Reoptimization for Great Power Competition

GPC Key Decisions

USAF Case for Change

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.

The Big Picture: Operation Blue Jay

Army University Press

Video by Kyle Davis

April 5, 2023 | 28:22

111.TV.227 – Pituffik Space Base – This episode of The Big Picture focuses on the secret construction of an air base near Thule, Greenland in the early 1950s. Built during the Cold War, the base was to provide the U.S. a home for long-range bombers closer to the Soviet Union and China. Staged at Norfolk, Virginia, Operation Blue Jay moved over $125 million worth of equipment by ship to the remote Greenland site. Once the convoy arrived through ice-packed waters, soldiers began working on port facilities and shelter. Working expeditiously during the short summer season to avoid facing temperatures of fifty below, the Corps of Engineers built an expansive air base nine-hundred miles north of the Artic Circle.

Thule (pronounced too-lee) Air Base is the most northern U.S. military outpost at 76 degrees north latitude. The facility was operated by the U.S. Air Force from 1951 until operations transferred to the U.S. Space Force in 2019.  On 6 April 2022, Thule Air Base was renamed Pituffik (pronounced bee-do-FEEK) Space Base.  The name Pituffik was suggested by the governments of Greenland and Denmark to acknowledge the traditional Greenlandic/Indigenous name where the base is located. Pituffik was also the name of the village that was displaced in the 1950s for the construction of the base. More