The Mitchell Institute’s Aerospace Nation Podcast

Delivering Tomorrow’s Force: From Concept to Operational Capability | Airpower Futures Day

Panelists:
• Lt Gen Dale White, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force

• Maj Gen Joseph D. Kunkel, Air Force Futures 

• Brig Gen Ryan Keeney, Air Force Futures

• Chris Flynn, Pratt & Whitney

• Renee Pasman, Lockheed Martin

CCA: Realizing Tomorrow's Airpower Today | 1st Annual Airpower Futures Forum

Panelists:
• Col Timothy M. Helfrich, Senior Materiel Leader, Advanced Aircraft Division,
Air Force Materiel Command
• Mike Shortsleeve, Vice President, Strategy Business Development, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems
• Diem Salmon, Vice President for Air Dominance & Strike, Anduril Industries
• Mike Benitez, Senior Director of Strategic Product Development, Shield AI
• Robert Winkler, Vice President, Corporate Development and National Security Programs, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions

Keynote: Lt. Gen. David A. Harris | 1st Annual Airpower Futures Forum

Lieutenant General David A. Harris, Deputy Chief of Staff for Air Force Futures, was the lunch keynote speaker at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies' inaugural Airpower Futures Forum. Lt. Gen. Harris and the Air Force Futures team are working to ensure that the US has the right mix of new technologies, capabilities, and personnel to address whatever the future may hold.

Non-Kinetic Effects for Highly Contested Environments | 1st Annual Airpower Futures Forum

Speakers:

Col Larry Fenner, 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing

Nick Bucci, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems

Paul DeLia, L3Harris

Chris Moeller, BAE Systems

Power Projections Imperative | 1st Annual Airpower Futures Forum

Speakers:
Lt Gen Michael Koscheski, Air Combat Command
Maj Gen Jason Armagost, 8th Air Force
Doug Young, Northrop Grumman Aeronautic Systems  
Billy Ray Thompson, RTX

Keynote: Gen. David W. Allvin | 1st Annual Airpower Futures Forum

General David W. Allvin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, was the opening keynote speaker at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies' inaugural Airpower Futures Forum. Gen. Allvin brings a depth of both experience and thoughtful leadership to his position as the 23rd Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

Air Force and Space Force Vectors for the Incoming Trump Defense Team

The Department of the Air Force faces a crisis. Decades’ worth of insufficient budgets has slowed essential modernization, necessary capacity and key personnel investments. Air Force and Space Force leaders have warned of these risks for years. However, resource decisions were largely out of their control. As a result, the U.S. Air Force now operates the oldest and smallest aircraft inventory in its history. Combined with a lack of spare parts, an enduring pilot shortage, and falling pilot experience levels, the Air Force finds itself in a precarious condition that portends a national security disaster. The U.S. Space Force, meanwhile, is struggling to meet growing demand for the essential capabilities it provides. One of the biggest challenges: scale. The Space Force is constrained by its size and must grow as rapidly as possible.

The cost to recover the Air Force’s decline and adequately fund the growth of the Space Force will require an increase of at least $45 billion annually for at least the next five years. The Department of the Air Force underpins and enables warfare in every domain, not just air and space. Prioritizing these capabilities can help the Trump defense team achieve its objective of “pursue peace through strength” but doing so requires a new way of doing business and in particular not the conventional stove-piped, “salami slice” budget cutting approach. Using cost-per-effect assessments to make optimal decisions, the new administration can achieve the best use of the nation’s resources. There is no time left to delay reversing the Department of the Air Force’s current course. The fixes must start now, or the United States risks losing the next major war.

Ensuring a Spacepower Advantage in a Prolonged Competition

The Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence (MI-SPACE) convened its inaugural space workshop in October 2024. The workshop assembled 55 subject matter experts from across the national security space landscape to examine the Chief of Space Operations’ theory of Competitive Endurance against a set of potential challenges over the next 25 years of competition. The Space Endurance Workshop provided participants with a venue to define the actions, conditions, and effects necessary for the United States, our allies, and partners to preserve U.S. and Coalition leadership in space.

 

• The Space Force must proactively lead cooperative efforts with Allies and international and commercial Partners to fully integrate and synchronize capability development and operations in a deliberate manner to ensure the most effective and efficient use of resources for all
• Over a protracted competition with China, the ability of the U.S. Space Force, U.S. Space Command, Allies, and Partners to have a spacepower advantage hinges on maintaining popular support and national will
• To gain support and sustain national will, the Space Force must actively and continually articulate why it exists and what it does to Congress, the American people, and even to Guardians
• Given existing policy, budget, and personnel realities, the Space Force’s Theory of Competitive Endurance provides a stable way forward but may create unintended consequences that undermine a warfighting mentality and Guardian identity
• Systemic issues exist within the Space Force and Department of Defense threatening the success of the Space Force in a long-term competition with China, e.g., proper authorities and resources, a lack of clearly defined and understood roles & missions, and a warfighting ethos
• Workshop findings reinforced that existing Space Force lines of effort, such as improved domain awareness, architecture resilience, and security classification reform, are critical and must be expanded to overcome a range of challenges that the United States might face throughout an extended competition
• For the Space Force to succeed as a military service, defensive and offensive counterspace operations must be normalized with warfighting operations to gain superiority like those in all other domains performed by the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps

Want Combat Airpower? Then Fix the Air Force Pilot Crisis | Policy Paper

Bottom line, the U.S. Air Force does not have enough pilots to sustain a credible combat force in peacetime, much less during a prolonged high-intensity conflict. History demonstrates that without depth of experienced aircrew, air forces collapse in major conflicts because they cannot continue operations as losses mount. While this crisis extends across the entire pilot force, the shortfall in fighter pilots is especially dire. Solving these challenges will require the Air Force to grow the size of both its aircraft inventory and pilot force, while simultaneously increasing the experience levels of its combat pilots across its Total Force.

A Call for a New NSC-68 and Goldwater Nichols Reform | Policy Paper

Hostile actions by Russia, Iran, and China clearly show that the United States is struggling when it comes to shaping the national security environment and deterring adversaries. The U.S. military no longer has the capability and capacity to defend the rules-based international order that has long been the cornerstone of its foreign policy. Absent a reset, this failure of deterrence could very well lead to a war between the United States and China.

Deficiencies of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Reform Act severely restrict the ability on the services to prioritize long-term strategic threats in favor of the immediate, non-combat demands of the combatant commands and civilian defense bureaucracy. Too often, long-term defense procurement strategies and requirements are neglected given these dynamics. The resulting failure of U.S. forces to prudently modernize and recapitalize have emboldened America’s adversaries to use violence to pursue their expansionist goals, setting the United States on a path toward a great power war. To prevent this and retain the current rules-based world order, it is time for a new vector.