Reoptimization for Great Power Competition

GPC Key Decisions

USAF Case for Change

SecAF Memo

Air Force FAQ for Reoptimizing Great Power Competition

“We need these changes now; we are out of time to reoptimize our forces to meet the strategic challenges in a time of great power competition.”

~ Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall

The United States faces a time of consequence marked by significant shifts in the strategic environment. To remain ready, the U.S. Air Force must change.

In early 2024, the Department of the Air Force unveiled sweeping plans for reshaping, refocusing, and reoptimizing the Air Force and Space Force to ensure continued supremacy in their respective domains while better posturing the services to deter and, if necessary, prevail in an era of Great Power Competition. Through a series of 24 DAF-wide key decisions, four core areas which demand the Department’s attention will be addressed: Develop People, Generate Readiness, Project Power and Develop Capabilities.

Today, the Air Force once again finds itself at a critical juncture—an era of Great Power Competition marked by a new security environment, a rapidly evolving character of war, and a formidable competitor. This new era requires understanding its challenges and the attributes needed to succeed.

Embracing change is not a choice; it is a necessity. The Air Force must “reoptimize” into an enterprise prepared for high-end conflicts and long-term strategic competition.

DISA History Minute - MOLINK

Defense Information Systems Agency

Video by Nicholas Kurtz

Jan. 14, 2026 | 0:59

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The end of World War II in 1945 ushered the might and power of the United States onto the global stage. Europe had been decimated by World War I and had suffered through a world-wide economic depression. World War II, Germany’s second attempt at domination, flattened the region yet again. Among the Western allies, the Soviet Union began to flex its power by rapidly annexing nations that abutted it, including Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary. Within a short time, the Soviet Union’s fierce grip became the enemy of the United States and the West. This new, uncomfortable antagonism was dubbed the Cold War because the next few decades were spent posturing and threatening but with limited conventional warfare. Both the United States and the Soviet Union created massive arsenals of intercontinental nuclear weapons with neither superpower willing to be the first to launch a war that could destroy the entire planet. Early in the Cold War, DISA’s predecessor, the Defense Communications Agency was tasked to create a hotline between the US President in Washington, DC and the Soviet President in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia. Such a precarious balance of power was called “brinksmanship” and this hotline was created to make communication between the two leaders secure, reliable and fast. It was called the Moscow-Washington hotline or the MOLINK. DCA created and maintained the MOLINK and continues to do so today. More