US enhances Agile Combat Employment with Diego Garcia deployment

A USAF Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 336th EFS conducts a mission near Diego Garcia atoll (British Indian Ocean Territory) in July 2025. (US Air Force)

A maiden deployment of US fighter aircraft to the remote Diego Garcia atoll in the Indian Ocean has allowed the US Air Force (USAF) to enhance its Agile Combat Employment (ACE) tactics and procedures, the US Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) said on 18 November.

Boeing F-15E Strike Eagles from the 336th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron (EFS) were deployed to the Diego Garcia Naval Support Facility (British Indian Ocean Territory) in May from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The Strike Eagles had arrived at Kadena in April.

The deployment of the fighters to the Indian Ocean base, which is located over 400 n miles south of Maldives (the closest country to the atoll), marks “the first sustained US fighter presence on the island and a major milestone in the execution of ACE in the Indo-Pacific”, PACAF said.

The USAF describes ACE as a “proactive and reactive operational scheme of manoeuvre executed within threat timelines to increase survivability while generating combat power”. According to its doctrine document (Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21), ACE shifts operations from “centralised physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations” to make it harder for adversarial forces to target USAF units on the ground, while allowing the US units “to hold adversary targets at risk from multiple locations”.

‘Immediate request'

The deployment to Diego Garcia was in response to “an immediate request for forces” from US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), PACAF said.