2017 Forecast: Air Force Faces Intense Trump Scrutiny
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on January 06, 2017 at 11:18 AM
Air Force photo
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James visits ICBM crews at Minot Air Force Base.
ARLINGTON: The Air Force got blasted from Donald Trump’s bully pulpit before the President-Elect was even inaugurated. It looks like 2017 — the youngest service’s 70th year — will be full of presidential turbulence.
[We rolled out our crystal balls for our 2017 forecast. Click to read the whole series.]
Outgoing Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James put the best face on Trump’s intervention on Lockheed’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Boeing’s Air Force One replacement, which moved swiftly from social media to private meetings with the CEOs of both contractors at Mar-A-Lago. But her concerns were clear.
F-35A
“What all of that really signals to me is that the President-Elect is going to be focusing on the taxpayer dollar, on efficiencies,” James told the Air Force Association this morning during her last public appearance as Secretary. “I think that’s an important focus. I tried to make it my focus for three years” — ever since her confirmation — and the service tries to inculcate a culture of cost-effectiveness in “even the brand new A1Cs [Airmen First Class] that come into the Air Force.”
http://breakingdefense.com/2017/01/2017-forecast-air-force-faces-intense-trump-scrutiny/
