Advancing Airpower Agility Published Sept. 5, 2025 By Brig. Gen. Tad Clark and Dr. Sandeep Mulgund - Lessons from the 31st Fighter Wing following 3+ years of agile combat employment and combat readiness exercises - As the global security environment becomes increasingly unpredictable, an approach to combat operations that bolsters the readiness, resilience, speed, and agility of airpower for success in 21st century warfare. The 31st Fighter Wing’s iterative approach to further developing its agile combat employment (ACE) and warfighting capabilities over three-plus years of wing-level exercises, has led to challenging and realistic scenarios, innovative solutions, lessons learned, and continuity of effort from which other operational wings could potentially benefit. ACE shifts operations from centralized physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations that can complicate adversary planning, improve resilience, and provide more options for joint force commanders.[1] Aircraft are most vulnerable on the ground, and ACE offers the potential to mitigate combat losses through maneuver and dispersal. Professional military studies remind us that while the nature of war remains constant, the character of war constantly changes. Italian General and Airpower strategist, Giulio Douhet, said, “Victory smiles upon those who anticipate the change in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur.” Paramount for success is accurately identifying needed change. While most Air Force wings have and continue to hone their ACE and combat readiness skillsets, Aviano’s pursuit of four targeted areas of interest have helped the wing and its Airmen propel to the next level of readiness, effectiveness, and agility. Those four areas include: 1) deliberate and collaborative application of Headquarters Air Force (HAF) guidance at the wing level, 2) innovative preparation for the warfighter, 3) highly holistic and realistic scenarios, and 4) complex cross-border operations all focused on winning! Summary of three-plus years of exercises Like most Air Force wings, the 31 FW has been aggressively championing ACE, and recently, combat readiness exercises to sharpen its warfighting capabilities. Due to its advantageous geographic location that’s positioned uniquely south of the Alps, the 31 FW first launched an ACE exercise called AGILE WYVERN at Slovenia’s Cerklje Air Base, in 2021. Since Cerklje was far from achieving full operational capability, its incorporation into the exercise focused on helicopter operations and logistics and served as a potential dispersal location for combat air assets to include the F-16. Most importantly, it introduced a NATO partner to the ACE construct and advanced United States and Slovenian relations. 31 FW F-16s at Cerklje Airbase, Slovenia, during AGILE WYVERN, Sept 2021 Later, in the Spring of 2023, the 31 FW included Cerklje Air Base again, as well as, worked closely with the Italian Ministry of Defense and Italian Air Force to approve ACE operations and activities inside Italy, something previously unauthorized. By December of 2023, the 31 FW conducted its third ACE exercise, FIGHTING WYVERN, that included a large-scale, multi-national, ACE event spanning across six separate air bases outside of Aviano Air Base to include; Brnk Air Base, Slovenia, Cerklje Air Base, Slovenia, Pleso Air Base, Croatia, and three separate locations in Italy; Rivolto Air Base, Istrana Air Base, and the Osoppo military complex. These bases hosted operations spanning from air control and air battle management, F-16 sortie generation, pararescue, and HH-60 combat search and rescue. 31 FW HH-60s at Cerklje Airbase, Slovenia, during FIGHTING WYVERN, Dec 2023 31 FW F-16s at Istrana Airbase, Italy, during FIGHTING WYVERN The 31 FW’s fourth and final CAPSTONE event culminated in March of 2025, in which operations were conducted in the aforementioned locations with increased NATO participation. The wing’s exercises further invested into its four well-defined desired learning objectives, as discussed further below: Deliberate and collaborative application of Headquarters Air Force (HAF) guidance at the wing level Innovative preparation for the warfighter A holistic and realistic training scenario Complex cross-border operations Member of Croation Armed Forces work with USAF personnel to refuel F-16 during FIGHTING WYVERN 25-01, Pleso Air Base, Croatia, March 2025. Application of HAF-level guidance at the wing level The potential benefits ACE offers for projecting combat power in contested environments come with numerous challenges related to command and control, sustainment, force protection, and other warfighting functions. To address these challenges and operationalize the ACE concept, a global effort has been under way across the Air Force for the past four years. The goal of this effort has been to develop and implement a strategy to organize, train, and equip the force to conduct ACE worldwide in support of deterrence, crisis response, or operations plan (OPLAN) execution in coordination with joint and allied/partner nation forces.[2] A key element of Aviano’s implementation of the ACE concept was a partnership between the 31 FW and AF/A3 (which was leading the overall global ACE effort) to determine how best to translate overall strategic guidance into practical and tactical reality. HAF-level guidance on ACE was deliberately broad in scope, to encompass the perspectives and objectives and perspectives of the combat air forces, mobility air forces, strategic bomber forces, and aviation special operations forces. It was qualitative in nature to characterize the common elements of ACE for all facets of airpower, deferring quantitative details to Air Force major command (MAJCOM) and subordinate levels. For example, the overall construct for ACE lays out concepts for both proactive and reactive ACE maneuver, but it does not stipulate how many dispersal locations are to be used, for how long, in support of how many aircraft. Any single set of numbers would not make sense for all elements of airpower in all operating locations around the world. Instead, individual MAJCOMs and wings have determined what makes sense for their own operating scenarios. The partnership between AF/A3 and 31 FW enabled determination of how much specificity in overall guidance was necessary without tying the warfighter’s hands; in turn, lessons learned from the 2021 AGILE WYVERN and 2023 FIGHTING WYVERN exercises helped to shape subsequent HAF guidance to the field. This partnership enabled rapid concept iteration and wider sharing of wing-level lessons learned. Innovative preparation for the Warfighter Concurrent with the Air Force’s implementation of ACE has been an increased focus on mission command - a leadership philosophy that empowers subordinate decision-making for flexibility, initiative, and responsiveness in the accomplishment of commander’s intent.[3] Its intent is to provide Airmen operating in environments of high uncertainty, complexity, and change with the freedom of action needed to exploit rapidly developing opportunities and succeed. Key tenets of mission command are understanding commander’ intent (both specified and implied), mission-type orders (MTOs), shared understanding, disciplined initiative, risk acceptance, competence, and trust. To best achieve these skillsets, the wing infused a cultural tenet of “Value, Develop, and Empower” from 2022 through 2025 that was deliberately and consistently applied in regularly scheduled meetings, tasks, and day-to-day communication with 31 FW-assigned Airmen. Additionally, wing leadership prized a spirit of innovation balanced with smart risk that allowed Airmen to think creatively, feel trusted by wing leadership, and understand where risk can and cannot be taken. While these themes are not unique to Aviano, many of the results are. As an example, Maj Nick Atkins, assigned to the 31 FW, and his team won the Vice Chief of Staff’s Spark Tank innovation competition. Their concept of a stowable collapsible ladder designed for the F-16 was recognized as the most impactful innovative solution out of 138 proposals to embolden ACE efforts across the Air Force in 2024. The F-16 does not contain a built-in ladder and must rely on support from airfield assets and personnel for pilot egress; the solution developed by Maj Atkins and his team enable the aircraft to operate from a wider range of potential operating locations. An additional initiative that was a derivative of the wing’s “Value, Develop, and Empower” cultural tenet was the development and implementation of a dedicated detachment commander academic program. The week-long course, held bi-annually, is used to equip senior non-commissioned officers and company grade officers who will be tasked to take and deploy small detachments of mission generation force elements with the requisite skills to understand mission command and commander’s intent, how to ask targeted questions to better understand commander’s intent, how to build collaborative teams representing diverse career specialties, and how to effectively communicate in geographically dispersed locations specifically if those locations are degraded or contested. The graduates would then be assigned detachment commander roles for subsequent ACE and combat readiness exercises to further reinforce the lessons and put those skillsets into practice. 31 FW exercises were used to develop and sharpen the application of mission command tenets, with emphasis on the criticality of understanding commander’s intent and in the use of MTOs, which focus on the results to be attained rather than how to achieve them. A key area of practical learning was to establish how best to articulate ACE requirements in a five-paragraph orders format, providing enough specificity to empower subordinate detachment commanders to make decisions in the field when they might be cut off from higher headquarters. Closely related was dialogue between the Wing Commander and those detachment commanders to ensure that they understood commander’s intent and the “left/right” bounds in its execution; that is, the flexibility they had to adjust their approach amid evolving circumstances. These discussions were conducted in the detachment commander program, as well as, during the actual exercises to demonstrate the utility of flat communications. Realistic Training Scenario Leading up to the 31 FW’s exercises, the leadership and exercise planning teams came together to develop new and innovative ways to increase realism. Commander’s intent was to ensure all Airmen, to include our newest first term Airmen, would have a deep understanding of the road to war, feel the impact of each scenario, understand how to apply their skillsets, and apply previous lessons learned forward to maximize airpower resilience and lethality. There were a handful of unique injects that maximized learning for 31 FW-assigned Airmen. A key focus area was to increase expertise related to countering cyber attacks. The wing included a wing-wide cyber phishing event, that required close and precise coordination with the USAFE-AFAFRICA headquarters directorate of communications. This event took lessons from routine computer-based training modules and transformed them into actual application to reflect the criticality of cyber warfare and its relevance to generating and employing agile airpower. The 31 FW acquired multiple small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) for the purposes of equipping both blue and red forces. This simple acquisition helped refine counter-sUAS tactics, techniques, and procedures, as well as, provided the base population with real-world UAS systems overhead to increase visual detection and identification and response actions. Scenarios also included the host nation community outside the wire to increase cooperation and collaboration to achieve a layered defense construct. Mass casualty and high attrition rates were included in the scenario so Airmen could better appreciate the gravity of the threat and understand why they need to be mission ready Airmen as they will be required to take on additional responsibilities when there are fewer Airmen available to do so. The removal of Airmen, to include two group commanders, as a result of the scenario provided a tangible sense of what 21st century warfare could look like. Similar to how exercises are conducted at Kunsan Air Base, the use of zoning and different levels of mission oriented protective posture (MOPP) and graduated levels of base posture levels increased flexibility, survivability, and agility. Finally, the inspector general and wing exercise planning team coordinated the inclusion of five dissimilar NATO mission design series (MDS) platforms to provide major command exercise-quality air-to-air training. New flight leads and combat mission ready wingman were afforded the opportunity to fly with and against Slovenian PC-9s, Croatian Rafales, Italian Typhoons, Italian F-35s, and NATO E-3s that both increased interoperability and integration. Each NATO country viewed participating in the wing’s FIGHTING WYVERN exercises as mutually beneficial so that Aviano was able to include them in the scenario but did not incur additional wing funding. Complex Cross-border Operations As ACE continues to mature, a key goal will be to ensure that the USAF deliberately maximizes integration and interoperability with allies and partners. In this context, integration refers to the ability of multiple forces to act together coherently, effectively, and efficiently to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic objectives. Dialogue and collaboration with both Pacific and European allies and partners is ongoing to develop and evaluate integrated approaches, to enable effective combined force maneuver and employment in contested environments. The U.S. Joint force has long conducted combined force tactics with allies and partners in the delivery of fires and will continue to do so. ACE will require increased interoperability in command and control (C2), engineering and logistics, base defense, intelligence-sharing, and other functional areas that precede and follow the delivery of fires.[4] Key areas of focus will include development of compatible doctrine, realistic combined force training, common or interoperable materiel solution enablers, determination of how best to use available airfields, and resolution of policy issues that may impede further force integration. Exercises at the 31 FW provided key practical insights to inform overall approaches to complex cross-border operations that included both assigned forces and live weapons. Some planners claim cross-border operations, that transfer war reserve materiel, will naturally occur as a function of real-world contingencies and warfare. However, the logistical challenges and flawed assumptions associated with border crossings must be considered, coordinated, and exercised before conflict. While initial exercises included inert munitions, as trust was established, more recent 31 FW scenarios facilitated the movement of Airmen with live weapons and live munitions across multiple locations within the host nation and into bordering NATO countries. The opportunity to bring hazardous material, weapon, and munition subject matter experts together in a NATO, multi-lateral forum proved invaluable to ensure planning factors and details are pre-coordinated. Summary Continuity of effort and culture have been crucial to the success the 31 FW efforts described here. The consistent focus on innovation, the long-range iterative exercise plan, emphasis placed on “Value, Develop, and Empower”, and the additional time three years of command provided to build trust with host nation and bordering country leadership afforded tangible leaps in expertise, efficiency, agility, and institutional memory. Additionally, the wing benefitted from active collaboration with HAF, fusing the results of extensive dialogue into the development of its scenarios and tactical execution. The inclusion of outside expertise emboldened the 31 FW’s ability to identify new areas to train, develop, and learn in subsequent exercises, confident in the alignment of its approach with overall Air Force direction. Finally, the importance of a wing culture that fully embraces innovation and empowerment cannot be overstated. To be most successful, an initiative cannot be limited to a single leader, but must be internalized by all Airmen at all levels of leadership. Fortunately, the Airmen of the 31 FW embraced innovation, empowerment, ACE, and combat readiness which proved to be the primary contributing factor for success and will ensure its Airmen are prepared to win in the current global security environment. Brig Gen Tad Clark is the Director of Regional Affairs for the Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force, responsible for providing oversight of programs supporting national security objectives through politico-military affairs, security cooperation, international counterpart engagements for senior Department of the Air Force leaders, and interactions with foreign air and space attachés. Brig Gen Clark previously served three years as the Commander of the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Airbase in Italy. He received his commission in 1996 from the US Air Force Academy. From 2020-2025 Dr. Mulgund (BASC, University of Toronto; PhD, Princeton University) served as a highly qualified expert senior advisor to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (AF/A3). He led an Air Force-wide effort to develop and synchronize the implementation of an enterprise strategy for agile combat employment. [1] Air Force Doctrine Publication 3-0, Operations. 22 Jan 2025. [2] Mulgund, S. “Driving Change in the Presentation and Employment of Airpower,” Wild Blue Yonder, 3 Feb 2023. [3] AFDP 1-1, Mission Command. 14 Aug 2023. [4] Mulgund, S. “Agile Combat Employment Interoperability and Integration,” Wild Blue Yonder, 18 Dec 2024.