This panel examines “the Resilient Edge”: the logistics, infrastructure, and sustainment foundations that allow NATO air power to remain credible in contested, degraded, and operationally restricted environments. As the Alliance broadens its scope to multiple frontiers, it must be able to generate and sustain air domain combat power under pressure, while safeguarding the critical national infrastructure that underpin operational success. In both large-scale conventional and hybrid conflict, the assumption of sanctuary is increasingly fragile: energy supply, transportation networks, and digital connectivity are all potential targets, and the bases and hubs that underpin air operations can be disrupted, isolated, or held at risk.

The discussion will explore what resilience looks like in practice: agile command and control, dispersed operations, and the ability to deploy, support, and sustain forces with reduced footprints and limited infrastructure. Panellists will assess NATO’s vulnerabilities in combat support and force generation, and the adaptations required to recover, reconstitute, and continue operating at pace. Central themes include Agile Combat Employment, modular logistics and prepositioning, Host Nation Support, multinational sustainment, and the renewed importance of Aircraft Cross-Servicing to turn aircraft rapidly with minimal deployed support—so that agility and endurance are built into the system, not improvised in crisis.