Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall sent a message to lawmakers Monday that the military needs to be able to move on from weapons systems of the past.

“I have one request of the Congress: help us to focus on the one fight — the strategic competitive fight — we must win,” Kendall said at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference, according to Defense News.

In his first major speech since taking office in July, he said keeping “every legacy system we have” makes it impossible to win against strategic competitors, but he also acknowledged that divestment is tough to do politically.

“It was a frequent occurrence during my confirmation process to have a senator agree with me about the significance of the Chinese threat, and in the same breath to tell me that under no circumstances could the — take your pick — C-130s, A-10s, KC-10s, [or] MQ-9s in that senator’s state be retired, nor could any base in his or her state ever be closed or lose manpower that would cause impact to the local economy.”

Air Force photo by Wayne Clark