Document created: 1 December 04
Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2004

When conducting Air Force strategic planning, we pay par-ticular attention to key historical trends. The powerful forces driving these trends may prove difficult to change or deflect, so analyzing the direction in which these vectors are moving may offer a window into the Air Force’s future. This short analysis examines historical tendencies in Air Force resource allocation to mission/capability areas, the implications they hold for future investment and policy decisions, and policies the Air Force might pursue to increase future US joint-force capabilities more efficiently and effectively.

In an unprecedented parsing of Air Force spending patterns from 1962 to 2009 (the end of our current detailed-planning horizon), the Air Force’s Strategic Planning Directorate categorized nearly 900 individual programs into broader, more telling mission and functional areas.¹ The result is a single, simple chart (fig. 1) that depicts the net result of thousands of decisions made at the highest levels of the Air Force and government over a tumultuous half century. This stack of bands tells the epic story of dramatic, strategic shifts: the end of the New Look and the beginning of flexible response, the Vietnam conflict, the Reagan buildup in the 1980s, the demise of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, the first Gulf War, the Serbian conflict of 1999, the terrorist attacks in 2001, and the recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. We believe that the chart provides revealing insights into the changing nature of Air Force resource-allocation patterns over this turbulent period and the difficult strategic-investment decisions that lie ahead.

To create this relational, historical look, we organized the data into three broad capability areas:

1. Foundations (activities underpinning the overall organization but not attributable to a specific capability or system, such as headquarters, training, health care, general research and development, security, base-operating support, and environmental and quality-of-life programs)

2. Joint-support enablers (capabilities used by all the services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, such as airlift; refueling; and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance [C⁴ISR])

3. Joint combat forces (such as fighters, bombers, special operations, ballistic missiles, and munitions)

To highlight broad trends, we aggregated by decade and displayed the results as a function of percentage of the total Air Force budget.

Looking at the broad capability areas—foundations, joint-support enablers, and joint combat forces—we found several interesting features. For example, spending on foundations has declined from about 36 percent of the total budget in the 1960s to about 30 percent in the current decade. So the constant drives for efficiency that characterize Air Force operations have had substantial payoff. The two remaining categories—joint-support enablers and joint combat forces—provide a striking illustration of the Air Force’s growing investment in joint-support forces, such as airlift, refueling, and air-breathing/space-based C⁴ISR. These accounts grew from 33 percent to 45 percent of the Air Force budget.

The growth in these mission areas has come at the expense of the "foundations" and what we traditionally think of when we consider airpower: combat forces. Current, conventional combat forces are far more lethal, thanks to advanced aircraft, precision weapons, and modern C⁴ISR, but spending on these forces has declined from 31 percent of the total Air Force budget in the 1960s to about 25 percent in this decade. At the same time, our combat-force capability has increased by several orders of magnitude.

The layperson (or even an informed observer) who contemplates the future of the Air Force tends to look at force levels of combat aircraft, such as the number of fighter wings or the inventory of such aircraft. In reality, this capability area represents only a small percentage of the Air Force budget. Taken to its logical extreme, for example, cutting all combat aircraft, munitions, and ballistic missiles in the Air Force would reduce its total budget by about only one-fourth—and would undermine US joint-combat capabilities. (For example, inability to control the air would greatly increase risks to any future joint operation.)

Looking out several decades, we see that these trends hint at the issues likely to challenge future decision- makers. We will continue to strive to increase peacetime operating efficiency in the foundations, but the data indicates that the "low-hanging fruit" has already been plucked. Gaining additional increases in efficiency will undoubtedly become more difficult.

On average, Air Force resource allocation to the joint-support area has grown by 0.26 percent per year.² If this trend continues, in another 20 years spending on this area would consume more than half of the Air Force budget—a likely prospect, given future modernization needs in joint support. Specifically, airlift is critical to the rapid deployment and supply of US forces around the world; the ongoing C-17 and C-130J programs show little indication of a decline in spending for some time to come. Similarly, tankers are essential to deployment and combat operations of all the services. The aging condition of the KC-135 fleet means that the currently planned KC-767 lease or buy is likely only a first step in tanker-force recapitalization that will require sustained spending in this area.

Air C⁴ISR comprises such air-breathing assets as RC-135s, E-8 ground-surveillance platforms, E-3 airborne warning and control systems, U-2s, the Global Hawk and Predator unmanned aircraft, and the E-10 multimission command and control system. Space C⁴ISR includes satellite constellations for weather, missile warning, global positioning, communications, various spaceborne sensors (such as the proposed space-based radar), and the launch systems to put these craft into orbit. Ground, naval, and air forces all require these capabilities to transform and conduct effective operations. But developing and fielding C⁴ISR systems will place additional pressures on other elements of the Air Force.

Our combat forces face similar pressures. We will need to replace (or substantially refurbish) our intercontinental ballistic missiles, most of them procured in the 1960s, within 20 years or so. The bomber force is showing its age, even as demand for long-range strike grows—and development of a new strike system would demand a substantial increase in resources. The legacy fighter force is aging out fairly rapidly due to the procurement "holiday" in the 1990s and heavy usage in forward-presence and combat operations since the Gulf Wars. As the F/A-22 and F-35 enter service and planners begin to exploit the exciting new opportunities offered by unmanned combat aircraft, spending in this area will also likely grow.

Overall, we are seeing modernization requirements for almost all capability elements over the next several decades. This situation will pose many problems for Air Force decision makers in the coming years—difficulties that the anticipated fiscal environment will only exacerbate. For instance, by 2010 or so, retirement of the first wave of baby boomers will drive up entitlement spending substantially. From 2010 to 2030, an estimated 30 million Americans will pass the age of 65 but only 10 million new workers will enter the workforce. As the largest discretionary account, defense spending could come under intense pressure to meet entitlement demands.

How should the Air Force move ahead? One obvious place to start is seeking additional efficiencies in the foundations area. The upcoming efforts of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission will play a key role as we adjust our basing infrastructure to match forces and strategy. As noted previously, however, we will probably encounter limitations on the potential to achieve further dramatic reductions in infrastructure.

Determining the right balance of capabilities—both old and new—lies at the core of the Air Force’s capabilities-based planning process, which utilizes concepts of operations to determine investment priorities. Broadly speaking, our strategy involves transformation—using concepts of operations, divestiture, reorganization, exploitation of technology, and fully resourced modernization. By divesting selected legacy systems that are relatively inefficient and resource-intensive, and then implementing innovative organizational constructs (such as more tightly integrating active, Guard, and Reserve units), we can use technology to upgrade some of these systems to do new things. We can also fully resource the new capabilities with crews, maintenance personnel, spares, and other support to take full advantage of our investment.

We are certainly using legacy systems in ways rarely considered before. For example, combining technology such as the global positioning system and the Joint Direct Attack Munition with the expert skill of Airmen on the ground, B-1s and B-52s successfully neutralized and destroyed enemy forces in Afghanistan and Iraq—even those close to friendly forces. The new systems coming online—the C-17, F/A-22, F-35, KC-767, E-10A, Global Hawk, Predator, air operations center, transformational communications, and others—will offer much higher reliability, availability, and capability than current legacy elements. We must meet the challenge of taking full advantage of these new capabilities.

The C-17A offers a useful example. In the 1990s, we decided to procure 120 of these aircraft to replace our 265 C-141s; at the time, many people expressed concerns regarding the ability of a smaller, more capable fleet to substitute for a larger, less capable force. Today, however, no one would want to trade the C-17s for the C-141s. The new aircraft features much higher availability rates, requires a much smaller number of backup aircraft, and offers substantially lower operating costs overall to transport the same amount of cargo. To exploit the capabilities of the new system, the Air Force increased the crew ratio for the C-17 to 5.0 (compared to the C-141’s ratio of 3.6) and enhanced a host of support functions that enable the new system to provide much greater capability than did the C-141s.³ The program proved so successful in changing how we do mobility that, to meet increased requirements, we now plan to purchase 180 C-17s—perhaps even more.

Such an approach could apply equally to combat and joint-support forces. For example, increasing the crew ratios for fighter, airlift, tanker, and Joint Strike Fighter aircraft would maximize operational potential. Fully supporting air operations centers with sufficient numbers of trained personnel and expanding the "reachback" capabilities to evaluate data collected by unmanned aircraft and orbiting satellites would also dramatically increase joint capabilities. Maximizing these future capabilities will require increased integration of our active, Guard, and Reserve components to ensure that we have the right people in the right place at the right time.

Balancing legacy-force upgrades/reductions with modernization will be difficult. But the direction of the trends outlined here indicates that this is the best available option in the face of emerging resource constraints. If we hold on to the whole range of legacy systems, increasing operations/support costs will consume our scarce modernization funding, and decreasing availability will limit our ability to support US national security. We need to transform. Specifi-cally, we must utilize capabilities-based planning to establish priorities, upgrade some legacy systems to do new things, divest other "legacy" elements to free up resources, modernize, and then fully resource new capabilities by using organizational changes to active and Reserve units to maximize their potential. Such an approach will increase the capability of the Air Force’s joint-combat and support forces—and the capability of the joint force as a whole.

1. Our thanks to John P. Wykle of Science Applications International Corporation and to Lt Col Peter Bonanno, Lt Col Micah Killion, and Maj Leanne Henry of the Air Force’s Long-Range Plans Directorate (XPXP).

2. In the 47 years considered, the percent of the Air Force budget spent on joint support has grown from 33 to 45. Dividing the difference (12 percent) by 47 yields an average of 0.255 percent per year.

3. Even if we increased the C-141 crew ratio, the older aircraft’s limited availability and decreasing reliability prohibit us from taking a similar approach.

Lt Gen Duncan J. McNabb (USAFA; MS, University of Southern California) is the director for Logistics (J-4), the Joint Staff, Washington, DC. He previously served as deputy chief of staff for Plans and Programs, Headquarters US Air Force, Washington, DC. He has held command and staff positions at squadron, wing, major command, and Department of Defense levels. During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, General McNabb commanded the 41st Military Airlift Squadron, recognized as Military Airlift Command’s Airlift Squadron of the Year in 1990. The general commanded the 89th Operations Group, overseeing the air transportation of our nation’s leaders, including the president, vice president, secretary of state, and secretary of defense; the 62nd Airlift Wing, which earned the Riverside Trophy in 1996 as Fifteenth Air Force’s outstanding wing; and the Tanker Airlift Control Center, where he planned, scheduled, and directed a fleet of more than 1,400 aircraft in support of combat delivery and strategic airlift, air refueling, and aeromedical operations around the world. General McNabb is a graduate of Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and Air War College.

Dr. Christopher J. Bowie (BA, University of Minnesota; PhD, Oxford University), a member of the Senior Executive Service, is deputy director of Air Force Strategic Planning, Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs, Headquarters US Air Force, Washington, DC. Previously, he served at Northrop Grumman Corporation as senior analyst with the Analysis Center; manager of Strategic Planning, Integrated Systems Sector; and manager of Strategic Studies, B-2 Division. He was affiliated with the RAND Corporation as both a senior staff member and an associate program director. He also served as an issues and policy analyst with the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. Dr. Bowie is the author of The New Calculus (RAND, 1993), which examines airpower’s changing role in US national security strategy, and Trends in the Global Balance of Airpower (RAND, 1995), which analyzes historical and projected trends in the world’s air and missile forces.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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