantastic role and it’s something that we’re selling to partners. And just as the F-16 was a great platform and did great things for us ’cause it allowed us to partner with so many different nations, F-35 is that in the same way. But the F-35 also brings us war winning capabilities. The Block IV capabilities that are being introduced right now are gonna be game changing for us. And so the F-35 and the F-15EX continue to be important capabilities for the future for power projection. They’re also important when you transition to this homeland defense game. You know, homeland defense, particularly with an F-15EX and the weapons payloads that it can carry, provides a lot of flexibility to combatant commanders, particularly NORAD and NORTHCOM commander.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So you’re kind of addressing General Bob Elder’s question here. “How does force design look at defense of the homeland and do you guys know what your role is yet in the whole Golden Dome concept?”
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yes sir, General Elder, thanks for the question. I think, well I don’t think, the Golden Dome is still evolving right now and we’re figuring out exactly what it is. There are certainly a number of Air Force missions that are important to Golden Dome and the defense of the homeland. One of them being, you know, the sense and you can’t shoot what you can’t see. So the ability to provide a surveillance picture and a tracking picture for America and for the homeland is something that you’ll see us do. Also the command and control is another place where the Air Force is critically important. And you see that in the architecture that we’ve built already, but in the future you’ll continue to see that architecture, particularly the work that’s going through CJAT-C2, DAF battle network will be important for the future and Air Force capabilities that are critical for homeland defense. The other place that is critical for homeland defense is just counter air, defensive counter air and the capability to put a defensive counter air combat air patrol over any place very quickly in the nation. It’s a great capability and something that helps us, you know, with cruise missile defense and those types of things. So critical role within the force design in those three mission areas is where we see now. Now, where the Air Force is going in the future for Golden Dome, that continues to evolve. So, I mean, I won’t speak to specifics on where we’re at, but I think it’s in those three primary areas that we discussed.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, great. Ash Banerjee still has a hand up. Let’s hear from them.
Ash Banerjee:
Yeah, hey, thank you, sir. This was actually a great conversation and we learned a lot. So, extremely thankful for that. Ash Banerjee from the Bright Group, you know, we are primarily focused around data management analytics. And the question I have is for Air Force’s next-gen C2 plans. As you can see, the Army is actually moving forward with their next-gen C2 prototyping phase. Where is Air Force with its journey? Number one and number two is basically as far as data centricity is concerned, how will Air Force handle that, you know, within its own next-gen C2? You know, the reason why I’m bringing this up is because, you know, moving data across echelons is always a big, big challenge. Processing the data that’s necessary to produce the insights, you know, whether it’s through analytics or machine learning or whatever that is, needs to happen. And Army’s, you know, dealing with that problem right now. So, we’d love to hear, you know, something from your end on where Air Force is with that.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, we’re taking similar approaches. And the Air Force and the battle network that has been developed by C3BM, and then the data requirements, not only from throughput, but from storage and where it’s gonna be, we’re on the leading edge of that for the Joint Force. So, I would say that, you know, we know exactly where we need to be, we know what the requirements are, and then we’re building to it right now. And you’ll see it in our 26th POM position as we continue to invest in those types of capabilities. So, we’re on the right track. Obviously, you know, data storage and then data transfer is something that’s on our mind and we’re using it. I will tell you the other place that we’re using that is in our war gaming, you know? And the ability to test new ideas, to look at new ideas and then rapidly iterate on concepts is also reliant on great data and, you know, the use of that data through modeling and simulation and, you know, artificial intelligence and machine learning to come up with new concepts. So, we’re not just using it for the very, you know, specific portion of advanced battle management, but we’re also using it for our advanced war game efforts as well.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, thank you. Okay, one of my favorite people, Lonnie Cass, is asking, “Why couldn’t Russia establish “air superiority over the battle space? What lessons are we learning from this?”
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Dr. Cass, thanks so much for the question. This is Solo Kunkel’s assessment of why Russia couldn’t establish air superiority over the battle space. It’s because they don’t have an air-mindedness military. They don’t have air-mindedness in their military. They’re a land-centric force. They’re not thinking about this through the perspective of an Airman. And we’ve had conversations in some of our, you know, Air Force internal, and we’re trying to think, you know, what is really unique about the Air Force? You know, what is a unique capability for the Air Force? And, you know, you go, well, shoot, you know, the F-35, well, that’s not unique to the Air Force. AMRAAMs, well, that’s not unique to the Air Force. JDAM, that’s not unique to the Air Force. What’s unique to the Air Force is the mind of an Airman. The mind of an Airman is what I think is keeping Russia from establishing any air superiority. And, you know, I know I’ve talked to General Deptula in some of the conversations he’s had with the Ukrainians. They’re having the same problem. They’ve got a land-centric military. They don’t let Airmen into their joint conversations to the degree they should, and therefore they don’t see the value of it. But again, I’ll stand by the statement of if either side would have established air superiority as the foundation of that fight, the fight would have been over in days, not years like we are right now.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Will Denny asks, “Can you discuss redundancy in the kill chain, overcoming the electronic warfare, jamming, space interference with kill chains?”
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah. Well, what we’re looking for is not redundancy, but resiliency. And this whole long-range kill chain fight, you know, this is gonna be one of the critical fights in any future conflict with a peer adversary. And the ability to maintain your own long-range kill chains while denying the adversary theirs is gonna be a critical fight. So resiliency in our long-range kill chains is what we’re building towards. That also means that we’re also building resiliency by having organic capabilities as well.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Right.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
You know, so you can fall back to that organic capability. All fights collapse from the history of war. All fights collapse, and eventually you find yourself, you know, fixing bayonets and mounting a charge, you know? The same is true in this air fight. We’re gonna find ourselves in long-range kill chains where we’re dependent on a space layer and space data and space-based sensing. And there are gonna be some times when that’s not available to us and we need to fall back to organic kill chains. So we’re building resiliency in that transition as well. And we think it’s gotta be a seamless transition, you know, just in your fighter. When you went from medium-range missiles to short-range missiles by the, by no kidding, the thumb actuation, that transition between long-range kill chains and organic kill chains is gotta be seamless so the warfighter doesn’t even see it or know what’s happening. So we’re building resiliency that way. We’re building resiliency in the long-range kill chain with a number of different weapons, a number of different sensing paths. It can’t just be spaced. It can’t just be air. It can’t just be land. It’s gotta be a resilient sensing grid as well as resilient space or data networks and transfer that gets you there. So that resiliency is something we’re building, a subject that we could go on forever, but obviously needed.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, last question that could take an hour, but we only have a couple minutes. “Logistics is the Achilles heel of warfare.” It’s from Scott Martin. “How do you factor in positioning and resupply in contested environments?”
Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel:
Yeah, so that’s a fantastic question. And we need to think about logistics and sustainment in a fundamentally different way. In this missionary one, missionary two, missionary three construct helps us think about it in a different way. Missionary one, logistics and sustainment is different than two, is different from three. And we’re developing those concepts right now, which is pretty neat. The work of Brigadier General Trax Keeney and his team, they’re coming up with some really, really interesting ideas on how to do this. But the sustainment of the fight and the replenishment of weapons, what we found in war gaming, and this is obvious, right? It’s obvious to anyone who would think about it, is if one side runs out of weapons, the fight’s over. It just turns into a bloodbath. So you’ve gotta be able to sustain that consistent delivery of weapons. Ukraine’s seeing that right now in the weapons inventories that they have. So that’s part of this logistics and sustainment fight. And then just the upkeep and the sustainment of our aircraft, how we do that. What we’ve been talking about is not logistics under attack, but how do we keep our logistics free from attack? And maybe that’s the way I’ll end, is keeping our logistics free from attack is gonna be key to the next fight.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Well, unfortunately, we’re out of time. General Kunkel, thank you so much for joining us today. It really was a great conversation.
