{"id":42489,"date":"2020-11-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/11\/12\/air-bases-are-at-risk-without-the-agile-combat-employment-approach\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:24:23","slug":"air-bases-are-at-risk-without-the-agile-combat-employment-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/commentary\/2020\/11\/12\/air-bases-are-at-risk-without-the-agile-combat-employment-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"With air bases at risk, Agile Combat Employment must mature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

China and Russia can increasingly hold overseas U.S. bases at risk<\/a>. To adapt, the Air Force must evolve from its dependence on well-established airfields, or risk yielding an operational edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beijing\u2019s asymmetric arsenal<\/a> includes thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles<\/a> capable of striking<\/a> the first and second island chains of the Western Pacific. Moscow also boasts an immense quantity of ballistic and cruise missiles that easily range all of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force is especially vulnerable to these threats because of its reliance on prepared airfields. While the service can overcome some disadvantages with long-range bombers, a war in which missiles knock out American air bases and prevent the ability to launch and recover short-range fighter jets is unlikely to end well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To meet this challenge, the Air Force has developed Agile Combat Employment<\/a>, or ACE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACE is an operational concept that leverages networks of well-established and austere air bases, multi-capable airmen, pre-positioned equipment, and airlift to rapidly deploy, disperse and maneuver combat capability throughout a theater. Paired with aircraft fueling, arming and limited maintenance activities, ACE expands the number of bases from which air forces can generate combat sorties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This severely complicates an adversary\u2019s targeting calculus, as air forces could \u201cpick up<\/a>\u201d \u2014 as Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Air Force chief of staff, puts it \u2014 and move operations at any time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force unveiled its shift to ACE in 2017. Since then, through cross-major command initiatives and coordination, ACE has evolved to produce multidisciplinary support personnel, expanded to recurrent use in exercises and served as a foundation to further interoperability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACE has also progressed to include other airframes: Bombers were recently incorporated with the standing up of bomber task forces, or BTF. While BTFs have operated from well-established airfields with sizable logistics tails thus far, the Air Force envisions them becoming more expeditionary in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While efforts to date are laudable, more must be done to quickly mature the war-fighting concept, as the threats posed by China and Russia are manifest today. This sense of urgency is reinforced by Gen. Brown\u2019s call for the service to \u201caccelerate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, access to ally and partner nation airfields<\/a> must be expanded. If American air forces are constrained to U.S. main operating bases within the Indo-Pacific region<\/a> and Europe, the ability to \u201cpick up\u201d and move at a time, and to a place, of the combatant command\u2019s choosing is markedly diminished. In turn, capability in theater risks becoming static. Such forces are easy targets for Beijing or Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both regional commands are making strides to alleviate this concern: Agreements and infrastructure improvements in the Western Pacific and Eastern Europe serve as examples. However, considering the waves of missiles one might expect at the start of a high-end fight, pursuit of additional operating locations is warranted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n