The Air Force future should be about more than justifying budget shares of a more constrained defense budget:
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III will soon release a new service strategy paper designed to pave the way for the next ten years and prepare for continued budget uncertainties, service officials explained.
The paper addresses the central predicament now facing all the services; namely planning programs, advancing a budget and determining developmental priorities with the lingering prospect of a $500 billion budget cut over the next decade.
Top Air Force Acquisition Executive William LaPlante has worked closely with Welsh to develop what the service is calling “Air Force 2023.” He said in an interview with Military.com that the Air Force chief is focused on what decisions the service can make in the near term to protect future programs and readiness.
The Air Force has set the Long Range Strike Bomber, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and KC-46 Tanker Aircraft as its top modernization priorities. Service officials are drafting contingency plans to protect these programs in the next major planning cycle, the 2015 to 2019 Program Objective Memorandum (POM) five year budget plan.
I'd rather see Air Force 2023 have a guide of missions the Air Force can perform.
My dispute with the Air Force has been their fight with the Army over its embrace of armed drones for close air support, which has reduced the need for Air Force support.
While the Army's drones and helicopters can't replicate their success in counter-insurgency during high intensity conventional combat, if the Army can use higher performance UAVs that are being developed to supplement smart shells and rockets from Army fires units, why shouldn't the Air Force gradually move away from the battlefield support mission?
Along with nuclear missions, long-range strike and transport, air superiority, and deep strike missions into defended locations, why shouldn't the Air Force truly aim high and seek missions in space? Along with cyber-warfare, space itself would lend itself to Air Force assets that can't be replicated by ground forces directly (and more effectively integrating) controlling air assets to support ground forces directly in combat.
Their shopping list of F-35s, new refueling planes, and a new long-range bomber are certainly in the mix, and as the largest programs will obviously be highlighted.
But I hope this strategy paper addresses the assets needed to control space, which is the new high ground we need to control to preserve our communications, recon, and GPS-enabled precision firepower, while denying the same to an enemy.
