Skip to main content (Press Enter).
 News
    
        Photos

    Week in Photos

    Air Force TV

    Commentaries

    Features

    Art

    About Us
    
        Air Force Senior Leaders
    
        SECAF

    CSAF

    CMSAF

    Biographies

    Fact Sheets

    SECAF Reading List

    CSAF Leadership Library
    
        CSAF Leadership Library 2022

    CSAF Leadership Library 2021

    CSAF Reading List Pre-2020 Archive
    
        2018 CSAF Reading List

    2017 CSAF Reading List

    2016 CSAF Reading List

    CSAF Leadership Library 2023

    CMSAF Leadership Library

    50 Years of the CMSAF

    Adjunct Professors

    Air Force Strategic Documents

    Arctic Strategy

    Empowered Airmen

    State Licensure Portability

    Careers

    AF Federal Advisory Committees

    AF 75th Anniversary

    Policy Updates

    AF Content Management

    Contact Us

    AF Sites
    
        Site RegistrationU.S. Air Force LogoAir Force

        Policy UpdatesNewsroomReoptimizationBIOGRAPHIESAF Senior Leaders      AMC, AFMC commanders talk logistics on attack, integrated deterrence at warfare symposiumPublished March 8, 2023
                    
                    By Maj. Beau Downey, Air Mobility Command
            **SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (AFNS) --**“Vast distances and few areas to use as supply nodes ... all potentially during a period of competition.” That is how **Royal Air Force** Air Commodore Jez Attridge described the task at hand in the Pacific as moderator of a mobility panel discussion at the Air and Space Forces Association 2023 Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, March 7.
The panel, titled “Logistics on the Attack,” was a conversation about the buildup and sustainment of materiel necessary to “set the theater,” featuring **Gen. Mike Minihan**, commander of **Air Mobility Command**, and **Gen. Duke Richardson**, commander of **Air Force Materiel Command** — the two leaders with the most skin in the game for the successful delivery of logistics effects.
Richardson began by highlighting his charge to address integration across the logistics enterprise.
“Both the level of the threat we are facing and the idea of how we are going to answer it through a distributed laydown of forces really drives the need for integration,” he said.Airmen assigned to the 730th Air Mobility Squadron load a C-17 engine onto a C-17 Globemaster III May, 4, 2021, at Yokota Air Base, Japan. The 730th AMS gave the engine to Kadena Air Base Airmen assigned to the 733rd AMS to enhance their training program, allowing maintainers to sharpen their skills on a real asset without the chance of damaging an operational aircraft. Finding ways to improve training helps increase the readiness and resilience of our force and ensures Pacific Air Forces’ ability to fight and win if needed.
            
            
            Photo Details /
                Download Hi-Res

    











Attridge punctuated this need, evoking the dramatic struggles of Russia’s military to deliver even with what he described as plenty of roads and relatively short distances. “[Putin] has shown us really well what it looks like when it goes wrong — when the build-up and delivery doesn’t account for ‘Plan A’ or ‘Plan B.’”
The challenge before the two major commands is how to prepare to operate in an environment exponentially more complex, across huge swathes of water and against the tyranny of vast distances. Integration, Minihan said, buys down risks across capability gaps and addresses the requirement to operate at speeds that outpace a potential adversary — what he called the “tempo required to win.”
“You cannot have integrated operations if you do not have integrated planning in advance,” Minihan said, describing the close relationship between AMC and AFMC.
What this looks like at the command level is intimate coordination and cross-talk in the form of staff-to-staff meetings, table-top exercises and other planning activities.
Building on Richardson’s explanation of AFMC’s data-driven approach to ensuring the appropriate materiel needed for the future, Minihan noted several major components that underpin success in the Pacific: the Global Air Mobility Support System, which is critical to the positioning of war reserve materiel and continued collaboration with allies and partners in the region. The projection of military power into a theater, he said, boils down to pallet-making and unit type codes, specialized kits of specific, itemized equipment.
The two commands have worked together in preparation for **Mobility Guardian 2023**, AMC’s largest exercise set to take place in the Pacific this summer, which will show in sharp definition the critical role of the mobility air forces in rapidly positioning and maneuvering the rest of the Joint Force. That exercise will realize many of the efforts between the two commands over the last year.
“When you are the joint force maneuver, when everybody is counting on you to be successful, when every capability the joint force enjoys needs to be in position to aggregate to be lethal, to disaggregate to survive, and then re-aggregate to be lethal again,” Minihan said. “That is exactly where this command’s focus is.”Staff Sgt. Michael Freitas, right, 730th Air Mobility Squadron air freight shift supervisor, and Staff Sgt. Adrian Diaz, left, 730th AMS aerospace propulsion craftsman, weigh a C-17 engine prior to loading it onto a C-17 Globemaster III, May 4, 2021, at Yokota Air Base, Japan. The 730th AMS gave the engine to Kadena Air Base airmen assigned to the 733rd AMS to enhance their training program, allowing maintainers to navigate nomenclature and troubleshoot engine issues on a real aircraft asset. Finding ways to improve training helps increase the readiness and resilience of our force and ensures Pacific Air Forces’ ability to fight and win if needed.
            
            
            Photo Details /
                Download Hi-Res

    










Attridge summed up the strategic deterrence value of the conversation.
“It’s fair to say if the focus is ‘China, China, China,’ then in order to deliver credible conventional deterrence, you should be going to sleep at night thinking about ‘logistics, logistics, logistics.’”
Minihan completed the metaphor, describing how readiness is deterrence, such that “our adversaries wake up, open up the window, look at us and say, ‘I don’t want any piece of that.’” Adding, “but if they should decide to take us on, then we can win decisively for this nation.”MG23 



LR 



USAF 



AF 



Air Force 



Air Mobility Command 



AMC 



Air Force Materiel Command 



AFMC 



Air and Space Forces Association 2023 Warfare Symposium 



AFA 



Scott AFB 



Logistics on the Attack 



the Global Air Mobility Support System 



Mobility Guardian 2023 



logistics enterprise 



One Team One Fight 



tempo required to win 



readiness Featured News
        Senior Leader Priorities
                DAF leaders talk budget, reoptimizing the force
                    
                    DAF leaders speak at National Character and Leadership Symposium
                    
                    DAF members recognized during BEYA STEM awards
                    
                    DAF senior enlisted advisors discuss Airmen, Guardians in the fight
                    
                    SecAF Kendall AFA Warfare Symposium Q&A: Reoptimizing for Great Power CompetitionInnovation
                AFWERX director discusses role of tech startups, quick innovation in Great Power Competition
                    
                    DAF delivers lethality at the speed of data during Project Convergence Capstone 4
                    
                    DAF welcomes industry partners to HQ development program
                    
                    DAF announces Spark Tank 2024 finalists
                    
                    Chief Digital, Artificial Intelligence Office to host hackathon in HawaiiMAJCOM News
                Safety enterprise announces new mission, vision, goals in 2024 strategic plan
                    
                    Air Combat Command welcomes new commander
                    
                    USAFE-AFAFRICA commander discusses Integrated Air, Missile Defense during Munich Security Conference
                    
                    Flosi to AFMC family: Embrace change, make every day count
                    
                    AMC rises to increasing global tension
 Quick Links
AccessibilityContact UsEqual OpportunityFOIA | Privacy | Section 508Information QualityInspector GeneralJAG Court-Martial DocketLink DisclaimerNo FEAR ActOpen GovernmentOSI Tip LinePlain LanguageQuestionsResilienceRSSSite MapVeterans Crisis LineCareers
Join the Air ForceAir Force BenefitsAir Force CareersAir Force ReserveAir National GuardCivilian ServiceConnect
            Get Social with Us
            
            Official United States Air Force Website
    Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil