F-35 Lightning II’s Role in Agile Combat Employment: Dispersed Operations and Logistics in the Pacific Theater
The Pacific Ocean spans nearly 65 million square miles. Within that vast expanse, the U.S. Air Force is rethinking everything about how it fights — where it bases its aircraft, how it supplies them, and how it commands them from thousands of miles away. At the center of this rethink sits the F-35 Lightning II, arguably the most capable fighter jet ever built, now being asked to operate from remote jungle airstrips and temporary island outposts rather than the sprawling concrete megabases it was designed around.
This shift has a name: Agile Combat Employment, or ACE. It represents the most significant change to U.S. Air Force operational doctrine in a generation, driven by the uncomfortable reality that America’s large, centralized air bases — the crown jewels of its Pacific power projection — are increasingly sitting ducks. Adversaries have spent decades building precision missile arsenals designed to destroy these bases before a single American sortie can launch.
Understanding the F-35 Lightning II’s role in Agile Combat Employment requires unpacking three interconnected questions: why the old model no longer works, how ACE reimagines airpower in the Pacific theater, and what the specific challenges and solutions look like when you’re trying to sustain the world’s most complex fighter jet from a coral island with a 6,000-foot runway and minimal support infrastructure.
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Understanding Agile Combat Employment (ACE)
What Is ACE?
The U.S. Air Force’s Doctrine Note 1-21 defines Agile Combat Employment as “a proactive and reactive operational scheme of maneuver executed within threat timelines to increase survivability while generating combat power.” Strip away the doctrine-speak, and ACE means one thing: stop concentrating your aircraft in predictable places where an adversary can destroy them all at once.
Instead of massing hundreds of aircraft at three or four large, well-known bases, ACE disperses forces across a network of smaller, harder-to-target locations. These range from main operating bases (MOBs) down through forward operating sites (FOS), cooperative security locations (CSLs), and in extreme cases, genuinely austere airfields with minimal infrastructure. The theory is straightforward — the more locations an adversary must simultaneously strike to cripple your air campaign, the less likely any single attack succeeds.
ACE is not entirely new in spirit. During World War II, Allied commanders routinely dispersed aircraft across multiple fields to reduce vulnerability. What’s new is the sophistication of the threat driving the dispersion, the advanced platforms being dispersed, and the scale of the logistical challenge involved.
Why ACE? The Rise of A2/AD Threats
China and Russia have spent two decades building what military planners call Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities. The goal is straightforward: develop enough long-range precision missiles, advanced air defense systems, and cyber capabilities to hold U.S. military assets at risk before a conflict even begins.
The United States, meanwhile, has been doing something strategically dangerous. Since the end of the Cold War, the USAF has reduced its overseas military air bases by approximately 65 percent. The forces that remain are concentrated at large, fixed installations that adversaries have had decades to study, map, and target. An adversary launching a first strike against Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, or Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, wouldn’t need perfect accuracy — just a sustained barrage of missiles capable of cratering runways and destroying parked aircraft.
This is the threat ACE is designed to defeat. If your aircraft are spread across 15 locations instead of 3, an adversary needs five times the missiles and five times the intelligence just to achieve the same level of disruption. The calculus shifts from “how do we defend our bases?” to “how do we make targeting our bases mathematically unsustainable?”
ACE in the Indo-Pacific Theater: A Strategic Imperative
The Indo-Pacific theater makes ACE both more necessary and more difficult simultaneously. On the necessity side, PACAF (Pacific Air Forces) operates in a region dominated by China’s rapidly expanding missile inventory, which includes ballistic and cruise missiles specifically designed to range U.S. bases across the first and second island chains.
On the difficulty side, the Pacific’s geographic realities are brutal. The distances between potential operating locations are enormous — far greater than in Europe. Many island locations that could theoretically host dispersed operations lack modern runways, fuel storage, maintenance facilities, or reliable communications. And unlike Europe, where NATO allies can offer dozens of prepared airfields, the Pacific partner network — while growing — is more dispersed and less uniformly capable.
This is precisely why PACAF has been the primary laboratory for ACE development. The 2021 RAND Corporation report Assessing Agile Combat Employment for the Pacific Air Forces identified the Indo-Pacific as the region where ACE implementation is most urgent and, simultaneously, where it faces its most demanding tests.
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Core Components of ACE Relevant to F-35 Operations
Dispersed Basing: From Hub-and-Spoke to Networked Operations
ACE operates on a hub-and-spoke model, but with the key difference that the spokes are active participants, not just refueling stops. Main operating bases handle heavy maintenance, command functions, and complex logistics. Forward operating sites handle day-to-day flight operations for shorter periods. Austere locations might only host aircraft for hours — long enough to rearm, refuel, and launch again.
Pre-positioning is critical to making this work. Fuel, munitions, spare parts, and basic maintenance equipment must be cached at or near forward locations before a conflict begins. You cannot wait for a C-17 to arrive with a replacement part when a conflict is already underway. The planning horizon for ACE logistics in the Pacific runs years ahead of any potential crisis, not hours.
Multi-Capable Airmen: The Human Element of Agility
One of the most culturally significant aspects of ACE is the Multi-Capable Airmen (MC-A) concept. Traditional Air Force specialization means a maintainer maintains, a fuels technician handles fuel, and a security forces airman guards the perimeter. At a 10,000-person main base with all the right specialists present, this works perfectly.
At a dispersed location hosting six F-35s with 50 airmen, it’s a recipe for mission failure. MC-A cross-trains airmen in multiple specialties — an aircraft maintainer who can also handle hot pit refueling, or a fuels specialist who has basic aircraft servicing qualifications. This reduces the personnel footprint required at each dispersed location while maintaining operational capability.
The training investment is substantial, and the cultural shift is real. The Air Force’s traditional specialty-based structure resists cross-training at its core. Implementing MC-A at scale requires not just training pipelines but a fundamental rethinking of how airmen see their professional identities.
Agile Command and Control: Decentralization and Decision-Making at the Edge
Traditional C2 structures assume centralized communication, staff support, and decision-making authority concentrated at higher headquarters. ACE shatters this assumption. When your aircraft are operating from six different islands simultaneously, waiting for a three-star general to approve every tactical decision is operationally fatal.
ACE requires delegating real authority to small tactical teams at dispersed locations. A lieutenant colonel commanding a forward operating site needs the authority and the information to make consequential decisions quickly — which sorties to launch, when to relocate, when to call for resupply. This demands both a doctrinal shift and a technological one: secure communications, real-time situational awareness, and the trust to let junior leaders lead.
Leveraging advanced communication technologies — from resilient satellite links to low-probability-of-intercept radio systems — is essential for maintaining the minimum connectivity required for dispersed C2 without giving adversaries a signal to track and target.
Agile Logistics and Sustainment: Fueling the Fight
Logistics is where ACE theory meets its hardest test. Moving fuel, munitions, spare parts, and maintenance equipment to remote island locations across thousands of miles of ocean is extraordinarily challenging. The Pacific’s tyranny of distance makes every logistical calculation harder.
PACAF’s approach relies on a combination of pre-positioned supplies, intra-theater airlift (primarily C-130s and C-17s for shorter hops), maritime logistics, and increasingly, commercial partnerships for non-sensitive supply chain functions. Hot pit refueling — where an aircraft is refueled with its engines running to minimize ground time — has become a central training focus for dispersed operations, reducing the time any aircraft sits vulnerable on a forward airstrip.
Interoperability and Allied Integration
ACE in the Pacific is not an American-only endeavor. Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore all operate F-35s, which creates a genuinely shared platform foundation that significantly simplifies joint operations. An Australian F-35A pilot landing at a Japanese airfield encounters familiar cockpit systems. A Japanese maintainer working on a U.S. Marine F-35B is working on equipment whose fundamentals they know.
This shared platform advantage is strategically significant. Allied airfields become potential ACE nodes not just because of diplomatic arrangements but because of genuine technical compatibility. Exercises like Cope North — a long-running Pacific multilateral exercise — continuously refine these interoperability procedures, building the shared muscle memory that dispersed coalition operations require.
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The F-35 Lightning II as an ACE Enabler
F-35’s Inherent Capabilities Aligned with ACE
The F-35’s core capabilities align remarkably well with ACE principles — in the air, if not always on the ground. Its low-observable stealth characteristics mean it can penetrate contested airspace that would be lethal for fourth-generation fighters, reducing its vulnerability during the most dangerous phase of any mission. Its advanced sensor fusion integrates data from radar, electronic warfare sensors, electro-optical systems, and off-board sources into a single coherent picture that no previous fighter could produce.
This situational awareness is not just useful for the F-35 pilot — it’s shareable. The F-35 can act as what PACAF planners call a “quarterback,” gathering intelligence from contested areas and distributing it to dispersed units operating with limited organic sensor capability. A ground commander on a small island with no air defense radar can receive real-time threat data from an F-35 operating 200 miles away.
F-35 Variants and Their Role in Dispersed Operations
F-35B (STOVL): The Austere Airfield Advantage
The F-35B’s Short Takeoff/Vertical Landing capability makes it the variant most naturally suited to ACE’s most austere demands. Its ability to take off in less than 500 feet and land vertically means it can operate from road segments, small island strips, and amphibious assault ships that would be inaccessible to the F-35A or F-35C.
The U.S. Marine Corps, which operates the F-35B, has been the most aggressive proponent of austere-field operations. Marines have practiced landing F-35Bs on road sections in the Philippines, operating from the decks of amphibious assault ships far smaller than conventional carriers, and establishing temporary operating locations with minimal pre-positioned infrastructure. This is exactly the kind of operational flexibility ACE demands.
F-35A and F-35C: Adapting to Dispersed Operations
The F-35A (conventional takeoff and landing) and F-35C (carrier variant) have less inherent austere-field capability than the F-35B, but they still benefit substantially from ACE. Their stealth and survivability characteristics mean they’re far less vulnerable in the air than legacy fighters, which is part of ACE’s core logic — if your aircraft are hard to kill while flying, the pressure on ground basing security is somewhat reduced.
F-35As are being employed from a wider range of conventional airfields across the Pacific — not necessarily primitive strips, but smaller and less well-known facilities that complicate adversary targeting. The F-35C’s value in ACE lies partly in carrier basing, which provides genuinely mobile operating platforms that cannot be targeted by ballistic missiles hitting fixed coordinates.
Enhancing Situational Awareness and Decision-Making
The F-35’s sensor fusion capability addresses one of ACE’s most critical C2 challenges: maintaining situational awareness when forces are dispersed across vast distances without centralized sensor coverage. Small teams operating at forward locations often lack the radar systems, electronic intelligence collectors, and data links that large bases take for granted.
An F-35 operating in a contested environment can survey a battlespace, identify threats, and share that picture with dispersed ground teams and aircraft through secure data links. This effectively extends the sensor coverage available to the entire ACE network, compensating for the reduced sensor density that dispersal inevitably creates.
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Challenges and Solutions for F-35 ACE in the Pacific
The “F-35 Paradox”: High-Tech Needs in Austere Environments
Here lies the central tension of F-35 ACE operations: the aircraft is extraordinarily capable, but it is also extraordinarily complex. The F-35 requires specialized Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS, transitioning to ODIN — Operational Data Integrated Network) software for maintenance tracking, specific ground support equipment, and highly trained maintainers who understand its unique systems.
Moving this support infrastructure to an austere Pacific island is not a simple task. Some specialized tools can’t be improvised. Some maintenance actions require environmental controls that a field tent cannot provide. Some parts cannot wait for a ship that takes two weeks to arrive. The F-35’s logistical footprint, while smaller than some legacy aircraft on a per-mission basis, is more specialized and less flexible — which creates real friction with ACE’s light-footprint ideals.
Innovative Logistical Solutions for the F-35
Expeditionary Maintenance and Repair
The answer to the F-35’s maintenance complexity in austere environments is not simplification — it’s targeted expertise. PACAF and the Marine Corps have developed expeditionary maintenance teams specifically trained and equipped to handle the most common F-35 maintenance actions in field conditions. Portable kits containing the most frequently needed tools, components, and diagnostic equipment can be airlifted to forward locations on a C-130.
Predictive maintenance, enabled by the F-35’s extensive onboard health monitoring systems, is increasingly important. The aircraft continuously monitors its own systems and can predict failures before they occur, allowing maintainers to pre-position the right parts at the right locations before they’re needed — rather than scrambling after a failure grounding an aircraft.
Advanced Supply Chain Management and Additive Manufacturing
One of the most promising solutions to the Pacific logistics challenge is additive manufacturing — 3D printing of spare parts. For components that are geometrically complex but not subject to extreme stress, printing replacements forward of the main supply base can dramatically reduce lead times. The Air Force has been experimenting with expeditionary 3D printing capabilities specifically for this purpose.
Pre-positioning remains the most reliable solution for critical high-demand parts. Using detailed historical maintenance data, logistics planners can identify which components are most likely to fail and ensure forward caches reflect actual operational risk rather than theoretical probability.
Drone delivery is emerging as another potential solution for small, urgent parts delivery to island locations where landing a C-130 might be tactically inadvisable. Autonomous maritime and aerial delivery systems could eventually reduce the response time for critical parts from days to hours.
Fuel and Munitions Resupply
Fuel is the most fundamental logistics challenge for any ACE operation. The F-35 burns approximately 5,600 pounds of fuel per hour at military power — roughly 800 gallons. A small forward location hosting six F-35s conducting intensive operations can consume tens of thousands of gallons daily. Pre-positioned fuel bladders and forward arming and refueling points (FARPs) are essential infrastructure investments at potential ACE nodes.
Hot pit refueling — engines running while fuel is pumped and munitions are loaded — minimizes the vulnerable ground time for any aircraft at a forward location. Operation Pacific Iron 21 in July 2021 demonstrated this capability extensively, with more than 35 aircraft and approximately 800 personnel practicing rapid turnaround operations across multiple Pacific locations including Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and Tinian International Airport.
Infrastructure Limitations and Adaptations
Not every Pacific island with a runway is ready to host F-35 operations. Minimum runway requirements, pavement strength ratings, fuel storage capacity, and power generation must all meet threshold standards before the aircraft can operate safely. The Air Force and its Pacific partners have been conducting systematic surveys of potential ACE locations, prioritizing infrastructure investments to prepare the most strategically valuable sites.
Temporary shelters and portable maintenance equipment are being developed to extend the range of locations where meaningful F-35 maintenance can be conducted. This is not about replacing fixed infrastructure — it’s about establishing a minimum viable maintenance capability at locations that would otherwise be limited to simple refueling stops.
Securing Dispersed F-35 Assets
An F-35 sitting on a remote island airstrip with 50 airmen nearby is in a different security environment than one parked inside a hardened shelter at Kadena. Force protection at dispersed locations is a genuine vulnerability. Counter-UAS capabilities are increasingly essential — small commercial drones carrying surveillance packages or even small munitions represent a threat that base security plans designed for the Cold War never contemplated.
Integration with local host nation security forces, pre-planned evacuation procedures, and rapid-reaction forces capable of reinforcing threatened locations are all part of the ACE security calculus. The dispersal that makes the force harder to target with ballistic missiles can simultaneously make individual sites more vulnerable to ground threats.
C2 and Communications in a Contested Pacific
Maintaining reliable, secure communications across a dispersed force in a potentially contested electromagnetic environment is one of ACE’s hardest unsolved problems. Adversaries can target satellite communications, jam radio frequencies, and disrupt the data links that dispersed F-35s need to share their sensor pictures.
Resilient communications means redundancy — multiple pathways (satellite, HF radio, mesh networking) so that jamming one doesn’t silence the force. It also means operating procedures that allow dispersed units to maintain effectiveness even during communications blackouts. Pre-planned, pre-authorized mission sets and clear commander’s intent let small teams act coherently without continuous connectivity.
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F-35 ACE in Action: Pacific Theater Exercises and Operations
Operation Pacific Iron 21
Operation Pacific Iron 21, conducted in July 2021, was PACAF’s most comprehensive ACE validation exercise to date. More than 35 F-22 Raptors and F-15E Strike Eagles, along with approximately 800 personnel, operated across multiple Indo-Pacific locations including Andersen AFB in Guam and Tinian International Airport.
While F-35s weren’t the primary platform in Pacific Iron 21, every lesson learned translates directly. The exercise validated the ability to rapidly deploy aircraft from Alaska to Pacific island locations, establish operations with minimal pre-positioned infrastructure, conduct hot pit refueling at austere locations, and practice the decentralized C2 that ACE requires. The lessons informed subsequent exercises specifically incorporating F-35s.
Tinian’s inclusion was particularly significant. The island, famous for its World War II role as the launch point for the Enola Gay, has a relatively short runway that limits conventional operations. Using it demonstrated PACAF’s willingness to work within geographic constraints rather than only at ideal facilities.
Cope North and Other Key Exercises
Cope North, a multilateral exercise conducted annually in the Western Pacific, has become a primary laboratory for F-35 ACE procedures involving allied partners. Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-35As and U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs operating together from Andersen AFB and dispersed locations in Guam practice exactly the kind of joint, multinational ACE operations that a real contingency would require.
Northern Edge, conducted biannually in Alaska, adds an additional dimension by incorporating naval forces and operating in a different environmental context — reinforcing the principle that ACE procedures must work across geography and climate, not just in the tropical Pacific.
Each exercise generates lessons that feed back into doctrine, training curricula, and equipment procurement. The gap between ACE as a concept and ACE as a reliable operational capability is being closed through this cycle of exercise, assessment, and adaptation.
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The Future of F-35 and ACE in the Pacific
Continuous Innovation and Adaptation
The threat driving ACE is not static. Adversary missile capabilities continue to advance, and ACE concepts must evolve in parallel. The F-35 itself will continue receiving capability upgrades through the Block 4 development program, including enhanced electronic warfare capabilities and expanded weapons carriage that will increase its effectiveness in the very contested environments ACE is designed to navigate.
Autonomy and artificial intelligence will increasingly shape ACE operations. AI-enabled logistics planning can optimize supply distribution across a dispersed network in real time, something no human planner can do at scale. AI-enabled maintenance prediction, integrated with the F-35’s health monitoring systems, can further reduce the logistics footprint required to sustain forward operations.
Strengthening Allied Partnerships
The shared F-35 platform across Pacific allies is a strategic multiplier that deserves more attention than it typically receives. When Japan operates 147 F-35s, Australia operates over 70, and South Korea operates 40, the shared logistics, doctrine, and interoperability advantages are substantial. Allied maintainers trained on the same aircraft, using the same procedures, create a distributed maintenance network that an adversary cannot target with a single strike.
This common platform foundation makes genuine coalition ACE operations feasible in ways that weren’t possible when allies flew entirely different aircraft. A dispersed ACE network isn’t just American — it’s an alliance network, drawing on partner airfields, partner logistics, and partner aircraft, all operating from a common technological baseline.
Ensuring Deterrence and Regional Stability
Ultimately, ACE’s purpose is deterrence. A force that can absorb a first strike, continue generating combat power from dispersed locations, and bring the full capability of F-35s to bear across a vast contested theater is a force that makes an adversary’s opening gambit far less attractive.
The math of deterrence works differently when targeting becomes exponentially harder. An adversary contemplating a first strike against U.S. airpower in the Pacific today faces a manageable target set. As ACE matures — with more pre-positioned supplies, more prepared forward locations, more allied nodes integrated into the network, and more airmen trained to operate the F-35 from austere conditions — that calculation changes fundamentally.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What makes the F-35B particularly suited for ACE operations in the Pacific?
The F-35B’s Short Takeoff/Vertical Landing (STOVL) capability allows it to operate from airfields and road segments far too short for conventional fighters. It can also operate from amphibious assault ships, dramatically expanding the number of potential forward operating locations available in the Pacific’s island geography. This flexibility is central to ACE’s goal of complicating adversary targeting.
What is Multi-Capable Airmen training, and why does it matter for ACE?
Multi-Capable Airmen (MC-A) training cross-qualifies airmen in multiple specialties beyond their primary career field. At a dispersed ACE location with a minimal personnel footprint, you cannot afford specialists who can only perform one function. An MC-A maintainer who can also conduct hot pit refueling, or a fuels technician who has basic aircraft servicing skills, allows smaller teams to sustain operations that would traditionally require much larger specialist-segregated workforces.
How does the F-35’s sensor fusion capability support ACE operations specifically?
The F-35 integrates data from multiple onboard sensors and off-board sources into a single fused picture, which it can share via secure data links with other aircraft and ground units. In ACE operations, where dispersed teams often lack organic sensor coverage, an F-35 can essentially serve as a sensor node for the entire network — providing threat warning, ISR data, and targeting information to units operating without their own radar or intelligence systems.
What are the biggest logistical challenges of operating F-35s from austere Pacific locations?
The F-35’s complexity creates real friction with ACE’s light-footprint ideal. Its specialized maintenance software (ALIS/ODIN), unique ground support equipment, and demand for highly trained maintainers are difficult to replicate at austere locations. Fuel volume requirements, munitions resupply logistics, and the need for environmental controls for some maintenance actions all compound the challenge across the Pacific’s vast distances.
How does ACE integrate with allied Pacific nations?
ACE explicitly leverages allied airfields, logistics networks, and forces across the Pacific. Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore all operate F-35s, creating genuine technical and procedural compatibility at the platform level. Exercises like Cope North build the shared procedures and relationships needed for coalition ACE operations, while bilateral basing agreements expand the number of potential dispersed operating locations available to U.S. forces.
What role does Operation Pacific Iron 21 play in ACE development?
Operation Pacific Iron 21, conducted in July 2021, was one of PACAF’s most significant ACE validation exercises. Involving over 35 aircraft and 800 personnel across multiple Pacific locations including Guam and Tinian, it tested dispersed operations, hot pit refueling, multi-capable airmen, and decentralized C2 in realistic conditions. The lessons learned directly informed subsequent doctrine development and training programs across PACAF.
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Conclusion
The F-35 Lightning II’s role in Agile Combat Employment represents one of the most consequential intersections of advanced technology and operational doctrine in modern military history. The aircraft’s stealth, sensor fusion, and interoperability capabilities make it a natural ACE enabler in the air, while its complexity creates genuine friction with ACE’s austere-environment ideals on the ground.
Getting this balance right — developing the expeditionary maintenance capabilities, pre-positioned logistics, multi-capable airmen, and resilient C2 networks that allow F-35s to operate effectively from dispersed Pacific locations — will largely determine whether ACE fulfills its promise of transforming American and allied airpower resilience in the Indo-Pacific. The exercises, from Cope North to Pacific Iron 21, are steadily closing the gap between concept and capability.
For anyone tracking how modern great power competition is reshaping military strategy — the kind of consequential, fascinating developments that have always driven the most engaging military analysis — the F-35 and ACE story in the Pacific is the clearest window into how the United States and its allies are preparing to deter conflict in the 21st century’s most strategically consequential theater.