The Air Force continues developing and procuring next-generation aircraft to meet the demands of great power conflict. While fielding new aircraft has slowed the increase in fleet age, the Air Force is not buying enough new aircraft to sustain current force levels.
Despite criticism, the creation of the Space Force as an independent service was a timely, strategically-important decision. It would be a bad idea to roll it back into the Air Force.
The Air Force continues to develop and procure next-generation aircraft to meet the demands of great power conflict. While fielding new aircraft has arrested the fleet’s increasing age, the Air Force is not buying enough new aircraft to sustain its force structure.
Small fleets of aircraft are eroding the purchasing power of the Air Force and limiting its ability to grow or even sustain the size of its current force.
The overall theme of this year’s military forces report is the struggle to align forces and strategy, unrelenting operational demands, and legacy programs whose smooth operations and strong constituencies inhibit rapid change.
The 2019 Artificial Intelligence Strategy recognizes that leveraging AI means investing in the AI ecosystem: the people, computing infrastructure, data, and policies necessary to support any organization’s deployment of AI technology.
Like its three predecessors, the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review reaffirmed the need for the nuclear triad of bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now comes the hard part.
There is no question that Pentagon’s 2020 budget takes significant steps to move the department from a focus on regional conflicts and counter-insurgency to a focus on great power conflicts. But the four services clearly are struggling with this balance.
Space capabilities are already an indispensable component of U.S. military power, and the threats posed to U.S. space systems by China, Russia, and others are growing by the day. A Space Force is needed to consolidate authority and responsibility for national security space in a single chain of command; to build a robust cadre of space professionals who can develop space-centric strategy and doctrine; and to avoid the conflicts of interest inherent in the other Services that have short-changed space programs for decades.