The Beacon Series

The Beacon Series is a 3-part forum where Air University learning professionals engage with emerging ideas, innovative scholarship, and critical debates shaping the future of teaching, learning, and leadership.

Each session spotlights thought leaders from across AU, offering a platform for faculty perspectives, research insights, and professional dialogue that connect scholarship to practice. The series highlights how intellectual curiosity and academic rigor inform today’s challenges—bridging theory, innovation, and application in ways that advance the joint force and elevate AU’s mission.

Through faculty-led talks, panels, and roundtables, The Beacon Series creates a scholarly exchange that inspires reflection, fosters inquiry, and strengthens the community of learning at Air University. Designed to illuminate key questions in strategy, leadership, and technology, the Beacon Series offers a consistent space for AU’s educators and students to encounter ideas in action.

Session 1: Russia's Strategic Landscape: What Does Putin Want? — Col Russell Allison, Dean of Air War College, examines the Russian strategic landscape through an investigation of Putin’s worldview.

Session 2: Roundtable on "Intersections of Theory & Technology" — Dr. Heather Venable (ACSC), Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb(SAASS), Dr. Ed Redman (ACSC Dean), Lt Col Garick Chamberlin (ACSC), and Capt David Alman (187th Fighter Squadron) and colleagues lead an interdisciplinary discussion on how evolving theories of war intersect with technological change in ways that challenge strategic thought.

Session 3: From Ball Bearings to Bandwidth: Reviving the ACTS Methodology at Maxwell — Dr. J. "Bill" DeMarco, LeMay Center CAO, presents a forward-looking perspective and warns that while the Air Force accelerates on the development of revolutionary platforms like NGAD and CCAs, it risks losing the strategic framework needed to employ them decisively. Drawing on the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS), he proposes a modern "Industrial Web Theory" focused on digital, cognitive, and data-driven nodes that will define victory in future conflict.

PARKING INSTRUCTIONS: City of Montgomery Municipal Parking Facility (35 Monroe Street, Montgomery, AL 36104). Bring parking ticket inside to be validated. Walk directly across the street to the Historic Kress Building/The Eagle Institute.

Info: Russia's Strategic Landscape: What Does Putin Want? — Col Russell Allison, Dean of Air War College, examines the Russian strategic landscape through an investigation of Putin’s worldview.

Info: Session 2: Roundtable on "Intersections of Theory & Technology" — Dr. Heather Venable (ACSC), Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb(SAASS), Dr. Ed Redman (ACSC Dean), Lt Col Garick Chamberlin (ACSC), and Capt David Alman (187th Fighter Squadron) and colleagues lead an interdisciplinary discussion on how evolving theories of war intersect with technological change in ways that challenge strategic thought.

Info:
Session 3: From Ball Bearings to Bandwidth: Reviving the ACTS Methodology at Maxwell — Dr. J. "Bill" DeMarco, LeMay Center CAO, presents a forward-looking perspective and warns that while the Air Force accelerates on the development of revolutionary platforms like NGAD and CCAs, it risks losing the strategic framework needed to employ them decisively. Drawing on the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS), he proposes a modern "Industrial Web Theory" focused on digital, cognitive, and data-driven nodes that will define victory in future conflict.

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