NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland -- Gen. Johnny Lamontagne, Air Mobility Command commander, participated in a panel focused on the topic of “Exercising at Scale: What We’re Learning” with Gen. Kevin Schneider, Pacific Air Forces commander, Gen. Adrian Spain, Air Combat Command commander, and Lt. Gen. David Miller Jr., Space Operations Command commander, at Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Sept. 24, 2025.
The AFA panel involved senior leaders from the key major commands and field commands involved in the recent 2025 Department-Level Exercise series.
Lamontagne explained that to maximize mobility force effectiveness in a contested logistics environment, mobility forces should preposition assets and build interoperable relationships prior to potential future conflicts.
“From a lesson learned perspective, it really affirmed that the path we're on is the right path, and the importance of prepositioning equipment in the Pacific,” Lamontagne explained. “We're moving out right now, prepositioning 25K loaders, 10K forklifts, tow vehicles and a whole bunch of aircraft ground equipment to support the forces in the Pacific.”
Schneider reinforced the importance of prepositioning assets as one of the key lessons that emerged from the DLE.
“For everything that we did across the Pacific this summer, which was incredibly enabled by Air Mobility Command, there is still a huge demand for stuff to be in position from day one,” said Schneider. “With a contested environment, the enemy may not give us the luxury of time, space or distance to flow stuff at the speed that we want. So, we have to be very deliberate and smart about where we put kit so the units that are falling into their fighting positions are ready to go immediately.”
Lamontagne added that the full breadth of mobility forces from the Total Force, commercial partners, and allies must inter-fly, innovate, and develop tactics, techniques, and procedures to operate in a contested logistics environment.
“It is our responsibility to help our allies and partners and share tactics, techniques and procedures, but we are also on the receiving end of some of their capabilities,” said Lamontagne. “Our Canadian allies have some really robust aeromedical evacuation capabilities that actually surpass ours in some areas, and they were flying in the back of our C-130s and C-17s which was a great opportunity to cross talk and all of us get better together.”
In addition to enhancing processes and global logistics infrastructure, Lamontagne affirmed the need to modernize and innovate the methods and hardware used to integrate and connect mobility assets into command, control and communications networks across the battlefield.
“We've been working hard on a connectivity journey that is not going to just help our Air Force, it’s going to help the joint force,” said Lamontagne. “Open architectures and government-owned architecture, so that we can continue to move out and change and update at the time and tempo of our choosing, is really important going forward.”
Lamontagne asserted that quality, integrated exercises at speed and scale will be essential to assessing and improving joint force and allied mobility tactics, techniques and procedures. Furthermore, to overcome future operations challenges, Lamontagne emphasized these exercises must replicate combat conditions with realistic operational threats that stress logistics operations in a contested environment.
“Our United States Air Force is the only air force on the planet that can project forces at that speed, at that scale, and at that range,” Lamontagne stated. “This exercise gave us the opportunity to practice week after week, over the course of about a 6-week period, to make our Air Force a lot stronger.”