JULY 12, 2024 – With a large military presence and thousands of service members operating in the Middle East, one of the Department of Defense’s most important missions is being led by one of its smaller teams: the Air Forces Central Air Warfare Center.
“Our job is basically security cooperation, which is a fancy term for go out, make new friends and strengthen existing relationships,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Kevin Walsh, commander of the AFCENT Air Warfare Center, “and the way we go about doing that is providing subject-matter expertise to partner-hosted exercises throughout the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. If someone needs fighter expertise or command and control expertise, or mobility expertise or intel, we’re able to provide those personnel to support our partners.”
The AAWC, a tenant unit of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, is a small team, composed of just over 20 Air Force and Army personnel. These operational experts travel to 9 different countries throughout the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, working to build those relationships and military ties. With an average assignment length of 2.5 years, AWC personnel live in their host-nation communities, further building those international relationships.
By providing subject-matter experts, the U.S. is able to assist partner nations in building their exercises and increase the coalition’s collective capabilities throughout the region.
Walsh says their focus is “integration and interoperability,” with the goal of seeing U.S. and other nations’ aircraft “take off and all speak the same tactical language.”
The AAWC is involved in multiple exercises throughout the region, such as HAWKEX, the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Operations Course, BALLAST CANNON, FALCON TALON and DESERT FLAG, which this year hosted 10 different countries in a large-scale operational exercise.
While the AAWC provides subject-matter experts to assist partner nations, Walsh says they don’t take control over exercises, or dictate how those nations should conduct those trainings.
“It’s very important that the mentality we take is ‘here’s a way that we, in the U.S., have found successful,’” said Walsh. “It does not mean it is the best way; it’s just a way that we’ve found successful given various circumstances, and we present that to our partners to modify – given their cultural underpinnings and their capabilities and resources – to find a way that works for them.”
Walsh says that the strength the U.S. has in the region lies in the relationships it has with its partners, making this mission even more important.
“We need to be able to rely on our partners to have a team effort to get after some of those strategic goals,” said Walsh. “We use these exercises and partner-nation-integration events to build stronger coalitions, build stronger friendships and partnerships, so that when called upon, we can all act together in our interests.”
With U.S. adversaries still operating in the region, as well as joint efforts to keep shipping lanes safe for nations throughout the world, Col. Walsh says the AAWC’s mission is vital to strategic efforts.
“Being able to be a direct input into that, being able to liaise with our partners, so that we can all work together to keep the global commons free, to keep external actors from exerting a malign influence in the region, is a really neat thing to be a part of, since it does directly impact our public back home, whether they know it or not.”
After commanding the AAWC for 2 years, Walsh says the biggest lesson he’s learned is how much we can learn from our partners.
“We live in a fantastic and amazing country,” said Walsh, “and I think one of the negative aspects of that can be the belief that our way is always the best, and our way is always the right way. Having the opportunity to live in various parts of the world, see how other cultures address things, and then taking those lessons learned back home is probably my big takeaway from this assignment.”
While the AAWC has played a large role in improving the interoperability of partner nations throughout the region, it is still working hard to continue to build those partnerships and ensure a stronger coalition, prepared to meet the challenges of the future.
“Never underestimate the importance of the relationship building that the U.S. military does. We need to continue to leverage foreign area officers, organizations that specialize in theater security cooperation missions, to help build those relationships, and learn about other countries, so we can understand their motivations and maybe their reactions, to help shape how we approach problem-solving and decision making.”
Story by Tech. Sgt. Kregg York
United States Air Forces Central