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Archive for the ‘Profession of Arms’ Category

Army Streamlines Training Requirements to Enhance Warfighting Readiness

Thursday, April 3rd, 2025

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army will unveil an updated version of Army Regulation 350-1, Army Training and Leader Development, on June 1, 2025. This revision, which streamlines the regulation from over 250 pages to fewer than 100, will enable small-unit leaders and tactical formations to focus on training to fight and win on modern and future battlefields.

The updated regulation marks a significant step toward simplifying training requirements while enhancing warfighting readiness and effectiveness across the force. In addition, it will remove administrative burdens and unnecessary distractions, allowing Soldiers to focus on essential warfighting skills.

The revised AR 350-1 reduces the number of mandatory training tasks from 24 to 17, reduces requirements, eliminates redundancies and highlights tasks that are essential to warfighting, readiness and lethality. The updates focus on retaining only the essential training required by Department of Defense policies, as well as critical Army-specific tasks that support combat readiness.

Six tasks have been shifted to optional training, at the discretion of commanders, and one task has been eliminated entirely. Outdated programs, including “Resilience Training” and “Structured Self-Development,” have also been removed.

These revisions aim to alleviate the burden on commanders by granting them greater flexibility in customizing training schedules to meet specific mission requirements. The new regulation eliminates restrictions on the duration and locations of certain training events and encourages alternative methods of training delivery.

These changes are part of the Army’s broader effort to prioritize readiness by eliminating unnecessary administrative burdens and sharpening the focus on preparing Soldiers for decisive action in combat. The revised regulation also reorganizes appendices for improved clarity, emphasizing tasks related to warfighting capabilities.

This update reflects the Army’s commitment to ensuring that Soldiers are better prepared for real-world missions while reducing non-essential requirements that can detract from operational effectiveness.

To read the draft of AR-350-1, click here.

The Baldwin Files – My Farewell Adress

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

— Robert Heinlein

I believe in that Heinlein quote (above). I have tried to live my life that way. I recommend it. My first article on SSD was posted on 1 March 2015. At the time, I fully expected it to be one and done. Now, ten years and 59 articles later, it is time for me to take a new direction. Therefore, this will be my finalsubmission here – or anywhere else. I am proud of the articles that have been posted on SSD and – in some cases – reposted on other sites. I have been and always will be grateful to Eric for allowing me to rant and rave on his industry platform. He has been a great friend.

People and times must inevitably change. In the last year plus, I have been traveling considerably more often than I have since I retired in 2011. I have been putting myself back out there professionally and reconnecting with various associates and teammates. This outreach was prompted by some recent losses among my close friends. Specifically, four Command Sergeant Majors that I served with since the early 90s and had known for over 30 years. They all died of various cancers in the last two years. Two were younger than me.

I celebrate their lives and service, but their passing was a stark reminder of my mortality. I realized there were still constructivethings I wanted to do in the time left to me. Writing episodically like I have been, was not one of those things. That said, I am going to do something that I have been reluctant to do – in fact, I stated that I would not do it. I will consolidate these SSD articles into a book that I will self-publish sometime later this year. It now seems like the best way to close out this chapter of my life appropriately.

What I want to concentrate on are opportunities to teach, coach, and mentor some of the next generation of Army leaders. To that end, I have been down to The Army’s Officer Candidate School (OCS) three times since I wrote an article on OCS last August. I will go down again in June and about every 9-10 weeks thereafter. Each time, I spend a week at the school preaching the gospel of leadership to the heathen OCS Candidates – and sometimes the Cadre too.

I am going to keep doing that as long as I am able and the leadership of the school is willing to put up with me. In fact, this summer I am going to ask the OCS Alumni Association to recruit 2-3 more folks to join in some kind of rotation so that we can have better coverage of the classes than one person can provide. OCS Candidates are leadership sponges. They will take in anything and everything they can get.

I am working on getting something similar going (virtually for now) with the ROTC Cadets at Norwich University in Vermont. I will be joining a couple of still-serving Green Berets on a video conference to talk to Cadets about SF/SOF opportunities in early April. Hopefully, that can become a routinely scheduled interaction in the future. Later in April, I expect to be back at SWCS for a week doing the same sort of thing.

In May and again in September, I will visit Fort Cambell and spend time with the 5th Special Forces Group and the Air Assault School as I have done for the last few years. I will take every opportunity that I can find or manufacture to stay “plugged in” and do some professional mentoring. It is always a good use of my time. Whether it is any value added for my target audiences is for them to judge. To be clear, I am not paid for my time or travels. All I have asked for in return is continued access; and so far, I have been successful in getting that cooperation from the various commands. I just have to keep earning that privilege. I suppose doing it “pro bono” confirms that I am still a soldier, not a businessman. I can live with that.

The pictures that accompany this piece show some aspects of the 56-acre “Homestead” I have been working on these last 13 years since I retired. While the façade is, obviously, unfinished, the interior is almost done. Those pallets in the first picture are the stones that eventually will be on the front of the dome just like they already are on the garage (2nd Picture). This is my physical “farewell address” if you will. It may or may not be of interest to the regular readers of my articles. My friends joke that I won’t live long enough to finish it at the snail-like pace I appear to be working. They might be right. Some have speculated that it is imaginary. A couple of my friends have seen it as a work in progress over the years, but these pictures should also prove to those who have not that it does exist!

My wife and I have our office space and library on the second floor of the 3-Bay garage on the right of the second picture. I designed both buildings myself and, therefore, the interior layouts are customized to our preferences. We have had plenty of professional and semi-professional help building our dream home, but she and I have indeed touched every inch of it as it has gone up. It is ours. And, because I have been paying as we go, I owe nothing on any of it. Slowly but surely, the plan has come together. Still, getting this home fully finished is definitely moving to the front of my priorities now as well. It is past time.

These pictures are over a year old and there have been a number of improvements since then. For example, I got the rails up on the stairwell not too long ago (not shown). The bar (3rd and 5thpictures) was a “housewarming” gift from my youngest Brother a few years back. He bought it for $50 at a flea market. It was intact but in bad shape when we got it, but my wife and I refurbished and fully stocked it. That Brother had worked in construction all his adult life. He was heavily involved in all aspects of this long project.

He died of lung cancer about 4 years ago. His loss set our schedule back quite a bit. It took me a long time to come back to the project at all. To fill the blank space between the stairwell and the kitchen (3rd Picture), I have someone – with more woodworking skills than I – building me a custom display case for my guns. Every real Hillbilly knows that your firearmsshould never be stored too far from your liquor. My Brother would like it that way and I think the friends I have lost would too. Here’s to all of them.

When I close out with an OCS Company, I tell them goodbye and good luck. Then I say that it is “traditional” for an old person to tell youngsters how much we envy the journey in front of them and tell them that we wish we could do it all over ourselves. I go on to say that I am sure that most folks who do soare sincere. But if I said it, it would be bullshit! I tell them that I do NOT envy them. I would not take their place and start over even if I could. I do not need a do-over. I have run my race. I am satisfied with my career and my life. I can only hope and wish for them that when they finish their careers – however, short or long that might be – they will be as satisfied as I am now. For those reading this, I would wish the same.

I have been blessed with great good luck my entire life. Although I did not always recognize it in the moment. It is demonstrably true; I am one lucky Sumbitch. Like the Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) protagonist Juan “Johnny” Rico, my luck has always been people. I have had countless great mentors, role models, and teammates. Not to mention that I have almost exclusively worked with truly high-performance people. People you can count on and trust. People who never quit growing and improving. People who thrive on challenges. Being associated with people like that has made me a better person. Therefore, I have had very few disappointments of any kind in my life, and in terms of my professional journey, Je Ne Regrette Rien! I regret nothing.

In conclusion, and to paraphrase McArther and Chesty Puller, I am not fading away just yet, but I am choosing to attack in another direction! One final thought on leadership. A leader keeps moving ahead and must blaze his or her own path forward. Poor leaders cut a path only wide enough for themselves to pass through. Good leaders cut a wider opening to bring their organization forward with them. The best leaders cut the widest lane possible. If you fancy yourself a leader, a good leader, cut that wider path. Show those that follow you how it is done.

De Oppresso Liber!

LTC Terry Baldwin, US Army (Ret) served on active duty from 1975-2011 in various Infantry and Special Forces assignments. SSD has been blessed by his friendship and role as both reader and contributor. We encourage him to remain engaged with our readership through our comments section and we expect to continue our phone calls and correspondence.

Less Death Star, More Tie Fighter: The Tactical Need for Army Skirmishers

Thursday, March 27th, 2025

An eerie fog swirls around your boots as you lead your infantry platoon through the increasingly dark forest. A twig snaps, and the bushes rustle ominously 50 meters to the west. Suddenly, from the shadows emerges either one angry horse-sized duck or 300 angry duck-sized horses.

Given a choice, which would you rather fight? I wager you would much rather focus all of your attention on the one goliath duck than have to deal with a deluge of tiny horses. This may be just a silly thought exercise, but the concept has merit. Although the weight of one horse is equal to around 300 ducks, the effect on the battlefield is much different.1 Even with superior intellect and technology, it is much more difficult to focus energy on numerous small, less lethal targets than it is to direct your efforts on the one larger but perhaps deadlier target. Yet this is the scenario the Army has boxed itself into with the continued focused development of large, heavy, and highly technical machines of war as the solution to combat.

To use a popular science fiction franchise as another example, a long time ago in a galaxy far away, the Galactic Empire concluded that the best way to win its long-running war was to build a super weapon so technologically advanced and massively devastating that Rebel forces would be forced into a final submission.2 As franchise installments revealed, the massive time and resources required to build and operate the behemoth known as the “Death Star” was wasted not once but twice as the inferior Rebel forces exploited key vulnerabilities to destroy the weapon system with a swarm of relatively cheap fighters. The American way of war is on a similar path, but on the wrong side. We love technology. Our combat systems are built to defeat any attack, conquer any terrain, and destroy any enemy. But as history has demonstrated, even the most powerful of forces can be defeated, or at least perpetually disrupted, when attacked unconventionally.

Armies worldwide are only getting more lethal, more accurate, and able to strike from increasingly further distances. The battlefield has changed. Years of training, billions of dollars, and months of deployment activities can be lost as a barrage of hypersonic missiles crest the horizon, each zeroing in on armored vehicles individually tagged and targeted by space and drone observation.3 One entire combined arms battalion could be gone in a blink. While the Army has committed to increasing our ability to conduct counterfires and missile defense, and improve the lethality and distance of our weapon systems, that may be only half the solution. The plan of simply “out-executing” an opponent with like equipment is not actually simple at all. Army tactics must change to counter the advantages currently held by our adversaries at the same time we raise our ability to match and exceed them.

Losses are an unfortunate byproduct of war. It is not acceptable (in the U.S. military, at least) to simply throw people and equipment into the meat grinder in a battle of attrition, but it is equally dangerous to be of the mindset that losses can be fully negated with sufficiently hardened vehicles. Enemy long-range fires are at such a volume, range, and mobility that they can afford to attack targets early and often, and for better or worse, the U.S. Army fights through its vaunted main battle tanks. Most battle planning orbits around the use and maneuver of heavy armor, supported by air and artillery, to take and hold ground. We’re watching the stalemate live in Ukraine, where neither side can take and hold ground despite significant ground and air barrages. The Army should consider going lighter, cheaper, and more numerous to defeat opponent advantages before committing heavy armor. The goal would be to finish the fight with the tanks rather than start it.

If the U.S. military is planning on fighting a peer threat, we need to consider what gives a peer threat the most trouble. Namely, what gives us the most trouble. Too often, we reference Operation Desert Storm as a great victory against a similarly equipped military, but it is the Yom Kippur War in 1973 that may give us the most insight. The Israeli Army, which is similarly equipped to U.S. forces, was initially defeated in part because of the overwhelming number of individual anti-tank weapons leveled against their western forces. Coupled with surprise and other compounding factors, the better-equipped and trained Israeli forces were rocked on their heels. More recently, the U.S. military conducted the exercise Millennial Challenge 2002, where it faced an unnamed virtual Middle Eastern enemy force led by retired Marine Gen Paul Van Riper.4 The results were unnerving at best:

“Van Riper decided that as soon as a U.S. Navy carrier battle group steamed into the Gulf, he would “preempt the preemptors” and strike first. Once U.S. forces were within range, Van Riper’s forces unleashed a barrage of missiles from ground-based launchers, commercial ships, and planes flying low and without radio communications to reduce their radar signature. Simultaneously, swarms of speedboats loaded with explosives launched kamikaze attacks. The carrier battle group’s Aegis radar system — which tracks and attempts to intercept incoming missiles — was quickly overwhelmed, and 19 U.S. ships were sunk, including the carrier, several cruisers, and five amphibious ships. “The whole thing was over in five, maybe ten minutes,” Van Riper said.”5

Gen Van Riper wreaked havoc on the technologically superior U.S. forces in short order, and at a much-reduced cost, than if he had attacked with like forces (i.e., Navy vs. Navy). The lessons we learned were the wrong ones. We doubled down on protection and lethality instead of adapting the swarm tactics as a viable winning strategy.

Swarming skirmishers are not a new trend and have been a feasible tactic since formal militaries were created… and likely earlier. Throughout history, inferiorly equipped enemies have adapted by giving advanced forces both more and less to engage. They deploy small, agile, and inexpensive combat forces in greater numbers with seemingly chaotic movements, as opposed to large high value targets with structured objectives. Napoleon struggled against guerrilla tactics in Spain and also employed his own skirmishers to disrupt coalition formations before committing his own formations. Soviet tanks and helicopters struggled to defeat scattered locals equipped with anti-air and anti-tank weapons in Afghanistan and are continually harassed by small drone warfare in Ukraine.6 The U.S. has personally experienced fighting these tactics in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention the struggles with fighting Native Americans early in our own country. Yet despite the continual examples presented by history, the U.S. Army persists in the thought that our “Death Stars” will dominate future conflicts. We move further and further away from skirmishers as a viable addition to our fighting formations. With the advent of brigade combat teams, the lethality, mobility, and deep-strike capability of the Vietnam-era long-range reconnaissance detachments (LRSDs) is slowly being converted to armored reconnaissance units, designed to engage and defeat adversary reconnaissance armor with like vehicles. The ability to actively harass and disrupt without being decisively engaged has dissipated at a time when it is needed the most.

Field Manual 3-0, Operations, implores commanders to give the enemy “multiple dilemmas” in an effort to affect their observe, orient, decide, act (OODA) loop. Small teams — ghosting from tree to shadow in the wood line, attacking and disappearing continuously — cause trepidation and disrupt movement like almost no other force. The Imperial Tie Fighters swarmed like killer bees, never presenting a singular target and utilizing a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy. Vietcong forces mastered this fear during the Vietnam War as well as our sniper teams do today. Modern skirmishers would utilize certain traits to be the most effective:

1. Small Teams: A group of two to four Soldiers is more effective for “hit and run” attacks than the traditional cavalry and infantry formations. Operating semi-independently, and in large numbers (of teams), these groups would swarm enemy forces from multiple angles, striking and withdrawing as another team attacks from a new direction. Their goal is to create chaos and confusion, with the bonus possibility of destroying key enemy equipment and personnel.

2. High Lethality and Mobility: Smaller, lighter, faster. For the cost of one Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Army could have around 25 Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicles. That trade-off gives a commander 25 chaos teams, which, when equipped with individual sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and anti-air and anti-tank weapons, can attack targets of opportunity at will before quickly fading into the shadows. Given individual dirt bikes or quad bikes, especially if electric and quiet, the individual skirmishing soldier, and team overall, is even more mobile and frustrating.

3. Stigmergy: Essentially, swarming attacks are executed without continual direction and coordination during the attack.7 In an ambush, Team A engages suddenly and violently, then withdraws just as quickly. Team B engages from a different direction just as the enemy responds to the initial attack, then quickly withdraws. As enemy attention shifts, Team A, or even a third or fourth team engage again, continually interrupting the OODA loop with new problems, all without having defined planning between teams.

“Stigmergy-based rules allow units to deduce when to attack, retreat, and how much distance to maintain with other detachments based on the surrounding environment. Relatively simple sets of rules, properly vetted and trained, can allow junior leaders to rapidly self-organize with little to no electronic communication signature to complete a mission.”8

It can be argued that Stryker brigade combat team (SBCT) reconnaissance squadrons, as well as Ranger battalions and even infantry companies, all retain a skirmisher mentality. This is certainly true, and the intent would be to enhance these capabilities with equipment and training rather than allow them to be slowly transformed to heavily armored, high-signature formations. The two most likely candidates for the development of chaos teams are the cavalry squadrons and infantry companies. Their missions and training sets are already closely associated with the objectives of the skirmisher, but with the added ability to bridge the gap between a reconnaissance (information) focus and the infantry (kill and hold) focus.

The arguments against such formations are largely based on risk. There is obvious concern for the survivability of the teams, which is in direct conflict with the current trend of increasing the armor of reconnaissance elements. Their key to survival, however, is the same as what makes them lethal. Chaos teams are small and fast, with a minimal vehicle signature and battlefield footprint. Much like hearing the buzz of a mosquito, it is difficult to pin down where it’s coming from, and even harder to actually swat it. This becomes exponentially more difficult as the number of mosquitoes increases. As mentioned, the teams utilize opportunistic hit-and-run attacks to avoid direct and extended engagements with enemy forces. Violent action is followed by rapid disengagement during the initial confusion, leaving the enemy dealing with the sudden chaos. There is the threat of being discovered and destroyed, which is a constant concern for all reconnaissance elements (as well as a necessary evil). Once again, the small footprint of the teams is conducive to quickly and easily going to ground as needed. Training focus on survival skills and camouflage will further enhance their ability to fade into the forest. The enemy gets a vote; however, and it is likely to find a few teams through luck or detection. The large number of teams and fluidity of their mission minimize the impacts to combat effectiveness of the skirmisher element. In contrast, the loss of armored vehicles in traditional reconnaissance formations can open gaps that are not easily closed. Whereas swatting that one mosquito is satisfying, it does little to stop the onslaught of the rest of the swarm. By nature, the chaos teams are certainly high risk, but the effects they provide could prove to be a much higher reward.

The Army currently lacks the ability to actively disrupt enemy operations on a persistent basis. We lament adversary capabilities for anti-tank and anti-air at the lowest level, forcing excessive caution before our adversary has even used it against us, but have not addressed our tactics to counter them. U.S. Army reconnaissance and infantry elements have clearly defined missions and doctrine but lack the flexibility to flow in and through the enemy with open objectives. Much like the swarms of Tie Fighters surging against approaching Rebel fighters, the benefits of the chaos teams are clear. They have minimal logistics support requirements, the ability to cause massive disruption, and can absorb the loss of teams without becoming combat ineffective.

Before the message boards fill with die-hard fans, I fully acknowledge that tanks are probably more Imperial Star Destroyer than Death Star. The point remains that the historical Army concept of relying on this heavy armor is susceptible to catastrophic failure with a few well-placed shots (and perhaps a bit of the Force). To defeat an adversary with the depth and breadth of artillery and anti-access/area denial that our adversaries have demonstrated, the Army needs to employ less Death Stars and invest in quite a few more Tie Fighters.

By LTC Travis Michelena

Notes

1 The average duck is roughly 4 pounds, while the average horse is roughly 1,200 pounds.

2 George Lucas, Star Wars, Lucasfilm, 1977, www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684.

3 Amanda Macias, “Russia’s New Hypersonic Missile, which can be Launched from Warplanes, Will Likely Be Ready for Combat by 2020,” CNBC, 13 July 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/russia-new-hypersonic-missile-likely-ready-for-war-by-2020.

4 Micah Zenko, “Millennium Challenge: The Real Story of a Corrupted Military Exercise and its Legacy,” War on the Rocks, 5 November 2015, warontherocks.com/2015/11/millennium-challenge-the-real-story-of-a-corrupted-military-exercise-and-its-legacy.

5 Ibid.

6 “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980,” U.S. Department of State, n.d., history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan.

7 A form of self-organization without formal planning, direct control, or communication; examples: ants, bees, flocks of birds, and schools of fish.

8 Justin Lynch and Lauren Fish, “Soldier Swarm: New Ground Combat Tactics for the Era of Multi-Domain Battle,” Modern War Institute, 5 April 2018, mwi.westpoint.edu/soldier-swarm-new-ground-combat-tactics-era-multi-domain-battle.

LTC Travis Michelena currently serves in the 79th Theater Sustainment Command Forward Element in Vincenza, Italy, with a focus on sustainment operations throughout Africa. He has more than 17 years of experience as an Army logistician with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti. LTC Michelena’s previous assignments include serving as commander of the Forward Support Company, 4th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division; an observer-coach-trainer and Headquarters and Headquarters Company commander with the First Army’s 181st Infantry Brigade; and S-3 and executive officer with the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command in Europe.

This article appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Infantry. Read more articles from the professional bulletin of the U.S. Army Infantry at www.benning.army.mil/Infantry/Magazine or www.lineofdeparture.army.mil/Journals/Infantry

New Arctic & Extreme Cold Weather Ops Pub ATP 3-90.96 MCTP 12-10E

Friday, March 21st, 2025

The Army and Marine Corps have released a new Arctic & Extreme Cold Weather Ops publication.

The Arctic is simultaneously an arena of competition, a line of attack in conflict, a vital area holding many natural resources, and key terrain for global power projection. As such, a ready and capable land force in arctic operations serves to deter threats to the U.S. homeland, its allies, and interests in the Arctic.

As an expeditionary force, the U.S. military stays prepared to meet the challenges of the Arctic and to fight and win in any environment, regardless of home station. Leaders and individuals must understand the effects of the Arctic and extreme cold weather environments and must have the training, stamina, and willpower to take the proper actions.

This manual provides the doctrinal foundation for Soldiers/Marines to understand the Arctic’s operational environment and conduct arctic and extreme cold weather operations. The fundamentals of this manual are also applicable to all cold weather environments. This manual also informs DOTMLPF-P (doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy) improvements as the Army/Marine Corps regains arctic dominance.

armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN43089-ATP_3-90.96-000-WEB-2

US Army Announces Mariner & Mountaineering Badges

Thursday, March 20th, 2025

Via social media the Army dropped this image regarding the announced the establishment of the Army Mariner and Mountaineer badges in ALARACT 025/2025 and 026/2025.

The Mariner Badges will recognize proficiency in mariner operations at three different levels of expertise and the Mountaineer badge will recognize proficiency in mountaineering operations.

New US Army Mountaineering Badge Design

Wednesday, March 19th, 2025

Hot on the heels of the ALARACT announcing the new Army Mountaineering badge, the design has leaked via LinkedIn and it features a Ram’s Head.

Here are a couple of points:

– Guidelines should be ‘official’ in 60 days, per the message.

– 120 days or so until they’re available for purchase.

– This should cover any Echo Qualified Soldier.

US Army Announces Mountaineering Badge

Monday, March 17th, 2025

In ALARACT 06/2025 released on 13 March 2025, the US Army announces the Mountaineering Badge to recognize proficiency in mountaineering operations. However, as proficient as you might be in military mountaineering, its award is limited to graduates of the Army Mountaineering School which is run by the Vermont National Guard.

Currently, course graduates are awarded the famed Ram’s Head badge, which is only authorized for wear by National Guard Soldiers. When Sergeant Major of the Army Weimer announced that the Army would be introducing the badge to the total force during AUSA last fall, he stated that it would be a completely new badge and that the service would not adopt the Ram’s Head Device.

According to the message, the design of the badge has still not been determined but that the Army Institute of Heraldry will release the design within 60 days and it will be available for sale at Military Clothing Sales stores within 120 days.

Air Force Aims to Instill Warrior Ethos, Increase Lethality

Saturday, March 15th, 2025

WASHINGTON (AFNS) —

The Air Force is making progress toward Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s priorities, which will ultimately result in giving the president more options, said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, who provided a keynote address, March 3, at the 2025 Air and Space Forces Association’s Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado.

Allvin mentioned those priorities — restoring the warrior ethos, reestablishing deterrence, meritocracy, reforming acquisition, passing an audit, matching threats to capabilities and defending the homeland — and how the Air Force is executing them.

Reviving the warrior ethos means letting every Airman know what it means to fight as a unit, what’s going to be expected of them, and focusing on the threat, he said.

“Your Air Force continues to kick butt. Our Airmen are doing amazing things every day. They make it look just normal,” he said, noting how Airmen, along with allies and partners, controlled the skies over the Middle East and are increasing interoperability with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region.

Also, every day, Airmen protect the skies over the homeland through exercises and nuclear deterrence, he said.

“We’re a well-used Air Force, and we’ve been used well and used often. Every time we ask them to do more, they continue to do more,” Allvin said.

Ensuring all of the service’s investments increase combat readiness and effectiveness is now the focus, he said.

For example, the Air Force maintains excess infrastructure, approximately 20-30% too much, he said.

“All of that is not adding to combat capability. All of that is infrastructure that needs to be maintained, sustained and doesn’t necessarily provide more combat lethality,” he said.

Greater lethality, he said, has been degraded by a drop in aircraft availability as the fleet ages and needs more maintenance. Also, weapon sustainment costs are growing, and the nuclear triad needs to finish its modernization efforts.

As threats continue to evolve, the Air Force is racing toward adding unmanned fighters to the fleet, training for human-machine integration and using autonomy more effectively, he said. 

When the new Air Force secretary and undersecretary get confirmed, they will examine how effectively the force is executing the defense secretary’s priorities, Allvin said.

“I have a hunch that when they see some of these things we’re doing, we’re going to be told to go faster,” he added.

Lastly, he pointed out that “Americans keep signing up, saying they want to join the team. And the team that is the United States Air Force continues to be the best in the world. They show up every day. They do what they’re asked. They do it with excellence. They do it in a way that makes us all proud.”

The Air Force is ahead of its annual recruiting goal, with more recruits currently in the delayed entry program than at any point in nearly 10 years.

By David Vergun, DoD News

Photos by Master Sgt John Hillier, Airman 1st Class Koby Mitchell, and Airman Elijah Van Zandt