ARLINGTON, Va. -- U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Rebecca Sonkiss, Air Mobility Command interim commander, spoke on the critical role of mobility forces in global operations and outlined modernization priorities during an appearance on Aerospace Nation, hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia, April 20, 2026.
Sonkiss described AMC’s persistent mission generation over the last year, requiring mobility Airmen to rapidly transition between theaters and drive Joint Force execution in real world operations and major exercises. While highlighting current operations, Sonkiss also stressed AMC’s focus on preparing for the future through three key priorities.
“We continue to focus on connectivity, viability and survivability,” said Sonkiss. “I become a more effective force when I am connected. When I am viable, if I have an aircraft sitting in the theater, I need it to be able to launch. If we're talking about an effective force, an effective force needs to be able to employ forward, it needs to be able to employ in an area where it may be at risk, and it needs to be able to survive in that environment. And there are many ways to get after that.”
Connectivity
AMC’s connectivity initiative aims to integrate the entire mobility enterprise, including its aircraft fleet, Global Air Mobility Support System (GAMSS) and Contingency Response (CR) forces, aeromedical evacuation forces, and their 618th Air Operations Center, with the Department of the Air Force battle network and the Joint All-Domain Command and Control infrastructure.
“Connectivity, it's king,” Sonkiss stated. “The ability to re-task based on how they're doing their Agile Comment Employment and their scheme of maneuver, tanker drop-ins, all the different pieces and parts of what it takes to be able to take a very, very small number of resources and give them the most effective combat power possible, connectivity helps us do that.”
Sonkiss then focused the conversation on the capabilities and connectivity Airmen are providing the Joint Force in the context of ongoing operations.
“If there are gaps in theater communications, the KC-46 has been able to step in and win the day. The connectivity it brings matters,” said Sonkiss. “We're also going through efforts to bring in connectivity on the KC-135s in theater, as well, and prioritizing some of the assets that we leave at home to ensure that the most connected force is available in theater. And that is really where we're getting some of the most positive feedback, the performance of the KC-46, and the connectivity that we're bringing with our tanker fleet, and our forces being in position, the position that is necessary for them to build deliberate lethality at speed.”
Additional key lessons learned were the importance of maintaining connectivity in diverting resources under attack while still maintaining operational tempo, in addition to maximizing mission success by balancing efficiency and effectiveness by ensuring assets remain effective, connected, reliable, and protected.
Viability
Modernization and connectivity initiatives aim to revitalize the MAF fleet through recapitalizing aging aircraft and providing crews critical interconnecting communications capabilities.
“I must modernize the entire tanker fleet, it's necessary,” Sonkiss explained. “The support to [U.S. Strategic Command], the ability to deliver lethality from the homeland into theater, without having to preposition forces to do that, we're very good at it. We need to make sure that the B-21 is linked up with a capable modern tanker. We are on a pathway to do that.”
Sonkiss also spoke on the future of delivering strategic airlift and tactical airlift in setting, re-setting and reconstituting the Joint Force as a key opportunity of recapitalization.
“The adjudication between the theater and the strategic is what we live in all the time,” said Sonkiss. “As we step forward on a recapitalization of the strategic [airlift] fleet, we need to make sure that we are procuring an airlifter that is capable of doing both of those things.”
In addition to equipping AMC Airmen with modern tools, she identified a requirement to continue readiness training, even during high operational tempos.
“We [currently] have mobilization across the mobility forces, essentially a total mobilization of mobility forces,” said Sonkiss. “We have a duty to ensure that our crews are ready in that time. When we have those opportunities to pull down capacity, to ensure that they're getting after basic training requirements and basic readiness requirements, we’re doing so.”
Survivability
One of the key aspects to survivability and becoming a more effective force is the GAMSS enterprise, which drives aerial deployment, employment, sustainment and redeployment for forces.
As one of AMC’s four core mission areas, GAMSS consists of a limited number of permanent en route support locations, plus ready deployable forces that augment existing locations or establish new locations. GAMSS prepositioned forces provide options for how the Joint Force can maneuver into and throughout an operational theater.
“Prepositioning of equipment matters to what we have, what we need, when we explode into theater and get our forces there to begin the logistics train,” Sonkiss explained. “The other piece of prepositioning equipment is it takes away the need to use capacity to move that equipment if it is already there. We can focus on being the maneuver for the Joint Force instead of being the maneuver for the mobility force.”
GAMSS forces provide more than prepositioned equipment, they provide critical warfighting capabilities.
“What we are doing today, what we're doing now in current operations, is we leverage the en route structure to the max advantage that we can, and we will surge forces to those locations to help bring the throughput, bring the efficiency,” said Sonkiss. “And then forward, we're having to put more of those forces, those [CR] type forces, and those teams forward, to open airfields or reopen up airfields as the environment shifts in there. We're very agile in that space, we have a very good handle on which locations may need additional support, and we work in conjunction with a theater to get those folks in position.”
Sonkiss detailed that ensuring adequate connectivity for these GAMSS forces will be crucial to accomplishing this mission.
“We're working on mobile kits for those teams as they go into theater in those different locations,” said Sonkiss. “We now have visibility on all of those kits, and as part of our daily [common operating picture] that we're looking at, those locations that are laid down in small remote locations, they have what they need to be able to communicate with the crews, to be able to give them updated intelligence information, so that we can be very effective with what we're doing it in theater.”
Final Thoughts
When engaging senior leaders and lawmakers, Sonkiss said her message is consistent: to highlight the performance of Airmen while advocating for the resources needed to ensure the connectivity, viability, and survivability needed to sustain and modernize the force.
“They're the ones that are helping us get after the equipment needed to ensure that our Airmen have the tools in their hands to do our nation's business,” said Sonkiss. “I also talk to them about how incredible our Airmen are, and that they are getting after it, each and every day…It makes my face light up when I start telling the stories of what our Airmen are doing, and that's always an opportunity to give yet another vignette of the great things our Airmen are doing.”