The Air Force portion of the Bush Administration’s 2008 budget—to be released today—compels an “unnecessary and unreasonable” decline in the Air Force into the future, a senior service official told reporters in a background briefing Friday. The Air Force plans to embark on a campaign to correct the situation, hoping to persuade both the Defense Department and Congress that it needs an extra $20 billion a year for the next 20 years. Without that additional funding, USAF will inexorably become “a smaller and less capable force,” the official said. (Read more about USAF budget woes below and In More Depth: “How to Break an Air Force.”)
A dozen and a half Air Force Reservists formally transferred to the Space Force on July 15, becoming the new service’s first 18 part-time Guardians. The move is the culmination of more than two and a half years of work to create a system unlike any other military branch.