Air Force to Cut 40,000 Troops

Our nation is at war! Our troops are stretched around the globe with the major concentration in the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility. Most readers of this column know that means Iraq and Afghanistan.

Could it be that the U.S. Air Force in a time of war is really going to gut its personnel strength by 40,000 men and women? Yes, it is true. For some time now, the Air Force leadership has realized that the annual Department of Defense budget simply does not provide the funds which the Air Force needs to man the force; fly, fight and win in the global war on terrorism; and to recapitalize an aging force. As with most businesses, personnel reductions are normally the quickest way to achieve economies. Even though it may not be best for the business.

I noted in an earlier column that the average age of the Air Force fleet is 24 years. While there are a handful of new fighters and about 200 new airlifters (defining "new" as within the last 15 years), there are also 50-year-old aerial refueling aircraft and long-range bombers. If your Air Force is to remain viable and able to provide air supremacy anywhere around the globe, they simply need to get advanced technology such as that resident in the world’s premier fighter, the F-22, and also in the multi-role F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. These programs are ongoing.

Yet, as advanced as these fighters are, they cannot reach their targets without air refueling unless we plan on fighting here in the U.S. Our aerial refueling tankers date to the 1950s. Think of that! Fifty-year-old technology and 50 years of operating around the world. Trust me, they have been used well beyond their predicted service life. They are especially difficult and expensive to repair and keep airborne. Some heroic efforts are witnessed every day on tanker flight lines around the world. Thankfully, your Air Force has some very bright and dedicated maintenance airmen doing some extraordinary things.

While the folks in the Pentagon and the folks on Capitol Hill squabble over how we move forward acquiring a new and expensive tanker fleet, the daily problems of keeping them fit to fly simply compound. And even after a decision on which aerospace company builds them and how many they will build, it will still be years before they come off the production line. We will urgently need those heroic airmen maintaining these relics for the years ahead.

Maybe we should have foregone the procurement holidays of the 1990s following the end of the Cold War. Maybe we should have kept on modernizing our Air Force aircraft fleet as a matter of routine. But we didn't. And now, in a time of war, with its huge financial burdens, we find it imperative to recapitalize the aging fleet -- and it is expensive.

So how do we pay for modernizing Air Force weapon systems? The plan now is to send people home (some involuntarily), restrict re-enlistments and slow the recruitment of new folks. While this does free up money for new aircraft, it also creates a bubble downstream. The young man or woman who does not enlist or re-enlist will create a leadership and experience vacuum in the years ahead.

The Air Force will reduce its overall strength by about 40,000 in the next few years, unless of course the American people, through their elected officials in Congress, see the wisdom of a larger defense budget.

Consider the effect of that 40,000 reduction. As I write this column, the Air Force has 35,000 men and women deployed around the world in support of the Global War on Terror. About 25,000 of those are engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. So, we have 35,000 deployed in support of the War on Terror, and we are going to reduce the size of the force by 40,000. Hmmm.

Over the next five years, the Army and the Marines combined will grow by 92,000 men and women. I fully support the need for this growth. But one might argue that, if the Air Force trains and fights jointly with our ground forces, then this growth of ground forces would call for an increase in airmen, not a reduction. We will need more airlift forces to get them to the fight, more recce and fighter support when they are engaged with the enemy, and a host of other Air Force missions in support of our ground forces.

Are these new aircraft and other weapons systems really necessary? Absolutely! Must we reduce the size of the Air Force by 40,000? Absolutely not! Those cuts in time of war are unconscionable to me. I understand the need for, and agree with, the U.S. Air Force leadership’s decision to recapitalize an aging fleet by reducing the force. That is the better option. High-quality airmen need high quality aircraft with state-of-the-art technology.

What I cannot accept is an administration and a Congress that does not provide an adequate budget for defense. As a percentage of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), we are funding the military at historically low levels. A small growth of about 0.3 percentage points of the GDP would be a great start.

Certainly our nation can afford a defense budget amounting to 4 percent of our GDP. We have in the past -- in both war and peace. A bump from the current 3.6 or 3.7 percent of GDP to 4 percent seems reasonable to me. As our Congress develops the defense budget for the coming fiscal year, I trust they will understand the undeniable need to fund our military at a level which recognizes the missions and demands which we, and they, place on our warriors. Unfortunately, we still have people in this country who go about their lives comfortably with little thought of war. Our men and women in uniform do not have that luxury. We need to provide them with the weapons systems to fly, fight and win.

Please remember that without national security, whatever the price, all of our other spending is for naught.