Building a more agile, integrated force: DAF cements inaugural DLE
The Department of the Air Force recently concluded its Department-Level Exercise series, a month-long series of exercises conducted across the Indo-Pacific, including Resolute Force Pacific, Resolute Space, Mobility Guardian 2025, Emerald Warrior and Bamboo Eagle 25-3. The exercises enhanced readiness and interoperability with allies and partners, while providing critical lessons learned for future operations.
“The Department of the Air Force is focused on becoming a stronger, more lethal deterrent force,” said Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink. “The way we will fight in future conflicts is constantly evolving, and this month-long exercise series shows we are investing in readiness and training to meet national security challenges. Our Airmen and Guardians were able to rapidly deploy forces, achieve space superiority, ensure sustained logistics in contested environments and effectively work alongside our allies and partners.”
The exercise series accomplished many important objectives including a high rate of sortie and cargo generation in contested environments around the globe, complex training with partners and allies, integrating space capabilities across air, land, maritime and cyber domains, as well as large scale Agile Combat Employment with a focus on command and control. Exercise scenarios tested critical elements of DAF operations, and lessons learned were compiled to improve mission planning and future operations.
“As intended, we stressed the system by having the largest scale exercise in the Pacific since the Cold War,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin. “To have the exercise is one thing, but to fail forward, move fast and learn from our mistakes is another. We validated our ability to sustain operations, deploy and redeploy at scale, and now must follow through on lessons learned. This evolution, implementation and iteration prepare us for the future fight.”
The Air Force’s lethality – and that of the entire Joint Force – depends on the Space Force’s ability to achieve space superiority. Resolute Space put that ability to the test in the largest service-led exercise in Space Force history.
“The Space Force delivered at an unprecedented scale alongside our allies and partners,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman. “During Resolute Space, Guardians trained against realistic, threat-informed aggressor forces while also supporting nine other concurrent exercises around the world. It was a clear validation of our readiness, combat credibility and commitment to deliver peace through strength.”
DLE planners also instituted an overall control center to ensure collective understanding and control of the large-scale exercise. The control center tested responsive management of activities through real-time reporting and intelligence.
“We knew early on that managing this level of complex exercise required a new way of oversight,” said Brig. Gen. Chris Blomquist, Department-Level Exercise series director. “There was plenty of learning and adjusting along the way and through execution. Such a large exercise had multiple training audiences and stakeholders across the Joint Force, including our allies and partners. Control of this exercise meant constantly assessing the impacts of activities across the DLE series, what was happening in the information environment and ensuring maintenance of real-world posture and readiness.”
The vastness of the region drives a need for this type of exercise and collaboration with allies and partners remains critical for maintaining peace, interoperability and enabling diplomatic engagement. Throughout the planning cycle, execution and assessment of the series, dedicated evaluators documented how the DAF developed activities and will provide DAF leaders with findings.
“The DLE was the largest Air Force Lessons Learned collection we have ever done, by a factor of three,” said Allen Moore of the Lessons Learned team. “We had LL personnel spread across the Pacific theater and CONUS bases. We integrated seamlessly with the Air Force inspector general and Air Force Safety teams to observe operations. The lessons we learned from the DLE are unmeasurable, but include Joint Task Force operations, complex command and control, logistics and communications, utilization of units of action and planning of large-scale exercises. We watched the units manage risk and movement while performing combat operations, how we protected the deployed force, how it integrated with allies and partners, as well as the integration with the Joint Force. None of this went as smoothly as planned, but that’s why we exercise. Now we’re hard at work to feed our observations and analysis back to leaders to improve future operations.”
This iteration of the DLE was successful not only as an overarching concept but also for each exercise nested within it. While challenging, the DAF was prepared to execute a massive effort through integrated readiness.
“Running a DAF-level exercise with alternating supported commands in overlapping COCOMs was as challenging as it was rewarding,” Blomquist said. “Only our Department of Defense paired with our allies and partners could achieve this level of success at speed and scale.”
The DAF remains committed to conducting similar large-scale exercises to ensure readiness for future operational demands.
