Gen. David W. Allvin, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, shared a revealing vision on the State of the Air Force at AFA’s Warfare Symposium March 3. In a forceful presentation, he made the case for why airpower is crucial to the Trump administration’s defense priorities, and why the nation needs “more Air Force.” Watch the video or read the transcript below.
Gen. David W. Allvin:
Good afternoon! It is great to be here. Great to be back in Denver. Seems like it was just a year ago we were here together.
Before I get started, I do want to mention something. I am reflecting on [Chief of Space Operations Gen. B Chance Saltzman’s] keynote and I got to tell you, I can never let that man in the arena quote pass without saying something about myself. You all should take a look at it. It’s from a speech called Citizens of the Republic, 23rd of April, 1910. It hangs in my office and it’s something that I aspire to all the time. And as Roosevelt talks about that, the man in the arena who dares to actually do the deeds, who his face is marred with dust and sweat and blood. He talks about all what it means. But then he says at the end, “What’s the reward for it?” This is my favorite part of the quote. He says, “At best, in the end, he knows the triumph of high achievement. And at worst, if he fails, he fails while daring greatly. So his place shall never be among those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Who wants to be one of those cold and timid souls? I would tell you that now is the time for daring greatly, and for anyone who wants to come into the arena, come on in, the water’s fine. So thanks for that, Salty.
Last year, we talked about, we were here with the previous administration. We talked about some 20-some decisions that were made and some of these were developed within the year prior with the previous administration and the previous secretary. Some of these were a few of these that have been brewing within me for a lot longer. Some of these are core to my thinking and my development and learning and understanding for almost a decade and sometimes more before. And really, it was this thesis that I think has come to bear out, that absent a galvanizing and focusing threat, our Air Force continued in its excellence to adapt to the environment. And that environment did not demand a unified integrated Air Force. It demanded specialties to have expertise, and we did it. We met that environment, but now we’re back in a different environment.
And so when I was thinking about what are the things that we need to do to ensure that we can meet the moment, it really came around this theme of “One Air Force.” What does “One Air Force” mean? It means an Air Force that trains together and is ready to go and fight on day one. It means an Air Force that has a single force design that can meet the threat. It means an Air Force that comes together with Airmen who are developed with one mindset, one culture ready to meet the threat. And I think I’m very proud of the progress that we made in some of those areas over the past year.
And so when we think about that, we’ve broken into four areas when it came to projecting power. And we talked about that in many ways, we’ve been doing the same thing for the past 20 years, is that we crowdsourced to the fight and we pulled the wings together from the air expeditionary wings from individual wings, and we meet in the fight and say, “Hi, how are [you] doing?” We can’t do that anymore. And so this idea of units of action, of deployable combat wings, is underway. We’ve already designated five of them and assigned the leadership. We have already put together the staffs to be able to have them ready to fight after their AFFORGEN [force generation] cycle in 2027. If you do that in 2027, you’ve got to start in 2025. But it’s a different way. The units train together, understanding they may be in a different environment, one that demands more to get the aircraft airborne than we’ve ever seen before.
Remember we’ve talked about the Air Task Forces that are sort of the building blocks from where we were before to where we’re going, that had some elements training together. We’ve already put three of those through our Combat Support Training Ranges. We have six of those designated. Two of them have already stood up. We put 2,000 Airmen through them. The feedback is unbelievable. The Airmen see where they fit now. They understand what’s going to be expected of them, the morale is high and we’re moving forward on that. Could not be more excited about that. And that continues to move forward.
In the area of generating readiness, remember we talked about mission readiness rather than just functional readiness. We had already started on that path before last year happened. The initiation of the bigger Red Flag exercises and the Bamboo Eagles. It’s got even more and better. I will tell you over the past year, we’ve done two of these capstone Bamboo Eagle exercises. They’re remarkable. [The U.S.] Air Force is leading, but Air Force is not alone in the way that we’ve been exercising these. These have been joint and coalition with our British and Australian counterparts exercising with us. We’ve used aircraft carriers, destroyers, attack submarines have been integrated into it. [U.S. Army] Multi-domain Task Force, satellites all coming together and solving harder problems about complex missions. We’re doing that now in a way we understand where our shortfalls are, where our gaps are, where our vulnerabilities are and where our strengths are. We’re unlocking some difficult things like joint battle management. What does that actually look like to be able to operate in a theater of war and in the context of a high-end war that is going to be more complex than we’ve ever seen?
And this summer, we expect to have that capstone exercise, one we haven’t seen the likes of since the Cold War, where we put it all together in an even larger way in REFORPAC, Resolute Forces Pacific—if we get the money. Come on, Congress, you can do it. Come through for us. That’s going to be like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
But the readiness is not just in the exercises, it’s in the way our mindset, what we inspect. So we have moved away from compliance inspections and unit effectiveness. It’s about mission readiness. And at the command level, we’ve already done 42 combat readiness inspections, and we’ve been learning from every one of these. And at the wing level, the grassroots level, they’ve developed and executed over 70 combat readiness exercises to prepare for these. This is getting the mindset right. This is thinking about how we do the mission rather than our specific function. We are moving forward on generating readiness to meet the threat. And that’s happened over the past year. Could not be more proud.
We talked about developing people. What a banner year. In 2024, I was here and I said, “I think we’re going to make 2024.” We did, even after we moved the goalposts. In 2025, we said, “20 percent more. Can you do it?” Our recruiters are out there, they are getting it done. We’ve had record months in December, January, and February. Airmen are coming into our formation in record numbers. For the last 15 years, we haven’t seen anything like this. And when they come here, they get a different experience than they did five years ago. Our basic military training has doubled the expeditionary time, teaching them different skills, letting our Airmen coming into our formation know that what it means to be an Airman in the United States Air Force now is something different. You have to have a more robust set of mission-set level skills.
Our officer training school is doing the same in their OTS-Victory. Several more of these peer-threat-based scenarios that they’re learning and getting integrated in focusing on what the threat is going to be. And as we do that, our Airmen know that now to be an Airman, you need to understand more things like airfield security. You need to be able to understand how to do things like counter-small UAS, like rapid runway repair, like casualty movement. That’s part of what it means to be an Airman and generate combat power in the theater. And as you saw there at the end, we’re putting the cutting-edge tools in their hands.
More and more, we’re leveraging virtual reality, augmented reality, and the tools that allow our Airmen to learn how they know how to learn, optimized for them so they can be the best Airmen, most competent, as well as rounded out beyond their function, beyond their technical expertise, which they have to be the best to be more mission-ready in a broader area. They’re still coming, folks. They’re still trying out for the team, and our team’s getting better and better every year.
And finally, when it comes to developing capabilities, nobody develops equipment like we do. Nobody develops dominant platforms like we do, exhibit A, but we’re also looking as we’re very excited about the B-21 progress and how it continues to excel in flight tests. We’re looking at different ways to execute the same mission. We’re going beyond just single platforms equal single things. Maybe there’s different ways to provide combat effects, understanding what that is, embracing and leaning into human machine teaming, understanding what autonomy can actually do for us, knowing that’s going to be a part of our future.
And now we have two prototypes of collaborative combat aircraft that were on paper less than a couple of years ago. They’re going to be ready to fly this summer. And for the first time in our history, we have a fighter designation in the YFQ-42A and the YFQ-44A. Maybe just symbolic, but it’s telling the world that we are leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare, and it means collaborative combat aircraft. It means human machine teaming. We’re developing those capabilities thinking mission first.
The other thing that we’ve done is we stood up the Integrated Capabilities Command (Provisional), and that’s commanded by Major Gen. Mark Mitchum. Has a small team under him and we gave him some very specific tasks. And these tasks are on a building block to a larger envisioned Integrated Capabilities Command. And I’ll talk about that in a second. But in this particular Integrated Capabilities Command (Provisional), they have tough task because we are again moving from building capabilities in pieces to understand how they come together in a mission thread, stitching together the great capability development that happens in Langley [Air Force Base, Va., headquaters of Air Combat Command], at Scott [Air Force Base, Ill. headquaters of Air Mobility Command], at Barksdale [Air Force Base, La., headquaters of Global Strike Command], at Hurlburt [Field, Fla., headquaters of Air Force Special Operations Command], at other places, and understanding how that weaves into an overall mission thread. And when you do that, you’re putting together something where the mission outcomes matter and we can see where our shortfalls are because right now, when we’re putting the pieces together, at the very end, we may miss some things as we’re developing all of our capabilities—which MAJCOM is the lead MAJCOM for base defense. These are parts of our mission that we understand whether they’re ours to do or someone else’s to do or ours to do together. The sooner we stitch together what it means to be a mission, to have a mission outcome and where those shortfalls are, whether it’s ours to do or someone else, the clearer the case can be for everyone to understand. And we can build a force that has mission outcomes over platform outcomes. Systems first over platforms, mission over function. This is where we’re going with developing capabilities. But right now, we’re at that point where we just have the Integrated Capabilities Command (Provisional).
There was some planning that was going to be underway going forward to have an Integrated Capabilities Command, but that planning has been on pause. And there are other things that we’ve paused because we have a new administration in place, and soon we’re going to have a new Secretary of the Air Force and a new Undersecretary of the Air Force. And they certainly have the right and the responsibility to be able to look over all of the things that we’ve done. And as we look to future planning, they should be able to have the chance to review that. And we should be able to show them how what we’re doing works for the future. And I believe that when they come in and they’re in place and they look at it, I believe the evaluation criteria should be this. If we look at what’s going on and how we’re moving forward, if it doesn’t align with the Secretary of Defense’s priorities, then we ought to ask ourselves if we’re doing it, why we’re doing it. So what are those priorities? Well, I could tell you, but I’d rather you hear it from the secretary himself.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Audio):
One, restore the warrior ethos to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force. In doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military. Number two, we’re going to rebuild our military, always matching threats to capabilities. This includes reviving our defense industrial base, reforming the acquisitions process as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, no more valley of death for new defense companies, modernizing our nuclear triad, ensuring the Pentagon can pass an audit, and rapidly fielding merging technologies. And number three, we’re going to reestablish deterrence. First and foremost, we will defend our homeland, our borders, and our skies. Second, we will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific from the Communist Chinese. And finally, we will responsibly end wars to ensure that we prioritize our resources to reorient to larger threats.
Gen. David W. Allvin:
Pretty clear. Pretty clear. And I will tell you, when I look at the things I just described, they couldn’t fit more neatly into this. Reviving the warrior ethos? How could it not be more reviving the warrior ethos than to let every Airman know what it means to fight as a unit and what’s going to be expected of them focused on the threat and changing the way we bring Airmen into our formation to make sure they’re aligned and developed with a warrior ethos in mind.
Rebuilding the military, we just talked about that. Absolutely. Unleashing the innovative potential of all of America to be able to build a force that is agile enough to be able to adapt to the threat and understand the missions required. That’s Integrated Capabilities Command.
Reestablishing deterrence, 100 percent demonstrating to our allies, to our partners, and to our adversaries that we have the will, we have the capability, and that we will continue to have an effective deterrence, whether it be a nuclear deterrence or conventional deterrence to meet our national security interests.
So I’m confident, and I actually look forward to when we get a confirmed secretary and undersecretary because I have a hunch that when they see some of these things we’re doing, we’re going to be told to go faster. Don’t have to tell me twice. Definitely looking forward to this.
So that’s really where we are since last year and some of the progress we’ve made at “One Air Force.: But in the meantime, your Air Force continues to kick butt. Our Airmen are doing amazing things every day. They make it look just normal. Six weeks after we were here last year, the events of mid-April, I think people still underappreciate the unprecedented salvo from Iran that our Airmen controlled the skies, worked with their allies and partners in the region, and did something incredible and made it look easy. And ladies and gentlemen, that’s a little bit of a curse. Somebody’s going to applaud it. So go. It was amazing what they did. Never want to get in the way of that. But I’ll tell you, it’s a little bit of a curse.
When you understand and when you peel it back a little bit, it was individual Airmen doing incredible things that the end result was just, oh yeah, they protect the skies again, but I’m telling you, it was amazing. We need to keep that in mind. And that day, in every day since, they’ve controlled the skies in the Middle East and taken a dynamic and dangerous environment and kept it from exploding into a larger war. They’ve been doing that every single day.
Every single day, our Airmen out in the Indo-Pacific are working with their allies and partners, are demonstrating our capability to work together to be more interoperable than our potential adversaries thought we could be, to work together to show that a free and open Indo-Pacific is what we’re committed to, we have the will, we have the capabilities, and we will resolve to continue that. Every single day, they’ve been doing that.
Every single day, we’ve been Operation Noble Eagle protecting the skies of our homeland.
Every single day, we’ve been protecting our nuclear weapons and capabilities and they’ve been down in the silos every single day preserving that nuclear deterrence and ready to turn the key if that worst day ever happens. Every single day, our Airmen are doing that.
We’re a well-used Air Force and we’ve been used well and used often, but our Airmen, every time we ask them to do more, they continue to do more. So we owe them to focus that more on the right things. But that’s what our Air Force has been doing. And that comes at a cost, and some of those costs are coming home to roost. And so we have some challenges that we have to work through.
One of the areas, when we look at some of the levers that we might have, to be able to ensure that our Air Force is the most lethal, is the most capable and continues to be the most dominant force on the face of the planet. And here’s some of those levers, but we don’t often have as much control over those levers as we’d like.
Let’s talk about the first one, infrastructure. Two words: too much. We have too much infrastructure. When you look at that between the vertical, which is structures, and some of the horizontal, that’s the ramp infrastructures, that’s just one depiction of an Air Force that’s carrying 20 to 30 percent too much. All of that is not adding to combat capability. All of that is infrastructure that needs to be maintained, sustained, and doesn’t necessarily provide more combat lethality. And oh, by the way, we need more Airmen to do that as well. That’s Airmen not doing that. So we’ve got work to do.
How did we get here? Well, it’s a long story, a long story in time, but it’s been the same story. Since the ’90s, since the Gulf War, 60 percent fewer fighter squadrons, 40 percent fewer Airmen and only 15 percent fewer installations. That math doesn’t work. So we’ve got to get to work. We need to make better use of the infrastructure and make sure the infrastructure that we have to maintain and we have to have our Airmen protect and support is that which contributes to our lethality and our combat effectiveness.
Force structure, the other tale of woe, trying to have a modernization profile that allows us to keep on the cutting edge of our capabilities. We’ve been less than successful in having the ability to modernize on the path that we’d like, so this is the story. AA equals aircraft availability. Not surprisingly, as the age of the fleet continues to go up, our aircraft availability continues to drop.
You wouldn’t know this on the front line. You didn’t know this in CENTCOM. You don’t know this in Operation Noble Eagle. You don’t know this on the front lines because of the miracles that are going on from our maintainers and those who are sustaining. We’re making it look easy. We’re eating into whatever margin that we had and this is where we are. Our Air Force continues to be the most dominant on the planet. I don’t want to be here next year or have the next Chief or the one after that say we’re no longer. So we’ve got to work on this. We’ve got to work on this.
End strength, that’s another place. That’s another lever you can pull. Well, this goes all the way back since the Cold War, and that first drop is understandable. It seems like it’s marginal with some more decreases, but something a lot of people don’t realize is some of the decisions made by the previous administration for different investments, we’ve dropped quite a bit. So those chickens are going to come home to roost as well. So as we think about that, we just need to be mindful of that as well.
There’s the last lever that’s getting overused. We’ve been using it because you can take it a little bit at a time, and that’s some of these foundational accounts. This is about all the weapons system sustainment, which leads to the flying hour program and the money that it takes to do the facility sustainment, restoration, and modernization of the too much infrastructure that we have. So weapon sustainment costs are growing. We keep trying to put more in, but guess what, team? We’re not getting more out of it because older aircraft find new and interesting ways to break. And newer aircraft have a big glut of initial parts and that sort of stuff that comes with them. So we are not getting more weapons sustainment for the dollar that we have right now, and this is a challenge. And when they’re older, you have to do more maintenance actions on them. Those are maintenance actions per flying hour. And then the other one is these are man-hours to do those maintenance actions per flying hour. It’s not surprising they’re older. It’s more complicated to keep them running. So if you can’t fly, you get less flying hours.
This is not sustainable. This is not sustainable.
We got work to do on all these, but in the meantime, your Air Force is just kicking butt. These are things that we need to do to make sure our Air Force can continue to dominate.
So you’ve heard me say things like, “I think we need more Air Force.” I do think we need more Air Force. Do you think we need more Air Force? A couple of hands up there. Yes, we do need more Air Force. Well, what does that look like? Sometimes it’s, “Wait, Allvin, don’t you understand? We’re doing cut drills here. We’re doing this and that and the other.” Let me tell you more. Air Force doesn’t just mean more of the same, which is one of the reasons we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for the last year. More Air Force means the Air Force you have, more of your Airmen are focused on the threat. More of your infrastructure is all focused on, this is what we need to work on, is all focused on combat, not just excess infrastructure. It means a more agile force design that allows you to leverage more of industry and be able to work across the spectrum in a way that you can sustain. It’s an Air Force that has more options.
It’s also an Air Force that has more people when we need it and we’re able to do that. But more Air Force does not just mean more, but sometimes it does. And I believe we also do need more.
Here’s why I believe that we need more Air Force. I think America needs more Air Force. And why do I say that? Because what more Air Force means is more defense of the homeland, more defense of the homeland. For almost a quarter of century, we’ve been defending the skies against threats, Operation Noble Eagle and the like. But you know what? Those threats are getting more numerous. They’re getting more complex. They’re getting more dense and our country is more and more at risk than we ever have been before. So this is something we cannot take for granted. This is a sacred duty that we have to the nation, is protecting the homeland from threats to the air. And it’s only going to get more complicated. So President Trump’s Golden Dome? Yes, absolutely. There’s a huge part for Air Force to play. So more Air Force means more defense of the homeland. We own the air domain.
It means more effective nuclear deterrence, two-thirds of the triad and three-fourths of the nuclear command and control of communications. We own the nuclear deterrence. So more Air Force means more nuclear deterrence.
Since October 1959, our Airmen have been in the silos. Ever since then, we’ve been developing the bombers, the tankers, the munitions, all those things to ensure that we have an effective and safe nuclear deterrent. We’ve got a third actor that’s had a breakout recently that now we have to think about two near peers in the nuclear era, which means we have to have the most reliable, the most safe, the most effective nuclear deterrent. That means Sentinel, yes. B-21, yes. That means the munitions, yes. That means [E-4C] SAOC, yes. That means all the NC-3, yes—all of those things. I think we need more Air Force because I do believe we need more nuclear deterrence for our nation. Also, a solemn responsibility. It’s not an option. It’s why you have an Air Force.
Finally, I think we need more options for the president, and that’s what airpower provides—everything from rapid response to decisive victory. That is what “Airpower Anytime, Anywhere” means. It’s not just an aspiration; it’s a promise that we have to uphold.
We have to sustain and maintain the ability to go anytime, anywhere in the most dense threat environment and be able to … put a warhead on a forehead anywhere the president might want. That is what we need to do. That’s why we need more Air Force for more options for the president. And this is a more balanced capability mix. So we aren’t necessarily putting million-dollar missiles against thousand-dollar targets. This is a balanced capability mix.
But here’s the real value proposition I want to put by you. Here’s the thing we shouldn’t forget. Here’s something that is unique to the Air Force in my mind. This range of options, this full spectrum is something we do better than anyone else. And in this time we definitely need it.
The Air Force is like a great boxer. When you’ve got a bad guy considering doing bad actions, the Air Force is the most responsive. So we’ve got the ability to pop the jab. And I might give them a shot in the face and they may think, “Maybe I might want to rethink my position. Maybe I might want to reevaluate what I thought was the right move or not.” And you know what that is? Maybe we’re re-establishing deterrence. Yes. But if not, we’re already back in fighting stance.
And you know what? We haven’t committed hundreds of thousands of forces over there, getting entangled in something that may take us years to get out of, and loss of blood and treasure. Your Air Force provides that opportunity without the escalation threat.
And oh, by the way, if that didn’t convince them, we’ve got another jab, we’ve got the hook, we’ve got the uppercut, we’ve got the right cross, and we’ve got the freaking haymaker.
So we can take it across the entire spectrum. And if it’s fighting with a joint force, we take a lot of them there if they’ve got to get fast. That’s what your Air Force does. That’s what airpower does. We can’t lose sight of that. And if we’re in this dangerous and dynamic time, I want to give the President as many options as we possibly can. So that means, yes, keep on the modernization. Yes, NGAD. Yes, CCA. Yes, survivable bases. Yes to all that. And yes to taking care of our Airmen because that’s what it’s going to take. …
I’m sure you’re fired up about this stuff. So we really talked about it’s every day that I’m in this seat, I’m going to be striving to do everything we can with our extant force to make sure we are about “One Air Force.” And when our Airmen are asked to do more, which they have been, we want to make sure that more is focused in the right direction for a warrior ethos, focused on the threat, looking left and right and know that they have the horizontal accountability that they’re about their wingmen, their teammate. That’s what we’re going to do.
I think it’s also my responsibility to advocate for more Air Force of all kinds. The more Air Force I talked about, getting more out of it and making sure all of the things that aren’t adding to combat capability are not there anymore. And we focus on that. And sometimes it’s about asking for more Air Force if you truly believe that we need more Air Force. I think that’s my responsibility as well.
As we do that. The one thing we can never lose sight of [is] these things are great, but the decisive one is the fact that Americans keep signing up saying they want to join the team. And the team that is the United States Air Force continues to be the best in the world. They show up every day, they do what they’re asked, they do it with excellence, they do it in a way that makes us all proud.
This is “One Air Force.” This is more Air Force. This is your Air Force. Thanks very much.