At
a Senate Appropriations defense panel hearing last week, Gen. Craig McKinley, National Guard Bureau Chief, acknowledged that increasing budgetary pressures over the next five years will lead to a “budgetary crisis” in equipping the National Guard. In fact, he declared, “We may already be there with the Air National Guard.” McKinley, was responding to questioning by Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), co-chair of the National Guard Caucus, who himself called the Air Guard’s equipment situation “dire.” In Bond’s view, “If you call it the Air Guard, you ought to have aircraft.” A major concern is that most of ANG’s F-16s are Block 30 vintage, which, as McKinley noted, “are very capable today, but without a significant amount of modernization money, will become less relevant and potentially less safe to fly over a period of time.”
Three of four congressional committees with influence over defense policy have voted to change the official name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War—but final approval of the Pentagon rebrand is months away and not yet assured.