Air Force Special Operations Forces: Readying for a Russia or China War?
The rise of great power competition means that the entire military is spending less time training and planning for nation building and counter-insurgency.
Air Force Special Operators have a lot of jobs. They can attack from V-22 Ospreys behind enemy lines, conduct high-risk aerial reconnaissance when confronted by advanced air defenses and fly dangerous fixed-wing close air support missions. In fact, all of these are all mission possibilities more likely to be taken up as the Special Operation ramp up preparations for major power warfare.
“The AFSOC that we have is not the AFSOC we will need in the future,” Lt. Gen. James Slife, Commander, Air Force Special Operations Command, told The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in a recent video interview.
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During the 2021 Virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium,
Air Combat Command, shared remarks during a panel on “Accelerating Change Across the Air Force,” Feb. 25.
Kelly discussed how ACC is working to accelerate change to remain relevant and credible for both today’s and tomorrow’s fight. In addition, he emphasized the Air Force should make significant changes to instill a warrior culture and harness the importance of the electromagnetic spectrum for the future of warfare.
“Neither air superiority nor victory are American birthrights,” Kelly said. “Both are at significant risk. And then of course, the required sustainment apparatus to ensure that our warrior culture, credibility, capacity and capability are resilient. Because fragility anywhere is going to be vulnerability everywhere.”