Fact Pattern: Air Force Innovation, Risk Aversion, and the “Failure of Imagination”
In a February 2025 commentary published in Breaking Defense, Col. Maximilian K. Bremer and Dr. Kelly A. Grieco assert that the United States Air Force’s risk-averse procurement culture and preference for large, expensive platforms leaves the service vulnerable to technological and doctrinal surprise (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). The authors argue that adapting to modern threats—such as China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities and Iran’s cost-imbalance strategies—requires diversifying the force with smaller, more expendable platforms and reforming acquisition and promotion systems to incentivize innovation rather than caution.
The Authors and Their Affiliations
The commentary represents a collaboration between a military practitioner and a civilian defense scholar, both affiliated with the Stimson Center’s Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program.
Col. Maximilian K. Bremer is a retired United States Air Force officer and a Nonresident Fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center (Stimson Center, n.d.-b). Prior to retiring, he served as the director of the Advanced Programs Division at Air Mobility Command and led the Mission Integration Cell at the Integrated Capabilities Command. He has also served in strategic roles at NORAD, U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Space Command, and U.S. Transportation Command (Stimson Center, n.d.-b). He holds an M.P.P. from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a Master’s degree in Airpower Art and Science from the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (Stimson Center, n.d.-b). He maintains a professional presence on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).
Dr. Kelly A. Grieco is a Senior Fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and an Adjunct Professor in the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University (Stimson Center, n.d.-a). Her expertise centers on U.S. military alliances, Indo-Pacific and European security architectures, and emerging airpower strategies, including drone warfare and air denial (Stimson Center, n.d.-a). She previously served as a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and as an Assistant Professor at the Air Command and Staff College (Stimson Center, n.d.-a). She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Stimson Center, n.d.-a). She maintains a professional presence on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).
The Stimson Center is a nonpartisan policy research center based in Washington, D.C. Its Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program aims to test assumptions, reassess conventional wisdom, and explore innovative approaches to U.S. foreign policy (Stimson Center, n.d.-c). The article was also cross-published on the Stimson Center’s website (Grieco & Bremer, 2025).
Claims and Context: Technological and Doctrinal Surprise
The central thesis of the article is that the Air Force’s reluctance to embrace the risks associated with innovation leaves it vulnerable to “technological and doctrinal surprise” (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). This concept is explored extensively in military literature, notably in Dr. Meir Finkel’s book On Flexibility: Recovery from Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield (Finkel, 2011). Finkel, a former Israeli Defense Force brigadier general, argues that relying on intelligence to predict the future battlefield is insufficient; instead, militaries must build conceptual, doctrinal, and organizational flexibility to adapt under fire (Finkel, 2011).
Bremer and Grieco apply this framework to the modern U.S. Air Force, arguing that its current procurement strategy—which revolves around a small number of advanced, expensive platforms with long development cycles—stifles real innovation in an age of rapid technological leaps (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). They cite the B-52 bomber, flying for over 60 years, and the F-16 fighter, approaching its sixth decade, as examples of a hardware-centered mindset that prioritizes perfecting platform design over rapid adaptation (Grieco & Bremer, 2025).
Claims and Context: The Threat Environment
The authors identify three specific adversary strategies that exploit the Air Force’s predictability:
- China’s Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD): The authors state that China expects the U.S. to rely on a small number of traditional fighters and bombers supported by reconnaissance and refueling aircraft. In response, China has honed its A2/AD playbook to counter this specific approach (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). A2/AD involves using long-range missiles, air defenses, and other systems to deny an adversary freedom of movement in a theater of operations (Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, n.d.).
- Iran’s Cost-Imbalance Strategy: The authors reference Iran’s strategy of utilizing low-cost, expendable drones and missiles to force adversaries to expend highly expensive air defense interceptors (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). This asymmetric warfare changes the financial equation between attack and defense.
- Russia’s Battlefield Adaptation: The authors note Russia’s ongoing adaptation to drone warfare and electronic warfare realities in the Ukraine conflict (Grieco & Bremer, 2025).
Claims and Context: Proposed Reforms
To counter these threats, Bremer and Grieco propose a “hedge strategy” requiring three major institutional reforms:
1. Acquisition Reform
The authors argue the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) imposes high marginal compliance costs on low-cost platforms, effectively discouraging the development of expendable systems (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). They call for expanding rapid and flexible acquisition authorities. They also criticize the current Program Objective Memorandum (POM) budget process, noting that requiring services to plan budgets more than two years in advance means new companies with emerging capabilities must wait years before potentially profiting, stifling new entrants to the defense market (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). Furthermore, they argue the Air Force’s current “block upgrade” approach—adding new technology to existing platforms—prevents revolutionary change and drives up sustainment costs (Grieco & Bremer, 2025).
2. Force Design Diversification
Echoing arguments they made in a February 2025 New York Times guest essay, Bremer and Grieco advocate for developing a wider variety of systems in smaller numbers, particularly massive numbers of mobile, dispersed, and lower-cost sensing, decoy, and weaponized drones (Bremer & Grieco, 2025; Grieco & Bremer, 2025). This diversity would complicate adversary targeting and planning.
3. Senior Officer Promotion Culture
The authors assert that the current promotion culture rewards caution and punishes creativity, prioritizing the preservation of legacy systems over new capabilities (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). This echoes longstanding critiques of the Air Force promotion system. In 2018, an anonymous Air Force colonel writing under the pseudonym “Ned Stark” in War on the Rocks detailed how the “below the zone” early promotion system creates a risk-averse senior officer corps. Stark argued that officers designated as “high-potential” early in their careers learn that risk avoidance is the surest path to command, leading to a culture where “innovation and risk avoidance are mutually exclusive” (Stark, 2018).
Leadership Context: A “Time of Consequence”
The article opens by referencing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin’s declaration that the service faces a “time of consequence” (Grieco & Bremer, 2025). Gen. Allvin, who assumed the role of Chief of Staff in November 2023, made these remarks during a keynote address at the Air and Space Forces Association (AFA) Warfare Symposium in February 2024 (Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, 2024).
In his speech, Gen. Allvin announced sweeping changes to “reoptimize” the Air Force for great power competition, comparing the current era to the periods preceding seminal events like Doolittle’s Raid and the Berlin Airlift (Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, 2024). He stated, “These are times when Airmen and air pioneers embodied what is running in our DNA – the spirit of innovation, vision, and courage… What we do now matters” (Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, 2024). Bremer and Grieco’s article essentially argues that fulfilling Gen. Allvin’s vision requires fundamental changes to the service’s tolerance for risk and its procurement mechanisms.
References
Bremer, M. K., & Grieco, K. A. (2025, February 7). Reimagining the American war machine. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/opinion/us-military-weapons-pentagon.html
Finkel, M. (2011). On flexibility: Recovery from technological and doctrinal surprise on the battlefield. Stanford University Press. https://www.sup.org/books/politics/flexibility
Grieco, K. A., & Bremer, M. K. (2025, February 28). The US Air Force lacks imagination, and that’s a dangerous thing. Breaking Defense. https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/the-us-air-force-lacks-imagination-and-thats-a-dangerous-thing/
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. (n.d.). China’s anti-access area denial. Retrieved June 29, 2026, from https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-threat-and-proliferation/todays-missile-threat/china/china-anti-access-area-denial/
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs. (2024, February 13). Allvin: ‘This is our time of consequence’. U.S. Air Force. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3675878/allvin-this-is-our-time-of-consequence/
Stark, N. (2018, May 14). A call for senior officer reform in the Air Force: An insider’s perspective. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2018/05/a-call-for-senior-officer-reform-in-the-air-force-an-insiders-perspective/
Stimson Center. (n.d.-a). Kelly A. Grieco. Retrieved June 29, 2026, from https://www.stimson.org/ppl/kelly-a-grieco/
Stimson Center. (n.d.-b). Maximilian Bremer. Retrieved June 29, 2026, from https://www.stimson.org/ppl/maximilian-bremer/
Stimson Center. (n.d.-c). Reimagining US grand strategy. Retrieved June 29, 2026, from https://www.stimson.org/program/reimagining-us-grand-strategy/
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