Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Hawk Carlisle, who has been tapped to lead Air Combat Command, said some of his top priorities in his new role will be solving persistent command and control issues as well as data link challenges between fourth and fifth generation aircraft. Airpower’s advantages rest on speed, range, and flexibility, especially in the massive Asia-Pacific, said Carlisle in an Oct. 9 teleconference with reporters. But, to leverage this, the Air Force will have to try some new concepts for making command and control architecture more resilient. Carlisle said events, such as a command and control summits and exercises, have helped shape potential solutions to problems like centralizing command while also distributing control in wartime, and improving collaboration with other services and allies. Tactics and training are just as important as hardware, though Carlisle said he hopes to see the multi-domain adaptable processing system, an urgent need program under development for fourth and fifth generation fighter data link, fielded next year. As the new ACC commander, Carlisle will be USAF’s core function lead for C2, and he said this will “allow me to take everything out here we’ve learned, and figure out ways to address it.”
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.