The Air Force needs to be a training force to grow indigenous air power in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan so they can keep up the fight without continued heavy US investment, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said Wednesday. “We cannot be every place, we cannot do everything,” Dunford said at ASC16. Even though the Air Force is already overstretched, it still must make training other countries’ air forces a top priority so momentum against adversaries such as ISIS will not be lost, and the fight will continue with a “relatively modest investment.” There is “not a better Air Force in the world, and not a better organization to build air forces,” Dunford said.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
