MARCH 6, 2025 – The Ukraine-Russia conflict and Iran’s missile attacks on Israel last year show a need for new U.S. military capabilities, said Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa.
Hecker spoke yesterday on a panel at the 2025 Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado.
A big lesson learned from the Iranian missile attacks is that intelligence is critical because it provides time to prepare with agile combat employment-like activities, he said.
Secondly, layered defense matters; with U.S. and allied ships and aircraft and Israel’s Iron Dome defense, only a few of the hundreds of missiles got through, Hecker noted.
One of the big lessons learned from the Ukraine-Russia conflict is that the U.S. cannot afford to spend money on expensive counter-unmanned aerial systems to defend against cheap attack drones, he said, “because we’re not going to be able to do this for very long if we do that.”
Ukraine and Russia are launching about 100 one-way attack drones a day, Hecker said. Ukraine takes these aerial threats out with anti-aircraft artillery.
U.S. industry is working on solutions, like the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, he said.
Separately, Hecker addressed NATO interoperability challenges.
It would be great if all 32 NATO nations had the same weapons systems, which would make everything interoperable, but they don’t, he said.
One solution for interoperability is to ensure systems have an open architecture, Hecker added.
Air Force Gen. Kevin B. Schneider, commander of the Pacific Air Forces and air component commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, discussed his region.
“We owe the combatant commander options across the spectrum of what we do as a military force, whether it’s humanitarian assistance, disaster relief operations, all the way up to combat and conflict in a highly contested environment,” he said.
He added that the way the U.S. projects power in the Indo-Pacific is different from how it’s done in NATO.
One challenge is operating in austere locations and the need to divide the force for survivability, Schneider said.
Response options are not inexpensive, he said. A lot of internal trades are made in the region. For example: “Do we put that dollar toward fixing the infrastructure on Kadena [Air Base, Okinawa, Japan], or do we put that dollar toward restoring an airfield on [the island of] Tinian in the second island chain?”
Schneider pointed out that U.S. allies and regional partners are providing a lot of assistance.
Lastly, he said, “I applaud our airmen at all levels for continuing to put the blood, sweat and tears into this to figure out how we remain effective and to stay steps ahead of any adversary out there.”
By David Vergun, DOD News