A Heroes Toast
“These 80 young Americans were extraordinary in every single way—not just on the day of that operation but on the lives they led after that. In 1942, when this … creative operation was conceived it showed the beginnings of the culture of what became the American Air Force. Let’s launch airplanes off of an aircraft carrier that are designed to run off thousands of feet of runway. … They found the most creative Airman of that day, Jimmy Doolittle, and [he] found volunteers. These guys new the odds. Even in training they knew how difficult this was going to be. They never practiced landing on the boat, they only practiced launching from the boat. … They flew toward the enemy. … The audacity of those Doolittle Raiders changed the momentum and the course of history. They proved that if you have the guts to try, great things can be done by the United States of
America.”
—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, before leading the annual Raiders Memorial Toast, April 17, 2026, at AFA Headquarters.
No Surprise …
“As the European pillar of the alliance gets stronger, this allows the U.S. to reduce its presence in Europe and limit itself to providing only those critical capabilities that allies cannot yet provide. So we should expect there to be a redeployment of U.S. forces over time as allies build their capacity.”
—Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, explaining the U.S. administration’s reasoning behind U.S. troop withdrawals from Europe.
… Not So Fast
”We are very concerned by the decision to withdraw a U.S. brigade from Germany. … Even as allies move toward spending 5 percent of GDP on defense, translating that investment into the military capability … will take time. Prematurely reducing America’s forward presence in Europe before those capabilities are fully realized risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin.”
—U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, (R-Miss.), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and U.S. Representative Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in a joint response to the Pentagon’s decision to withdraw approximately 5,000 troops from Germany.
Communication Layers
“Cyber is critical. It’s indistinguishable from space operations. If you can’t control the networks that distribute the data, you can’t do the space missions, so we take it very seriously. … If you’re vulnerable in the network, you’re vulnerable on orbit as well.”
—Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman on the importance of cyber during a May 20 House Armed Services Committee hearing.
Right This Way
“The way I’ve approached this—knowing how smaller companies work—is fast yeses and fast nos. The worst thing for a small company is to be dragged through a multiyear process. … They knock on 100 doors, and at the end of it, there’s no buyer, right? … How do I create one big front door that they could come in?”
—Defense Department Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael speaking at the Special Operations Forces panel on lethal AI & autonomous systems in Tampa, saying he wants to give vendors fast decisions on tech buys [Breaking Defense, May 20].
Balancing Act
“If it’s not affordable and it’s not scalable, we are not going to produce it. That’s a signal to industry that you need to simplify the solution. You need to think innovatively about the requirements.”
—Golden Dome Director Gen. Michael Guetlein discussing how the program is balancing cost and capability during a May 14 event in Washington, D.C.
Unpredictability
“At the end of the day, the foundations upon which we go to war, upon which we use violence, are based upon the Law of Armed Conflict. That is the commander, the person, the human that decides to use lethal violence has to have trust and confidence that that lethal violence will be delivered in the confines of the Law of Armed Conflict, with distinction, proportionately and in the bounds of humanity. … Machines can’t be held accountable.”
—Navy Adm. Frank Bradley, commander of USSOCOM, on the reality of using AI on the battlefield, stating that humans must be in the loop [Breaking Defense, May 21].