2021: Air Force’s Nuke Mod Efforts Service’s Biggest Challenge
"Not sure if this is a black swan, but I would not be surprised if the next administration kicks off an internal review of the services’ roles and responsibilities, with an eye toward reducing excessive redundancy in force structure and capabilities," Mark Gunzinger says .
By Theresa Hitchens on December 28, 2020 at 1:55 PM
WASHINGTON: Budget. Budget. Budget. It’s the first word out of the mouths of analysts, former DoD officials and retired brass when asked (in a totally unscientific poll) to opine on the three major issues facing the Air Force in 2021. The tightly entangled questions of how much money will be available, how service leaders want to spend it, and what Congress will allow them to not spend it on simply overshadow every policy and technical issue at hand.
At the top of the list of challenges stemming from the reality of a likely cut in the Air Force’s top line is how the service will fund the the impending modernization bow wave — in particular, the sweeping update of its nuclear forces.
“The Air Force has a lot of major acquisition programs in the pipeline that are critical to its future, and it is going to have to find a way to keep these programs on track and funded despite a flat or declining budget,†says Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “Depending on the budget trajectory, the Air Force may also need to delay or kill some lower priority modernization programs, and it would be better to do that deliberatively through a strategically informed process than to let Congress pick and choose the winners.â€
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/12/2021-air-forces-nuke-mod-effort-biggest-challenge/?_ga=2.6803250.1064926444.1609208518-1812469097.1608786086
