With China engaged in a nuclear break-out, Russia upgrading its nuclear capabilities, plus Iran and North Korea aggressively pursuing their nuclear ambitions—a credible, capable, and safe U.S. nuclear deterrent is more important than ever. The imperatives are clear: to deter adversaries, reassure allies, and provide national leaders with key options whether in peacetime or war. That is why it is so important the U.S. pursue modernization for all three legs of its nuclear triad, including command and control. While present capabilities remain viable, their advanced age and the evolution of the threat environment demand new solutions. This is especially true for the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile and bomber legs of the triad. Lt Gen Gebara is a key defense leader in this effort.

Brig Gen Michael “Jekyll” Winkler, USAF (Ret.), the Deputy Director for Air and Cyberspace Operations of the Pacific Air Forces, and Mitchell's J. Michael Dahm explore how the Department of Defense and Congress can and must prepare the Air Force to fight from their forward air bases to generate combat effects while under attack.

Link to the report

The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies invites you to enjoy our Aerospace Nation with Gen Kenneth S. Wilsbach, Commander, Air Combat Command.

Whether discussing missions like air superiority, air battle management, electromagnetic spectrum operations, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or combat search and rescue—the airmen of ACC execute missions that are foundational to modern warfare. Ask any combatant commander and they want more ACC airpower. However, years of budget pressures and non-stop operational deployments have yielded a force that is stretched thin. This decade marks a major wave of modernization to reset units throughout ACC, with many of these investments combining long standing tenets of air warfare with new realities of the information age. Pair those realities with a burgeoning threat environment and it is clear General Wilsbach and his team are looking at a distinct number of challenges and opportunities. What’s beyond certainty is that ACC will be an essential actor in any operation today and tomorrow.

Listen to our thought-provoking conversation with one of America’s top air commanders to learn where ACC is today and where it’s going in the future.