“I would start by saying over the last 30 years or so, there was certainly a level of awareness that a growing threat existed, and that the construct in which the U.S. Air Force depended primarily on the U.S. Army — but also other services — to protect its assets was on increasingly shaky ground. And clearly Iran’s response to Epic Fury, with the large proliferation of relatively low-cost effectors, has shined a light on that and made it very clear.
I think the big change is that you have these lower-cost tactical systems, and because they’re lower cost, there are a whole lot of them. But the range is such that they can reach out and touch you at hundreds of miles, where before it was more limited in terms of the types of systems that could do that — think of shorter range ballistic missiles and other things. If you only have ballistic missiles to deal with, and there aren’t too many of them, then the existing model, where the U.S. Air Force depends primarily on the U.S. Army to defend its assets, works. That clearly is not going to work going forward. One-way attack drones are going to continue to proliferate widely because of their low cost, and the fact that they’re not very sophisticated and are relatively easy to build.
So General Wilsbach, my boss, the Chief, made what I think was a courageous decision, and one that will be significant in the years to come. He said, basically, the Air Force is going to get back into the business of defending our assets with destructive effectors. Think kinetic — guns, rockets, kamikaze drones — and non-kinetic destructive effectors — think directed energy, whether it’s lasers or high-powered microwave — to protect our assets. It’s clear that the capacity that will be required far outstrips what exists in the joint force today. I think that was certainly part of the decision that was made.
In that discussion at Corona, the four-star-level conference, the next question was: okay, what part of that threat are we going to go after? Because it’s a pretty diverse threat when you look at everything from a small, off-the-shelf quadcopter-type threat all the way up to a hypersonic weapon that can go more than 1,000 miles. So where is the Air Force going to lean into this problem set to start? What was decided is that we’re going to focus on three elements.
The first is small UAS — very similar to the threat we all saw with Operation Spiderweb, in Ukraine and Russia. We recognize that there are existing vulnerabilities today, and that that type of threat could manifest itself at any time. You don’t need to be in an open war or conflict situation for someone to launch a small UAS and take out an airplane like an F-22 at Langley with something that’s basically a quadcopter with a hand grenade. So that’s one of the problems we’ve got to get after, and it’s complicated by a lot of the policy barriers. It doesn’t do any good to buy a system that may be very effective at mitigating that kind of threat if I can’t employ it and use it at a place like Langley Air Force Base in peacetime. We’ve got to come up with effectors for that particular part of the problem set that can be used within the policy constraints. I think there’s a lot of opportunities for things like kamikaze drones. You could imagine other things like nets, or maybe some directed energy weapons, depending on the work that’s ongoing. There’s a lot of complications there, because we need to make sure that if we’re going to fire something like a high-powered microwave or a laser, we don’t have collateral damage or unintended effects on civil aviation, airliners, etc.
The next parts of the problem, the second and third, are more unique to open conflict. That would be the one-way attack threat, which we’ve seen in large numbers and continue to see today in response to Epic Fury and the follow-on operations, as well as subsonic cruise missiles. Those effectors are probably going to We intend for the U.S. Air Force to build the institutional capacity to defend our air bases against those three threats. Those aren’t all the threats we’re concerned about, but that’s a good starting place, because there are an awful lot of threats they exist today — so we’re late — and it’s a solvable problem.
The U.S. Air Force had airmen firing air defense assets up through the ’90s. The last unit was in Korea; they operated Stinger missiles for this mission, and we divested it because we were able to accept a risk that we were not comfortable with, but that — until we got to Epic Fury — didn’t manifest itself, in terms of not having airmen do that. Now we’re going to get back into that business. To do that, we need to build the institutional capacity, and that’s where I’m spending a lot of my time and energy.
The focus often tends to be on the material solutions — what is the thing that I’m going to fire at it, or how am I going to know that there’s a small UAS threatening an air base. That’s certainly part of the problem that has to be addressed. But what I’m more concerned about is: where does the manpower come from? How do we train these individuals after they go to basic training? What does their tech school look like? What does their career progression look like? Where do we get the manpower from, given the other competing missions we have? Are we going to develop things like a weapons school for air base air defense, or a 422nd — which is our operational test organization? These are the types of things that, even though there’s a lot of energy on the material piece, only the services can solve. And without solving them, the material piece is insufficient; it doesn’t solve the problem.
So that’s the decision that was made at Corona to start on this journey, and those are the first steps the Air Force is going to take.”
-Lt. Gen. Christopher J. Niemi — Deputy Chief of Staff (A5/7) & Chief Modernization Officer, U.S. Air Force, 103rd MDAA Virtual CRT, 16 July, 2026
Summary of Air Base Defense
I. Executive Summary
The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) convened its 103rd Virtual Congressional Roundtable, “United States Air Base Defense,” on Thursday, July 16, 2026, hosted by MDAA Founder and Chairman Riki Ellison from Rock Springs, Wyoming. The panel brought together three of the most authoritative voices on the subject: Lt. Gen. Christopher J. Niemi, USAF, Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Integration and Requirements (A5/7) and Chief Modernization Officer of the Air Force; Gen. (Ret.) Glen VanHerck, former Commander of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD; and John Rood, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
The roundtable was convened against a stark operational backdrop: six months into Epic Fury, U.S. air bases are still being struck – including an attack the Sunday prior – with lives lost, aircraft and radars destroyed on the ground, and no one held accountable. Ellison framed the structural issue at the heart of the discussion: America’s closest allies – Israel, Japan, Korea – defend their air bases with their air forces, while the United States, under roles-and-missions decisions dating to 1948, relies predominantly on Army missile defense to protect Air Force installations. That construct, appropriate for an era of limited, expensive ballistic missile threats, has been overwhelmed by the proliferation of low-cost, long-range one-way attack drones and cruise missiles.
The central news of the roundtable was the Air Force’s decision, made by Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach at the Corona four-star conference, to get back into the business of defending its own assets with destructive effectors – kinetic and non-kinetic – for the first time since divesting the mission in the 1990s. General Niemi detailed how the service will build that capability around three initial threat sets: small UAS, one-way attack drones, and subsonic cruise missiles. All three panelists agreed on the deeper diagnosis: the barrier is not technology but culture, bureaucracy, outdated policy and law, and a budget process that knowingly accepted risk on base defense for years – and the rate of change inside the Department is still not matching the rate of change outside it.
II. Strategic Themes and Major Discussion Areas
The Corona Decision: The Air Force Takes Back Base Defense
General Niemi described the Chief’s decision as courageous and consequential: the Air Force will defend its assets with destructive effectors – guns, rockets, kamikaze drones, and directed energy such as lasers and high-powered microwave – because the capacity required far outstrips what exists in the joint force today. The construct in which the Air Force depended primarily on the Army worked when the threat was a limited number of ballistic missiles; it cannot work against cheap, unsophisticated, widely proliferating systems that can reach out hundreds of miles. The Air Force last performed this mission with Stinger units in Korea through the 1990s before divesting it – accepting a risk that did not manifest until Epic Fury.
Three Threat Sets, Starting Now
The Air Force will focus initially on three elements of the threat spectrum. First, small UAS – the Operation Spiderweb problem – where a quadcopter with a hand grenade could destroy an F-22 at Langley in peacetime, and where policy constraints on employing defenses domestically are as challenging as the technology. Second and third, the open-conflict threats: one-way attack drones and subsonic cruise missiles, which are striking bases today and require higher-end effectors. Niemi was explicit that these are not all the threats of concern, but they are numerous, they exist today – “so we’re late” – and the problem is solvable.
Institution-Building Over Materiel
Niemi’s sharpest emphasis was that materiel is the insufficient part of the solution. His time is going to the questions only a service can answer: where the manpower comes from, what tech school and career progression look like, whether to build a weapons school and an operational test squadron for air base air defense. Airmen are firing effectors in the Middle East right now in a pickup game they were not trained for; the A3/A5 partnership is working to map that ad hoc reality to a sustainable future – including building a new career field that captures combat-experienced airmen rather than returning them to their old specialties.
Timelines, Priorities, and Mass
Pressed on timelines, Niemi rejected a date-certain framing: capability is being fielded today, but on a scale of zero to 100 the force sits in the single digits, and growth will be evolutionary – prioritizing the nuclear enterprise and the highest-value installations first while accepting risk at lower-priority locations. Against mass attack, the Air Force is pursuing automation to reduce 24/7 manpower burdens, low-cost effectors like APKWS – a Vietnam-era rocket adaptation at less than a tenth the cost of an AIM-9 – and a layered defense that attrits a hundred-missile raid at 50 miles and 25 miles rather than at the fence line.
Rood: The Rate of Change Problem and Roles-and-Missions Reform
John Rood framed the strategic failure in one axiom: when the rate of change outside an enterprise exceeds the rate inside it, the enterprise loses relevance. The 1948-era division of air defense labor – Army guns covering low altitude, Air Force fighters above – is decades out of date, and MDAA argued in a 2022 report that the base defense mission should move from the Army to the Air Force. He called for the Air Force to be given coordinating authority for area air defense and beyond, driven by civilian leadership, while preserving the joint force construct that remains America’s decisive advantage. Rood also warned that the United States now faces a mature axis – Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran – sharing lessons and resources; that the Ukraine playbook of truck-launched drone saturation could shut down New York, Los Angeles, or Langley tomorrow; that the U.S. is behind in electromagnetic spectrum warfare; and that the force must accept a shift from qualitative overmatch to affordable mass, attritable systems, passive defense, deception, and the reality of leakers.
VanHerck: The Warnings Were Given – and Ignored
General VanHerck delivered the roundtable’s accountability record. The threat was not a surprise: it was documented in his 90-day report to the Secretary of Defense in 2020, in repeated memos, in open and closed testimony, and in a spring 2023 Pentagon session with all senior leaders – months before the Langley drone incursions – where his warnings were, in his words, largely ignored. He non-concurred with every Defense Planning Guidance during his tenure because homeland defense was stated as priority one but never resourced as such. The department never made a decision pinning the mission on anyone; services pushed obligation authority to each other; and the nation rolled into Epic Fury with a force laydown and command structure designed for a threat 30 years old. The results – lost infrastructure, lost treasure, lost lives – should have been expected.
Domain Awareness, Data, and Command Structure
VanHerck’s prescription centered on domain awareness as the gating deficiency: Group 1 and 2 UAS, and portions of Group 3, largely do not fit the existing command and control structure. The ideal is a single area air defense commander – a JFACC-like authority with subordinate missile defense and air components – but no commander can be given engagement authority without the domain awareness to exercise it. Until that exists, services will defend their own installations, at home and likely forward as well. Crucially, he argued the answer is often not new sensors but sharing and fusing data that today falls on the cutting-room floor – across services, agencies, allies, and industry – processed with AI and machine learning and delivered to the right decision-maker or effector. Golden Dome demonstrated exactly that last month against a cruise-missile-class threat, but the Group 1-2 problem remains bifurcated and stovepiped.
The Homeland Gap
Both Rood and VanHerck stressed that the fight applies domestically, where the Department of War is not the lead federal agency. A sustained drone campaign against U.S. airports or bases would today be handled through Defense Support of Civil Authorities requests and would require presidential authority, because DOD cannot conduct law enforcement. Policy and law have not kept pace with the threat, and the solution must be whole-of-nation – including the commercial sector, which owns roughly 80 percent of the infrastructure that sustains U.S. power projection.
Why Are We Still Getting Hit?
Ellison closed by asking why, six months in, the lessons of every attack have not stopped the losses. Niemi declined to litigate the past, saying his finite energy goes to solving the problem so the next six months are better – while acknowledging there is rarely a day he is satisfied with the pace. VanHerck was blunter: this is not a technology problem; it is culture, bureaucracy, and an unwillingness to move fast and take risk. Rood added that the United States is slow even in adopting technologies the Ukrainians have offered, and that a war game replaying the last 30 days of Ukraine against U.S. forces would leave everyone very unhappy with the results.
III. Key Strategic Takeaways
– The Air Force, by decision of General Wilsbach at Corona, is re-entering the base defense mission with destructive effectors – kinetic and directed energy – for the first time since the 1990s, focusing first on small UAS, one-way attack drones, and subsonic cruise missiles.
– The binding constraint is institutional, not materiel: manpower, training pipelines, career fields, weapons school, and operational test – problems only a service can solve, and without which materiel is insufficient.
– Capability is fielding now but sits in the single digits on a 100-point scale; growth will be evolutionary, prioritized by asset value, starting with the nuclear enterprise.
– Defeating mass requires automation, low-cost effectors like APKWS, and layered defense that attrits raids far from the fence line – plus allied and joint contributions beyond the base perimeter.
– The 1948 roles-and-missions construct is obsolete; Rood argues the Air Force should hold coordinating authority for area air defense, driven by civilian leadership, without breaking the joint force model.
– The warnings were documented for years – in commander reports, testimony, and non-concurrence with successive Defense Planning Guidance – and the risk was knowingly accepted through the budget process across multiple administrations.
– Domain awareness for Group 1-3 threats is the gating gap for any single area air defense commander; the near-term answer is fusing existing data across organizations with AI, not necessarily buying new sensors.
– The homeland is dangerously exposed: DOW is not the lead federal agency, law enforcement authorities govern, and policy and law have not kept pace – demanding a whole-of-nation solution that includes the commercial sector owning 80 percent of critical infrastructure.
– Industry must collaborate across company lines, and the department must scale the technology of small and mid-sized innovators rather than dismissing them for lack of capacity.
– The obstacle is not physics or money alone but culture, bureaucracy, and speed: the rate of change inside the enterprise still lags the rate of change outside it.
IV. Conclusion
This roundtable captured a genuine inflection point. For the first time in three decades, the U.S. Air Force has formally taken responsibility for defending its own installations with destructive effectors – a roles-and-missions shift that MDAA advocated in 2022 and that Epic Fury made undeniable. General Niemi laid out a disciplined path: triage the fight underway in the Middle East, capture the experience of airmen learning the mission in combat, and build the enduring institutions – career fields, schools, test organizations – that turn a pickup game into a warfighting capability.
The cautionary counterweight came from the panel’s historical record. General VanHerck’s testimony established that this crisis was foreseen, documented, and briefed to the highest levels of the department for years – and that the risk was consciously accepted, budget cycle after budget cycle. John Rood’s framing explains why: an enterprise whose internal rate of change trails the external one will always be reacting to the last attack. Six months into Epic Fury, with bases still being struck, the panel’s consensus was that the technology to defend them largely exists; what has been missing is decision, resourcing, accountability, and speed.
The stakes extend beyond the current fight. As General Niemi observed in closing, the American way of war for 35 years has depended on operating from proximate safe-haven bases – an advantage eroding before our eyes. Defending the bases is the immediate imperative; changing how the force fights so that it is inherently less vulnerable is the strategic one. The Air Force has taken the first courageous step. Whether the department, Congress, and the nation move at the speed the threat demands – at home as well as forward – will determine whether the next roundtable convenes to mark progress or to count more losses.
Speakers:
Lt. Gen. Christopher J. Niemi
Deputy Chief of Staff for Force Modernization; USAF Chief Modernization Officer
USAF Gen (Ret.) Glen VanHerck
(Ret.) Commander of NORAD and U.S Northern Command (USNORTHCOM); MDAA Board Member
Mr. John Rood
Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; MDAA Board Member
Mr. Riki Ellison
Founder & Chairman, MDAA
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