Carrying fresh insights from a recent tour of the Pacific, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin re-emphasized Oct. 31 the need to aggressively integrate and reshape the service to confront China's rising threat, as well as the malign actions of other adversaries.
"There is a clear and present danger," Allvin said of the Chinese Communist Party's People's Liberation Army.
In an hour-long "fireside chat" at the American Enterprise Institute, an influential think tank in Washington, Allvin also emphasized the critical importance of allies and partners. Throughout his Pacific trip, his second in the last six months, he had productive conversations with leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines, among others.
"Working with allies and partners in the region, we are making progress in understanding what is in the art of the possible," he said. "To see those countries now leaning into more tri-lateral cooperation shows there is more of an understanding of the value of allies and partners. That may be something the war in Ukraine is teaching a lot of people."
The CCP's behavior is igniting that cooperation too, he said.
"Sometimes it's the malign behavior of our adversaries that helps us. We have partners. They (the CCP) have clients. That's the difference," Allvin said.
During the question-and-answer period, the general touched on the importance of modernizing the nuclear triad as well.
"The foundation (of national security) is that we have a safe, credible and effective strategic deterrent," Allvin said. "We must adapt and modernize it for today's environment."
Throughout the event, Allvin was asked about the Air Force's push to "reoptimize for great power competition," a sweeping overhaul of the service announced in February by Department of the Air Force leadership. Allvin said progress is being made in many parts of the effort that is designed to reshape, streamline and re-orient the service to deter, and if required, confront the PLA. He credited Airmen for the progress to date, saying Airmen "are gripping it. They understand and they are really leaning into it. It was so satisfying and energizing (to see in the Pacific)."
Of all the reoptimization elements, Allvin noted the creation of Integrated Capabilities Command as the one of the most significant.
"We have a pacing threat that is very capable, that is continuing to enhance its capabilities and modernize its capabilities. We can no longer afford to build the pieces (of our service) separately and stitch them together at the end," Allvin said, referring to the PLA. "Integrated Capabilities Command is just what the name implies. Having one entity that looks to all of the capability development and modernization across our Air Force."
He further detailed the importance behind the new command, which reached provisional status in September.
The need is clear, Allvin said. The luxury of having air superiority and unfettered access as was the case during the war on terror is no longer assured. To confront today's threats, he said the "pieces" the Air Force brings into action must mesh and perform seamlessly.
"This is our One Force design," he added. "Having an Integrated Capabilities Command allows that conversation to start at the beginning. It also allows us to more rapidly iterate. It allows industry to understand better where we're going, and it allows us to have a single, unified force design to adapt at the pace of technology and the pace of the threat."
That fused capability along with tight coordination with allies and partners is the bedrock of the Air Force's approach going forward, he said.
Across the hour-long conversation, Allvin also touched on topics that included recruiting and how the Air Force adapted to meet its goal for the last fiscal year; the danger of having to navigate uncertain budgets that are delayed; and how the Air Force is responding to the widespread use of drones and emerging technology.
On uncertain budgets and continuing resolutions, Allvin said, "It just takes our ideas and slows them down. And that's one thing we can't afford." He later described continuing resolutions as "death by a thousand cuts…If a CR happens for a month, it's a distraction and it hinders things a little bit. If it lasts for three or six months, it has increasing levels of pain that it causes."
Congress passed a three-month continuing resolution earlier this month to avert a government shutdown. It is valid through late December.
"We're giving up time for advancing our capabilities," Allvin said.
On uncrewed aircraft, Allvin devoted a substantial piece of time describing the Air Force's efforts to develop and bring into service highly sophisticated collaborative combat aircraft.
"This is human-machine teaming where you still have the control and the mission management by an operator but are leveraging the capability of autonomy and collaboration amongst uncrewed platforms to be able to provide more mass, to provide more capability rapidly," Allvin said.
He continued, "This idea of collaborative combat aircraft not only brings more affordable mass with respect to helping with some of the air superiority missions we have in contested environments but also helps reshape industry a bit on where we want to go…We want to incentivize design rather that sustainment."
Near the conclusion of the event, Allvin summarized the need for all Airmen and Americans at large to understand today's dynamic strategic environment and the clear risks of not preparing for a potential high-end fight.
"We have not been able to see ourselves clearly enough to articulate the risk," he said, which in one reason the service is reoptimizing. "We are making clear to the public what that risk already is. We are already accepting it right now. The more we bring that publicly, the better we'll (as a nation) be able to deal with it. Masked risk is what will really hurt us."
