Photo By Staff Sgt. Dalton Williams | U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin speaks to more than 1,000 Airmen,...... read more read more
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Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin celebrated past and present air mobility achievements and provided insights on the way ahead for the Air Force and mobility forces during his keynote address at the Airlift/Tanker Association Symposium, Nov. 2, 2024, in Grapevine, Texas.
In his address, he combined relevant moments in U.S. history with his personal experience to drive home the importance of mission command. He also defined what the Department of the Air Force needs Air Mobility Command to prioritize in order to effectively maneuver the joint force in an era of Great Power Competition.
“This is hard work, but this is necessary work, and it's work that this team that I'm looking at is the one to do it,” said Allvin. “You know, we talk about the changing character of war coming right into the wheelhouse of the United States Air Force. The changing character of war is one that privileges speed and tempo, and resilience and agility.
“And let's be clear,” he continued. “There ain't no agility without mobility.”
Allvin talked about multiple challenges facing the force along with areas mobility have and continue to strengthen. He discussed the importance of mitigating threats while executing contested logistics, continuing to pursue connectivity, and increasing survivability while projecting power.
“We need to understand what it means to generate sorties under fire,” he stressed. “This is an Air Force mission that we need to get our heads wrapped around. It's not just pushing the fighters forward, and we'll stay outside. Remember, there's no outside.”
He spoke about deployable combat wings and how this force generation and presentation model “is not only the most effective for how we need to project power, but it also provides the modularity and the flexibility that we need.” In conflict, he said that this format is conducive to maneuver forces for survivability, disaggregated command and control, pulsed operations where synchronization is key and launching and recovering from different locations. He also outlined different key roles such as protection, sustainment and flying operations and how these changes will require wing commanders to command multiple warfighting functions.
“How do we generate readiness?” he asked rhetorically. “Well, again, focusing on wartime effectiveness. Now we have a wartime scheme of maneuver, a joint warfighting concept, a better scheme of maneuver with Agile Combat Employment with pulsed operations. We understand what we're going to do. Now let's focus on that. We're not just deploying to employ; we're deploying to maneuver.”
In order to win in Great Power Competition, Allvin said it is necessary to “do training reps to match the real-world sets.” He mentioned AMC’s efforts in testing human performance and long-range capabilities during Project Magellan and spoke at length about the AMC milestones achieved in Mobility Guardian 23—an exercise, he said, that has impacted the Joint Force.
“Mobility Guardian was such a gift, not only to our Air Force, but to the joint warfighting concept that is waking up everyone else,” said Allvin. “It was unbelievable, and Air Mobility Command and the Joint Force and the Total Force should be so proud, because now we put that into the fold…the next one is going to be part of this REFORPAC large-scale exercise that we're doing. This was incredible, and it's only going to get better.”
When it comes to developing people, Allvin said Airmen should be proud of their commands and functional backgrounds, but that the goal was having Airmen who are capable and certified in multiple functions, working together as one Air Force. Allvin said the Airman Development Command will play a huge role in creating this culture, training Airmen coming into the force with one set of competencies that will allow the force to be adaptable in facing pacing challenges.
“We should be very proud of the functional area from which we come, that we do that business very well, but make no mistake, everybody is a part of the warfighting team,” he said. “And if we can't grip that as a culture, we're going to be falling short.”
He concluded with reminding the Airmen of their heritage, mobility’s long legacy, the gravity of the mission at hand, and a charge to invest in tomorrow’s fight.
“I don't know exactly what it looks like, but we know the characteristics of it, and we know that air mobility is going to be a part of it,” Allvin said. “It's your time to lean into this. The chapter of the future is unwritten. So, what I'm asking is pick up the pen, and let's write that next chapter together. This is the mobility moment.”
| Date Taken: | 11.02.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.02.2024 15:23 |
| Story ID: | 484527 |
| Location: | GRAPEVINE, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 80 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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