“AEW 2.0 builds upon successes and lessons learned from previous [Unit of Action] evolutions,” an Air Force spokesperson told Defense One on Friday evening. “It also accounts for dynamic operational requirements and aligns with senior leader priorities.”

The move, announced in a Friday-evening press release, is the latest Trump-administration shift away from Biden-era efforts to orient the force to confront China. 

Set to launch in October, AEW 2.0 reflects the Trump administration’s Western Hemisphere focus, the spokesperson said, by striking “the balance in preserving capacity to fulfill the in-garrison mission and defend the homeland while the [Unit of Action] trains and deploys.”

The new AEW 2.0 concept will keep some existing ideas, like keeping deliberately teamed groups together for training and deployment. 

“A key strength of this unit of action model is the deliberate training and teaming that improves collaboration and readiness across the service,” said Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for operations, in the news release. “It’s imperative we continue empowering wings and commanders with necessary resources and guidance to be the agile, decisive force our nation demands.”

But the concept discards the Biden-era plan to run deployed forces with a leadership structure called the A-staff.” Air Force officials said last month they would keep the existing group-level organization “to minimize change-fatigue to airmen and enable commanders to concentrate on readiness, lethality, and mission accomplishment.”

The AEW 2.0 concept will work within the service’s 24-month deployment cycle known as AFFORGEN. The schedule, which was established in 2022, has been criticized by commanders and government watchdogs for leaving bases overworked and understaffed. In November 2024, the Government Accountability Office reported that major commanders had torched the service’s AFFORGEN-related guidance as "policy by PowerPoint presentations and emails," described it as a "concept ahead of Air Force processes,” and claimed it moved at the "speed of change faster than speed of communication.” 

In the press release, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach praised the AEW revival as “the next step in evolving our readiness.” More than a decade ago, Wilsbach led the 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force in Afghanistan.

The Space Force, which consists of about 10,000 guardians and 5,000 civilians, is adding about 500 troops a year—but that’s not enough, Gen. Shawn Bratton, the vice chief of space operations, during an Intelligence and National Security Alliance event late Wednesday evening. 

“We’ve got to pick up the pace. We need to grow on the military side, probably around 1,000 a year, something like that, for the next decade,” Bratton said. “I think we really need to double the size.”

That’s because the newest branch of the service has seen the number of satellites under its control grow from 225 at its founding to 515 today, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s global space data navigator, while its budget has grown from $15 billion in 2020 to $39.9 billion in 2026—which includes a big bump from reconciliation funds.

Bratton said he needs more personnel to handle the growth.

“I'm super optimistic about ‘27 and we'll see how that comes out. It's less about budget though,” he said. “Do I have enough operators to fly all that stuff? Do I have enough infrastructure to base it somewhere? Do I have enough intelligence squadrons to develop the intelligence to make operators useful at their job?”

Some of the new personnel are working with the Pentagon’s combatant commands, where the Space Force has been catching up with its elder siblings in establishing service components to help the warfighting commanders. This week, the service and U.S. Southern Command held a ceremony designating the new Space Forces-Southern, which followed the creation of components in Indo-Pacific Command, Central Command, Africa Command, and European Command. It also established subordinate units focused on Japan and Korea.

Service officials also have aspirations to stand up a Space Force Special Operations component command, although Congress and defense experts have expressed skepticism over the plans. Earlier this month, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine noted that space operations and U.S. Space Command played a role in the recent special operations mission to capture Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro. 

“We do a lot with the special ops community,” Bratton said during a question-and-answer session. “They understand what they need, and they know how to ask for it, and they have a pretty good understanding of what our capabilities are.”

Bratton was asked about a longstanding cultural divide between the service’s operators and acquisition experts, a situation that has provoked actions by both Congress and service leaders. The vice chief, a career operator, highlighted recent statements by Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations, and called reforms to the officer training program a much-needed improvement.

“This is just by sheer force of will, the CSO driving the service to deliver this,” Bratton said. “The operators have to be involved in acquisitions, not just understand it, have to be involved in it. The acquirers have to have operational experience.”