Overview

The Air Force Future Operating Concept broadly portrays how the future Air Force will conduct its five core missions as part of a joint, interagency, or multinational force, or independently in support of national security objectives. The central idea is this: In 2035, AF forces will leverage operational agility as a way to adapt swiftly to any situation or enemy action. Operational agility is the ability to rapidly generate -and shift among -multiple solutions for a given challenge. By using operational agility as a guiding principle in the conduct of our core missions, we can preserve the Air Force's ability to act quickly in response to any challenge. Through application of this central idea, we describe our vision for how future Air Force forces may operate. The Air Force seeks bold and innovative approaches to its core missions, and success will also depend on close relationships with partners, particularly the members of the joint team. The ideas in this concept form a basis for examination, experimentation, and capability development planning for building the Air Force of the future. We now face another of those crucial moments in time. The dynamic, complex future is already beginning to challenge us. It is time for this generation of Airmen to develop a way to succeed. We invite you to read about our concept and visualize how Air Force forces of the future may contribute to a strong National defense, support for our allies and partners, and a free and stable world for all.Contents: Concept for Future air Force Operations * Air Force Core Missions - 2035 * Implications * ConclusionWhile the AF Future Operating Concept portrays skilled Airmen employing advanced technology in innovative ways to deter and defeat adversaries, it also emphasizes that the nature of warfare will not change over the next two decades. War will remain a clash of wills between thinking adversaries, and it will occur in an environment of uncertainty and rapid change. However, the character of warfare is becoming far less predictable and more complex. No technology or technique will eliminate the metaphorical fog and friction of warfare, and no military advantage will go unchallenged by adversaries seeking to achieve their objectives and deny us ours. While war will remain an instrument of policy, with associated constraints/restraints and specified missions for military forces, navigating the relationship between policy and war will be even more challenging in the complex future.The AFSEA, which compiles the expert analyses of the future environment across the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and think tanks, highlights that the era in which the United States can project power globally essentially uncontested has ended. It identifies four emerging trends that are highly likely to characterize the future: increasing speed and proliferation of technological change, geopolitical instability, increasing scarcity of natural resources, and an increasingly important and vulnerable global commons. The AFSEA uses these trends to derive six emerging trends with implications for the Air Force: 1) adversaries' acquisition and development of capabilities to challenge the U.S.; 2) increasing importance or frequency of irregular, urban, humanitarian, and intelligence operations; 3) increasing challenges to deterrence; 4) energy costs; 5) exploiting new technology opportunities; and 6) challenges of climate change. The rapid pace of change occurring throughout the world acts as a common thread between these trends and implications, and compounds the uncertainty and complexity of the future environment.

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