The Department of the Air Force (DAF) is to create an Integrated Capabilities Office and focus on large scale, multi-weapon exercises as part of a “reoptimization” of the department for Great Power Competition (GPC), Air Force and Space Force leaders said on Feb. 12 at the Air Force Association annual warfare symposium in Aurora, Colorado.
The DAF Integrated Capabilities Office is to lead “capability development and resource prioritization to drive Department of the Air Force modernization investments,” the department said, while the department plans to institutionalize large-scale exercises.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said that weapons officers and tacticians “on a handshake” have been responsible for the expansion of Air Force Red Flags and Air Force Weapons School Integration capstones and that the department will now focus on such expansion. Last month, the Air Warfare Center at Nellis AFB, Nev., kicked off the first Exercise Bamboo Eagle–an example of an expansion that featured the integration of fighters, tankers, airlifters, and command and control elements.
“We are going to reorient ourselves to more large scale exercises rather than the smaller scale that have been a product of the last two to three decades,” Allvin said on Feb. 12. “Large scale means multiple weapons systems, multiple capabilities, coming together in a combat simulated environment and showing our ability to execute the mission that’s gonna be expected of us in the high-end conflict.”
Allvin said that the Air Force’s goal is to conduct the first large-scale exercise in fiscal 2025 in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Combat wings are to be standardized so that they are readily able to accept new aircraft and other equipment for operations and sustainment.
The department said on Feb. 12 that the “24 decisions” it is undertaking “represent one of the most extensive recalibrations in recent history for the Air Force and Space Force.”
Such initiatives include new technical tracks for enlisted airmen; developing specialized warrant officers in information technology and cyber fields; introducing “no-notice/limited-notice operational readiness assessments and inspections in the Air Force and Space Force to reflect pacing challenge requirements”; establishing an Integration Development Office within Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) to provide technology assessments and roadmaps; and creating a Space Force Space Futures Command to conduct experimentation and wargames and perform mission area design.
Organizationally, AFMC’s Air Force Life Cycle Management Center is to “refocus” as the “Air Dominance Systems Center to synchronize aircraft and weapons competitive development and product support, while Kirtland AFB, N.M.’s Nuclear Weapons Center is to become the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center under AFMC to “provide comprehensive materiel support to the nuclear enterprise.” An Air Force major general is to become the program executive officer for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles.
The service said that it is to “reorient” Air Combat Command (ACC) “to focus on generating and presenting ready forces to combatant commanders,” and ACC’s AFCYBER is to become a service component command under U.S. Cyber Command to reflect “the importance of the cyber mission to the Joint Force and across the Department of the Air Force.”
Asked by a senior airman on Feb. 12 whether the Air Force is abolishing major commands under the reorganization, Allvin did not respond “yes” or “no” and qualified commands as either service component commands that fall under larger organizations to support front-line forces or “institutional” ones, such as ACC and AFMC.
“What we are doing is trying to rationalize our command structure against what we do so we can understand that,” Allvin told her. “Will AMC [Air Mobility Command] go away? Nope. [Air Force] Global Strike [Command]? Nope. Those entities will still exist, but I think we need to recognize them for what they are–major, minor, mid-level. The names are what I think people might be getting caught up in. The institutions will remain with one addition–Integrated Capabilities Command.”
The latter is to be responsible “for synchronizing the readiness of our overall Air Force mission” through force design development, Allvin said.