Bamboo Eagle – testing the battlespace ‘nervous system’

Exercise Bamboo Eagle 26-1, designed to test the ‘nervous system’ of joint and coalition AirPower took place in the USA this month.

CAPTION: Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II take off from Nellis Air Force Base, United States, during Exercise Red Flag 26-1 and the concurrent Exercise Bamboo Eagle 26-1. Photo by Leading Aircraftwoman Nell Bradbury.

The exercise is designed to stress the people, processes, and technology that link commanders to their forces, ensuring that thousands of service members can operate as a single, cohesive team while geographically dispersed and under threat.

Led by the US Air Force Warfare Center, the exercise is not simply a test of tactical skill, but a rigorous evaluation of operational-level decision-making.

This challenge requires commanders to lead and synchronise a multi-domain fight across the vast distances of a simulated modern battlespace, focusing on the speed, resilience, and integration of C2 (command and control) from the strategic level down to the tactical edge.

At its core, the exercise is designed to mature air forces’ application of mission command – a framework of centralised command, distributed control, and decentralised execution.

This philosophy empowers subordinate commanders and tactical leaders to make rapid, informed decisions in a dynamic and contested environment where communication can no longer be guaranteed.

US Air Force Brigadier General David Epperson, USAFWC commander said that, in any conflict, the ability to make fast, effective decisions across vast distances was decisive.

“Bamboo Eagle doesn’t just train pilots – it pressures the entire command and control architecture, from the air operations centre to the expeditionary wings,” he said.

“We are preparing our leaders to command the fight, not just participate in it.”

The ability to project airpower globally over vast distances creates inherent C2 complexities and mastering those complexities is a core focus of the joint force.

The digital backbone that allows commanders to master those challenges is the massive live, virtual, and constructive (LVC) environment managed by the 505th and 705th Combat Training Squadrons.

While live aircraft operate in designated airspace, the LVC weaves them into a complex battlespace with thousands of virtual and constructive entities.

This LVC-driven reality provides realistic conditions needed to hone global C2 capabilities, validating the ability to synchronise airpower and deliver decisive combat effects anywhere, any time.

US Air Force Major David Blessman from the 505th Command and Control Wing and Bamboo Eagle 26-1 exercise lead said mastering the complexities of global C2 wasn’t just theoretical.

“It has to be practiced against a realistic, large-scale threat, and that is precisely what Bamboo Eagle provides,” Major David Blessman said.

“It creates a unique environment where the operational and tactical levels directly affect each other, which is essential for honing the air component’s nervous system from the planners to the pilots.

“The LVC environment is the arena where we stress our ability to synchronise forces across vast distances.”

This iteration Bamboo Eagle continues to strengthen the ‘neural connections’ of coalition C2, a hallmark of the BE series.

A key to this is placing experienced C2 professionals from the Royal Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force into key leadership and planning roles within the AOC.

They are directly shaping operational decisions and bringing unique combat experience to the fight, effectively grafting new, resilient pathways into the system.

This deep integration builds a more adaptive network, ensuring the combined force can think and react with a unified mind.

RAF Wing Commander Richard Kinniburgh, BE 26-1 UK exercise architecture lead, said Bamboo Eagle demonstrated a truly unified command structure.

“The RAF continues to support the exercise series with an ever-increasing number of C2 experts, who are fully embedded within the AOC’s command team, contributing to the entire operational planning and execution cycle alongside the USAF and RAAF,” Wing Commander Kinniburgh said.

“When you have a team this unified, you’re not just sharing data, you’re building a single, resilient command-and-control nervous system.

“That is the level of interoperability required to win in a peer conflict.”

The ultimate goal of Exercise Bamboo Eagle is combat readiness, and the 605th Test and Evaluation Squadron is the organisation that evaluates it.

Serving as expert analysts and tacticians of the force, the squadron provides a data-driven assessment of the C2 nervous system’s health, and how well it produces war-winning operational outcomes.

Using a mission-under-test construct, they analyse all the systems end-to-end, from the time it takes to execute a kill chain (the force’s reflex arc) to the performance of data links under pressure, delivering quantitative proof of the system’s lethality and speed.

US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Brad Short, 605th Test and Evaluation Squadron commander, said a powerful nervous system is good – a battle-tested one is better.

“Our mission is to provide that test, acting as the neurologists for the C2 community, using objective data to confirm the strength and speed of every system and connection,” Lieutenant Colonel Short said.

“We don’t just look for what’s broken, we look for what can be made faster and more dominant.

“Our analysis gives leaders the confidence that they can trust their C2 system to perform decisively in a high-end fight.”

This robust and agile C2 structure is the foundational enabler for agile combat employment, or ACE, allowing forces to generate combat power from dispersed locations while manoeuvring under threat.

As Bamboo Eagle 26-1 unfolds, every challenge overcome and every problem solved becomes a lesson learned, the crucial process of building the force’s collective muscle memory.

Each iteration strengthens the right connections and prunes the inefficient ones, ensuring the US and its allies are forging a combat nervous system that is not just functional, but truly optimised to deter aggression and win any future conflict.

US Air Force Colonel Ryan Hayde, 505th Command and Control Wing commander said the technology that powered BE 26-1 was incredible, but that true asymmetric advantage was trust.

“It’s the trust between a commander and their airmen at the edge, and the trust between our nation and our allies,” Colonel Hayde said.

“Bamboo Eagle is the forge where that trust is built and tested.

“It strengthens the human connections that make the C2 nervous system work under pressure.

“Technology can be copied, but that level of integration and shared commitment cannot.

“That is what makes this coalition unbeatable.”

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