Document created 23 August 04
Air University Review, May-June
1970
Lieutenant General George S. Boylan, Jr.
A realistic assessment of conditions influencing our current and future programs and resources posture makes clear that Air Force management must face a severe test. I would be remiss if I were to understate the difficulty of the situation we face and the vital importance of the outcome.
We have a problem, and most certainly we will work out a solution. In simple terms, our problem is that of structuring current and future capability to perform increasingly complex mission responsibilities and doing this with decreasing resources. The optimum solution can come only from more effective management.
Most of us are inclined to think of management as something somebody else is responsible for. But let’s face it, management is not a mechanical abstraction functioning at some level beyond the influence or responsibility of the individual commander, officer, noncommissioned officer, airman, supervisor, and worker. On the contrary, effective management derives from the team. It is sustained by initiative and imagination, a shared sense of responsibility for achieving common objectives, and a mutual participation in the large and small aspects of an organization. We are management. We have the challenge. Where do we go from here?
Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird has focused on certain management fundamentals in articulating a revision of procedures in the management philosophy of the Department of Defense. We expect increased emphasis on decentralizing management authority to the operating level. Not only will such decentralization put the responsibility where the action is, but it can also free upper levels of management for greater concentration on policy matters.
Another element of Secretary Laird’s revised approach calls for a fiscally constrained budget rather than a requirements-based budget. Given broad strategic and fiscal guidance from the Secretary of Defense, we of the Air Force now have the responsibility for initiating and giving relative weight to our programs as opposed to largely reacting to detailed proposals and rationales developed by higher authority.
These changes are welcomed because we should (and I believe we do) know better than any other agency how to derive the best combination of Air Force forces within the bounds of governing fiscal and policy parameters. As we assume the privilege of such initiative, however, we also accept the serious obligation for evolving a corporately responsible program. In this context the planning/programming/budgeting interface within the Air Force becomes critical to our near-term and long-term future.
Substantial reductions in force elements as well as total resources are a virtual certainty. Addressing a Los Angeles audience this past January, Secretary Laird stated that “we are moving toward smaller and more efficient military forces.” In the same speech he said: “Fewer personnel and better management plus a stiff backbone produce budget reductions.” There can be no doubt that the Air Force is in the process of change and that much of the change will be necessitated directly by resource limitation.
Change is not new to the Air Force, but the magnitude of changes to come may be a completely new experience for us. As resource constraints become clearer, appropriate balance must be maintained among our program elements as the structure accommodates to adjustments. Equally important, we must make provision for future as well as present capabilities.
My principal task as Deputy Chief of Staff/Programs and Resources is to evolve and recommend a series of “smooth” program curves that, in the main, are stabilized over time. Near-term decisions must be considered within a longer-term context. In the Air Force, as in most organizations, the status quo is a powerful argument. But the question will be asked, “Can we accomplish the same result in a different way for less?” That question must be asked across the entire Air Force structure and directed to a myriad of functions from top to bottom.
As we accommodate to change, we must avoid potentially wasteful stop-start program management reactions to budget curtailment pressures. “Painless” expedients can be attractive for the present—and devastating for the future. For example, some might argue that we can live within a reduced FY 1971 budget by eliminating expenditures for activities that will not have a payoff during the current fiscal year: research and development, pilot training, construction starts, new aircraft development, real-property maintenance, and many similar items that are claimants for available resources. Future consequences of such expedient actions are predictable if not self-evident.
The Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff are as concerned, if not more so, about the Air Force of the future as they are about the Air Force of the present. From their viewpoint, there is an overriding need for efficient program continuity projected well into the future. Decisions will be progressively more difficult as the resource base (force and support) is reduced.
Many problems of major significance, for which there is no simple solution, must be resolved. With a few notable exceptions, our equipment continues to age, and modernization needs are becoming progressively urgent. Not only are we faced with a reduction in total budget dollars; the buying power of our budget has been diminished by an inflation factor somewhat in excess of 25 percent during the past ten years, suggesting that a 1970 aircraft procurement dollar will purchase roughly 75 percent as much airplane as did the 1960 dollar. Furthermore, the share of our annual budget devoted to overhead and support continues to grow at the expense of procurement, construction, and research and development. Such are the problems we face in our programming environment. They represent a complex management challenge.
Elsewhere in this edition of Air University Review, Lieutenant Colonel C. W. Lamb presents a novel concept for application of a life cycle costing technique in the area of Air Force facilities. This is an example of a management approach calculated to avoid actions today which unintentionally impose excessive demands for operations and maintenance funding in future budgets. Another technique, whereby Air Force activities can improve their internal management efficiency, is presented by Lieutenant Colonel William D. Bathurst in his discussion of the management consulting services available to commanders and managers through our management engineering teams.
The Air Force of the future will certainly be a trimmed-down version of what it is today. Marginal operations most certainly will be eliminated. Many organizational arrangements as we now know them will be reshaped, and their assigned personnel will be called upon to channel their talents into hard-core mission and productive support needs. With reference to support activities, the future Air Force must show a significant shift of resources from the support base into the operational force elements. This change alone will tax our ingenuity and programming skill.
Present and future Air Force management does indeed face a challenge. The manner in which we structure our programs and employ our resources is key. All Air Force members—officers, airmen, and civilians alike–will face this challenge and deal with it in a very real and very personal sense. Initiative, professionalism, teamwork, loyalty, and dedication will determine the extent of our success. Succeed we must, for in large measure the security of the nation will continue to depend on the readiness posture of the Air Force.
Hq United States Air Force
Lieutenant General George S. Boylan, JR., (B.S., University of North Carolina) is Deputy Chief of Staff, Programs and Resources, Hq USAF. After flying training in 1941, he served with reconnaissance, bombardment, and antisubmarine squadrons until 1943, when he became Operations Officer, later Commander, 329th Bombardment Squadron, 93d Bombardment Group, Eighth Air Force, England. Postwar assignments have included Assistant Director, Operations and Training, First Air Force, later Chief, National Guard Branch, ADC, Mitchel Field, New York; in Hq USAF as a planning officer, DCS/Operations, and as Chief, Plans and Policy Division, DCS/Materiel; as Commander, 1502d Air Transport Group, Hickam AFB, Hawaii; in Hq USAF as Chief, Unilateral Plans Division, and Deputy Director of Programs, DCS/Plans and Programs, and as Deputy Director of Resources, Aerospace Programs, DCS/ P&R; as Commander, U.S. Forces, Azores; as DCS/Plans, Hq Military Airlift Command, Scott AFB, Illinois; and again in Hq USAF since August 1968. General Boylan is a graduate of Command and General Staff College and Air War College.
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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