Air Force needs ‘more robust, active base defense’ amid new threats: Allvin

WASHINGTON — The Air Force’s new approach to dispersing operations can help prepare for conflict in the Indo-Pacific, but a burgeoning arsenal of missiles and other weapons possessed by adversaries like China means those tactics can only go so far, the service’s top officer warned Wednesday.

“I would feel more confident if we had a more robust, active base defense, quite frankly.” Gen. David Allvin said in a roundtable with reporters at the Pentagon. “And that’s one of those [areas] where we’ve been working with the Army, and that’s something that the department has taken on as a joint requirement, that we need to improve our base defenses.”

Air Force officials have repeatedly stressed the need for increasing air defenses, especially considering that some operations will be more austere and geographically scattered under the service’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) approach. The ACE concept will also prompt some tough decisions, Allvin said, such as where to position key assets.

“If we can’t have [air defenses] at every space, we want to be able to decide where to place them” and also ensure some are mobile, he said. “The old school things of camouflage, concealment and deception are still alive and well, we just need to upgrade them to a 21st century context,” he added.

The Army, through high-demand systems like Patriot, has traditionally developed many of the technologies that would be key for base defenses. Allvin said there is an “understanding” between the two services and that the Army is “pursuing some areas specifically with us to support agile combat employment.” 

Heeding lessons from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the Pentagon has been researching new methods — e.g. directed energy — to more cheaply knock down threats like missiles and drones. Allvin didn’t specify what new capabilities were in development, deferring questions to the Army. Additionally, Allvin noted that better missile defense is just one piece of the puzzle, as airmen will also need to more rapidly sense enemy attack and stay connected in an environment that will likely be thick with cyberattacks and other forms of non-kinetic warfare. 

The Air Force is taking other steps to prepare for conflict in the Indo-Pacific like drawing up more large-scale exercises. In a speech at the Hudson Institute on Friday, Allvin unveiled the service’s name for one planned next summer called Reforpac, an ode to Cold War-era exercises called Return of Forces to Germany, or Reforger. And he told reporters Wednesday that the exercise will still go forward even if Congress doesn’t fulfill an unfunded priority list request for the event, albeit with less funding if need be. 

Allvin said that recent exercises, such as Bamboo Eagle on the West Coast, and upcoming events are enabling the Air Force to start testing out its new deployable combat wing model, where the service will send cohesive units into action rather than crowd source elements from numerous locations. The general said that the service still has “a long way to go” as it evolves under its “reoptimization” drive launched earlier this year, but added the Air Force is taking other steps such as integrating inspector general staff at places like major commands and using analytical tools to better account for assets like spare parts.

“I think I’m as encouraged now as I have been since I started this, that on the readiness side, I think we’re making some good progress,” he said.