The Air Force and Army need to figure out how to provide base defense for small outposts around the Pacific before a key Air Force operating plan can succeed, according to the service’s top officer.
The Air Force’s strategy to become more survivable and mobile, known as Agile Combat Employment, calls for increasing the number of bases it has in the Indo-Pacific and decreasing reliance on the handful of large airfields it already has in the expansive region. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said he’d feel more confident about the service’s progress on its ACE construct “if we had a more robust active base defense, quite frankly, and that’s one of those where we’ve been working with the Army, and that’s something that the [Defense] Department has taken on as a joint requirement.”
Traditionally, the Army has provided and manned air defense systems like Patriot and THAAD at installations, but those systems are likely too costly for the Pentagon to field at multiple small island bases throughout the region. And while the Army and Air Force are working together, the services have different responsibilities and priorities for air base defense.
“If we can’t have them at every space, we want to be able to decide where to place them, which means they need to be mobile enough to be able not just to be fixed, and so that’s some of the cleverness that has to happen with this, as well as the ability to rapidly move,” Allvin told reporters Wednesday. “The old school things of camouflage, concealment, and deception are still alive and well, we just need to upgrade them to a 21st Century context.”
Allvin deferred questions about specific capabilities to the Army, but said the Air Force is talking to the Army to understand if the solutions they’re developing meet the Air Force’s needs. The Pentagon has been experimenting with new, less costly ways of intercepting enemy missiles, like directed energy solutions, but it remains to be seen how soon those developments could be fielded at scale.
“There’s been dialogue and an understanding between the Army and the Air Force and [the Defense Secretary’s office] that we’ll work together on coming up with this. I haven’t signed a [memorandum of understanding], but there still is an understanding, and so the Army is sorting out how to do it for air bases. They also have their own for their maneuver elements as well. But they are pursuing some areas specifically with us, to support Agile Combat Employment,” Allvin said.
The U.S. will also need to defend its Pacific bases against non-kinetic threats like cyber attacks and electronic warfare, Allvin said, which will require different protections.
