Air Force may cut back on Pacific drills to preserve near-term ‘readiness’

Pacific Air Forces is considering reducing its exercise volume to preserve “readiness” as the service continues to conduct operations for the Iran war and in the Middle East, according to PACAF’s commander.

The command is “taking a hard look at our exercises,” Gen. Kevin Schneider said Monday during an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Va.

“We do 45 [exercises] in PACAF, give or take a couple every year, and that’s a lot,” said Schneider, who took command in February 2024.

“They’re all valuable,” he said. “They all have benefits, but we’re taking a look at what are the ones that are readiness-gainers. What are the ones that are maybe not high on that list of building readiness for our airmen and then making some decisions that go: We’re going to continue to do these. We’re not going to do these. Or we’ll do these in reduced volume, just to make sure that we are preserving that readiness within our formations.”

PACAF leads, co-hosts or participates in exercises such as Red Flag, held multiple times each year in Alaska; Cope North, held annually on Guam with Japanese and Australian counterparts; Valiant Shield, held biennially with the Navy, Marines, Army and Space Force, with Japan joining in 2024 and 2026; and the biennial Rim of the Pacific maritime drills held in Hawaii.

PACAF officials have spent the past year touting the scope of the monthlong Resolute Force Pacific exercise held in 2025. It was the Air Force’s largest contingency response exercise ever held in the Indo-Pacific, deploying more than 400 aircraft and 12,000 personnel to more than 50 locations across the region.

Gen. Kevin Schneider, commander of Pacific Air Forces, speaks during an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Va., July 27, 2026. (Mitchell Institute for Aerospace)

There are no plans to curtail Resolute Force, Schneider said.

“While REFORPAC was largely limited or focused on U.S. Air Force capabilities, it was a stepping stone for the future to figure out how we bring allies and partners into future iterations,” he said.

Schneider said the reassessment of exercises comes after Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the service’s chief of staff, put “a bit of a spotlight on near-term readiness.”

“That’s driving conversations amongst the commanders back to the air staff about ways that we can improve our parts situation, the supply chain resiliency, weapons system sustainment, etc.,” he said.

That has meant managing readiness against “all the other things that are going on around the world,” Schneider said.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of identifying amongst commanders where we’re going to take risk or how we manage the risks as we prioritize efforts in the [U.S. Central Command] region right now, and what are those things that we are able to absorb as commanders elsewhere in the Air Force enterprise,” he said.

CENTCOM is leading military operations against Iran, including Operation Epic Fury and the ongoing regional strikes.

Despite what is happening with CENTCOM and elsewhere around the globe, PACAF has been able to maintain “deterrent activities day in and day out as we have before,” Schneider said.

“We have shown as an Air Force that we can do the high-end combat operations in another theater while maintaining deterrent operations in multiple other theaters around the world,” he said.