If you don’t see USAF efforts in the news, that doesn’t mean airmen are not a “critical part” of the war on terror—that was the message of the Air Force vice chief of staff, Gen. John Corley, during a speech on Capitol Hill at a defense seminar sponsored by DFI International. (Read more on this issue in Air Force Magazine’s July editorial.) Corley explained that the Air Force is fully engaged and needs to recapitalize its three aircraft portfolios—strike, mobility, and command and control—to “remain viable” for the future. “I don’t want our nation’s sons and daughters to be in the last airplane with the last missile, to go against the last enemy aircraft, with the hope that we will come out on top,” he said. It would be best, maintained Corley, to be “overwhelming in that battle.”
Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury
Sept. 13, 2026
Operation Epic Fury marked the U.S. military's largest air campaign in a generation, with strikes on 13,000 targets in Iran before the first in a series of shaky ceasefires began in April. Now, even as hostilities continue to flare up, Lt. Gen. Derek C. France sees several clear lessons that…
