Air University connects specialized education to the operational force
For the future wing commander confronting it, stopping the aircraft is only part of the problem.
Who has the authority to act? Which agencies need to be involved? What capabilities are available? And if the installation is overseas, how does the commander work with a host nation operating under different laws and authorities?
There’s no drone overhead and no installation under attack. The commander is an Air University student working through a scenario at the Ira C. Eaker Center for Leadership Development.
For Col. Mark Buchholz, Eaker Center commander, putting students in situations like this is part of keeping the center’s education tied to what they’ll face when they return to the force.
“We’ve ensured that all of the courses have something operationally relevant in them,” Buchholz said.
Eaker’s mission stretches across specialties that don’t always look connected at first glance. The center includes warfighter education, command development, financial management, force support, chaplain services, language and culture, and analysis of Chinese aerospace activities.
That range also shows how Air University is working as an integrated enterprise. Expertise doesn’t have to stay within a single school, center or academic program. Across the university, education, research and specialized expertise can come together to forge expert joint warfighters and solve operational problems for the Joint Force.
For Buchholz, that starts with keeping instructors close to the operational force.
Warfighter Education personnel have participated in exercises including PACIFIC SENTRY and VALIANT SHIELD, giving faculty firsthand exposure to operational environments and planning processes. Eaker has also moved some instruction from Maxwell to operational locations, putting students alongside senior leaders, joint teammates and international partners.
“We want to keep them relevant and keep the students that they produce operational-minded and ready to go for whatever conflict or activity they need to work on in the future,” Buchholz said.
What instructors see there can make its way back into their courses.
The drone scenario is one example.
Buchholz described a tabletop exercise that puts future commanders and their teams against a drone incursion, then adds to the problem. Students have to sort through authorities, outside agencies and the organizations involved in a response.
Put that same commander overseas and there’s another layer.
“If you’re at Kadena, now you have the Japanese that you have to work with, and they have different rules and regulations on what they can and can’t do, what we can and can’t do,” Buchholz said.
Other Eaker courses use capstone exercises in much the same way. Students take what they’ve learned in their functional areas, work through an operational problem and brief recommendations to simulated senior leaders.
“They’re never alone,” Buchholz said. “And so learning about some of these things are important.”
That gets more complicated when the mission involves allies and partners.
The Air Force Culture and Language Center has worked with the 187th Fighter Wing to incorporate terminology associated with F-35 operations, runway activities and agile combat employment into language development. Language-enabled Airmen can learn technical vocabulary they may need while working alongside another nation’s forces.
Buchholz put it in practical terms.
“You need to talk about how to repair a runway,” he said. “You need to talk about how to maintain a fighter.”
Knowing a language is one thing. Being able to use it to talk through a mission with an ally or partner is another.
Elsewhere in Eaker, the China Aerospace Studies Institute works a different problem. The institute examines Chinese-language sources to understand what China says about its own aerospace forces, then makes that unclassified analysis available through education, wargaming and outreach to combatant commands, joint organizations and international partners.
Those efforts look different, but both connect specialized expertise to requirements outside Maxwell. One prepares Airmen to communicate with allies and partners about specific operational tasks. The other provides analysis for education, wargaming and outreach.
Technology is changing what students may encounter when they return to the force, too.
Warfighter Education personnel are exploring artificial intelligence and virtual reality as training tools. Faculty are also looking at the Maven Smart System and how capabilities used by operational units could support instruction involving targeting, briefing, information management and knowledge management.
“How do we incorporate that into our courses so that we’re training the way that our wings and squadrons are actually fighting?” Buchholz said.
Some of Eaker’s work with technology is already moving outside traditional instruction.
Buchholz pointed to software developed within the financial management community that he said has helped identify millions of dollars in debt available for reclamation while incorporating artificial intelligence. Similar concepts have been adapted within the Air Force Culture and Language Center to track language proficiency and help identify expertise available to support warfighters.
The range of work reflects the mix of organizations under Eaker. Buchholz said that mix has produced more collaboration than he expected when he took command.
“There’s a lot more collaboration than I thought there was,” he said.
Chaplains contribute to First Sergeant Academy courses. Leadership development expertise moves between organizations. Functional schools share knowledge across the center.
The organizations don’t have to do the same job to work together. When expertise from one part of Eaker can help another, the center can make that connection.
It’s also a smaller example of what Air University is working to do across the enterprise.
Air University’s three lines of effort are to forge expert joint warfighters, solve operational problems for the Joint Force and operate as an integrated enterprise. Those efforts are connected. By operating as an integrated enterprise, the university can bring together expertise from its schools, centers, faculty, students and research organizations to prepare warfighters and work on problems facing the Joint Force.
For Eaker, Buchholz wants some of those connections to reach farther outside Maxwell.
The center carries out its mission with about 250 military members, civilians and contractors. Strengthening relationships with combatant commands and other stakeholders is among his priorities.
“I would love to see us get more involved with the COCOMs,” Buchholz said.
More contact with combatant commands can give Eaker instructors a closer look at the problems commanders and staffs are working through and bring those lessons back into education. It can also give Eaker a better understanding of where its expertise matches needs coming from the operational force.
Those needs don’t always point to the same school or program.
A commander preparing to lead a wing may need to understand authorities and partner relationships. An Airman working with an ally may need mission-specific language skills. A staff may need analysis of Chinese aerospace forces. Another organization may be working through how new technology fits into its mission.
Eaker has organizations working in each of those areas. Across Air University, other schools, centers and research organizations bring their own areas of expertise.
Connecting those pieces is part of operating as an integrated enterprise. It allows Air University to draw from expertise across the university based on the problem at hand rather than where that expertise sits on an organizational chart.
For Buchholz, keeping that work connected to what Airmen are facing in the field remains the focus.
“I think the biggest thing is making sure that we stay operationally relevant,” he said.
Back in the drone scenario, the future commander still has a decision to make.
Stopping the aircraft is only part of it. The student has to understand the authorities involved, identify who needs to be part of the response, account for partners and determine what capabilities are available.
It’s the kind of problem that can cross specialties and organizational lines.
For now, there’s time to work through it in a classroom.
When the problem is real, there may not be.
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