Meink urges innovation, focus and funding to sustain air and space superiority

In his highest-profile public remarks since taking office in May, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink used a keynote at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference to press for faster innovation, accelerated modernization and a sharper focus on readiness—while emphasizing “taking care of our people.”

“We must do what we’ve done many times in the past – work to maintain air and space dominance,” he said to a crowd of several thousand. He warned that determined adversaries have spent decades chipping away at U.S. advantages, adding that China “has been laser focused.”

“The ability for us to dominate the air domain has really come under threat a number of times; we’ve had our cage rattled a bit,” he said. “But we went after it and today the U.S. has dominance.”

“Our job is to maintain that dominance, the advantage that the U.S. has always had,” Meink told Airmen, Guardians and invited guests from industry and Capitol Hill. “We have to innovate faster. … The only way we will be able to maintain our advantage is to innovate and we have to innovate faster than our adversaries.”

Meink underscored the urgency by highlighting how much of the fleet remains decades old. He described side-by-side photos of himself with the same KC-135 tanker—first as a young airman 30 years ago, and again today as secretary—arguing that while the aircraft still performs a critical mission and has been superbly maintained, the service can’t rely on aging platforms indefinitely.

He cast the Department of the Air Force’s current push as the most aggressive modernization campaign in its 78-year history. Programs he highlighted included the recently announced F-47 sixth-generation fighter; the in-service F-35; the F-15EX; new engines and radar for the B-52; and continued development of the B-21 bomber. He also cited modernization of the land-based nuclear leg through Sentinel, advances in space control and launch capacity, and progress on Collaborative Combat Aircraft—uncrewed systems designed to perform a range of missions. On munitions, he said the United States has “built some of the best munitions on the planet. … The challenge we have with munitions is scaling them up,” he said.

Meink said modernization must extend beyond hardware to how the department operates, maintains and trains. “We have to be innovative in how we operate. We have to be innovative in how we maintain our systems. We have to be innovative in how we train. We really need to be innovative across the board.”

He also pressed for stronger acquisition expertise to keep programs on time, on budget and on target. “There is no replacement for technical skill in acquisitions,” he said.

On readiness, Meink said he knew “there was a readiness challenge, I didn’t appreciate how significant that readiness challenge was.” He emphasized squeezing more capability from existing equipment and dollars and outlined several areas of focus, including survivability in contested environments—a point he illustrated with a video of a Ukrainian low-cost quadcopter defeating a sophisticated Russian unmanned system—improving the reliability of spare parts through industry, and using data more effectively to enhance maintenance and operations. He also stressed the importance of bases themselves: “Our facilities are part of our weapon systems. In many cases, we fight from our facilities, both in the Air and Space Force side of the house.”

Meink closed by centering his message on people, calling their support and wellbeing essential to the mission. “People are the most important thing we have; the most critical…I have zero concern about the ability of the Department to employ combat power. We have the best trained, most talented workforce the Department of the Air Force has ever had,” he said. “We are asking them to maintain and work on some of the most technical systems … and we need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to support them.”

He issued a final challenge to the force and its leaders: “The challenge is, how do we make sure (Airmen and Guardians) have the tools at the mass and scale they need to be successful. … If we, as leadership, are not doing everything we can to support you, moving fast and being innovative, then you need to tell us because we will not be successful without that.”