Air Force Secretary claims Indo-Pacific will be primary point of military conflict in near future

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink on Thursday warned graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that the Indo-Pacific region will be the future of military conflicts in the coming years, instead of the Middle East.

The statement comes as the Air Force prepares for a large demonstration in the region next month, which the service has described as the "largest exercise since the Cold War." 

Meink said the Air Force's main mission will be to protect the United States and deter China from gaining more territory in the Indo-Pacific region, which includes Southeast and Northeast Asia.

"For the past 25 years, we have been focused on low-intensity conflict in the Middle East, but no longer," Meink said. "The Indo-Pacific will be your generation's fight, and you will deliver the most lethal force that this nation has ever [seen] — or we will not succeed."

The secretary said the threat in the region is "unlike anything we've ever faced," and emphasized the need for assumptions about air and space power to evolve as it deals with China.

"Today's competition with China is wide-ranging, and it is unpredictable; there will be no sanctuaries," he said. "If we continue to operate as we have in the past, we will fail in the future; and we cannot afford to fail."

He added that the graduates in both the Air Force and Space Force need to be prepared for deployment on short notice, but expressed confidence in the new service members' ability to do so.

The speech comes after President Donald Trump delivered the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and Vice President JD Vance delivered the commencement speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, over the weekend.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.