The Air Force’s drawdown is to be halted at 330,000 people, versus an earlier plan to drop to 316,000, but the billets spared the budget axe appear to have been largely spoken for already, acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley suggested in remarks to AFA’s Air & Space Symposium in Washington Monday. An infusion of people will be needed in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, to meet the “insatiable demand” for their products, Donley said. Some will be pushed into the acquisition system to try to ease acquisition nightmares resulting from successive protests. Some of the saved slots will go into the emerging cyber operations field, and the rest will go to various “stressed career fields.” The reclaimed billets will give the Air Force “headspace to rebalance” the distribution of people in the service, Donley said.
Dick Cheney’s Legacy with the Air Force
Nov. 6, 2025
Dick Cheney, who died Nov. 3 at 84, is best remembered by most Americans as among the most powerful Vice Presidents in history, a consummate Washington insider who had previously served in the Nixon administration, was Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford, a Congressman for a decade, and Secretary…
