Within two years, the U.S. Air Force plans to make a new point defense career field operational to protect American air bases around the world.

Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Ken Wilsbach announced the move Monday at the Air and Space Cyber Conference.

Wilsbach said the service is advancing two initiatives after devastating Iranian attacks on U.S. bases across the Middle East in recent months. One effort centers on a point defense weapons system, while the other creates a dedicated group of airmen for that mission.

Describing the first initiative, Wilsbach said the Air Force would “establish the point defense weapons system, bringing together kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to secure our air bases.”

The plan would place different defensive capabilities under the broader point defense effort.

Wilsbach then announced the personnel component of the initiative. “Second,” he said, “we established a new career field of point defense airmen. This new career field will be operational in two years.”

Two senior noncommissioned officers have already been selected as the first field managers for the career track. They are Senior Master Sgt. Andrew Lewis and Senior Master Sgt. Brandon Spears, according to Wilsbach.

Details about the career field remain limited. However, a June 2026 release said the specialized units would include personnel drawn from multiple career fields and would operate at select Air Force installations.

The effort follows a series of attacks that exposed the danger facing America’s broad and easily located military footprint in the Middle East.

U.S. bases across the region have repeatedly come under assault since the beginning of the Iran war.

In July, three U.S. soldiers were killed after an Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack penetrated the air defenses surrounding Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

The strike demonstrated the deadly consequences when missiles and drones break through defenses around an installation.

Another attack occurred in March at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. Six U.S. soldiers were killed when an Iranian drone hit a tactical operations center there, adding to the urgency surrounding protection for American personnel and facilities.

Lt. Gen. James P. Isenhower, the commanding general of CAC, addressed the challenge during a Pentagon briefing last Thursday. He said the military had spent two decades operating without the same level of concern about aerial threats to its bases.

“For 20 years we didn’t have to worry about anything coming out of the sky, and we lost proficiency that I think we had trained in the Cold War era — through the ’80s and ’90s — where we were worried about adversaries who had fixed-wing aircraft and the capability to send long-range precision fires at us,” Isenhower told reporters.

He contrasted that earlier preparation with more recent American operations. “That wasn’t the case in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Isenhower said.

The renewed danger now includes precise, long range missile and drone attacks against bases such as those in Bahrain.

The Air Force initiatives announced by Wilsbach are intended to confront those evolving enemy threats while securing installations that support American operations.

The proposed weapons system would combine kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities, while the new career field would establish airmen specifically assigned to point defense. Together, the initiatives link equipment and trained personnel in the Air Force’s push to strengthen base protection.

The two year timeline gives the service a defined window for making the new career field operational.

With Lewis and Spears serving as its first field managers, the Air Force has begun establishing the personnel structure behind the planned mission.

The attacks in Jordan and Kuwait have made the consequences of weak base defenses painfully clear.

As missiles and drones continue threatening American installations, the Air Force is moving to rebuild a capability that Isenhower said lost proficiency during two decades of warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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