Rupert Schulenburg
The United States may have air supremacy in its attack on Iran, but it is not an assumption that underpins the Department of War’s approach to the Indo-Pacific theatre, as the recently concluded exercise Bamboo Eagle 2026 makes readily apparent. Held at the end of February and designed around the US Air Force’s (USAF) Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept, the exercise tested the service’s ability to operate in a contested environment from the outset of hostilities, with operations and units dispersed over considerable distances. Command and control was stressed through testing, and units could not assume returning to the operating base they departed from.
Threats and constraints
The ACE concept, which began to be developed in the late 2010s, has primarily been driven by China’s growing ability to hold US air bases in the region at risk through its long-range strike and targeting capabilities. These include large inventories of intermediate and medium-range ballistic missiles able to target bases across the first and second island chains. China has also built up its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) architecture to support such operations. In late 2025, the US Space Force assessed that the People’s Liberation Army was supported by over 500 ISR-capable satellites, with China having grown its total on-orbit inventory by over 1,100 satellites over the preceding decade.
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