Planning for the Future

The Air Force recently stood up the first Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team—a “wide pool” of experts across the service, known as the air superiority 2030 team, tasked by Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh to consider USAF’s future air superiority needs, according to a May 19 release. The team will spend a year looking at both materiel and non-materiel solutions to capability gaps, assessing options across contested and non-contested domains as well as geographic regions, states the release. “Gaining and maintaining air superiority is foundational to how we fight. The air superiority this nation has enjoyed for 60 years is not an accident and gaining and maintaining it is not easy,” said Welsh. “It requires trained proficient and ready airmen and it requires credible, capable, and technologically superiority aircraft.” The team will present their findings to senior leaders at the end of the year. USAF plans to stand up a “limited number” of such teams to study “high-priority, enterprise-wide problems,” states the release. “Planning for the future requires a full and integrated understanding of the ways Air Force and service capabilities work together to deliver joint warfighting effects,” said Lt. Gen. Mike Holmes, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements.