Maj. Gen. Roger Lempke, Nebraska’s adjutant general and president of the Adjutants General Association of the United States, has turned up the heat again in the ANG-USAF spat. Lempke’s latest move came courtesy of an op-ed in the USA Today, wherein he claims that recent Air Force decisions regarding missions, units, and bases could “permanently disable” the Air Guard. The disruption caused by unit movements, he avers, could lead 70 percent of Air Guardsmen to leave the force. No public reply from the Air Force yet. The service believes, however, that there won’t be any mass walkouts.
The emphasis on speed in the Pentagon’s newly unveiled slate of acquisition reforms may come with increased near-term cost increases, analysts say. But according to U.S. defense officials, the new weapons-buying construct provides the military with enough flexibility to prevent runaway budget overruns in major programs.
