전 미 중부사령부 공군구성군사령관의 이란전쟁 항공작전 평가

[위종민]

지난달 미 중부군사령부 공군구성군사령관직을 마치고 8월 4일 이임한 데릭 C. 프랑스 중장의 인터뷰입니다. 

공뭔 입장에선 참모들이 6개월 - 12개월 단위의 순환보직이라는 게 제일 눈에 띄네요. ㄷㄷㄷ 그 외 아직도 테러와의 전쟁 당시의 관성에서 벗어나지 못했다는 평가도 솔직한 자기평가 같습니다. 

각 군별 칸막이 없이 통합화력지원관리기구가 필요하다는 평가가 눈에 띄는데, 우리나라는 이런 게 돼 있는지, 혹 있어도 자연스레 육군이 가져간 건 아닌지 궁금해집니다. 

미 공군 F-16 파이팅 팰컨 전투기가 2026년 4월 18일 미 중부사령부 작전책임지역에서 이륙하고 있다. 미 공군 사진

독점 기사

전 AFCENT 사령관, 에픽 퓨리 작전의 교훈을 돌아보다

2026년 9월 13일 | 크리스 고든

에픽 퓨리 작전은 4월 첫 번째 불안정한 휴전이 시작되기 전까지 이란 내 13,000개 표적을 타격한, 한 세대 만에 미군이 수행한 최대 규모의 공중작전이었다. 현재도 적대행위가 간헐적으로 다시 격화되고 있지만, 전 미 중부공군사령부 사령관은 중동에서 수십 년 동안 수행해온 대테러 작전과 비교할 때 오늘날 대규모 전투작전이 안고 있는 도전을 보여주는 몇 가지 분명한 교훈을 보고 있다.

“좋은 의미에서 놀란 점이 많았습니다.” 지난달 미 중부공군사령부 사령관이자 미 중부사령부 연합군 공군구성군사령관 임기를 마치고 8월 4일 이임한 데릭 C. 프랑스 중장은 말했다. “합동 협력은 실제로 정말 강합니다.”

중동 전역의 공군기지를 향해 발사된 이란의 미사일과 드론에 맞서, 공군 장병들과 패트리엇 미사일방어체계를 운용하는 육군 장병들 사이의 긴밀한 협조는 긍정적인 부분이었다. 그는 공격 이후 각 비행단이 신속하게 비행작전을 재개하는 능력에도 깊은 인상을 받았다.

“우리는 계속 출격을 만들어내는 기지들을 갖고 있었습니다.” 프랑스는 Air & Space Forces Magazine에 말했다. “가끔은 효과적인 출격을 위해 공중급유기 운용을 일부 조정해야 했습니다. 하지만 ‘우리는 전투효율을 잃었고 앞으로 세 번이나 네 번의 ATO 임무시간대를 충족할 수 없습니다’라고 말한 기지는 단 한 곳도 없었습니다. … 거시적으로 보면 그건 변수가 아니었습니다.”

프랑스가 개선이 필요하다고 지적한 한 분야는 탄약 보급을 위한 군수체계였다. 전쟁 초기에는 이 체계가 충분하지 않아 프랑스는 “시간을 두고 무기 사용량을 조절”해야 했다.

“우리 군수체계는 유연성 측면에서 대대적인 개편이 필요합니다.” 프랑스는 말했다. “기지에서 ‘폭탄 본체는 이렇게 많이 있는데 아직 꼬리키트가 없어서 사용할 수 없습니다’라고 말하는 경우가 있었습니다.”

미 공군 장병들이 2026년 4월 18일 에픽 퓨리 작전 중 중동의 한 기지에서 C-17 글로브마스터 III 수송기에 화물을 적재하고 있다. 미 공군 사진

기지 자체 방어를 강화할 필요성도 이번 분쟁에서 얻은 또 하나의 핵심 교훈이었다. 중부사령부는 사담 후세인이 악명 높을 정도로 신뢰성이 낮은 스커드 미사일을 연합군을 향해 발사했던 1991년 데저트 실드/데저트 스톰 작전 이후 이런 위협에 대응할 필요가 없었다. 여러 발의 미사일과 드론이 반복적으로 파상공격을 가하는 현대의 위협은 완전히 다르다. 미국의 패트리엇 미사일과 THAAD 요격체계는 대부분의 위협을 성공적으로 격퇴했지만 일부 무기는 방어망을 통과했고, 이는 미국 방어태세에 개선의 여지가 있음을 보여줬다.

“기지 방어라는 관점에서 보면, 장거리 공중영역 인식 능력에 여전히 일부 공백이 있습니다. 그래서 위협이 기지 방어구역 안으로 들어온 뒤에야 놀라게 되는 일이 없도록 해야 합니다.” 프랑스는 말했다.

프랑스는 어느 정도의 자체 방호능력을 갖추도록 지휘소를 지하에 건설하는 방안을 검토할 가치가 있다고 말했다.

“지하에서 생존할 수 있는 지휘통제 요소가 반드시 필요합니다. 그리고 공중전력을 만들어내려면 승무원들이 실제로 잠을 자고 그러한 잠재적 위협에서 벗어날 수 있는 공간도 필요합니다.” 프랑스는 말했다. “모든 것을 강화할 수는 없습니다. 하지만 핵심 지휘통제 노드와 우선순위에 따라 지하로 들어갈 수 있는 방법을 확보하는 것은 매우 중요하다고 생각합니다.”

미 공군 승무원이 2026년 4월 22일 미 중부사령부 작전책임지역에서 F-16 파이팅 팰컨을 유도하고 있다. 미 공군 사진

프랑스는 2024년 4월 18일 AFCENT 사령관으로 취임했다. 취임 과정부터 기억에 남을 만했다. 그는 4월 13일 카타르 도하로 민항편을 타고 갈 예정이었지만, 이란이 이스라엘을 향해 탄도미사일과 순항미사일을 대량 발사하면서 항공편이 취소됐다. 미군 F-16과 F-15E, 연합군 전투기들은 미국과 역내 동맹국을 방어하며 이란의 드론들을 공중에서 격추했다.

이어 이스라엘이 반격에 나섰고, 미국은 역내 자산을 재배치해야 했다. “그 첫날 아침 지휘권 교대식을 마치고 나서 다음 날 오전 7시에야 잠자리에 들었습니다.” 프랑스는 회상했다.

프랑스는 2025년 봄 후티를 상대로 한 러프 라이더 작전과, 미 B-2 폭격기가 이란 핵시설을 공격한 2025년 6월 미드나이트 해머 작전에서도 연합군 공군구성군사령관을 맡고 있었다. 그리고 2월 28일 시작된 에픽 퓨리 작전이 이어졌고, 이는 35년 만에 최대 규모의 공중공세로 발전하며 전쟁의 수준을 한층 끌어올렸다.

연합군 공군구성군사령관으로서 프랑스와 연합항공작전센터는 이란에 대한 공격을 지휘했다. 여기에는 해군 항공기와 함정에서 발사된 토마호크 지상공격 순항미사일, 그리고 ATACMS와 PrSM 지대지미사일을 발사한 육군 HIMARS도 포함됐다.

“작전의 범위와 규모 때문에 단일한, 제가 표현하자면 ‘화력 통합자’가 필요했습니다.” 프랑스는 말했다. “시간이 지나면서 CAOC는 화력 통합을 훨씬 더 잘하게 됐다고 생각합니다.”

M142 고기동성포병로켓체계(HIMARS)가 미 중부사령부 작전책임지역에서 에픽 퓨리 작전 중 실사격 임무를 수행하고 있다. 미 육군 사진

사우스캐롤라이나주 쇼 공군기지의 안전한 CAOC에서 작전한 프랑스와 참모진은 전쟁의 속도를 따라잡기 위해 신속하게 항공임무명령을 만들어냈다.

“이 정도 수의, 매우 신중하게 검토되고 사고되고 계획된 표적들을 처리하는 절차가 있어야 합니다. 그리고 그 주기 안에서 마지막 순간에 나타나는 동적 표적도 있습니다. 핵심은 그런 표적들에 우선순위를 부여하고 필요하면 공격할 수 있을 정도로 유연해야 한다는 겁니다. 우선순위가 높지 않다면 더 큰 작전계획 주기로 다시 넘겨야 하고요.” 프랑스는 말했다.

한동안 가혹한 공습의 파도가 계속됐지만, 이란이 호르무즈해협 통제권을 주장하려는 가운데 현재는 대부분 미국의 경제적 압박 작전으로 대체됐다. 이제 7개월째에 접어든 이번 분쟁은 러시아와 중국과 연계된 상당히 정교한 적을 상대로 대규모 전구전쟁을 수행하기 위해, 미군이 수십 년간의 대테러 작전 중심 사고에서 벗어나야 하는 어려움을 보여준다.

미국은 2월 28일부터 4월 초 첫 휴전까지 13,000개가 넘는 표적을 타격했으며, 이 가운데 4,000개는 동적 표적이었다. 미 당국자들에 따르면 이란은 1,500발이 넘는 탄도미사일과 6,000대의 드론을 발사했으며, 테헤란이 호르무즈해협의 선박을 계속 공격함에 따라 그 숫자는 계속 늘어나고 있다. 미 공군참모총장 케네스 S. 윌스바흐 대장은 9월 14일 미 공군협회의 Air, Space & Cyber 컨퍼런스에서 약 500대의 전투항공기가 하루 약 250회 출격했고, 분쟁이 가장 격렬했던 38일 동안 총 약 10,000회의 출격을 수행했다고 밝혔다.

“세계 대테러전의 기술적 측면, 정보 측면, 군수 요구는 대규모 전력이 대규모 전투작전을 수행하는 것과는 엄청나게 다릅니다.” 프랑스는 말했다.

“그건 새 발의 피입니다.” 그는 덧붙였다.

이라크, 아프가니스탄, 시리아, 예멘에서 무장세력과 수년 동안 싸우면서 미국은 공중공격 위험이 거의 없는 상태에서 테러 지도자 같은 ‘고가치 표적’을 탐지하고 추적해 공격하는 능력을 연마했다. 파상공격을 반복적으로 수행할 능력을 입증한 이란과 싸우는 것은 완전히 다른 규모의 문제다.

“다른 구성군사령관들에게 저는 저격소총과 벨트급탄 기관총의 차이를 비유로 들었습니다.” 프랑스는 회상했다. 그는 저격수가 되는 것은 “큰 성과를 가져올 표적을 상대로 생활패턴을 찾아내는 매우 인내심이 필요한 게임”이라고 말했다. 그러나 이란은 전혀 다르다. 이란을 상대로 미국 공군력은 “탄도미사일 위협을 확실히 처리할 수 있는 범위와 규모”로 작전해야 했다고 프랑스는 말했다. “우리는 방위산업기반의 대량 표적을 처리하고 있습니다. 해안방어 순항미사일, 레이더, 산업기반 및 호르무즈해협과 관련된 모든 것들을 보고 있습니다.”

공군 비행단에 대한 통제와 유연성의 균형을 맞추는 것도 그의 과제 가운데 하나였다. “공군구성군사령관과 CAOC의 목표는 그들이 의지할 수 있을 만큼 구체적이면서도 손발을 묶을 정도로 지나치게 구체적이지 않은 지침을 내리는 것입니다.” 프랑스는 말했다. “상황이 변하면서 제가 계속 조정했던 부분입니다.”

미 공군 중부공군사령관 데릭 프랑스 중장이 2026년 4월 15일 중동의 한 기지에서 파병 인원들과 이야기하고 있다. 미 공군 사진

“제가 CAOC에 요구한 것은 계획하라는 것이었습니다. 임무지휘관에게 어느 정도의 유연성을 주되, 그가 모든 계획을 직접 하도록 만들지는 말라는 것이죠.” 프랑스는 덧붙였다. “그 사이의 아주 좁은 지점을 맞춰야 합니다. 충분한 유연성을 주지 않으면 임무지휘관은 계획이 없고, 승무원 휴식이나 계획할 시간도 없을 수 있습니다. 반대로 너무 많이 계획해버리면 그를 틀 안에 가둬버려 ‘항로도 바꿀 수 없고 시간도 조정할 수 없습니다’라고 하게 됩니다. 저는 양쪽의 피드백을 모두 받았습니다.”

이란 및 테헤란의 지원을 받는 민병대와의 잦은 충돌 때문에 중동은 미군의 모든 전구 가운데 가장 활발하게 실제 무력이 사용되는 지역이었다. 동시에 파트너 전력과 협조하는 데 있어 개인적 관계가 큰 효과를 발휘하는 지역이기도 하다.

그럼에도 미군은 이 지역의 참모와 지휘관을 계속 빠르게 순환배치하고 있다. 연합군 공군구성군사령관은 2년 단위로 교대하고, 대부분의 참모들은 6~12개월마다 보직을 바꾼다.

프랑스는 이것이 바뀌어야 한다고 말했다. “6개월마다 새로운 시각과 새로운 인력을 문제에 투입하면 변화를 만들기에 좋은 태세가 될 것이라고 생각할 수 있습니다.” 그는 덧붙였다. “하지만 실제로는 정반대의 효과가 나타납니다. 사람들은 새로 와서 ‘우리가 이렇게 하는 데는 분명 좋은 이유가 있겠지. 6개월 임기 동안 들어와 한 달 걸려 상황을 파악하고, 그다음 몇 달 동안 괜히 일을 흔들고 싶지는 않다’고 생각합니다.”

“저는 실제로 상근 인력을 확보해서 변화를 만들어내려고 애썼습니다.” 그는 말했다. 하지만 성공하지 못했다. 그럼에도 공군 장병들은 훌륭하게 임무를 수행했고, 상황에 대응하기 위해 더욱 노력했다.

“현장에서 복무하는 공군 장병들의 끈기, 혁신, 용기는 주목할 만합니다.” 프랑스는 말했다. “전쟁은 인간이 수행하는 일이며, AFCENT 장병들은 상황에 맞서 훌륭히 대응했습니다. 그리고 그들이 승리에 필요한 비밀병기였습니다.”

Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury

Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, April 18, 2026.  U.S. Air Force photo

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Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury

Sept. 13, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

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Operation Epic Fury marked the U.S. military’s largest air campaign in a generation, with strikes on 13,000 targets in Iran before the first in a series of shaky ceasefires began in April. Now, even as hostilities continue to flare up, the former commander of Air Forces Central sees several clear lessons that highlight the challenges of major combat operations today, compared to decades of counterterrorism operations in the Middle East. 

“A lot of things surprised me in a good way,” said Lt. Gen. Derek C. France, who completed his tour last month as Air Forces Central commander and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for U.S. Central Command on Aug. 4. “The joint partnership is actually really strong.”

The close coordination between Airmen and the Soldiers operating Patriot anti-missile defenses was a bright spot in the face of Iranian missiles and drones launched at air bases across the Middle East. He was impressed by wings’ ability to quickly resume flight operations after those attacks.

“We had bases generating sorties,” France told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Occasionally, we’d have to make some adjustments on tankers to make an effective sortie. But I never had a base that said, ‘We are not effective and we can’t meet the next three or four [windows] of ATO tasking.’ … At a macro sense, it was not a factor.”

One area France singled out for improvement: the logistical system for supplying munitions, which was insufficient in the early days of the war, forcing France to “meter the use of weapons over time.” 

“Our logistics system needs some serious revamping as far as its flexibility,” France said. “You would have cases where bases say, ‘Hey, I’ve got all these bomb bodies, but I can’t use them because I don’t have the tail kits yet.’”

U.S. Air Force Airmen load cargo onto a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at a base in the Middle East during Operation Epic Fury, April 18, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Travis Knauss

The need to augment base self-defense was another key lesson from the conflict. CENTCOM had not had to contend with such threats since the 1991 Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign, when Saddam Hussein launched the notoriously unreliable Scud missiles against the allies arrayed against him. The modern threat, defined by repeated waves of attacks featuring multiple missiles and drones, is entirely different. U.S. Patriot missiles and THAAD interceptors successfully defeated most threats, but some weapons got through, leaving room for improvement in U.S. defenses.  

“From a base defense standpoint, we’ve still got some gaps as far as long-range air domain awareness, so you’re not surprised by things once they’re in your base defense zone,” France said. 

Building command centers underground, so they have some inherent self-protection, deserves consideration, France said. 

“You have to have some C2 element that’s survivable underground, and if you’re going to generate airpower, you need something where your aircrew can actually get some sleep and extract themselves from that potential,” France said. “You can’t harden everything. But I do think your critical C2 nodes and your prioritized way of being able to get underground is huge.”

A U.S. Air Force crew chief marshals an F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, April 22, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo

France took over command of AFCENT on April 18, 2024. It was a memorable debut: Expecting to fly commercial to Doha, Qatar, on April 13, his flight was canceled after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles against Israel. American F-16s, F-15Es, and coalition fighters defended the U.S. and regional allies, blasting Iranian drones out of the sky.

Then Israel launched its counter-attack, and the U.S. had to move assets around the region. “After doing the change of command that [first] morning, I got to bed at 7 a.m. the next morning,” France recalled. 

France was still Combined Forces Air Component Commander for Operation Rough Rider in spring 2025 against the Houthis and for Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, when U.S. B-2 bombers attacked Iran’s nuclear sites. Then came Operation Epic Fury, which raised the stakes beginning Feb. 28 when the U.S. launched what would become the biggest air offensive in 35 years.

As the CFACC, France and the Combined Air Operations Center directed the strikes into Iran, including from Navy aircraft, ships using sea-launched Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and Army HIMARS launchers firing ATACMS and PrSM surface-to-surface missiles.

“The scope and scale of this forced a single, what I would term an ‘integrator’ of fires,” France said. “I think the CAOC over time got much better at integrating fires.”

M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) conducts a live-fire mission during Operation Epic Fury in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. U.S. Army Photo

Operating from a safe CAOC at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., France and his staff rapidly generated Air Tasking Orders to keep up with the pace of the war.

“It’s got to have a procedure to have those numbers of very deliberate, thought-out, planned targets, and then there are emerging things that are dynamic that show up at the last minute inside that cycle, and the trick is to be flexible enough to prioritize those and to execute against those if warranted, or if it’s not a high priority, feed it back into the bigger cycle,” France said.

The punishing waves of airstrikes continued for a time but have now been largely supplanted by an American economic pressure campaign as Iran tries to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now in its seventh month, the conflict demonstrates the challenge the U.S. military faces in recalibrating its thinking from decades of counterterrorism operations to a major theater war against a reasonably sophisticated adversary with ties to Russia and China.

The U.S. struck more than 13,000 targets, 4,000 of which were dynamic, from Feb. 28 to an initial ceasefire in early April. Iran has fired more than 1,500 ballistic missiles and 6,000 drones, with numbers growing as Tehran continues to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said Sept. 14 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference that around 500 combat aircraft executed around 250 sorties a day, adding up to about 10,000 sorties over 38 days at the height of the conflict.

“The technical aspect, intelligence aspect, and logistics requirements of the Global War on Terror are hugely different from having large numbers of forces executing major combat operations,” France said.

”It’s a drop in the bucket,” he added.

Over years of fighting militant groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, the U.S. honed its ability to find, track, and attack “high-value targets,” such as terrorist leaders, while operating largely without risk of airborne attack. Fighting Iran, which has proven able to launch wave after wave of attack, is on a completely different scale. 

“I use the analogy with the other component commanders of the difference between using a sniper rifle and a belt-fed machine gun,” France recalled. Being a sniper, he said, “is a very patient game of finding a pattern of life against something that has a high payoff.” But Iran is something different. Against Iran, U.S. airpower had to operate at a “scope and scale to make sure we’re taking care of the ballistic missile threat,” France said. “We’re servicing a high volume of targets of the defense industrial base. We’re looking at coastal defense cruise missiles, radars, all those things that have to do with the industrial base, and the Strait of Hormuz.”

Balancing control and flexibility for air wings was one of his challenges. “The goal of the air component commander and the CAOC is to put out guidance that’s specific enough that it gives them something to hang their hat on, but isn’t so specific that it ties their hands,” France said. “It is something I worked through as conditions changed.” 

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Derek France, Air Forces Central commander, speaks with deployed personnel at a base in the Middle East, April 15, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jonah Bliss

“What I challenged the CAOC to do is plan—have some flexibility for a mission commander, but don’t make him do all the planning,” France added. “You’re shooting for a pretty tight gap there because if you don’t give enough flexibility, the mission commander has no plan and may not have crew rest or time to plan it. If you overplan it now you’ve painted him into a box, and he goes, ‘Well, I can’t adjust my route, I can’t adjust my timing.’ I got both sets of feedback.”

With frequent confrontations with Iran and the militias supported by Tehran, the Middle East has been the most kinetic of all the U.S. military theaters. And it is also a region in which personal relationships pay dividends in coordinating with partner forces.

Yet the U.S. military continually rotates staff and leaders rapidly through those assignments, with the CFACC on two-year rotations and most staff rotating in and out of roles every six to 12 months.

That should change, France said. “You’d think you would get fresh eyes on the problem and new blood every six months—and so you really should be postured to change,” he added. “But it has the opposite effect: People come in and are like, ‘We do things a certain way. I’m sure it’s for a good reason. I don’t want to come in within six months, figure it out after a month, and then rock the boat for a couple of months.’”

“I struggled to get the needle to move, to actually get permanent party manpower,” he said—without success. Airmen performed admirably, however, doubling down to meet the moment.  

“The tenacity, innovation, and courage of Airmen serving in the arena” is noteworthy, France said. “Warfare is a human endeavor, and AFCENT Airmen rose to the occasion—and were the secret weapon needed to win.”

Air

National Security

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, April 18, 2026.  U.S. Air Force photo

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Exclusive Story

Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury

Sept. 13, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

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•  
•  
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Operation Epic Fury marked the U.S. military’s largest air campaign in a generation, with strikes on 13,000 targets in Iran before the first in a series of shaky ceasefires began in April. Now, even as hostilities continue to flare up, the former commander of Air Forces Central sees several clear lessons that highlight the challenges of major combat operations today, compared to decades of counterterrorism operations in the Middle East. 

“A lot of things surprised me in a good way,” said Lt. Gen. Derek C. France, who completed his tour last month as Air Forces Central commander and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for U.S. Central Command on Aug. 4. “The joint partnership is actually really strong.”

The close coordination between Airmen and the Soldiers operating Patriot anti-missile defenses was a bright spot in the face of Iranian missiles and drones launched at air bases across the Middle East. He was impressed by wings’ ability to quickly resume flight operations after those attacks.

“We had bases generating sorties,” France told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Occasionally, we’d have to make some adjustments on tankers to make an effective sortie. But I never had a base that said, ‘We are not effective and we can’t meet the next three or four [windows] of ATO tasking.’ … At a macro sense, it was not a factor.”

One area France singled out for improvement: the logistical system for supplying munitions, which was insufficient in the early days of the war, forcing France to “meter the use of weapons over time.” 

“Our logistics system needs some serious revamping as far as its flexibility,” France said. “You would have cases where bases say, ‘Hey, I’ve got all these bomb bodies, but I can’t use them because I don’t have the tail kits yet.’”

U.S. Air Force Airmen load cargo onto a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at a base in the Middle East during Operation Epic Fury, April 18, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Travis Knauss

The need to augment base self-defense was another key lesson from the conflict. CENTCOM had not had to contend with such threats since the 1991 Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign, when Saddam Hussein launched the notoriously unreliable Scud missiles against the allies arrayed against him. The modern threat, defined by repeated waves of attacks featuring multiple missiles and drones, is entirely different. U.S. Patriot missiles and THAAD interceptors successfully defeated most threats, but some weapons got through, leaving room for improvement in U.S. defenses.  

“From a base defense standpoint, we’ve still got some gaps as far as long-range air domain awareness, so you’re not surprised by things once they’re in your base defense zone,” France said. 

Building command centers underground, so they have some inherent self-protection, deserves consideration, France said. 

“You have to have some C2 element that’s survivable underground, and if you’re going to generate airpower, you need something where your aircrew can actually get some sleep and extract themselves from that potential,” France said. “You can’t harden everything. But I do think your critical C2 nodes and your prioritized way of being able to get underground is huge.”

A U.S. Air Force crew chief marshals an F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, April 22, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo

France took over command of AFCENT on April 18, 2024. It was a memorable debut: Expecting to fly commercial to Doha, Qatar, on April 13, his flight was canceled after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles against Israel. American F-16s, F-15Es, and coalition fighters defended the U.S. and regional allies, blasting Iranian drones out of the sky.

Then Israel launched its counter-attack, and the U.S. had to move assets around the region. “After doing the change of command that [first] morning, I got to bed at 7 a.m. the next morning,” France recalled. 

France was still Combined Forces Air Component Commander for Operation Rough Rider in spring 2025 against the Houthis and for Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, when U.S. B-2 bombers attacked Iran’s nuclear sites. Then came Operation Epic Fury, which raised the stakes beginning Feb. 28 when the U.S. launched what would become the biggest air offensive in 35 years.

As the CFACC, France and the Combined Air Operations Center directed the strikes into Iran, including from Navy aircraft, ships using sea-launched Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and Army HIMARS launchers firing ATACMS and PrSM surface-to-surface missiles.

“The scope and scale of this forced a single, what I would term an ‘integrator’ of fires,” France said. “I think the CAOC over time got much better at integrating fires.”

M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) conducts a live-fire mission during Operation Epic Fury in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. U.S. Army Photo

Operating from a safe CAOC at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., France and his staff rapidly generated Air Tasking Orders to keep up with the pace of the war.

“It’s got to have a procedure to have those numbers of very deliberate, thought-out, planned targets, and then there are emerging things that are dynamic that show up at the last minute inside that cycle, and the trick is to be flexible enough to prioritize those and to execute against those if warranted, or if it’s not a high priority, feed it back into the bigger cycle,” France said.

The punishing waves of airstrikes continued for a time but have now been largely supplanted by an American economic pressure campaign as Iran tries to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now in its seventh month, the conflict demonstrates the challenge the U.S. military faces in recalibrating its thinking from decades of counterterrorism operations to a major theater war against a reasonably sophisticated adversary with ties to Russia and China.

The U.S. struck more than 13,000 targets, 4,000 of which were dynamic, from Feb. 28 to an initial ceasefire in early April. Iran has fired more than 1,500 ballistic missiles and 6,000 drones, with numbers growing as Tehran continues to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said Sept. 14 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference that around 500 combat aircraft executed around 250 sorties a day, adding up to about 10,000 sorties over 38 days at the height of the conflict.

“The technical aspect, intelligence aspect, and logistics requirements of the Global War on Terror are hugely different from having large numbers of forces executing major combat operations,” France said.

”It’s a drop in the bucket,” he added.

Over years of fighting militant groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, the U.S. honed its ability to find, track, and attack “high-value targets,” such as terrorist leaders, while operating largely without risk of airborne attack. Fighting Iran, which has proven able to launch wave after wave of attack, is on a completely different scale. 

“I use the analogy with the other component commanders of the difference between using a sniper rifle and a belt-fed machine gun,” France recalled. Being a sniper, he said, “is a very patient game of finding a pattern of life against something that has a high payoff.” But Iran is something different. Against Iran, U.S. airpower had to operate at a “scope and scale to make sure we’re taking care of the ballistic missile threat,” France said. “We’re servicing a high volume of targets of the defense industrial base. We’re looking at coastal defense cruise missiles, radars, all those things that have to do with the industrial base, and the Strait of Hormuz.”

Balancing control and flexibility for air wings was one of his challenges. “The goal of the air component commander and the CAOC is to put out guidance that’s specific enough that it gives them something to hang their hat on, but isn’t so specific that it ties their hands,” France said. “It is something I worked through as conditions changed.” 

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Derek France, Air Forces Central commander, speaks with deployed personnel at a base in the Middle East, April 15, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jonah Bliss

“What I challenged the CAOC to do is plan—have some flexibility for a mission commander, but don’t make him do all the planning,” France added. “You’re shooting for a pretty tight gap there because if you don’t give enough flexibility, the mission commander has no plan and may not have crew rest or time to plan it. If you overplan it now you’ve painted him into a box, and he goes, ‘Well, I can’t adjust my route, I can’t adjust my timing.’ I got both sets of feedback.”

With frequent confrontations with Iran and the militias supported by Tehran, the Middle East has been the most kinetic of all the U.S. military theaters. And it is also a region in which personal relationships pay dividends in coordinating with partner forces.

Yet the U.S. military continually rotates staff and leaders rapidly through those assignments, with the CFACC on two-year rotations and most staff rotating in and out of roles every six to 12 months.

That should change, France said. “You’d think you would get fresh eyes on the problem and new blood every six months—and so you really should be postured to change,” he added. “But it has the opposite effect: People come in and are like, ‘We do things a certain way. I’m sure it’s for a good reason. I don’t want to come in within six months, figure it out after a month, and then rock the boat for a couple of months.’”

“I struggled to get the needle to move, to actually get permanent party manpower,” he said—without success. Airmen performed admirably, however, doubling down to meet the moment.  

“The tenacity, innovation, and courage of Airmen serving in the arena” is noteworthy, France said. “Warfare is a human endeavor, and AFCENT Airmen rose to the occasion—and were the secret weapon needed to win.”

Air

National Security

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, April 18, 2026.  U.S. Air Force photo

Expand Photo

Exclusive Story

Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury

Sept. 13, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

Share Article

Operation Epic Fury marked the U.S. military’s largest air campaign in a generation, with strikes on 13,000 targets in Iran before the first in a series of shaky ceasefires began in April. Now, even as hostilities continue to flare up, the former commander of Air Forces Central sees several clear lessons that highlight the challenges of major combat operations today, compared to decades of counterterrorism operations in the Middle East. 

“A lot of things surprised me in a good way,” said Lt. Gen. Derek C. France, who completed his tour last month as Air Forces Central commander and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for U.S. Central Command on Aug. 4. “The joint partnership is actually really strong.”

The close coordination between Airmen and the Soldiers operating Patriot anti-missile defenses was a bright spot in the face of Iranian missiles and drones launched at air bases across the Middle East. He was impressed by wings’ ability to quickly resume flight operations after those attacks.

“We had bases generating sorties,” France told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Occasionally, we’d have to make some adjustments on tankers to make an effective sortie. But I never had a base that said, ‘We are not effective and we can’t meet the next three or four [windows] of ATO tasking.’ … At a macro sense, it was not a factor.”

One area France singled out for improvement: the logistical system for supplying munitions, which was insufficient in the early days of the war, forcing France to “meter the use of weapons over time.” 

“Our logistics system needs some serious revamping as far as its flexibility,” France said. “You would have cases where bases say, ‘Hey, I’ve got all these bomb bodies, but I can’t use them because I don’t have the tail kits yet.’”

U.S. Air Force Airmen load cargo onto a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at a base in the Middle East during Operation Epic Fury, April 18, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Travis Knauss

The need to augment base self-defense was another key lesson from the conflict. CENTCOM had not had to contend with such threats since the 1991 Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign, when Saddam Hussein launched the notoriously unreliable Scud missiles against the allies arrayed against him. The modern threat, defined by repeated waves of attacks featuring multiple missiles and drones, is entirely different. U.S. Patriot missiles and THAAD interceptors successfully defeated most threats, but some weapons got through, leaving room for improvement in U.S. defenses.  

“From a base defense standpoint, we’ve still got some gaps as far as long-range air domain awareness, so you’re not surprised by things once they’re in your base defense zone,” France said. 

Building command centers underground, so they have some inherent self-protection, deserves consideration, France said. 

“You have to have some C2 element that’s survivable underground, and if you’re going to generate airpower, you need something where your aircrew can actually get some sleep and extract themselves from that potential,” France said. “You can’t harden everything. But I do think your critical C2 nodes and your prioritized way of being able to get underground is huge.”

A U.S. Air Force crew chief marshals an F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, April 22, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo

France took over command of AFCENT on April 18, 2024. It was a memorable debut: Expecting to fly commercial to Doha, Qatar, on April 13, his flight was canceled after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles against Israel. American F-16s, F-15Es, and coalition fighters defended the U.S. and regional allies, blasting Iranian drones out of the sky.

Then Israel launched its counter-attack, and the U.S. had to move assets around the region. “After doing the change of command that [first] morning, I got to bed at 7 a.m. the next morning,” France recalled. 

France was still Combined Forces Air Component Commander for Operation Rough Rider in spring 2025 against the Houthis and for Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, when U.S. B-2 bombers attacked Iran’s nuclear sites. Then came Operation Epic Fury, which raised the stakes beginning Feb. 28 when the U.S. launched what would become the biggest air offensive in 35 years.

As the CFACC, France and the Combined Air Operations Center directed the strikes into Iran, including from Navy aircraft, ships using sea-launched Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and Army HIMARS launchers firing ATACMS and PrSM surface-to-surface missiles.

“The scope and scale of this forced a single, what I would term an ‘integrator’ of fires,” France said. “I think the CAOC over time got much better at integrating fires.”

M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) conducts a live-fire mission during Operation Epic Fury in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. U.S. Army Photo

Operating from a safe CAOC at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., France and his staff rapidly generated Air Tasking Orders to keep up with the pace of the war.

“It’s got to have a procedure to have those numbers of very deliberate, thought-out, planned targets, and then there are emerging things that are dynamic that show up at the last minute inside that cycle, and the trick is to be flexible enough to prioritize those and to execute against those if warranted, or if it’s not a high priority, feed it back into the bigger cycle,” France said.

The punishing waves of airstrikes continued for a time but have now been largely supplanted by an American economic pressure campaign as Iran tries to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now in its seventh month, the conflict demonstrates the challenge the U.S. military faces in recalibrating its thinking from decades of counterterrorism operations to a major theater war against a reasonably sophisticated adversary with ties to Russia and China.

The U.S. struck more than 13,000 targets, 4,000 of which were dynamic, from Feb. 28 to an initial ceasefire in early April. Iran has fired more than 1,500 ballistic missiles and 6,000 drones, with numbers growing as Tehran continues to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said Sept. 14 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference that around 500 combat aircraft executed around 250 sorties a day, adding up to about 10,000 sorties over 38 days at the height of the conflict.

“The technical aspect, intelligence aspect, and logistics requirements of the Global War on Terror are hugely different from having large numbers of forces executing major combat operations,” France said.

”It’s a drop in the bucket,” he added.

Over years of fighting militant groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, the U.S. honed its ability to find, track, and attack “high-value targets,” such as terrorist leaders, while operating largely without risk of airborne attack. Fighting Iran, which has proven able to launch wave after wave of attack, is on a completely different scale. 

“I use the analogy with the other component commanders of the difference between using a sniper rifle and a belt-fed machine gun,” France recalled. Being a sniper, he said, “is a very patient game of finding a pattern of life against something that has a high payoff.” But Iran is something different. Against Iran, U.S. airpower had to operate at a “scope and scale to make sure we’re taking care of the ballistic missile threat,” France said. “We’re servicing a high volume of targets of the defense industrial base. We’re looking at coastal defense cruise missiles, radars, all those things that have to do with the industrial base, and the Strait of Hormuz.”

Balancing control and flexibility for air wings was one of his challenges. “The goal of the air component commander and the CAOC is to put out guidance that’s specific enough that it gives them something to hang their hat on, but isn’t so specific that it ties their hands,” France said. “It is something I worked through as conditions changed.” 

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Derek France, Air Forces Central commander, speaks with deployed personnel at a base in the Middle East, April 15, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jonah Bliss

“What I challenged the CAOC to do is plan—have some flexibility for a mission commander, but don’t make him do all the planning,” France added. “You’re shooting for a pretty tight gap there because if you don’t give enough flexibility, the mission commander has no plan and may not have crew rest or time to plan it. If you overplan it now you’ve painted him into a box, and he goes, ‘Well, I can’t adjust my route, I can’t adjust my timing.’ I got both sets of feedback.”

With frequent confrontations with Iran and the militias supported by Tehran, the Middle East has been the most kinetic of all the U.S. military theaters. And it is also a region in which personal relationships pay dividends in coordinating with partner forces.

Yet the U.S. military continually rotates staff and leaders rapidly through those assignments, with the CFACC on two-year rotations and most staff rotating in and out of roles every six to 12 months.

That should change, France said. “You’d think you would get fresh eyes on the problem and new blood every six months—and so you really should be postured to change,” he added. “But it has the opposite effect: People come in and are like, ‘We do things a certain way. I’m sure it’s for a good reason. I don’t want to come in within six months, figure it out after a month, and then rock the boat for a couple of months.’”

“I struggled to get the needle to move, to actually get permanent party manpower,” he said—without success. Airmen performed admirably, however, doubling down to meet the moment.  

“The tenacity, innovation, and courage of Airmen serving in the arena” is noteworthy, France said. “Warfare is a human endeavor, and AFCENT Airmen rose to the occasion—and were the secret weapon needed to win.”

Air

National Security

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, April 18, 2026.  U.S. Air Force photo

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Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury

Sept. 13, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

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Operation Epic Fury marked the U.S. military’s largest air campaign in a generation, with strikes on 13,000 targets in Iran before the first in a series of shaky ceasefires began in April. Now, even as hostilities continue to flare up, the former commander of Air Forces Central sees several clear lessons that highlight the challenges of major combat operations today, compared to decades of counterterrorism operations in the Middle East. 

“A lot of things surprised me in a good way,” said Lt. Gen. Derek C. France, who completed his tour last month as Air Forces Central commander and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for U.S. Central Command on Aug. 4. “The joint partnership is actually really strong.”

The close coordination between Airmen and the Soldiers operating Patriot anti-missile defenses was a bright spot in the face of Iranian missiles and drones launched at air bases across the Middle East. He was impressed by wings’ ability to quickly resume flight operations after those attacks.

“We had bases generating sorties,” France told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Occasionally, we’d have to make some adjustments on tankers to make an effective sortie. But I never had a base that said, ‘We are not effective and we can’t meet the next three or four [windows] of ATO tasking.’ … At a macro sense, it was not a factor.”

One area France singled out for improvement: the logistical system for supplying munitions, which was insufficient in the early days of the war, forcing France to “meter the use of weapons over time.” 

“Our logistics system needs some serious revamping as far as its flexibility,” France said. “You would have cases where bases say, ‘Hey, I’ve got all these bomb bodies, but I can’t use them because I don’t have the tail kits yet.’”

U.S. Air Force Airmen load cargo onto a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at a base in the Middle East during Operation Epic Fury, April 18, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Travis Knauss

The need to augment base self-defense was another key lesson from the conflict. CENTCOM had not had to contend with such threats since the 1991 Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign, when Saddam Hussein launched the notoriously unreliable Scud missiles against the allies arrayed against him. The modern threat, defined by repeated waves of attacks featuring multiple missiles and drones, is entirely different. U.S. Patriot missiles and THAAD interceptors successfully defeated most threats, but some weapons got through, leaving room for improvement in U.S. defenses.  

“From a base defense standpoint, we’ve still got some gaps as far as long-range air domain awareness, so you’re not surprised by things once they’re in your base defense zone,” France said. 

Building command centers underground, so they have some inherent self-protection, deserves consideration, France said. 

“You have to have some C2 element that’s survivable underground, and if you’re going to generate airpower, you need something where your aircrew can actually get some sleep and extract themselves from that potential,” France said. “You can’t harden everything. But I do think your critical C2 nodes and your prioritized way of being able to get underground is huge.”

A U.S. Air Force crew chief marshals an F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, April 22, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo

France took over command of AFCENT on April 18, 2024. It was a memorable debut: Expecting to fly commercial to Doha, Qatar, on April 13, his flight was canceled after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles against Israel. American F-16s, F-15Es, and coalition fighters defended the U.S. and regional allies, blasting Iranian drones out of the sky.

Then Israel launched its counter-attack, and the U.S. had to move assets around the region. “After doing the change of command that [first] morning, I got to bed at 7 a.m. the next morning,” France recalled. 

France was still Combined Forces Air Component Commander for Operation Rough Rider in spring 2025 against the Houthis and for Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, when U.S. B-2 bombers attacked Iran’s nuclear sites. Then came Operation Epic Fury, which raised the stakes beginning Feb. 28 when the U.S. launched what would become the biggest air offensive in 35 years.

As the CFACC, France and the Combined Air Operations Center directed the strikes into Iran, including from Navy aircraft, ships using sea-launched Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and Army HIMARS launchers firing ATACMS and PrSM surface-to-surface missiles.

“The scope and scale of this forced a single, what I would term an ‘integrator’ of fires,” France said. “I think the CAOC over time got much better at integrating fires.”

M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) conducts a live-fire mission during Operation Epic Fury in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. U.S. Army Photo

Operating from a safe CAOC at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., France and his staff rapidly generated Air Tasking Orders to keep up with the pace of the war.

“It’s got to have a procedure to have those numbers of very deliberate, thought-out, planned targets, and then there are emerging things that are dynamic that show up at the last minute inside that cycle, and the trick is to be flexible enough to prioritize those and to execute against those if warranted, or if it’s not a high priority, feed it back into the bigger cycle,” France said.

The punishing waves of airstrikes continued for a time but have now been largely supplanted by an American economic pressure campaign as Iran tries to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now in its seventh month, the conflict demonstrates the challenge the U.S. military faces in recalibrating its thinking from decades of counterterrorism operations to a major theater war against a reasonably sophisticated adversary with ties to Russia and China.

The U.S. struck more than 13,000 targets, 4,000 of which were dynamic, from Feb. 28 to an initial ceasefire in early April. Iran has fired more than 1,500 ballistic missiles and 6,000 drones, with numbers growing as Tehran continues to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said Sept. 14 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference that around 500 combat aircraft executed around 250 sorties a day, adding up to about 10,000 sorties over 38 days at the height of the conflict.

“The technical aspect, intelligence aspect, and logistics requirements of the Global War on Terror are hugely different from having large numbers of forces executing major combat operations,” France said.

”It’s a drop in the bucket,” he added.

Over years of fighting militant groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, the U.S. honed its ability to find, track, and attack “high-value targets,” such as terrorist leaders, while operating largely without risk of airborne attack. Fighting Iran, which has proven able to launch wave after wave of attack, is on a completely different scale. 

“I use the analogy with the other component commanders of the difference between using a sniper rifle and a belt-fed machine gun,” France recalled. Being a sniper, he said, “is a very patient game of finding a pattern of life against something that has a high payoff.” But Iran is something different. Against Iran, U.S. airpower had to operate at a “scope and scale to make sure we’re taking care of the ballistic missile threat,” France said. “We’re servicing a high volume of targets of the defense industrial base. We’re looking at coastal defense cruise missiles, radars, all those things that have to do with the industrial base, and the Strait of Hormuz.”

Balancing control and flexibility for air wings was one of his challenges. “The goal of the air component commander and the CAOC is to put out guidance that’s specific enough that it gives them something to hang their hat on, but isn’t so specific that it ties their hands,” France said. “It is something I worked through as conditions changed.” 

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Derek France, Air Forces Central commander, speaks with deployed personnel at a base in the Middle East, April 15, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jonah Bliss

“What I challenged the CAOC to do is plan—have some flexibility for a mission commander, but don’t make him do all the planning,” France added. “You’re shooting for a pretty tight gap there because if you don’t give enough flexibility, the mission commander has no plan and may not have crew rest or time to plan it. If you overplan it now you’ve painted him into a box, and he goes, ‘Well, I can’t adjust my route, I can’t adjust my timing.’ I got both sets of feedback.”

With frequent confrontations with Iran and the militias supported by Tehran, the Middle East has been the most kinetic of all the U.S. military theaters. And it is also a region in which personal relationships pay dividends in coordinating with partner forces.

Yet the U.S. military continually rotates staff and leaders rapidly through those assignments, with the CFACC on two-year rotations and most staff rotating in and out of roles every six to 12 months.

That should change, France said. “You’d think you would get fresh eyes on the problem and new blood every six months—and so you really should be postured to change,” he added. “But it has the opposite effect: People come in and are like, ‘We do things a certain way. I’m sure it’s for a good reason. I don’t want to come in within six months, figure it out after a month, and then rock the boat for a couple of months.’”

“I struggled to get the needle to move, to actually get permanent party manpower,” he said—without success. Airmen performed admirably, however, doubling down to meet the moment.  

“The tenacity, innovation, and courage of Airmen serving in the arena” is noteworthy, France said. “Warfare is a human endeavor, and AFCENT Airmen rose to the occasion—and were the secret weapon needed to win.”

Air

National Security

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, April 18, 2026.  U.S. Air Force photo

Expand Photo

Exclusive Story

Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury

Sept. 13, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

Share Article

Operation Epic Fury marked the U.S. military’s largest air campaign in a generation, with strikes on 13,000 targets in Iran before the first in a series of shaky ceasefires began in April. Now, even as hostilities continue to flare up, the former commander of Air Forces Central sees several clear lessons that highlight the challenges of major combat operations today, compared to decades of counterterrorism operations in the Middle East. 

“A lot of things surprised me in a good way,” said Lt. Gen. Derek C. France, who completed his tour last month as Air Forces Central commander and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for U.S. Central Command on Aug. 4. “The joint partnership is actually really strong.”

The close coordination between Airmen and the Soldiers operating Patriot anti-missile defenses was a bright spot in the face of Iranian missiles and drones launched at air bases across the Middle East. He was impressed by wings’ ability to quickly resume flight operations after those attacks.

“We had bases generating sorties,” France told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Occasionally, we’d have to make some adjustments on tankers to make an effective sortie. But I never had a base that said, ‘We are not effective and we can’t meet the next three or four [windows] of ATO tasking.’ … At a macro sense, it was not a factor.”

One area France singled out for improvement: the logistical system for supplying munitions, which was insufficient in the early days of the war, forcing France to “meter the use of weapons over time.” 

“Our logistics system needs some serious revamping as far as its flexibility,” France said. “You would have cases where bases say, ‘Hey, I’ve got all these bomb bodies, but I can’t use them because I don’t have the tail kits yet.’”

U.S. Air Force Airmen load cargo onto a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at a base in the Middle East during Operation Epic Fury, April 18, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Travis Knauss

The need to augment base self-defense was another key lesson from the conflict. CENTCOM had not had to contend with such threats since the 1991 Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign, when Saddam Hussein launched the notoriously unreliable Scud missiles against the allies arrayed against him. The modern threat, defined by repeated waves of attacks featuring multiple missiles and drones, is entirely different. U.S. Patriot missiles and THAAD interceptors successfully defeated most threats, but some weapons got through, leaving room for improvement in U.S. defenses.  

“From a base defense standpoint, we’ve still got some gaps as far as long-range air domain awareness, so you’re not surprised by things once they’re in your base defense zone,” France said. 

Building command centers underground, so they have some inherent self-protection, deserves consideration, France said. 

“You have to have some C2 element that’s survivable underground, and if you’re going to generate airpower, you need something where your aircrew can actually get some sleep and extract themselves from that potential,” France said. “You can’t harden everything. But I do think your critical C2 nodes and your prioritized way of being able to get underground is huge.”

A U.S. Air Force crew chief marshals an F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, April 22, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo

France took over command of AFCENT on April 18, 2024. It was a memorable debut: Expecting to fly commercial to Doha, Qatar, on April 13, his flight was canceled after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles against Israel. American F-16s, F-15Es, and coalition fighters defended the U.S. and regional allies, blasting Iranian drones out of the sky.

Then Israel launched its counter-attack, and the U.S. had to move assets around the region. “After doing the change of command that [first] morning, I got to bed at 7 a.m. the next morning,” France recalled. 

France was still Combined Forces Air Component Commander for Operation Rough Rider in spring 2025 against the Houthis and for Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, when U.S. B-2 bombers attacked Iran’s nuclear sites. Then came Operation Epic Fury, which raised the stakes beginning Feb. 28 when the U.S. launched what would become the biggest air offensive in 35 years.

As the CFACC, France and the Combined Air Operations Center directed the strikes into Iran, including from Navy aircraft, ships using sea-launched Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and Army HIMARS launchers firing ATACMS and PrSM surface-to-surface missiles.

“The scope and scale of this forced a single, what I would term an ‘integrator’ of fires,” France said. “I think the CAOC over time got much better at integrating fires.”

M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) conducts a live-fire mission during Operation Epic Fury in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. U.S. Army Photo

Operating from a safe CAOC at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., France and his staff rapidly generated Air Tasking Orders to keep up with the pace of the war.

“It’s got to have a procedure to have those numbers of very deliberate, thought-out, planned targets, and then there are emerging things that are dynamic that show up at the last minute inside that cycle, and the trick is to be flexible enough to prioritize those and to execute against those if warranted, or if it’s not a high priority, feed it back into the bigger cycle,” France said.

The punishing waves of airstrikes continued for a time but have now been largely supplanted by an American economic pressure campaign as Iran tries to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now in its seventh month, the conflict demonstrates the challenge the U.S. military faces in recalibrating its thinking from decades of counterterrorism operations to a major theater war against a reasonably sophisticated adversary with ties to Russia and China.

The U.S. struck more than 13,000 targets, 4,000 of which were dynamic, from Feb. 28 to an initial ceasefire in early April. Iran has fired more than 1,500 ballistic missiles and 6,000 drones, with numbers growing as Tehran continues to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said Sept. 14 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference that around 500 combat aircraft executed around 250 sorties a day, adding up to about 10,000 sorties over 38 days at the height of the conflict.

“The technical aspect, intelligence aspect, and logistics requirements of the Global War on Terror are hugely different from having large numbers of forces executing major combat operations,” France said.

”It’s a drop in the bucket,” he added.

Over years of fighting militant groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, the U.S. honed its ability to find, track, and attack “high-value targets,” such as terrorist leaders, while operating largely without risk of airborne attack. Fighting Iran, which has proven able to launch wave after wave of attack, is on a completely different scale. 

“I use the analogy with the other component commanders of the difference between using a sniper rifle and a belt-fed machine gun,” France recalled. Being a sniper, he said, “is a very patient game of finding a pattern of life against something that has a high payoff.” But Iran is something different. Against Iran, U.S. airpower had to operate at a “scope and scale to make sure we’re taking care of the ballistic missile threat,” France said. “We’re servicing a high volume of targets of the defense industrial base. We’re looking at coastal defense cruise missiles, radars, all those things that have to do with the industrial base, and the Strait of Hormuz.”

Balancing control and flexibility for air wings was one of his challenges. “The goal of the air component commander and the CAOC is to put out guidance that’s specific enough that it gives them something to hang their hat on, but isn’t so specific that it ties their hands,” France said. “It is something I worked through as conditions changed.” 

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Derek France, Air Forces Central commander, speaks with deployed personnel at a base in the Middle East, April 15, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jonah Bliss

“What I challenged the CAOC to do is plan—have some flexibility for a mission commander, but don’t make him do all the planning,” France added. “You’re shooting for a pretty tight gap there because if you don’t give enough flexibility, the mission commander has no plan and may not have crew rest or time to plan it. If you overplan it now you’ve painted him into a box, and he goes, ‘Well, I can’t adjust my route, I can’t adjust my timing.’ I got both sets of feedback.”

With frequent confrontations with Iran and the militias supported by Tehran, the Middle East has been the most kinetic of all the U.S. military theaters. And it is also a region in which personal relationships pay dividends in coordinating with partner forces.

Yet the U.S. military continually rotates staff and leaders rapidly through those assignments, with the CFACC on two-year rotations and most staff rotating in and out of roles every six to 12 months.

That should change, France said. “You’d think you would get fresh eyes on the problem and new blood every six months—and so you really should be postured to change,” he added. “But it has the opposite effect: People come in and are like, ‘We do things a certain way. I’m sure it’s for a good reason. I don’t want to come in within six months, figure it out after a month, and then rock the boat for a couple of months.’”

“I struggled to get the needle to move, to actually get permanent party manpower,” he said—without success. Airmen performed admirably, however, doubling down to meet the moment.  

“The tenacity, innovation, and courage of Airmen serving in the arena” is noteworthy, France said. “Warfare is a human endeavor, and AFCENT Airmen rose to the occasion—and were the secret weapon needed to win.”

Air

National Security

[ssn688]

>6개월 - 12개월 단위의 순환보직
일단 미국은 자국에서 전쟁하는 나라가 아님 + 참모들은 식구들 대동하지 않는 단신 부임이라서 그럴까요? 18개월 이상 있으려면 단신 부임은 무리일 터인데, 식구들 대동하면 거주지 마련하고 경비대책부터 유사시 철수대책까지 일이 많아지겠네요.

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조직운영엔 또 그런 문제를 무시할 수가 없겠네요. 1년 넘게 독수공방하라고 할 수도 없고...

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공무원을 자주 접하는 직장이고 순환보직을 시행하는 조직에서 근무하다보니 저 순환보직의 필요성과 문제점을 동시에 접하게 되더군요. 진짜 3년 마다 공무원들이 돌아가니 처음부터 다시 설명해줘야하는 판국이고... 근데 또 안돌리면 고인물이 되어 문제가 생기고....