13th Air Force Inactivated, Mission Transferred to PACAF

Sept. 28, 2012

USAF inactivates 13th Air Force, transferring its mission directly to Pacific Air Forces, as part of the service’s overhead streamlining efforts. PACAF still has 5th Air Force (Japan), 7th Air Force (South Korea), and 11th Air Force (Alaska).

Related Content

Space Force Accepts New GPS Control System After Years of Delays

July 16, 2025
A decade and a half after awarding a contract for a new ground control system to manage its GPS satellites, the Pentagon has finally gotten its hands on the thing. The Space Force officially took ownership of the GPS Next Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, the service announced this week.…

B-52s Escorted by Korean and Japanese Fighters as Defense Chiefs Meet

July 15, 2025
The U.S., South Korea, and Japan flew an unusual trilateral flight with two U.S. B-52H Stratofortress bombers escorted by two Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s, and two ROK Air Force KF-16 fighters—both countries’ respective variants of the F-16—July 11. That same weekend, the top military officers of the three nations…

Lawmakers Push Space Force to Invest in New, Commercial Surveillance

July 15, 2025
Space Force leaders have touted their “surveillance-as-a-service" TacSRT program as a success story, leveraging commercial firms to deliver information to users on timelines far faster than typical space intelligence assets. Now, lawmakers want the service to put more heft behind the effort—starting with actually funding the program in fiscal 2026.