The AMC our Nation needs: COMAMC provides Commander’s Intent at 2026 A/TA Symposium

Lt. Gen. Dan Tulley, commander of Air Mobility Command, outlined the command’s strategy during his keynote address at the 2026 Airlift/Tanker Association Symposium in Kissimmee, Florida, Nov. 5.

Addressing more than 1,000 Total Force Airmen, defense leaders, industry partners and community members, Tulley asked if we are the AMC our nation, and our Joint Force, needs, organizing the command’s strategy across three core priorities: Warfighting, Readiness and Modernization.

Throughout his remarks, Tulley emphasized that Air Mobility Command is a warfighting command that underpins national deterrence by demonstrating the United States can move, maneuver and sustain decisive combat forces faster than any competitor.

“AMC is an instrument of national defense, we make American military power credible by enabling forces to deploy, fight and persist,” Tulley said. “AMC is deterrence, our adversaries must believe that the United States possesses both the capability and the will to respond. AMC makes that credible by enabling force projection, maneuver, sustainment, particularly in the Pacific.”

In his discussion on Warfighting, Tulley outlined focus areas of connected, protected and making every aircraft a threat. Mobility aircraft must be connected whenever possible, transitioning from isolated platforms to a digitally networked fleet capable of real-time battlespace awareness, extending Joint Force networks and relaying critical data.

Tulley also underscored the warfighting imperative to defend our Airmen, aircraft, networks and bases, and complicate adversary calculus by making every mobility aircraft a potential threat through experimentation with platform- and payload-agnostic palletized effects, such as the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles-Palletized.

“Our Airmen must train like they fight, they need aircraft ready to fly, bases capable of defending themselves and operating under attack, resilient connections that they can depend on,” Tulley said. “They need organizations, command relationships, command and control designed for war, not simply optimized for peace time operations.”

Turning to Readiness, Tulley introduced the concept of “readiness in contact,” challenging the command to move beyond the need to return to home station to regain readiness and instead focus on generating and regenerating combat capability while actively engaged in global operations.

“We cannot assume we'll have the luxury of stepping away from the fight to rebuild our readiness. We must be able to generate and regenerate combat power while engaged, repairing, replacing, adapting, learning, and improving as we fight,” Tulley said. “Our goal is not simply to sustain readiness but to become a more capable, and more lethal force during the fight.”

Tulley highlighted how the Joint Force needs ready Airmen and families, and AMC is evolving its force generation and presentation models inside the Air Expeditionary Wing 2.0 construct. He then challenged all Airmen to know our readiness, as he’s asked commanders to identify how much combat power they can generate, and how long they can sustain that power.

In his final focus area, Modernization, Tulley emphasized the integration of enterprise data architectures and super intelligence through Maven Smart Systems to democratize battlespace visibility, so commanders can make faster, informed decisions and Airmen on the flight line can identify problems and solve them.

Looking to modernizing the mobility fleet, Tulley called out the need to look at all options for the Next Generation Airlifter and Advanced Tanker Systems. Beyond mobility platforms, MAF Nexus continues the command’s goal to connect every mobility aircraft, while experimentation continues on giving aircraft the ability to defend themselves against emerging threats. In every case, Tulley charged the command to move fast.

“Our measure of success is not a particular platform or program, it's the capability we deliver,” Tulley said. “We must deliver the range, the capacity, connectivity, and survivability the Joint Force needs, while sustaining the fleet that we have today. We cannot afford to innovate at the speed of bureaucracy.”

Throughout, Tulley told the stories of Total Force mobility Airmen; active duty, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and civilian teammates, along with their families, noting the strength of our Airmen is the strength of our families.

“We must prepare every Airman to perform under the same conditions and worse. Our training must be hard, realistic and effective. We need to train like we fight, before we fight,” Tulley said. “And we must prepare our families. They're indispensable to our Airmen, to our readiness and to our ability to sustain the mission particularly in a protracted conflict.”

In closing, Tulley called back to his initial question, asking “are we the Air Mobility Command our Nation, our Joint Force and our Air Force need us to be?”

“We answer that question every day – in the missions we execute, the Airmen we prepare, the families we support, and the capabilities we build, we must never stop asking this question,” Tulley said. “Because the AMC our nation needs tomorrow will demand more of us than the AMC of yesterday, and even today. Across every theater, AMC gives national leadership options, and our Joint Force the ability to act.”

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