It looks like programs are going to be the main big bill-payer as the Air Force confronts a further $12 billion of belt-tightening over the next six fiscal years. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told defense reporters in Washington Tuesday morning that the service has done all that can be done in terms of reducing personnel and that the 2005 BRAC round will actually cost the Air Force rather than save it any money. “There’s a war on,” so readiness accounts can’t be raided, Wynne said. That leaves only programs as a cash cow.
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.
