Making Professional Military Education More Agile in the Air Force

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

Lt. Gen. Andrea Tullos joined Ryan at WOTR HQ to talk about her experience and insights into professional military education, both for the joint force and especially the Air Force. She shares what Air University, which she commands, has been doing to optimize its mission for competition with China, the pacing threat, and a high intensity fight where sanctuary areas are scarce if they exist at all. Tullos also explains how Air University and the LeMay Center feed into Agile Combat Employment — the Air Force's vision for rapid, dispersed deployment of combat power to increase survivability and adaptability — as well as Air University's plan for "agile learning."

"We as an Air Force, owe you education and training, and so we should be pouring into you episodically and consistently throughout your career. And some of it should be on-demand. We have unbelievably talented, inquisitive learners coming in the door and they shouldn't have to wait to get access to content until they have a certain number of years in service or time in grade. They should be able to go online and access that content at the point of need."

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense, and Foreign Affairs.
0:13.4	My name is Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War on the Rocks. I was so pleased to welcome
0:17.3	Lieutenant General Andrea Tulles back on the show. We talked about her experiences and insights into professional military education, both for the Joint Force and especially
0:24.9	the Air Force. Enjoy the conversation. Thanks for coming back on the show. I think this is your
0:31.0	fourth time on the show. Yeah, no, that actually surprises me. It seems like yesterday that I did one,
0:36.5	but it's good to come back.
0:38.1	Well, you've been president and commander of very university for almost three years now.
0:42.4	I think that makes you probably the most long-serving head of a PME institution in the joint
0:48.0	force. In recent history. In recent history. It's a little unsure. Currently, I mean, currently,
0:52.0	yeah. Oh, yeah, that's probably true. And I think that
0:54.5	probably gives you a lot of unique insights on where professional military education stands today,
0:59.8	where you think it needs to go in the future, what its value is. And I appreciate you dropping by to
1:04.5	talk about those things. I will admit, I'm a two-year command designed person. So the third year,
1:10.7	it's been challenging, professionally
1:12.3	challenging. And as I do think there are certain things that because I've been there long
1:17.4	enough to be able to look back and reflect, it's been helpful. So I probably would say it's an
1:24.7	opportunity to get after some of the things that literally just take time.
1:28.3	I mean, things, there is a life cycle and two years is certainly not long enough to see some
1:33.8	of the progress that we need to make in the PME enterprise, and that I think we're making
1:39.4	sometimes incrementally, and that's dissatisfying. I'll talk a little bit about that because we need
1:43.7	to be more agile and a little faster.
1:46.0	But I think we're in a good place. When I say we're in a good place, I think the Air Force is in a good place.
	...

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