The debate at this week’s Air & Space Force Association’s Warfare Symposium focused on a plea to President Trump to “Make the Air Force Great Again.” In the spirit of a post-mission aircrew debrief, I offer this experienced intervention with the utmost respect for the entire Air Force enterprise. This is a team sport, and the team must improve. Immediate and ruthless self-assessment is essential. Senior leadership, industry partners, and all Airmen must recognize that this moment is consequential. Without drastic shifts in our approach, we will squander a once-in-a-century opportunity to transform the force—and fail to close the capability gap between mobility’s aerial refueling and cargo fleet and the fighter and bomber fleet they support.
Transformation is not tied solely to changes in presidential administrations. During my tenure as commander of Air Mobility Command, we sensed and seized opportunities to aggressively pursue our obligation to better support the Air Force and the Joint Force in conflict and crisis. We rapidly developed new concepts to advance each of our core missions: airlift, aerial refueling, aeromedical evacuation, and enabling ground support.
We had ample operational data points to inform and guide our improvement efforts: Kabul, Ukraine, Mobility Guardian, Bamboo Eagle, Israel, Gaza, Homeland Defense, border security. All these missions and exercises were executed with a wounded and vulnerable fleet. (See, for example, reports on the KC-46 and C-130H.) We crafted strategy and guidance to inspire alignment, imagination, and action. Most importantly, we expanded beyond comfortable dogma, seeking innovative concepts and technical solutions from America’s brightest industrial minds.
Yet I struggled.
Bureaucratic inertia and political hesitancy proved formidable. Securing deep integration within the Air Force and Joint Force was harder than it had to be. Overcoming erratic programming priorities required crafty advocacy outside of DoD. And, as was revealed last week with the release of the Mitchell Institute’s “Vector for Trump” study, I failed to influence the practitioners of Air Power advocacy effectively.
Produced by the Air Force Association’s think tank affiliate, the new study properly aligns with Air Force chief Gen. Allvin’s “Make or Break” op-ed from January, arguing that America needs more Air Force. It proposes an additional $45 billion in funding to buy essential platforms such as Next Generation Air Dominance, B-21s, F-35s, and F-15EXs. Of this, a mere $300 million is allocated for development of Next Generation Air Refueling, a less-than-1-percent afterthought.
The Mitchell report is righteous on intent but flawed in execution. It honors mobility in words but not action. Its programming advice disregards the most relied-upon force in history of warfare: Rapid Global Mobility. Most critically, it struggles to account for the political and strategic realities—mobility recapitalization and an airpower concept that knits together the need for the whole fleet—that enable true Air Force rejuvenation.
Even if the $45 billion materialized and the Mitchell report authors’ wildest dreams came true, the result would likely be a cutting-edge 5th- and 6th-generation kinetic force fatally shackled to 2nd-generation airlift and aerial refueling platforms for decades to come. It would be a world-class striking force rendered ineffective due to outdated mobility assets that cannot connect, support, or maneuver joint air, sea, and ground forces in future conflicts. This is already a significant concern. This ask makes it worse.
Furthermore, the most significant share of the $45 billion infusion will reward the parts of the American defense industry notorious for delays, cost overruns, and subpar performance. The warfighter pays the price for these inefficiencies—in capability, readiness, and, ultimately, in conflict.
Collaborative combat aircraft are a decent start, but where is the holistic bold thinking that once defined the Air Force? Where is the integrated approach that binds all core functions and into an unrivaled, lethal force? Where is the partnership with America’s most daring, provocative, and aspirational companies? True transformation must include advanced mobility and aerial refueling capabilities that enable mass, volume, tempo, and survivability in contested environments. It must incorporate cutting-edge connectivity, uncrewed automation, human performance technology, VTOL & EVTOL, and flexible logistics solutions that augment, then replace, ancient KC-135s, aging C-17s, suffering C-130s, and failing C-5s.
America needs more Air Force, and the Air Force needs more resources. But America does not need a larger more unbalanced Air Force. The President, Secretary of Defense, incoming Chairman, and Secretary of the Air Force have no appetite for the continuation of recycled and expensive disappointments.
Do we, members of the Air Force enterprise, have the courage to finally design and administer winning violence for current and future air domains? Fiercely advocating for every contributor to air power is foundational to ensuring Air Force battle-sky supremacy and enabling the Joint Force.
Mike Minihan, a retired U.S. Air Force general, is a former commander of the service’s Air Mobility Command.
