A Test Case for ACE in Ukraine
Insights from Ukraine's evolving air operations can inform thinking about how the ACE concept plays out in a real-world scenario.
In days after the 2024 presidential election, the Biden administration made a major change to US policy that has largely gone unnoticed. The United States government has now lifted the de facto ban on US contractors operating in the country. This change could herald a significant shift in how the Ukrainian military operates its very small numbers of F-16s and could signal the ramping up of combat sorties in a combat zone. The impact of these F-16s on the war may only be marginal, but lessons learned from Ukraine could yield valuable lessons for the Agile Combat Employment concept. These lessons should shape how the United States military thinks about its own assumptions about future conflict with a peer-level adversary.
Agile Combat Employment (ACE) is a concept designed to better protect air assets in a high intensity war. The basic idea is that there is a centralized operations hub for air operations with a slew of supporting locations where jets and personnel can operate from. The constant movement of jets and personnel would better protect finite fighters, complicate an enemy’s targeting operation, and ensure that air assets could continue to launch missions for surveillance or for strikes.
The ACE concept is simple to envision and understand. An air force needs to be able to distribute its assets to protect its equipment when under the daily threat of missile attack. Yet, given the demands of maintaining and arming a modern fighter squadron, the task of executing this effort is complicated. This is why looking at evolving air operations in Ukraine is important. They are a real-life example of how ACE would function in a specific environment where logistics could be contested and fighters need to be maintained, armed, and fueled in a slew of secondary areas—and how it would function in locations that could be under aerial attack at any moment. The other lesson to consider is the role of private contractors, a staple of US assistance operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (in addition to other third countries around the world), and how to leverage this vital support for operations during a high intensity conflict.
The proliferation of American jets worldwide comes with secondary contracts to support and sustain almost all aspects of the jet’s operation, from base support to engine maintenance. The situation in Ukraine is no different. As the Ukrainian military transitions from legacy Soviet platforms to the now ubiquitous F-16, the future of Kyiv’s military arm is closely tied to the private sector entities training Ukrainian pilots and maintainers. These maintainers also have the benefit of sourcing spare parts from a global market and thousands of F-16s sold around the world, which should in theory drive down costs for maintenance and ensure that spare parts are never in too short a supply.
Ukraine’s current F-16s were initially slated for transfer to a private contractor, Draken, that had planned to upgrade them and integrate them into their private “red air” fleet of adversary. Instead, these jets ended up being re-rerouted to Ukraine, with the initial cadre of pilots being trained in Romania in an accelerated pilot training course. The ban on contractors, however, complicates how these jets could be employed and limits the ramp up of operations once more jets are sent to the country. The reality is that Ukraine’s F-16s are old and, like any high-performance machine, require constant upkeep, and the pool of qualified maintainers in Ukraine remain small. Thus, to truly leverage these jets in the near and medium-term, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense will need to work with governments and industry to secure spare parts, retain third party maintainers, and continue an external training pipeline to bolster the country’s pilot pool.
The Ukrainian Air Force has proved remarkably resilient during this conflict. It has continuously moved from airfield to airfield, staying one step ahead of Russian cruise missiles, and flown in ways that deconflict with air defense assets and low flying drones. As Ukraine ramps up its use of the F-16, the maintenance burden is certain to increase. While none of this information is public, one can infer that the Ukrainians will use airbases in the Western part of the country as a main hub for maintenance and a string of alternative locations for the jets to divert, disperse, or rearm. At each of these bases, a Ukrainian will have to interface either with a contracting maintenance team on site or from a centralized team at the main operating base. This team will then have to manage the flow of spare parts, be able to rapidly troubleshoot problems, and maintain stocks of weapons to rearm. This operations challenge is a perfect learning environment for the United States and allied air forces.
The ramp-up of Ukrainian air operations is imminent. The daily back and forth in the war, as well as the use of unmanned systems, has rightly prompted deep debate and introspection about what lessons other militaries should learn from the conflict. The air war has largely been an afterthought, given that neither Russia nor Ukraine has sought to employ air power in ways that mimic US and Western doctrine and concepts. The lessons for air power have been largely focused on small unmanned systems that fly close to the ground, supporting ground forces, and reinforcing tried-and-true Western concepts learned and adopted since the failings in the Vietnam War. However, in the months ahead, the Ukrainian Air Force will seek to execute an “ACE-like” operational concept that will reveal key insights for future combat. The lessons learned from sourcing spare parts, the way in which to catalogue and track the shipment and stocks of these spares, the requirements for arming jets in austere environments, and how pilots react to the daily stress of constant combat are all very valuable. The coming months will also reveal what to expect if the United States or its allies have to adopt elements of ACE and be ready to move and fight from a less-than-ideal location.
The lessons, of course, should be captured in a coherent way. This is why it would be wise for the US government to consider creating a mechanism to speak directly with the contractors that will soon be servicing Ukraine F-16 fleet. This effort should be paired with a more robust effort to learn from the Ukrainian Air Force. The insights from both of these sources, along with the national technical means used to monitor the conflict, could be used to inform thinking about ACE, the certain challenges that will need to be overcome, and how the ACE concept plays out in a real-world scenario.
Aaron Stein is the President of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.