Department of the Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Sept. 14 the Air Force and Space Force must confront and defeat rapidly changing, AI-enabled threats while navigating a budget process built for a different pace of warfare.
The Department's mission, Meink said in a closely watched keynote address at the 2026 Air and Space Cyber Conference, is to "defend the homeland, deter all adversaries, and…if necessary…win in combat."
Those mandates, he said, are fixed and understood before adding, "the threat is changing actually faster than I thought possible when I took this job 18 months ago."
"Today, we face a mix of rapidly changing technologies, adversaries moving aggressively to employ them, and a budget process for a different pace of warfare," Meink said.
Examples, he suggested, are easy to find. "In the European Theater, one-way attack drones have replaced artillery as the primary killer, while armor often sits idle."
AI, he said, "competes with some of the world's top programmers, cyber operators and hackers. And these technologies are revolutionizing the battlefield. They allow countries that would not have had the resources in the past to quickly adapt and scale their combat capabilities."
As a result, "we must increase our combat power and innovate faster than anyone else, affordably. We need cost-effective combat power," Meink said.
Meink also acknowledged for the first time that Space Force has deployed weapons in space. "We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action," he said.
Additionally, Meink said that advances by adversaries and the experience in Iran has triggered new focus on Point Defense-the term the Department gives to how its bases, airfields and operations are defended from airborne threats. Meink emphasized new training and focus to ensure that this critical function is unified and seamless and that dangerous gaps in an age of drones and AI are eliminated.
As he has before, Meink emphasized a continued shift in force design to include a potent and dominant mix of crewed and uncrewed systems.
"When we pair manned aircraft with low-cost autonomous systems, we will be able to unlock combat power at scale," he said.
"We will dramatically increase our combat power by adding large numbers of highly autonomous systems. We're using concepts such as Open Systems Architecture to accelerate procurement, which has also increased competition from industry, resulting in better choices, better prices, and more combat power.
"Because of the steps we're taking today, we'll have a radically different looking Air Force by 2032."
In the near term, by 2032, Meink said, "our special operators will have the ability to employ thousands of autonomous one-way attack weapons.
"And we will have autonomous fighters, like the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCAs. We intend to have at least 500 of these in service by 2032.
They'll perform many of the missions that manned fighters currently execute.
Meink also announced that two new autonomous aircraft, the FQ-42 and FQ-44, have been named - Vengeance and Fury.
Additionally, Meink said the Department is developing a new version of uncrewed, multi-purpose aircraft called Mass Modular Aircraft of MMA.
"MMAs will provide affordable, attritable, long range combat power. And we'll field them at scale. With budget support, we will field 100 MMA by 2029 at half the cost of a CCA and 1/10 the cost of a fifth-gen fighters. So that by 2032, 500 of these platforms will join our Air Force's operational fleet," he said.
In space, the same approach is being used on "proliferated constellations. One example is our Space-Based Interceptor program, which moved from initial contract to flight-ready hardware in less than one year. We are making similar progress in our Space Data Network, and we start launching our Air Moving Target Indication constellation this month," he said.
"Taken together, these investments will help us adapt and scale the force for today and tomorrow's threat environment."
That overall focus is seeping into every corner of both services and is already paying off, triggering changes and a new way of thinking that is effectively reshaping the Total Force.
Basic Military Training has been retooled "to expose Airmen to flightlines, ranges, and the operational environment from the start," he said. Similarly, the Air Force Academy has been "reorganized to focus on the profession of arms" and more broadly the services now employ hundreds of AI tools designed for everything from sortie scheduling to data fusion.
Importantly, the Department has made changes that will sustain these advances by streamlining acquisition practices and decision making that make both the Air Force and Space Force more capable, lethal and modern.
"We have established all 26 'Portfolio Acquisition Executives.' Each is empowered and accountable for accelerating delivery in a defined mission area. We are delegating almost every authority we legally can to our PAEs," he said. "For most programs, that now includes Milestone Decision Authority...a big first in our acquisition community."
But for all the advances and innovation, Meink warned that there are potential barriers. "In today's rapidly changing threat environment, we cannot expect a world-class military if we choose not to invest in it."
He also challenged industry. "Many of the weapons, components, or systems we have to buy have outrun the cost curve. They perform extremely well, but the costs are growing faster than the rate of inflation. We need that to change to maintain our military advantage and economic security," said Meink, who has made acquisition reform one of his hallmark issues.
