New Air Force Will Be Leaner
Gen. Merrill McPeak, Air Force chief of staff, said Thursday in Los Angeles that the service’s plan to shrink by a quarter over the next five years would fall most heavily on the procurement of new hardware.
“We are talking about a 20% to 25% drawdown, and it isn’t clear to me that it couldn’t go much deeper than that,†McPeak said in an interview. “In 1957, the Air Force was twice as big as it is today in terms of personnel. We are already small in historic terms, and we are going to get that much smaller. All of this augurs that we have to have a high-tech and high-productivity Air Force.â€
Nonetheless, the budget burden will fall most heavily on “investment†accounts for research and acquisition, he said. Although the service can still afford its three big-ticket programs--the B-2 bomber, C-17 cargo jet and F-22 jet fighter--it will have to increasingly consider trading off capability for lower cost, McPeak said.
“I would think as a percentage of the pie, the investment accounts will take a larger cut,†McPeak said. “I don’t anticipate a return to the Air Corps of the 1930s . . . but we are going to be small enough so we all know each other a lot better.â€
McPeak, along with much of the top Air Force leadership, is in Los Angeles this week for the annual Air Force Assn. national symposium.
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