Air Force leaders lay out a path to the next fight

Senior Air Force leaders used a high-profile panel at the Air and Space Forces Association’s 2026 Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Sept. 14 to outline how the service intends to fight through a contested environment, sustain near-term readiness and accelerate modernization into usable combat power.

The session brought together Gen. Kevin Schneider, commander of Pacific Air Forces; Gen. Adrian L. Spain, commander of Air Combat Command; Lt. Gen. Kenyon Bell, deputy chief of staff for Logistics, Engineering and Force Protection; and Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the Air Force’s chief modernization officer. Drawing on recent operations, they highlighted command and control, agile combat employment and resilience across bases, networks and logistics as immediate priorities.

Spain underscored that the traditional assumption of operating from secure bases no longer holds. “We do not operate from sanctuary any longer,” he said. “Our bases are under attack, and we have to continue to generate air power in spite of that.” Bell framed the same reality through the sustainment lens: “The era of uncontested logistics is over,” he said, urging investment in the ability to sustain and regenerate forces while under pressure.

Niemi pointed to growing demands for point defense—short-range, layered protection against a spectrum of airborne threats—as well as a broader rethink of the Air Force’s long-standing tradeoff between a small number of exquisite platforms and a larger force designed for mass and persistence.

Much of the discussion revolved around risk: how much to accept today to build the force needed a decade from now, and who bears it. Schneider emphasized that operational commanders are closest to the consequences of those choices. “The operational end user, whoever has OPCON, TACON, owns the risk to mission and the risk to force to the Joint Force commander,” he said, adding that his role is to convey that warfighter risk across the enterprise so leaders can make informed decisions on the pace of transition.

ACC, Spain said, is juggling immediate taskings with preparations that extend well into the 2030s. Near-term forces may look much like today’s, but over the next decade the mix and employment concepts could change substantially. For Niemi, that means decisions made now must anticipate operational realities years away. “We’re trying to make a decision now and anticipate what the world is going to look like in 2033,” he explained. Spain argued that the inherent push and pull between current readiness and future needs is not a flaw but a feature of sound governance. “A healthy process here is always under tension,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that we all agree all the time or we wouldn’t be giving the Chief and SecAF the info they need to make fully informed decisions.”

Turning to how to move emerging capabilities out of development and into squadrons, the panelists urged faster iteration and more empowerment at the operational level. Niemi argued against trying to centrally solve every integration problem and instead advocated for field experimentation with “good enough” prototypes. “What I’m trying to focus on is to get it close enough that when it goes down to Gen. Spain or Gen. Schneider, that they have enough to be able to figure out what right actually looks like when I give them an 80% solution,” Niemi said.

Schneider cautioned that modernization cannot begin and end with procurement. “It’s more than just the equipment or the shiny thing that sits on a ramp,” he said. “It’s everything that enables it or allows it to be successful.” Spain added that even when new tools arrive, weaving them into established communities and tactics requires leadership to demonstrate how they contribute to the mission.

That cultural challenge looms large with emerging concepts like Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which pair crewed platforms with autonomous systems. Niemi signaled that the service will need to embrace uncomfortable changes as algorithms take on roles historically reserved for pilots. “I can imagine a day in the future, 10 years, maybe more, where a CCA autonomous algorithm does a better job flying a fighter airplane than I did as a captain,” he said. “That hurts my ego a little bit, but at the same time, I see that this trend is happening.”

Asked whether the Air Force should refine existing warfighting concepts or pivot to new ones, Spain said the answer begins with clearly defining the operational problem. If the current concept can solve it—either as-is or with modifications—stick with it; if not, move on. “This stuff is really hard, and a lot of smart people have tried to do this the best they could under the conditions within they were working and now it is our turn,” he said. “We are committed to … making the best decisions that we can for the Air Force today, while also preparing our Air Force for the Future.”

Across the panel, leaders converged on a consistent message: building the future force will require more than new platforms. It will demand resilient Airmen, hardened infrastructure and logistics, risk-informed choices and a willingness to put emerging capabilities in operators’ hands to determine what works—while staying ready to fight through a contested environment today.