USAF’s ‘Re-Optimization’: Top Leaders Rule on What’s In, What’s Out

Warrant officers and no-notice inspections are here to stay. Airman Development Command, a host of other new organizations, and the shift away from operations groups are dead. 

Less than two years after now-departed Air Force leaders announced a slate of sweeping changes, new Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and new Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said in a memo to commanders they are discarding more than half of the re-optimization changes, according to a Dec. 2 announement.

Former Secretary Frank Kendall and then-CSAF Gen. David W. Allvin launched a re-optimization review in September 2023, focusing on changes they saw as needed to better prepare the Air Force and Space Force to compete with China. Five months later, in February 2024, Kendall, Allvin, and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman unveiled 24 changes, covering everything from training to deployment models and new acquisition organizations. 

Kendall staked his legacy to the plans, many of which met with objections from other senior leaders. When President Trump took office in January, the department paused the reorg and that’s where things stayed as Meink was confirmed in May, undersecretary Matthew Lohmeier in July, and Wilsbach in November. 

Of the 19 planned changes that affect either the Department of the Air Force or the Air Force itself, and not the Space Force, eight will continue, 10 are terminated, and one was left unaddressed. 

MAJCOM Changes Shelved 

One major point of contention was how the re-optimization plans dealt with setting requirements for future weapons systems. The requirements process was to shift from Air Force Major Commands to a new Integrated Capabilities Command, removing that function from Air Combat Command, Air Mobility Command, and Air Force Global Strike Command. That drew fierce pushback from MAJCOM commanders. Meink abandoned Integrated Capabilities Command in October. 

Allvin made light of the term “major command,” calling some “institutional” commands focused on organizing, training, and equipping forces; and others “component” commands focused on presenting warfighting forces to unified combatant commanders. 

He sought to elevate organizations like Air Forces Central and Air Forces Southern from Numbered Air Forces under Air Combat Command to component commands reporting instead to Headquarters Air Force. That’s now off the table, the Dec. 2 memo states. AFCENT, AFSOUTH, and others will all remain under ACC.

Other major commands tapped to undergo changes include Air Force Materiel Command and Air Education & Training Command. 

Multiple organizations under AFMC were supposed to reorganize, forming an Information Dominance Systems Center, Air Force Nuclear Systems Center, and Air Dominance Systems Support Center. None of that will happen now, but an Integrated Development Office will continue, presumably intended to work closely with the new Integrated Capabilities Office at the department level. 

AETC, meanwhile, will not become Airman Development Command, and will not gain greater control over Airmen’s training over the course of their careers as previously planned. “Air Education and Training Command (AETC) will remain the Air Force’s training and development major command and will not become ADC,” the service release states. It will also remain a three-star billet; there had briefly been talk of making the commander a four-star. 

Sticking Around 

Among the most popular changes announced in February 2024 was the reintroduction of warrant officers. That change survives. For decades, the Air Force had been the only service without warrants, who act as technical experts focused less on the leadership jobs associated with senior noncommissioned officers. 

The Air Force introduced warrant officers specifically for the highly technical career fields of cyber and information technology, where Airmen can often get better pay in the private sector compared to enlisted wages. The service has already graduated more than 100 warrant officers and will continue to recruit and train more, the memo states. 

Department Level Exercises will also continue. The Air Force held several across the Indo-Pacific in summer 2025, and “continuous evaluation of this exercise series will ensure the required resource investment is leading to valuable readiness returns,” the release states. 

The re-optimization also called for more surprise short-notice inspections and the development of “Mission-Ready Airmen” capable of performing tasks outside their job specialty. Wilsbach and Meink endorsed the concept, but reverted to a previously used term, Multi-Capable Airmen, in their memo. 

Combat Wings 

The reorganization of wings and groups to align with the concept of wings as the Air Force’s units of action is getting a more refined makeover. The Air Force adopted “Deployable Combat Wings” as the next phase in a deployment rotation plan. DCWS were to replace Air Task Forces and would include a command team, support elements, and operational units that could be augmented as needed. 

Allvin proposed doing away with operations and maintenance groups—the organizations between wings and squadrons—and moving group leadership into the Combat Wings’ air staffs. Plans also called for Air Base Wings with separate command structures so that Combat Wings could focus on training and deployments, not maintaining installations. 

Meink and Wilsbach said the wing would remain the “primary unit of action” but they will instead use “an Air Expeditionary Wing 2.0 construct, where a single wing will source the majority of the command-and-control and base operating support with teamed augmentation from additional wings.” 

At their home bases, however, wings will still have groups, and the concept for Air Base Wings will be abandoned.  

“Our focus is to minimize change-fatigue to Airmen and enable commanders to concentrate on readiness, lethality, and mission accomplishment,” the release states.