Air Force And Space Force On Right Vector—But Need More Resources To Meet Defense Strategy

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s first budget built entirely under his direction does a fine job of underwriting Air Force and Space Force capabilities. But the demands on the Air Force Department still far exceed the resources it is allocated. For the United States to succeed in deterring, and if necessary, winning the fights of the future, it will need an Air Force and Space Force equipped to execute the nation’s defense strategy. Today, it simply does not have the capacity to do so. Since the end of the Cold War, the size of the combat Air Force has been cut by more than half. If the Department of the Air Force’s plans are going to have a chance for success, its continued underfunding must be reversed.

In the past year, Mr. Kendall established seven operational imperatives: Space order of battle; operationally focused advanced battle management systems; moving target engagement; tactical air dominance; resilient basing; global strike; and readiness to deploy and fight. These are supplemented by three cross-cutting operational enablers: mobility, electronic warfare, and munitions. Together, these requirements prioritize the capabilities that the Air and Space Forces must develop pursue to deter or defat the threats posed by the likes of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Meanwhile, Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown Jr., and Chief of Space Operations General B. Chance “Salty” Saltzman, unveiled respectively, a new Air Force operating concept, and a new Space Force theory of success. Combined, these efforts accelerate the Department of the Air Force toward the goals necessary to meet the challenges of the future.

Gen. Saltzman said his “theory of success” will provide his Space Force “Guardians with shared purpose, and common understanding of our overall strategy.” It is based on three “lines of effort,” which he defined as fielding combat ready forces; amplifying the Guardian spirit; and partnering to win.

Gen. Brown’s future operating concept, “articulates how Airmen will successfully fight in the future and deliver airpower to deter and, if necessary, stop aggression by a peer adversary.” It is based on the Air Force’s five core functions: air superiority; global strike; rapid global mobility; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and command and control.

Collectively, these blueprints set the services on a path to develop the capabilities required for the future. Yet, the world today is already a dangerous place, and the existing Department of the Air Force is too small and too old to meet current missions, much less the additional challenges of the future. To be effective, military forces require two essentials to deter and defeat adversaries: superior capability and the capacity to win a fight over time. The lack of Air Force and Space Force capacity today should be a major concern to all Americans.

Mr. Kendall made news at the AFA Warfare Symposium last week, announcing an intent to field 1,000 collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs) in the not-too-distant future. These uninhabited aircraft would operate alongside inhabited aircraft to expand U.S. combat capacity and increase targeting complexity for opposing air forces. The 1,000 figure is notional at this stage.

It is based on the idea that two CCAs will eventually operate with each of 300 F-35A fighter jets and 200 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighters, a future jet the Air Force is developing now under the veil of secrecy. Since the necessary quantity of both these piloted fighters is far greater than those figures, it’s likely that 1,000 is more a minimum number than a cap.

Whatever the actual number, those new CCAs will need basing, hangars and repair facilities, airspace to train, air refueling for long-range missions, supply chains for maintenance, and much more. Mr. Kendall is putting out a marker to identify future requirements based on future capabilities—and those requirements will drive a need for additional resources.

Mr. Kendall is subtly laying a foundation for a future Air Force with the capabilities necessary to meet the growing threats of the future, not the past. He wants to ensure the capabilities are available for future Air Force leadership to make the decisions on appropriate production quantities when the time is right.

Mr. Kendall is willing to take risk in the near term to assure future leaders have these capability options in the future. “Emphasizing the current force over the force of the future is a road to operational failure,” Mr. Kendall said last week. This risk is evident in the Air Force’s proposed fiscal 2024 budget request, which calls for retiring some 300 aircraft from the current inventory while buying fewer than 100 new aircraft to replace them.

Balancing near-term risk against longer-term gain is not a choice, but a necessity after three decades of under-investment in U.S. airpower. Starved of resources, the Air Force has seen declining readiness—the ability of aircrews to maintain proficiency—simply because there are fewer aircraft available to fly. The Air Force is struggling to train enough—and retain enough—pilots, suffering a persistent shortage of nearly 2000 pilots, a problem that will not easily be corrected.

Here is the crux of the problem: The size and capabilities of the Air Force were significantly reduced over the past three decades by short-term budget choices, not long-term strategy. As a result, the Air Force today is the oldest and smallest in its history, and given its continued underfunding, it is on track to get even older and smaller in the future. Today’s national defense strategy requires an Air Force that is sized and equipped to deter China—a nation more than four-times as populous as ours—from risking a fight with the United States. Today’s Air Force simply does not have the capacity to do so.

Secretary Kendall, Gen. Brown, and Gen. Saltzman are doing the best they can under the constraints in which they must operate, but what’s really needed is to loosen the budget caps that are holding them back. Indeed, the fiscal 2024 Air Force budget proposal actually falls behind 2023 levels when accounting for inflation.

The Air Force is to be commended for programing a force in fiscal 2024 that will deliver capabilities needed for future fights. It must now make an equally effective case to build the capacity necessary to win its future fights. It must define and design an objective force—the Air Force the nation needs—and a force-sizing methodology that accurately and honestly states the quantities of people, planes, and spacecraft necessary to match the demands of the National Defense Strategy. That would help the Department of Defense, the Congress, and the American people understand the significant size of the current Air Force capacity shortfall, and if not funded to correct, the degree of risk that the nation is accepting.

Effective deterrence—and the ability to fight and win, if necessary—requires both new capabilities and increased Air Force and Space Force capacity.