Agility and flexibility will be the keys to air superiority in the future, said Gen. Hawk Carlisle, leader of Air Force Combat Command.
"The execution of theater airpower happens in seconds and minutes," he told the assembled crowd at the Air Force Association's Air and Space Conference. "When United States airpower shows up in places and at times people don't expect, that's an incredible capability."
"It assures our allies and it sends a message to adversaries of what we can do," Carlisle said.
He highlighted the service's "Rapid Raptor" program, an effort to deploy F-22s and support teams to any part of the globe in 24 hours or less.
The Air Force is also looking to stand up a "rapid personnel recovery" capability as well, similar to the F-22 program, which could quickly deploy teams on missions, Carlisle said. The service will test the concept overseas sometime in the next few months.
Personnel rescue is an area the U.S. increasingly excels at, and needs to devote more resources to, the general said, calling it the "epitome of low density, high demand assets."
"In many cases for our coalition partners to participate in operations, they need to have U.S. personnel recovery and they need to have it close and they need to be able to rely on it," he said. "The moral obligation we have is to pick up our folks that are down behind enemy lines."
The U.S. needs to emphasize personnel rescue in hostile environments, and should ensure the development of the HC-130J and next-gen Combat Rescue Helicopter, Carlisle said.
Above all, Carlisle said that airmen themselves are the key to innovation and flexibility, but that the high operations tempo is taking a toll.
"We are on the ragged edge. Our ops tempo is unrelenting," he said. "The demand for theater airpower across the globe is simply unmatched. … Whether we're willing to admit it or not, we're burning them out. We're losing incredible airmen that love what they do because we're burning them out and we're asking too much of their families."
It's a major problem the Air Force is going to have to deal with, because the airmen's ingenuity is what's kept America on the cutting edge of warfare, Carlisle said.
"Our technological advantage is shrinking," he said. "Our adversaries are getting better and we can't stand still. We can't rest on laurels."
"Every opponent that we could ever possibly face has watched what we do," Carlisle said. "They know if the United States owns everything more than eight feet off the ground we will win, and they will attack that [advantage]."
