JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. -- General Ken Wilsbach and Chief Master Sgt. Dave Wolfe have made it clear that modernizing operations and increasing the agility of the U.S. Air Force are key aspects of creating dilemmas for America’s adversaries. At the core of this strategy is Agile Combat Employment (ACE), a concept that has evolved into a critical operational necessity in the face of modern threats.
What is ACE?
Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21 defines ACE as a proactive and reactive operational scheme of maneuver executed within threat timelines to increase resiliency and survivability while generating combat power. When applied correctly, ACE complicates the enemy’s targeting process, creates political and operational dilemmas for the enemy, and creates flexibility for friendly forces.
In recent decades, the Air Force has enjoyed the advantage of large “sanctuary” like bases, protected by advanced defense systems, and rife with resources and personnel. According to Wilsbach, that advantage is quickly dwindling.
“Our adversaries have the ability to shut down large air bases with their ballistic and cruise missiles,” Wilsbach said. “The way we previously fought—building up large bases and operating from what we thought were sanctuaries—is no longer viable. With the advent of medium and long-range ballistic missiles, none of our airfields are sanctuaries anymore.”
ACE seeks to counter this challenge by dispersing forces, complicating enemy targeting efforts, and ensuring air operations can continue despite adversarial threats.
“We complicate their targeting problem by using agile combat employment—dispersing the force and moving it in a way that looks random to our adversaries but is strategically planned by us,” Wilsbach explained. “This ensures our ability to generate combat power even if our main bases are under threat.”
A fundamental principle of the Air Force is to train for the fight ahead. The ACE concept is essential to success on the future battlefield and is being fully integrated into training and exercises.
“If we believe that ACE is how we’re going to fight, then we need to incorporate it into every training scenario and exercise,” Wilsbach said. “By continually challenging ourselves with difficult problem sets, we push our Airmen to innovate and adapt.”
Large-scale exercises such as Bamboo Eagle are designed to test ACE concepts, identify areas of improvement and build upon lessons learned to create a well-designed scheme of maneuver.
“Sometimes we have to fail first, learn from those mistakes, and then develop better ways to execute,” Wilsbach said. “By challenging ourselves, coaching and mentoring one another, we ensure we are always improving.”
One of the most complex aspects of ACE is the logistical burden it places on the force. Unlike traditional base-centric operations, ACE demands that resources be distributed efficiently across multiple locations, often in austere environments.
“ACE is difficult to execute from an operational standpoint, but it’s even more challenging logistically,” Wilsbach said. “Dispersing a single squadron across multiple airfields while ensuring the availability of fuel, weapons, parts, and maintenance personnel is a significant challenge.”
To tackle these logistical hurdles, ACC is rethinking traditional supply chain models and incorporating ACE logistics into training scenarios.
“When we say we train like we fight, we've got to train with the logistics issues just like the operational issues throughout those exercises,” Wilsbach emphasized. “Our logistics professionals must ensure that the right parts and weapons reach the right locations at the right time. Sometimes that means moving aircraft to where the resources are, rather than the other way around.”
In addition to changes to operational and logistical tactics, Wolfe stated that ACE will also require Airmen’s decision-making processes to evolve as well.
“Decision authority is going to be pushed down to a lower level because as we spread our resources out, we also spread our people out,” he said. “Traditionally, where you might have been relying on senior officers and enlisted members to make key decisions, those decisions might be pushed to field grade and company grade levels and mid-level [noncommissioned officers]."
The fast pace of today’s training changes the traditional way of making decisions and we need to start preparing now.
“We prepare for this now by pushing day-to-day activity authority to those levels, versus waiting to implement when we’re already downrange in a stressful environment,” said Wolfe.
Although a newer concept for much of today’s force, the shift toward ACE reflects the changing nature of warfare and the necessity of maintaining combat power in an era of long-range precision threats.
“From a strategic perspective it is a newer way to operate, but fundamentally it is something our Airmen do every day,” said Wolfe. “Do what you need to do for your specialty, then look up and out at what’s going on around you—what other things you could impact that might make everybody’s life easier—and do it.”
This is the way ACC is operating in today’s environment and it is foundational to the way we fight.