A new Congressional Budget Office report analyzes the potential recruiting and retention factors affecting each of the services through 2011 of the Future Years Defense Program. For the Air Force, the CBO looks at the coming personnel reductions that will drop the service’s planned active duty end strength from 351,800 for 2006 to 316,500 in 2011. (The CBO data, developed earlier this year, also includes cuts USAF expected to make to the Air National Guard, but Guard officials have decided not to reduce personnel. The Air Force Reserve does plan some strength cuts.) According to CBO, the Air Force must tread carefully as it attempts to manipulate accessions and continuations to control end strength numbers. If the service maintains the continuation rates it used to restrict end strength in 2005, it would fall more than 11,000 below its desired end strength by 2010. Of course, it could offset a reduced continuation rate by increasing its accessions goals over the FYDP, but recruiting is never a sure thing.
The U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear development facilities saw the first use of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a weapon specifically designed for such a mission more than 20 years ago. The Air Force B-2s were the only platform with the stealth and carrying capacity needed to haul the huge…