From March 1978 and through the next year, he was a student, undergraduate pilot training, at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona.

From August 1979 to January 1983, he became a T-37 Tweet instructor pilot, evaluation flight examiner and runway supervisory unit controller at Williams.

After that, he transferred to Torrejon Air Base, Spain, from September 1983 to January 1985, where he was the F-16 aircraft commander and instructor pilot for the 614th Tactical Fighter Squadron.

In August 2009, he began serving as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Requirements, Headquarters United States Air Force, Washington D.C.[9] On January 14, 2011, Breedlove started his term as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force.

[9][12] In July 2012 Breedlove left his position as Vice Chief of Staff to become commander of the United States Air Forces in Europe.

[15] In May 2015, he told the Atlantic Council that freedom is being challenged by "a revanchist Russia embarked on a reaching revision of what once were shared hopes for a stable and mutually beneficial partnership.

"[16] In February 2016, during his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, he said that "the U.S. military must rebuild in Europe to face a more aggressive Russia, which has chosen to be an adversary and poses a long-term existential threat to the United States".

[23] Speaking with a panel on the topic of the Ukraine border crisis at the Atlantic Council in December 2018, he outlined a range of measures which should be considered to counter Russian aggression such as financial targeting of certain Russian oligarchs, professionalization of Ukrainian military units, and providing to the Armed Forces of Ukraine shore-based cruise missiles and long-range precision artillery.

"[25] In June 2022 Breedlove appeared on a radio programme with Times of London and called for a muscular approach to the Putinian wheat crisis, which was rooted in blockade of the Port of Odesa by the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and chiefly affected Middle Eastern and North African countries.

[28] In August 2024 Breedlove was the chief signatory of a letter to President Biden in which the group decried "unintentionally seizing defeat from the jaws of victory".

They said that the US "was providing enough weaponry to ensure a stalemate but not sufficient to help Ukraine recapture territory seized by Russia," while they "argue the administration is inhibited by fear of triggering a Russian escalation.