Gen Wisbach formally installed as new US Air Force Chief of Staff

General Kenneth Wilsbach was formally installed as 24th US Air Force Chief of Staff on 18 November 2025 during a ceremony at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland presided over by Department of the Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and attended by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine and various elected officials and senior military leaders.

Gen Wilsbach, who was nominated for the role by President Donald Trump in September 2025, stated during the ceremony that the US Air Force remains “the strongest, most capable, and lethal force in the world” and promised to maintain US air superiority while instilling a “fly, fix, fight” mentality across the air force.

Gen Wilsbach, a command pilot with more than 6,200 hours in flight, has flown aircraft ranging from the F-15C, F-16C, MC-12 and F-22A. During Operations ‘Northern Watch’ and ‘Southern Watch’, maintaining no-fly zones over Iraq from January 1997 until May 2003, and ‘Enduring Freedom’, encompassing the war in Afghanistan and the wider Global War on Terrorism from 2001, Gen Wilsbach flew 71 combat missions.

Gen Wilsbach recently commanded Air Combat Command and was planning to retire after nearly four decades of active-duty service, but the current USAF chief of staff, General David Allvin, unexpectedly announced in August 2025 that he would retire early. Gen Allvin was confirmed as USAF chief of staff on 2 November 2023 and sworn in on the same day, meaning that the usual four-year term for the post would have seen him serve in that capacity until 2027.

Neither Gen Allvin nor the USAF gave any specific reason for him retiring early, but the relationship between US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the senior US military leadership has often been fraught. For example, General C Q Brown, who was Gen Allvin’s predecessor as chief of staff and went on to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was fired by Hegseth, who has waged an ‘anti-woke’ campaign based on ‘warrior ethos’ in the US military, while rebadging himself as the secretary of war and the US Department of Defense as the ‘Department of War’. Although this is currently a secondary title and would need Congressional approval to be made permanent, the department’s official website now refers to its as the Department of War.