What’s been designed here is a project that ensures a fossil fuel agenda, both in the literal and figurative sense.
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(if pass-through funding, defined as money in the Air Force budget that does not go to the Air Force, is removed from the equation) than the Army and Navy have received. This underfunding has forced the Air Force to cut its forces and forgo modernizing aging weapons systems that were never designed to operate in current threat environments and are structurally and mechanically exhausted. The result is an Air Force that is the oldest, smallest, and least ready in its history.
The decline in Air Force capacity and capability is occurring at the same time the security environment demands the very options that the Air Force uniquely provides. Combatant commanders routinely request more Air Force capabilities than the service has the capacity to provide. The Air Force today simply cannot accomplish all of the missions it is required to perform.
The Air Force has consistently stated on the official record that it is not sized to meet the mission demands placed on it by the various U.S. Combatant Commands. A 2018 study, “The Air Force We Need,”*° showed a 24 percent deficit in Air Force capacity to meet the needs of the National Defense Strategy. Those conclusions remain valid and are more pronounced today because of subsequent aircraft retirements. The demand is also higher because of world events. To understand these trends, one needs only to consider that the Air Force’s future five-year budget plan retires 1,463 aircraft while buying just 467. This makes for a reduction of 996 aircraft by 2027. The net result is a force that is smaller, older, and less ready at a time when demand is burgeoning.
Needed Reforms
• Increase spending and budget accuracy in line with a threat-based strategy. Returning the U.S. military to a force that can achieve deterrence or win in a fight if necessary requires returning to a threat-based defense strategy. Real budget growth combined with a more equitable distribution of resources across the armed services is the only realistic way to create a modernized Air Force with the capacity to meet the needs of the National Defense Strategy. Additionally, as noted above, pass-through funding causes numbers cited in current DOD budget documents to be higher than the dollar amounts actually received by the Air Force.
1. Adopt atwo-war force defense strategy with scenarios for each service that will allow the Air Force to attain the resources it requires by developing a force-sizing construct that reflects what is required to accomplish strategic objectives.
2. Eliminate pass-through funding, which has grown to more than
$40 billion per year and has caused the Air Force to be chronically underfunded for decades.