Gen. Donald Hoffman, Air Force Materiel Command boss, warned that the Defense Department, like the nation, is facing a great challenge in maintaining its fiscal health that threatens national security. “We’re on an unsustainable path,” he said in his address this week at the 2011 Defense Acquisition University Acquisition Insight Conference in Dayton, Ohio. He added, “Americans need to make individual and collective sacrifices to live within our means. DOD needs to play and Air Force acquisition needs to play.” Hoffman called on acquisition professionals to be good fiscal stewards. “If significant efficiencies aren’t identified and wholly committed to, resources for modernization, readiness, and facilities will not be available,” he said. He noted that many of these efficiencies “will have to be found in the fastest growing element of our spending . . . the cost of personnel.” He spoke Tuesday. (Wright-Patterson release)
After years of describing to lawmakers and Pentagon leaders the nature of that threat and the key role spacepower plays in deterring conflict in the domain and enabling the rest of the joint force, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters during AFA’s Warfare Symposium here that the message appears to…