Introduction
The United States’ strategic engagement in the Indo-Pacific was forged in the crucible of the World War II. In that campaign, General Douglas MacArthur operationalized “island hopping”—the sequential seizure and development of forward operating bases to project combat power across vast maritime distances.1 This approach proved decisive in the Pacific theater and established a foundational insight that endures today: in the Indo-Pacific, geography rewards dispersion, and logistics determines whether operational concepts succeed or fail. That logic underpins contemporary concepts such as Agile Combat Employment (ACE).
In the decades following 1945, however, America’s operational focus shifted away from the Pacific. For nearly two decades, U.S. forces conducted sustained campaigns in the Middle East, where warfighting was largely continental and logistics benefited from relatively mature infrastructure, predictable lines of communication, and permissive sustainment environments. These conditions shaped force design and sustainment practices optimized for efficiency and scale, not survivability under contestation. The stark contrast between the Indo-Pacific’s dispersed maritime geography and the Middle East’s land-centric theaters illustrates why legacy basing models are increasingly mismatched to the demands of modern strategic competition and why flexible, forward-deployed basing has reemerged as an operational necessity.
Today, the Department of War prioritizes the Indo-Pacific as the pacing threat for strategic competition. No other region concentrates such a share of the global population, economic activity, and maritime commerce, or presents such acute challenges to access, mobility, and sustainment.2 The region presents a complex web of operational and logistical challenges for the United States Air Force (USAF), the Joint Force, and our partners and allies.3 Preserving free and open trade routes across this vast expanse is therefore essential to global security and prosperity.
The Imperative for Agile Combat Employment
For decades, US force overmatch relied on a range of large, complex, and costly weapon systems supported by centralized basing. That approach is no longer sufficient. Business as usual will not deliver the advantages required in an operational environment increasingly shaped by adversary pressure on access, sustainment, and freedom of maneuver. Legacy models built around large, centralized, and unhardened main operating bases are increasingly vulnerable to modern threats. In response, the USAF exercises ACE to ensure operational resilience across vast distances and within degraded environments.4
Adversaries have closely studied US warfighting practices across United States Central Command and other areas of responsibility and have developed capabilities intended to erode traditional US military advantages in the Indo-Pacific. Continued reliance on a limited number of forward operating bases exposes the USAF to expanding arsenals of conventional and hypersonic weapons. In response, the Air Force—led by Pacific Air Forces (PACAF)—has adopted ACE as both a tactical approach and a cultural shift, dispersing, maneuvering, and re-aggregating forces to deter aggression and, if necessary, defeat threats.
ACE requires sustained, deliberate investment in logistics to enable a dispersed, combat-credible force capable of complicating adversarial planning and enhancing combat effectiveness.5 Sustaining airpower from dispersed locations in a contested environment, however, is inherently complex and resource-intensive. In the Indo-Pacific, a cornerstone of this effort is “setting the theater”—establishing access, presence, and posture to enable resilient operations. Transitioning to smaller, dispersed, resilient airfields demands new approaches to command and control (C2) and aircraft generation, as well as the ability to acquire, transport, store, and sustain fuel, munitions, equipment, and materiel on scalable infrastructure protected against attack. As the PACAF Commander, Gen Kevin Schneider, has articulated “we must be ready to operate in austere conditions, with degraded networks, and through disruptions to sustainment chains. Our forces must be self-sufficient, mobile, and capable of rapid adaptation.”6
Setting the Theater: Access, Presence, and Posture
Setting the theater, a foundational element for successful ACE operations in the Indo-Pacific, requires a deliberate focus on access, presence, and posture. The USINDOPACOM AOR encompasses a diverse set of nations, making sustained diplomatic engagement essential to set conditions for competition, crisis, and conflict. Longstanding US partnerships enable the USAF to maintain critical access, presence, and posture throughout the region. These partnerships are vital to operating in a contested logistics environment.
Access. Access is essential to building allied and partner capacity, reducing the tyranny of distance, establishing a credible sustainment posture, and enabling a distributed logistics network. Achieving access requires a network of logistics nodes, staging bases, and storage sites, enabled by host-nation agreements such as Mutual Logistics Support Agreements (MLSA), Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA), and Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements (ACSA), coordinated through the Department of State.
Presence. Joint and allied force presence deters aggression, demonstrates readiness, and signals sustained commitment to regional stability. Persistent basing enables dynamic force employment, overflight operations, and exercises that generate sustainment opportunities with the Joint Force, allies and partners, and host nations. Such presence also allows the Joint Logistics Enterprise (JLEnt) to plan and execute jointly, rehearse concepts for contested logistics, and build habitual relationships. Most importantly, sustained presence establishes the conditions necessary for future posture initiatives.
Posture. Posture is central to overcoming contested logistics. Pre-positioning supplies and equipment reduces transportation demands, accelerates response times, and improves operational efficiency in crises. Pre-positioned stocks enable decentralized logistics and distributed sustainment, strengthening resilience under threat.
Executed from July through August 2025, Exercise Resolute Force Pacific (REFORPAC) enabled PACAF to test and refine evolving ACE and setting-the-theater strategies.7
REFORPAC 2025: Stress-Testing ACE and Distributed Logistics
The USAF tasked PACAF with demonstrating its ability to rapidly disperse thousands of servicemembers, aircraft, and associated mission-generation equipment, across the region to defend the United States and the shared democratic interests of our allies and partners in the Pacific.
REFORPAC deployed more than 400 aircraft and 12,000 personnel across 50 locations spanning approximately 6,000 miles east to west and 4,000 miles north to south, making it the largest airpower exercise in Indo-Pacific history. Hundreds of sorties were generated from a distributed hub-and-spoke network across the region. Leveraging lessons from prior exercises such as Valiant Shield, the USAF executed a phased approach to power projection—beginning with rapid engineering and construction of critical infrastructure, employing pre-positioned warfighting materiel, and culminating in sustained mission generation. Throughout the exercise, PACAF engineers, logisticians, maintainers, medics, and security forces Airmen drove success, integrating the Total Force and coordinating across multiple Major Commands (MAJCOMs) to deliver a resilient and flexible force capable of decisive response across vast distances.
Every large-scale exercise yields lessons, and REFORPAC was no exception. The exercise generated critical insights to strengthen logistics resilience across the Indo-Pacific and highlighted the inherent tension between operational efficiency and sustainment resilience.
REFORPAC did not reveal a force unprepared for the demands of competition or conflict; rather, it exposed a mismatch between Airmen’s demonstrated capabilities and logistics systems designed for a different era. Above all, the exercise reaffirmed that Airmen remain the USAF’s decisive asymmetric advantage.
Ultimately, REFORPAC demonstrated a central reality of modern airpower: advantage accrues to the force that can move, sustain, and regenerate combat capability faster than an adversary can target it. Consistent with the Department of War’s reassessment of the technologies and capabilities required for future conflict, this advantage derives not solely from exquisite platforms, but from Airmen. Longstanding critiques of the USAF and ACE have characterized the concept as overly complex, excessively dispersed, and dependent on ideal conditions. REFORPAC refuted those claims. Amid real-world operations and severe weather, redeployment occurred on schedule. Airmen adapted faster than institutional expectations, dispersing forces across the theater and generating combat power with measurable effect. These Airmen demonstrated a genuine ACE mindset. Despite operational constraints, they executed the ACE concept of operations, exhibiting the adaptability and resourcefulness required to operate effectively from dispersed locations.
Logistics C2
REFORPAC underscored that the Air Force’s logistics command-and-control (LOG C2) architecture must mature to meet the speed, scale, and uncertainty of operations in the Indo-Pacific. The current structure was designed for predictability, efficiency, and steady-state operations. REFORPAC compelled that architecture to perform in a warfighting role—spanning thousands of miles, integrating the Total Force and the joint enterprise, and supporting high-tempo dispersal operations. Yet the enterprise remains characterized by legacy systems, fragmented authorities, and stove-piped workflows that provide asset visibility but fall short of delivering decision advantage to the dual-hatted Theater Joint Force Air Component Commander and the Commander, Air Force Forces (TJFACC/COMAFFOR).
Experience during REFORPAC exposed critical gaps in LOG C2 across the competition–conflict continuum. At present, USAF relies on a mix of information technology systems that provide base-level visibility of logistics assets alongside enterprise-level, mandated logistics management platforms. These outdated systems rely on labor-intensive, manual data entry at the tactical level, increasing workload and the risk of human error. This data is not consistently shared across echelons; fragmented user permissions create disparate operating pictures for Wings, Air Expeditionary Task Forces (AETFs), and the MAJCOMSs, preventing a unified, real-time understanding of the battlespace. They include Headquarters Air Force’s (HAF) newest information technology systems which will be used for Air Force enterprise-wide common operating pictures (COPs), and the Joint Staff’s Maven Smart System (MSS), a decision-support platform employed during competition and conflict that fuses operations, intelligence, and logistics data using advanced artificial intelligence (AI)–enabled analytics. While both systems provide valuable visibility at the enterprise level, they are not yet optimized to support real-time, theater-level LOG C2 in contested environments.
For these reasons, the Air Force is pursuing more capable information technology systems designed to enable deeper integration with US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), particularly its logistics directorate (J4). This closer alignment strengthens the service’s ability to meet its most critical operational objectives by building a LOG C2 architecture capable of supporting high-tempo, distributed operations. To best ensure proactive LOG C2, the Air Force must drive investment in next-generation infrastructure, enhanced integration between data sources and mandated management platforms, rapid prototyping initiatives, and systems that enable information sharing with coalition partners. REFORPAC illustrated that legacy systems and disconnected data streams are incompatible with the speed, scale, and coalition complexity required for contested logistics, reinforcing the need for deliberate investment in integrated and streamlined LOG C2 capabilities.
Streamlining LOG C2 structures is essential to enabling commanders at all echelons to make timely, informed decisions in dynamic and contested environments. This requires resilient communication architectures with built-in contingencies to ensure continuity of operations when primary systems are degraded or denied. Standardized procedures must be institutionalized across the force and reinforced through realistic exercises to develop shared understanding and operational agility. Together, these measures enhance the joint force’s ability to sustain operations under pressure and maintain decision superiority in complex theaters.
Integrating emerging technologies such as AI, automation, and additive manufacturing can improve logistics efficiency, enhance predictive maintenance, and enable distributed production, strengthening the resilience and adaptability of the USAF’s logistics enterprise. AI-enabled analytics can fuse disparate data streams to forecast demand, anticipate system failures, and optimize supply prioritization, while automation can reduce manual workload, increase throughput, and improve accuracy across maintenance, supply, and distribution functions.
Additive manufacturing further enables forward-positioned, on-demand production of critical parts, reducing reliance on contested supply lines and increasing operational endurance in austere environments. Together, these technologies support faster decision-making, greater sustainment agility, and a more resilient logistics posture capable of operating at scale in contested theaters.
Total Force & Allies and Partners
Effective logistics in the Indo-Pacific requires comprehensive planning that fully integrates Active Duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilian components. Equally essential is close coordination with local governments and host-nation authorities, particularly across the Second Island Chain, where access, sustainment, and base operating support (BOS) are enabled through deliberate partnership and shared commitment to regional security. In locations such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. operations are made possible by the support of local leadership and communities that provide critical BOS functions—including airfield services, power generation, fuel distribution, transportation, communications access, and force protection—often under austere conditions and limited infrastructure.
This approach requires clearly defined roles and responsibilities across wings, MAJCOMs, combatant commands, and headquarters to ensure authorities, decision rights, and execution responsibilities are aligned across echelons. It also demands the deliberate revision of misaligned policies and guidance, along with standardized joint and allied training frameworks that reinforce common processes, data standards, and operational expectations to maximize interoperability. By leveraging the distinct capabilities of each component and advancing desired learning objectives that increasingly reflect integrated, multi-echelon operations, the force enhances the effectiveness of Airmen, the Joint Force, and allied and partner forces.
Central to PACAF’s mission is working with our allies and partners to ensure regional stability and security. Expanding joint training with partner nations further strengthens interoperability, logistics coordination, and shared situational awareness. Standardized procedures and common operating protocols are essential to enabling seamless collaboration during crises and conflict and institutionalize host-nation BOS as a deliberate enabler of theater sustainment rather than an ad hoc requirement during contingency operations.
Increased Infrastructure Investment
Chronic underinvestment in infrastructure erodes readiness and degrades the combat credibility of forward-postured forces in the Indo-Pacific—particularly across the Second Island Chain, where vast distances, fragile supply chains, and harsh climate conditions compound the challenges of operating from dispersed and often austere locations. These realities demand more than incremental improvements; they require expeditionary organizations purpose-built to set and sustain the theater under competition and crisis.
The redesignation of the 356th Expeditionary Theater Support Group (ETSG) reflects Pacific Air Forces’ long-term commitment to confronting these challenges head-on. Designed to operate in austere, remote, and contested environments, the 356th ETSG integrates civil engineering, logistics, materiel management, contracting, finance, and resilient command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) capabilities to enable distributed air operations. This construct allows the Air Force to project combat power from “places, not bases,” reducing reliance on vulnerable main operating locations and mitigating the tyranny of distance inherent to the Pacific.
By prepositioning materiel, rapidly establishing expeditionary infrastructure, and installing tactical C4I architectures, the 356th ETSG directly enables Agile Combat Employment—accelerating airfield opening, sustaining mission generation, and preserving operational tempo despite degraded networks and constrained supply lines. Equally important, the group strengthens interoperability through persistent engagement with allies and partners, building the trust and integration required to operate from dispersed locations during crisis or conflict. Together, these efforts underscore a key lesson reinforced by REFORPAC: resilient infrastructure, enabled by purpose-built expeditionary organizations, is essential to overcoming the friction of distribution and sustaining credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
Addressing the Risks and Challenges Ahead
Although ACE and distributed logistics are a substantive advance over legacy force-posture models, they do not obviate the structural risks inherent in the Indo-Pacific security environment. Ensuring operational resilience and strategic success will require sustained attention to a set of interrelated challenges that extend beyond force employment concepts alone. First, US competitors continue to modernize their militaries at pace, coupling investments in advanced precision strike systems, integrated air and missile defenses, cyber and space capabilities, and long-range fires with doctrinal innovation explicitly designed to contest US power projection in high-end conflict. These modernization efforts prioritize exploiting perceived vulnerabilities in US basing, logistics, and C2 architectures, particularly during the early phases of a conflict.
Second, adversaries increasingly employ gray-zone strategies that deliberately blur the boundary between peace and war. Through the coordinated use of military, paramilitary, irregular, and informational instruments, competitors seek to impose cumulative costs, erode US influence, and coerce allies and partners while remaining below the threshold that would trigger a decisive military response. These activities complicate deterrence, strain alliance cohesion, and place persistent pressure on access, presence, and sustainment well before the onset of open hostilities.
Finally, these dynamics are reinforced by the steady expansion of adversary political and military influence across the Indo-Pacific. Through a combination of security cooperation, infrastructure investment, economic relationships, and political engagement, competitors are reshaping the regional operating environment in ways that generate new strategic dilemmas for the Joint Force. This expanding footprint complicates alliance management, introduces uncertainty into basing and access arrangements, and risks altering the regional balance of power in ways unfavorable to US interests.
Taken together, these trends underscore a central reality: while ACE and distributed logistics enhance operational resilience, they are insufficient in isolation. Mitigating these challenges demands more than adaptive force employment. It requires sustained integration with the Joint Force and regional allies and partners, deliberate investment in resilient logistics and basing architectures, and continuous shaping of the strategic environment to reinforce deterrence, preserve access, and assure partners of long-term US commitment.
Ultimately, REFORPAC underscored that sustained investment in command and control, infrastructure, technology, and partnerships is essential to maintaining the USAF’s competitive advantage and protecting U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific. While the USAF has demonstrated the ability to operate in contested logistics environments, success in crisis or conflict will depend on translating that capability into credible deterrence through effective power projection and the preservation of regional security and stability.
The Indo-Pacific is the most contested operational environment confronting the United States. To deter aggression and counter evolving threats, the Air Force has adopted ACE as a necessary shift toward a more agile and integrated force posture across the region. ACE places new demands on logistics systems, basing, and transportation networks, requiring them to operate with greater resilience and adaptability under contestation. REFORPAC provided critical operational insights into these demands. By institutionalizing ACE, integrating Total Force capabilities, setting the theater deliberately, and addressing identified risks, the USAF can continue to complicate adversary planning and enhance force survivability in this strategically decisive region. “Deterrence demands proactive training, and REFORPAC has succeeded in doing just that,” said General Schneider. “We maintain the capability to deter, defend, and if necessary, defeat aggressors by investing in readiness, delivering capable forces, and staying postured to protect the American people, allies, and interests across the region. REFORPAC stands as a prime example of our strong commitment to maintaining peace through strength in the Indo-Pacific.”8
Editor’s note: This article was prepared by Avon Cornelius under Contract No. SP4704-25-F-0056 for the United States Air Force, February 2026.
1 MacArthur Memorial Education Programs, “World War II Island Hopping Primary Resources,” MacArthur Memorial, n.d., https://www.macarthurmemorial.org/.
2 Matthew Olay, “Hegseth Outlines U.S. Vision for Indo-Pacific, Addresses China Threat,” DOD News, 30 May 2025, https://www.war.gov/.
3 Charles Q. Brown Jr., “Demystifying the Indo-Pacific Theater,” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 3, no. 1 (Spring 2020): 3–10, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/.
4 Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21, Agile Combat Employment, 23 August 2022, https://www.doctrine.af.mil/.
5 Luke A. Nicastro, “Defense Primer: Agile Combat Employment (ACE) Concept,” In Focus, 24 June 2024, https://www.congress.gov/.
6 “REFORPAC 2025: High-powered international team ready to conduct Air Force’s largest Pacific contingency-response exercise,” Pacific Air Forces Public Affairs, 8 July 2025, https://www.pacaf.af.mil/.
7 “Department-Level Exercise (DLE) Series,” US Air Force, 23 September 2025, https://www.af.mil/.
8 “REFORPAC 2025: U.S. Air Force Executes Unprecedented Surge into Pacific Theater,” Pacific Air Forces Public Affairs, 16 July 2025, https://www.pacaf.af.mil/ .