Air Force May Be About to Make Another Big Force Structure Mistake

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Air Force May Be About to Make Another Big Force Structure Mistake
Dec. 3, 2019 | By John A. Tirpak

Possible big cuts in force structure—which Air Force leaders have hinted may be coming in the next budget to pay for connectivity improvements—would be a mistake, repeating a pattern that has gotten the service into a capacity hole it can’t afford to be in, two analysts argue in a new paper by AFA’s Mitchell Institute.

“How the Air Force got to where it is”—too small to carry out the missions assigned to it—is a result of the service believing at key points in the last 25 years that it could reduce force structure and use the savings to pay for modernization, Mark Gunzinger, Mitchell director of future aerospace concepts and capability assessments, said at a paper roll-out at AFA headquarters in Arlington, Va. The paper is titled, “Moving Toward the Air Force We Need? Assessing Air Force Budget Trends.”

https://www.airforcemag.com/Air-Force-May-Be-About-to-Make-Another-Big-Force-Structure-Mistake/