AURORA, Colo. (AFNS) -- Senior Air Force leaders and industry experts discussed the priorities for Air Force’s Future Force Design during a panel at the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Aurora, February 25.
The Air Force is currently undergoing a massive modernization effort to equip the service with the tools it needs to win.
“Our Airmen face unrelenting demands across the world today, while the service must prepare for a growing threat environment that ranges from regional bad actors and their proxies, to peer adversaries who wish to reorder the globe,” said Heather Penney, moderator for the panel and Air & Space Forces Association Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Director of Studies and Research. “The service must strike a delicate balance between ready to fight tonight while developing and delivering next generation technologies on time and at scale.”
Thomas Lawhead, assistant deputy chief of staff, Strategy, Integration and Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Lt. Gen. Jason Armagost, Air Force Global Strike Command deputy commander, and retired Gen. James Holmes, Boeing Defense senior advisor, joined the panel to discuss how the Air Force and its key industry partners are tackling these issues.
Penney opened the discussion by seeking the origin of the Future Force Design.
The Air Force's emphasis on Force Design, Lawhead explained, is driven by the critical need to evolve into the most lethal and adaptable force in the world, capable of deterring aggression and prevailing in any conflict. Achieving this transformation requires a fundamental shift in the service’s approach by carefully balancing the readiness of current force while aggressively pursuing the modernization needed to stay ahead of emerging threats.
Lawhead added that the Air Force is making changes internally to its acquisition and requirements processes to keep pace with rapid modernization and readiness.
“You need a force that is able to cross all those domains and close those key capability gaps,” Lawhead said. Ensuring requirements are linked to a validated, war-winning concept, providing a strategic reason for every investment, and designing the force from the ground up enables the Joint Force to succeed.
When asked to outline the key attributes and priorities for the future force design, Lawhead replied that the core priority of the Air Force’s Future Force Design is a crucial shift in thinking.
Instead of asking “How many F-47s does the service need,” Lawhead said we now ask, “what attributes, like lethality, survivability, long-range penetrating capability, and persistent connectivity, do we need to guarantee air superiority?”
The integration of the array of platforms and capabilities into a cohesive, interoperable force will offer the Air Force an advantage. This approach allows the service to break from the monolithic programs of the past and build a networked, interoperable force.
The panelists agreed the Air Force faces three major challenges: pacing rapidly modernizing adversaries such as China; balancing readiness and modernization for a force that is the smallest and oldest in its history; and delivering new capabilities at speed and scale.
Armagost emphasized that the Air Force must continue to refine its mix of penetrating aircraft and stand off weapons, stressing that both are essential.
Addressing claims that “stealth is dead,” Holmes and Armagost underscored that low observable technologies remain critical to joint operations, particularly when integrated with advanced sensing and electronic warfare capabilities.
Panelists also highlighted the need for fleet wide approaches to electromagnetic spectrum operations. Rather than relying on isolated capabilities, they said the future force must integrate apertures, sensors, and spectrum tools across platforms to complicate adversary targeting and maintain decision advantage in contested environments.
With the imperative to increase the lethality of the fight tonight force, Lawhead shared his thoughts on how to balance the cost to acquire the future force, while also maintaining enough available and mission capable aircraft capacity to train and fight.
From Collaborative Combat Aircraft to the B-21 and F-47, there’s a lot of new programs for the Air Force, but how are they introducing these airframes into the service, Penney asked.
“We are building a digital Wargaming capability called WarMatix, that starts to get after the long-term capabilities that we need,” Lawhead said. WarMatrix will allow the service to assess the operational success of these future platforms, acting in concert with the existing fleet and the Joint Force.
By leveraging AI to generate adaptive opposition and automate adjudication, WarMatrix allows the service to rapidly test new capabilities like the B-21 and F-47 against a strategic adversary that learns and changes its behavior to present a contested environment.
In summary, this panel discussed the Air Force’s Future Force Design, emphasizing the need for multi-domain, multi-spectral, and joint force capabilities required to compete and win in a complex threat environment. Key drivers include the evolving strategic landscape and the necessity of balancing readiness today with modernization for future threats. This discussion highlighted the importance of agility, survivability, and reform, and the enduring need for both penetrating and long-range capabilities.