Air Force Orders No-Notice Readiness Inspections to Hold Commanders to Account

Air Force senior leaders may have recently cut back on the number of required annual inspections, but they are now requiring units to undergo separate, surprise readiness inspections that will hold commanders accountable for their outfit’s combat readiness, acting Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus said Jan. 29.

Speaking at the Airpower Forum hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Pleus revealed that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink “have reinstituted combat readiness inspections; they are no-notice.”

Pleus said this is not a return to past surprise inspection scenarios involving dozens of members from an inspector general team descending on a unit.

“I remember those days, and it’s not that,” he said, adding that it is “still a group of inspectors that come in, and they’re going to evaluate readiness. … And we are going to hold commanders responsible.”

The move is part of an effort to “put commanders in commander’s business,” Pleus said. Wilsbach has been “very explicit” that it is the “commander’s job to make sure that their people are ready every single day, as best they can be, so that we can fight tonight, tomorrow, next month, next year.”

Wilsbach recently dialed back a force-wide requirement for commanders to hold quarterly “standards and readiness reviews” to only once per year, acknowledging feedback from the field. This was a shift from last February, when Pleus directed unit commanders to conduct SSRs four times a year, beginning March 31, as part of a push for stricter enforcement of standards.

Commanders should be accountable for the combat readiness of their unit, Pleus said. “That is not the job of the staff; that is not the job of the headquarters,” he said. “That is 100 percent in their wheelhouse. If they fail an inspection, that is a commander’s fault.”

Wilsbach stressed such a mindset during his time at the helm of Air Combat Command. ACC conducted combat readiness exercises that involved an inspector general team directly evaluating whether combat wings was prepared for their assigned mission, according to release from July.

It’s still unclear how often these combat readiness inspections will be conducted, but the practice is part of the service’s focus to maintaining high standards across the force, Pleus said.

“That goes from dress and appearance all the way to how we execute tactics and procedures in the flying world,” Pleus said. “Everything in between is about setting a high standard and then pushing your team to make sure that they are ready to do that high standard each and every day. If you think about an NFL team, you don’t set a low bar. You set the highest bar you can, and you push towards it every single day.”