Exercising at Scale: What We’re Learning
September 24, 2025
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This transcript was generated with the assistance of AI. Please report inconsistencies to comms@afa.org.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, well good morning everyone, and welcome to this panel where we will break down what was learned in the first large scale integrated Pacific exercise in a generation. Here to put it all together in context are four of our most forward leaning commanders, leaders who are shaping how we train, integrate, and fight across domains. General Kevin Schneider, commander of Pacific Air Forces, who leads the air component in the priority theater. General John Lamontagne, commander of Mobility Command, who ensures global reach and sustainment under pressure. General Adrian Spain, commander of Air Combat Command, who drives readiness and capability for our combat air forces. And Lieutenant General Dave Miller, commander of Space Operations Command, who is embedding space into joint operations with urgency and precision. Now last year, this panel reminded us that we cannot surge awesome at the last minute. This year, we’re gonna focus on what department level exercises are teaching us about pacing threats, contested logistics, and deterrence. And what that means for industry, our Airmen, and our Guardians. We’re gonna begin with opening statements from each commander, followed by a series of questions. Let’s get started with General Schneider.
Gen. Kevin Schneider:
Jackie, thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. And I guess as we had gone through this planning process, started over 18 months ago, for me, the why, why we need to do this, why we did it, comes down to maybe three statements of the obvious. One is, the United States Air Force does 24/7, 365 operations every day. Some of those in combat, and we are highly successful at doing that. Second, in the combat air forces, in the fighter force, when we do our training exercises, we tend to focus at the tactical level. We hone those tactical skills over a period of time, one to two weeks. And again, we are very effective at doing that. When we look at some of the higher headquarters exercises that we do for the components going back up to combatant commands, those tend to be at command post level. We don’t have fielded forces usually participating in them. So the ability to pull all three of those things together, higher headquarters exercises all the way down to the lowest Airman in the field, to have the command control communications all the way through those levels of echelons of command, to focus on operational level campaigning over a longer duration, to have issues with protraction that stress our logistics and sustainment were really the keys for me as we looked at it from a PACAF perspective. It was a big lift, sorry to take Johnny’s tagline there, but it was highly successful and I believe well worth the investment from the United States Air Force and the Department of the Air Force to continue to pursue things like this.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
General Lamontagne.
Gen. John Lamontagne:
General Van Ovost, thank you very much. It was a great opportunity to enjoy some exceptional teammates, General Schneider, General Spain, Lieutenant General Miller, on an important topic. So department level exercise, a big lift, literally and figuratively. An important opportunity to operate at speed, at scale, and at range. So at speed, Air Mobility Command worked really hard to get forces into theater in a hurry. C-17s did that with some max endurance operations on some really long days. We used some new equipment with some external fuel tanks, new to the C-130J, that enabled them to have another 17,000 pounds, 18,000 pounds of fuel, another four hours. So C-130s could go from Dias to Hawaii in one flight, and then from Hawaii into Guam in one more flight over the course of about a day and a half. Getting into theater very, very quickly in order to support General Schneider on his timing and tempo for what was needed. At scale, so 400 aircraft, 15,000 Airmen, 50 different locations, takes a lot of work to make that happen. And then finally, at range, it’s one thing to do that within the continental United States, another thing entirely to do that around the world. I would submit our United States Air Force is the only Air Force on the planet that can project forces at that speed, at that scale, and that range. And so we don’t get a lot of opportunities to do that every day. If you look at what we did on Midnight Hammer, that was effectively one combat pulse. This enabled us the opportunity to practice it week after week over the course of about six week period to make our Air Force a lot stronger.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thanks. General Spain.
Gen. Adrian L. Spain:
Yeah, thanks. Great to be here on the panel, as was already said. Thank you, General Van Ovost, for hosting us and really an important discussion. So I think the key is in the title of this event, right? The department level exercise. It’s something that we haven’t done in decades, if we’ve ever done it in this way and at this level across the Department of the Air Force with both Airmen and Guardians at this scale. And so I think one of the things that I started the panel yesterday by saying, we’re the world’s greatest Air Force. We always need to remember that. And anything that we talk about in terms of getting better needs to be in that context, so let’s start from there. Are we perfect? No. Can we learn? Absolutely. But indisputably, we’re the world’s greatest Air Force, and that’s got to be our starting position. And Space Force.
Lt. Gen. David N. Miller, Jr.:
America.
Gen. Adrian L. Spain:
So one of the reasons why we’re the world’s greatest Air Force is because we train hard. And we challenge ourselves in training. And we’re not training just to look good, and we’re not training just to make ourselves feel better. We’re training to learn lessons. We bring our, we stress our Airmen, we stress our weapon systems. We bring scenarios in that operate us and force us to execute at the highest level. And then we debrief even harder, right? We squeeze out every ounce of information so that if this is the last blue air hack I’m gonna get, I will be better for it on the back side of this. And so the department level exercise is that at a higher echelon than we’ve been able to do in many, many years. And certainly the lessons that we’re gonna garner from it are gonna help us propel our combat capabilities even farther and faster. And the last thing I just wanna highlight in this is that these exercises are an opportunity for us to train with our allies and partners in ways that we often don’t get to as well. And so while we are getting better, it’s really about the joint and coalition team getting better, and the department level exercise was a great example of that.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thanks. General.
Lt. Gen. David N. Miller, Jr.:
Thank you, ma’am, General Van Ovost, great to see you again. And to the distinguished panel, I also share the appreciation of both the team that has cooperated in air and space forces for over the past year. But in particular for this exercise, I think it was particularly noteworthy in a few key areas. I think the first is, you gotta remember the Space Force in many ways is still a service that’s in transition. What the Air Force in the past needed from the Space Force was a space enabled capability to allow us to project power, achieve air superiority, and so on. What the joint force needs from the Space Force as a decisive arms is really two things, deliver that space enabled combat edge, but do it in a place, time, and manner which an adversary is constantly trying to undermine it or disrupt it or deny it, while simultaneously protecting our joint force. And that includes ourselves from space enabled attack. And that is something that was really a focus and came to the fore in this department level exercise for us. 700 of our Guardians, I mean, the scale is a lot different compared to the Air Force, but 700 of our Guardians across nine different locations, including a lot of them taken out of the operational units, and to the point General Snyder and General Spain both made, allowing us to get to the tactical level in this exercise at a pace and scale at which we have not seen. I think we learned a lot, and as the person who’s responsible for generating that force, providing and then fielding the weapon systems that they operate, I think we took a lot of lessons learned on each one of those levels. So I think number one, it was unprecedented, but number two, I think the lessons learned directly apply to the threats that we are facing today. And more importantly, I think they underscore the investments that we have made and are making in the Space Force in order to allow us to not just keep pace, but outpace potential adversaries in the future.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thanks. Well, we have a lot to unpack today, so let’s get started. This question is for all the commanders. What are the most urgent lessons learned from these exercises in 2025? And what do our Airmen, Guardians, and industry partners need to prioritize to sustain tempo and survivability? General Schneider.
Gen. Kevin Schneider:
I’d say the first lesson, which was already highlighted, was one, we can do this. And it was, again, a massive challenge, and at times we were operating at 50 locations, 5,000 miles north-south, 6,000 miles east-west. And only the United States Air Force, Department of the Air Force, can pull off something like this and support the combatant commander. So again, with that said, the couple of takeaways, and I went into this predisposed looking at logistics and sustainment as the key enabler and finding ways that we have got to be able to battle, manage logistics and sustainment down to the tactical level. And across the scope of a very large area of responsibility. So I think in terms of our command-and-control battle management systems, we spend a lot of time looking at the C2 of fires. We need to equally invest time and thought and resources into the command and control of logistics and sustainment to make ourselves, give ourselves the best ability to generate air power. With that also comes perhaps some doctrinal changes or some thinking about, and I wear three hats as most air component commanders do. One of those is the commander of Air Force forces. What are those authorities, what are the delegations downhill that I need to give or others need to give down to the lowest level, lowest echelons of command, so that they can make the decisions about where the fuel needs to go, where the munitions needs to go, how runways need to be repaired, and what decisions are, decision space need to be given to the lowest echelon of command to be the most effective at generating air power. So again, a lot of C2 lessons that came out of that were mostly focused towards logistics and sustainment.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great.
Gen. John Lamontagne:
Agree with General Schneider, a lot of C2 lessons learned. We spent a lot of time with our formation and his formation trying to make sure we understood what he needed at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. By embedding some of our talent in his formations, so that when he needs it and where he needs it, he gets it. A lot of folks in our Air Force think they can just snap their fingers and say, hey, I need a C-17 or a C-130 to go from A to B and then to C. Well, working across that expanse of airspace with 50 different locations, 14,000 short tons, certainly not that easy. And so a lot of good reps and sets from across, I’ll say, our whole Air Force to better understand the airlift integrated interface that helps us prioritize and know what the whole force needs to do to deliver at the edge when it needs to be there. And then from a C2 perspective, working our 618th Air Operations Center with his 613th Air Operations Center to best understand his scheme of maneuver. Every theater’s a little bit different, that burden’s on the 618th AOC, to best integrate with all the AOCs out there. And we got a lot of good reps and sets in the Pacific.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great.
Gen. Adrian L. Spain:
Yeah, so I think this was highlighted, I just wanna reinforce it that, one, we can do it and we did it. This is the urgent lesson for us. We, this was not, well, let me put it this way. We stitched together six different disparate exercises that two years ago were not planned to be stitched together. And through a lot of hard work across many formations in the Air Force, at the department level, on the staff level, in the MAJCOMs, in the combatant commands, in our institutional forces, in AFMC, we got a lot of support in making this happen. And we did it in the middle of the planning cycle. So we were, we didn’t have the money earmarked for this. We didn’t have the people and the plan earmarked for this. We built it on the fly and we did it. Was it hard? Yeah. And we learned that we can do hard things and this is going to be hard, but we can do it. And to General Schneider’s point, this is something that those lessons and the ability to continue to do this kind of an exercise, to me, is the most important lesson as a force provider. We have to continue to provide this venue and bring these events together in ways that stress our force for large-scale employment in ways that we haven’t done in a very long time. And the sets and reps required to get proficient in this only come with doing it. There’s no real other way to simulate it. The synthetic environment is great, but you can’t work at this scale with live humans to get the skill sets required to be successful in the environment. And frankly, we trained, often we focus on the flying portion of these scenarios and we focused a lot on the ground portions of our scenarios this time. We brought formations in that are going to fight under contact and they learned how to do that underneath an operational C2 structure that will be the operational C2 structure that they’re going to use. And so bringing them into that environment, making them respond under contact, generating air power while under attack are all lessons that are invaluable for the force and we just have to continue to do this over time.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
That’s great.
Lt. Gen. David N. Miller, Jr.:
I mean, I think I’ll group it into three things. The first I would say is one of the things we learned is it’s really okay to expect the most out of people. Our Guardians and the Airmen that are in our formations, we had never taken that much capability and personnel out of operational formations to support at the tactical level across so many different locations before. So, and they were, whether it was NCOs, lieutenants or captains, leading echelons of command that we had previously reserved to field grade officers, they performed superbly. I think the second piece is it really validated the necessity of our new force generation model, where we carve out time dedicated to the specific training, tactics development, integration, and ultimately training and exercising evolutions that we need. We had, as you guys know, this is something we have just done in the last couple of years. It validated our approach, but it also dialed in our approach. There’s a level of frequency, both in pace as well as the scale, and then there’s a complexity component that we’re going to iterate into or what we’re calling Space Force Generation 2.0 next year, directly as a result of this. And I would say the final thing is, is it really, in some senses, validated and refined the concepts, the employment concepts we’re operating with. We had not operated with a simulated and in some sense live electromagnetic warfare force in this exercise. We had not done that previously. It validated for us the capacity we need to do that remotely and distributed from multiple locations. What it needs to refine is we didn’t have, prior to this exercise, integrated fires elements from our EW teams embedded in the operations centers. Those are things that we pushed out this for the first time, took risk in some of our formations and did, whether it was missile warning and tracking, orbital warfare, space domain awareness, you name it, each one of those mission areas contributed, and they all took away something that validated or refined their concepts of operations in this exercise.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
There’s no doubt capacity and carving out that time made huge dividends. Well, you’ll find no bigger believer in logistics either enables or constrains our operations than me, especially at the size, scope, and scale of this operation. So, General Schneider, how are PACAF’s logistics needs evolving and units adapting in light of these challenges that you talked a little bit about?
Gen. Kevin Schneider:
Yeah, a couple of different ways. And again, this, the exercise, exercises, I think, allowed us to put a really hot and effective spotlight on those places on which we can improve. I think about it, and I realize I’ll probably use some non-doctrinal terms, but people, pipes, and processes when it comes to command and control. Where do the people need to be? Where do the command and control nodes need to be? And while the 613th AOC is great and fantastic relationships with the other AOCs around the Air Force, you know, it is a large theater and there needs to be C2 nodes and people forward that are able to manage and handle this. In terms of the pipes, you know, what are the pathways, whether terrestrial-based, airborne-based, space-based capabilities that allow us to communicate with each other? But the processes piece, which I touched on a little bit in the previous answer, you know, under the various hats that I wear and the various authorities, whether they be the Joint Force Air Component Commander or the Area Air Defense Commander or the Commander of Air Force Forces, there’s a different set of authorities and responsibilities. But when it comes to force generation under the COMAF4 hat, really being able to push decision-making as far downhill as I can and the risk decisions that go along with that. You know, the person, the people that are in the best position to make the determinations about where airplanes need to go, when they need to launch, where the fuel and munitions need to go is not necessarily me sitting at the 613th AOC or Headquarters PACAF, but it’s an Air Expeditionary Wing Commander at the frontage of the fight who’s dealing with force protection issues, who knows where their stuff is and how to move, you know, their disaggregated force around hubs and spokes to re-aggregate quickly. So being able to give them the authorities at that level to make decisions to force generate quickly and effectively. But it is a two-way conversation, knowing what risk am I giving down to them to buy and in turn what risk are they sending back uphill when they make decisions. So again, we learned a lot out of it and as we continue to go forward, be able to take this back into bigger Air Force forums and other venues to put a further refinement on how we go forward and improve.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
That’s great. Yeah, thanks. There’s a follow on, General Lamontagne, what did this year’s exercises really reveal about sustaining joint force operations under fire, command and control operations and the integration of our allies and partners? And what gaps should industry and planners now be looking after?
Gen. John Lamontagne:
First and foremost, I’ll say it takes a big team to put that together. So it wasn’t just the active duty men and women from Air Mobility Command, but the entirety of the joint force. Guard and Reserve, Airlift, Air Refueling, Air Medical Evacuation, as well as the Global Air Mobility Support System that supports, you know, fixes airplanes, loads and unloads airplanes all across the Pacific theater. Could not have done it without them. The other key teammate was our Civil Reserve Air Fleet partners. Basically the commercial airlines provide a wartime capacity for us. In response for that, they get a lot of peacetime business to the tune of dozens of missions on any given day. And so we leveraged our commercial carriers to bring both cargo and passengers as far forward as possible, just like we would do in a large combat operation. Obviously, they can’t do everything we can do, but bringing them as far and as safely forward as we can. Also, for our allies and partners, a great opportunity to inter-fly with them, not just providing gas and fuel for them to extend across the vast ranges of the Pacific, but also inter-flying within and across formations. So their airplanes within our air refueling formations, as well as in our airlift formations, at pretty good depth, a great opportunity for us to get better and stronger together. A lot of folks think that — and it is our responsibility to help our allies and partners and share as many TTPs, tactics, techniques, and procedures with them as we can, but we are also on the receiving end of some of their capabilities. Our Canadian allies have some really robust AE capabilities that actually surpass ours in some areas. And so we got — they were flying in the back of our C-130s and the back of our C-17s. Great opportunity to cross-talk across our allies, and all of us get better together, including the United States. And then finally, from a logistics perspective, we have the opportunity to get spare parts and equipment from many of our allies for some of our airplanes around the world. For the others, we work to do that across our own internal formation, basically taking parts from a different theater and moving them over into the Pacific to better increase the aircraft availability on our fleet for the priority at the time. And so we do that on a regular basis. It was another great opportunity for us to practice in the Pacific.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great. Now let’s shift to the intricacies of command and control. General Spain, past iterations of Bamboo Eagle have focused on agile combat employment and related concepts like multi-domain operations and agile logistics. The most recent iteration, however, had the command and control focus. So what did we learn about C-2 and how to harness complex command relationships, authorities, and processes?
Gen. Adrian L. Spain:
Yeah, thanks for the question. I would like to highlight that Bamboo Eagle still focused on agile combat employment, contested logistics, base under attack, base resilience, and pulsed operations. In addition to the C-2 that the opportunity of pairing with ReforPak really gave us to operate under a command and control construct where the CFAC was actually involved, not role played by an O6 commander who is local. And that’s the main difference. So our Bamboo Eagle exercise is typically a distributed exercise operated under an ace architecture, an agile combat employment architecture that is forced to generate air power while under attack from a distributed location and generate a pulse that comes together and get to a tactical outcome. Usually it’s generated from California and Nevada to an airspace over the California coast, around the California coast. This time we were able to, from the distributed forces posture in the Pacific, all across the Pacific, come backwards from west to east and launch out of Hawaii, which is significantly longer than launching out of California to get to the coast of California, and command and control that force to still generate a pulse which is more reflective of the distances and the scale of a particular, of a kind of fight that may occur in that AOR. And so the things we learned are, hey, some of this stuff takes time to develop. Things we learned are some of this, you know, alignment of resources and logistics and weapons and fuel is harder to maneuver under duress real time when we’re talking about those kinds of distances. But the ability to do that with CFAC calling balls and strikes, frankly, and prioritizing where our energy and resources need to go was really the major lesson learned for us. So things that we need to improve upon, certainly the robustness of the connectivity, the ability to delegate authorities, as was already mentioned, to the appropriate level of responsibility and accountability. And then continuing to reinforce and foster the mindset that for a period of time, you will be operating under mission command and commander’s intent. And when you get reconnected, you’ll be able to continue the fight seamlessly based on the guidelines that you got up front. So plenty of lessons, a lot to work on, but really proud of the team for executing the way they did.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
That’s great. Thanks. We all know that command and control will not survive without the invisible front line that General Salzman mentioned. Now, General Miller, the Space Force validated several space warfighting concepts this summer. Can you go a little deeper into what you learned from Resolute Space 25 in terms of how you’re postured for potential conflict and the command relationships you have across the joint force?
Lt. Gen. David N. Miller, Jr.:
You bet. I think, so to set the stage just a bit, I think important to remember, while this was mostly, you know, a focus for everybody in the department on the Pacific and the threats that we have to contend with there, any time we are dealing with an adversary or potential adversaries as capable as we were juxtaposing here, whether that’s the PRC or anybody else, for us, that’s a global challenge. They have a global infrastructure just as easy as a counter space asset they have can affect something that’s going to be operating in the Pacific. It’s going to affect something that’s in UCOM or another COCOM. So for us, to your point of relationships, I think it validated a few things for us and also highlighted some areas where I think we can really gain some ground over the next year or two. One, obviously, it validated the service component model that we put in place, that every combatant commander is going to require a team of Guardians, led in this case by General Dinaro, who’s the Space Force’s Indo-Pacific Commander, that’s going to need a team of Guardians constantly focused on their war plans, their priorities, and delivering the effects that they need, whether regional or global in priority. I think what it also validated for us is that the flexibility of our presentation model, which has both dedicated capability, in some cases assigned forces, as well as reach back and support to other combatant commands, in this case maybe U.S. Space Command and Lieutenant General Schess, our component commander there, I think it validated that that relationship is going to have to be extremely dynamic and operate at a pace that we need to sustain that we frankly hadn’t anticipated in some sense just because we hadn’t experienced it. I think one of the things that, though, that allows us to move forward is a couple of areas where we also validated some investment priorities that we’ve been on that are continuing to go. The Joint Force requires the Space Force to deliver surveillance tracking and targeting at a time scale and accuracy that we had not seen in the past. And those investments were validated to a large extent. Now, the concepts of how we are going to provide targeting support, target identification, as well as broad surveillance indications and warning, those are things that are going to work out as we field those systems. But I think we validate, hey, those were great investments. We just need to have more of it. I think where it also clarified for us, though, and it was whether it was Admiral Papparo and General Schneider or General Whiting and General Schiess, there’s a need for more space control systems that we have continued to invest in, and those investments are starting to bear fruit for us over the next year or two. And whether that is orbital warfare systems, cyber warfare systems, or electromagnetic warfare systems, those are things that we’re in the process of fielding, some, frankly, in the next couple of months. And I think that’s going to allow us to deliver a much more robust and responsive capability to any combatant commander than we’ve had in the past. I think the final things that we took away are really twofold. One is we’ve got to be fighting off the same domain and common operational picture. We have had initiatives and starts in some areas in doing that, and we owe that also to our teammates in the Joint Force. So we are not waiting for perfect. We are in the process of fielding shared awareness tools as we speak, so that whether it’s General Schneider, General Lamontagne, General Spain, they can look at the AOR, see what space capability is being provided, which forces are where, and what is the actual threat they’re facing and underway. So if we make a decision to do something that delays, they understand the context of why we are pushing for that delay. And I think the last piece is there’s just going to be some things we’re not going to test or train in a live environment. And so we need to have a test and training infrastructure that allows us to emulate, red, simulate a level of blue, but most importantly, integrates across air and space power, as well as the other services on a level that we just haven’t had a chance to do yet. Those are investments that are underway. As you know, within Space Training and Readiness Command, there’s a lot of investment for us in operational test and training infrastructure. That’s a place where we have started to do some of that, and that’s going to have to be something we deliver at a much more rapid pace to make this deliver on the promise that we saw just over this past summer.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah, thanks. The need for more felt acutely across our Space and Air Forces and echoed throughout the halls here for the last few days. Now, General Allvin mentioned that we have to apply these lessons learned at the speed of winning. Got that. So this is for all the commanders. Looking ahead to future department level exercises, what key lessons have emerged regarding capability, development, and integration, especially when you’re balancing legacy systems with modern platforms? General Schneider.
Gen. Kevin Schneider:
Just a couple things that stuck with me. One is just the education and training. I know the Air Force is dealing with this through Air Education and Training Command, and as we come out of these summer, you know, exercise series, I think we are better equipped to go back, you know, to headquarters Air Force and to AETC to identify those skill sets and those things that need to enter Airmen’s brains from day one as they come into our force to understand what it is like to operate in a contested environment and how to be effective. And there’s a — there are risk decisions and to go along with that, there are skill sets that go along with that. And as General Alban has highlighted, you know, we cannot crowdsource our way to success like we have in the past. We have got to show up full up ready fighting units that can snap into existing C2 structures. And we learned a lot about ourselves. The second one is pre-positioning. For everything that we did across the Pacific, you know, this summer, which was incredibly enabled by Air Mobility Command, there is still a huge demand for stuff to be in position from day one, because again, with a contested environment, the enemy may not give us the luxury of time, space, or distance to flow stuff at the speed that we want, so we have to be very deliberate and smart about where we put kit and where we put gear so that units that are falling into their fighting positions are ready to go immediately in that regard. And then the last piece is command and control systems, which were touched on briefly. However we go forward, whatever we develop, it has to be releasable. We do this with allies and partners. We do this as a team. We cannot build a US-only system and then try to snap on a releasable enclave at the end of it. And the second, I guess the other piece of that is whatever our data systems are, in terms of C2, it has to be able to go forward. It has to be able to go backwards. We have to be flexible and agile in our C2 systems that if I need to push authorities downhill or forward into a theater to a lower echelon of command, because there are things that are contesting us at Hickam, then I need the flexibility to do that. Or if there are pieces that need to go backwards or to other parts of other AOCs, then we need the flexibility to be able to do that as well. Thanks.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks.
Gen. John Lamontagne:
I’d say from a lessons learned perspective, it really affirmed that the path that we’re on is the right path. The importance of prepositioning equipment in the Pacific, we have an opportunity that we’re actually moving out right now, not waiting for warehouses to be built for storage, moving basically, you know, 10K loaders, I’m sorry, 25K loaders, 10K forklifts, tow vehicles, and a whole bunch of age equipment, aircraft ground equipment to support the forces in the Pacific in the event that we get into conflict. But we’re going to plan on using it every day. So taking hundreds of pieces of equipment out of Air Mobility Command, putting it with our team, the Air Mobility Operations Wing in the Pacific, moving that stuff right now, not waiting for a crisis, but allowing our team to get reps and sets and to use that equipment each and every day in support of General Schneider. And the other one is connectivity. We’ve been working hard on a connectivity journey that is not going to just help our Air Force, it is going to help the Joint Force, getting beyond line of sight, secure coms, tactical data links, having unclassified and classified information in the front of the airplane as well as in the back of the airplane so that the user, whether it’s 82nd Airborne or somebody else across that long distance and long time to get them in place, they can get the latest and greatest threat information in the back of the airplane as we’re working to get them to the fight. So the importance of open architectures and a government-owned architecture so that we can continue to move out and change and update at the timing and tempo of our choosing. Really, really important going forward.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great.
Gen. Adrian L. Spain:
Okay, yeah, thanks. Great points. I completely agree with everything that’s already been said. I think we have to ensure that, you know, between us and industry, that integrated by design is not a buzzword and it’s not a catchphrase and we’re actually executing it. We talk about it a lot and it gets really hard in implementation to integrate new systems with older systems. It can, particularly the larger the fleet that you have and the older the fleet that you have, the backwards compatibility and/or the ease of modernization and modification is sometimes the step that is skipped and can be the thing that trips us up in execution. And so I would just ask that we, you know, continue to reinforce that the force that we have and as the force provider, I’m more and more convinced the force that we have, if we get into a fight, and I’m not saying that we’re going to get into one, but if we get into one in the near term, zero to five years, you’re looking at the force that you have to be in that fight. And so we have to look at both low cost and low and ease, and easy modification capabilities that are able to connect older systems to newer systems. The newer systems by design should be fielded to connect to both the new system and the old system and backwards compatibility is certainly supremely important. But if we can’t get that, then how do I modify a larger fleet quickly so that I have that going forward? Those things that we do for the force that we have are going to pay dividends if and when the balloon goes up, and we have to continue to think about it from that perspective.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Great. Thanks. General Miller?
Lt. Gen. David N. Miller, Jr.:
I guess I’ll summarize it into posture, planning, and people. So I think one of the many big takeaways for us is that we are, as I mentioned when I started, we are a force in transition. And as you’ve heard in the past, we have a few number of very capable, very expensive, highly engineered space systems that are currently doing the job, and we’re about to transition over the next couple years to dozens to hundreds of systems in multiple orbits starting to do the job. The posture we maintain now, as well as our terrestrial infrastructure across all our mission areas is going to prioritize for us or help us prioritize a level of readiness that we’ve not been able to maybe achieve in the past, but that is demanded of us achieving now. And I think that we’re on a good supply slope for that. We’re in the process right now of looking to field a globally synchronized electromagnetic warfare force for the Republic. That’s a huge step over the next few years for us to get into it. Similarly, for missile warning and tracking, going to instead of just a handful to dozens to hundreds of systems, we’re going to have to integrate and pace a level of posture in our force that we just haven’t had in the past. Simultaneously, we’re going to have to plan better. But the good news is we’ve got a service component infrastructure now that we didn’t have a few years ago, and we have the capability to plan across all those commands, as well as at the operational and tactical level. I think one of the big takeaways from us is there’s with the level of complexity and scale of this challenge that we face against us, we are not going to be able to joystick all this from one C2 center. And we are going to have to expect more and more from the tactical level units of action, executing mission command, mission type orders, and they’ve got to have the wherewithal and capability to do it. The good news is that leads to my last P, and that’s people. I’m just going to be blunt. Hard is authorized. It’s going to be hard. We are going to have to move forward with a level of expectation that we haven’t had in the past. I have literally had J3s ask me for — I need you to send me a colonel. I don’t have one. You’re getting a captain. And that captain did an amazing job at getting it done. We are living with General Spain’s point. This is the force you got. We will get everything we can out of it. We will be modernizing as quickly as we can. But as a result of posture planning and people, we’re going to get there at a rate and pace that we haven’t had before. It’s just going to take us a little bit of time over the next couple years.
Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, gentlemen. I have a lot of notes and several more questions to ask. And I have the clock sitting in front of me. And I won’t be asked back up here if I invalidate that. However, for the audience out here, I think the message is pretty clear. Large-scale exercise demonstrate our ability to fight through different kinds of disruption, integrate across domains, and sustain operations under fire. Our adaptations, your adaptations, demonstrate that we’re learning. We must continue to learn together. Because the future won’t wait for perfect. It demands ready. Please join me in thanking our panel today. Thank you.