Posturing plan to produce more capable Air Force

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  • By Master Sgt. Scott Elliott
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  The major worldwide troop movement unveiled Aug. 16 by the president will result in a service that is better able to meet the needs of warfighting commanders, Air Force planning officials at the Pentagon said.

While most of the 70,000 servicemembers who return from overseas to the United States will be Soldiers, the Air Force has played a major role in the integrated global presence and basing strategy, said Lt. Col. Keith Cunningham, former deputy chief of the Air Force strategy and integration division.

“The Air Force fully supports the secretary of defense and combatant commanders’ requirements,” Colonel Cunningham said. “This basing strategy will strengthen the Air Force’s ability to respond rapidly with agility, precision and lethality.”

The key is improving capabilities, not preoccupation with troop strength, the colonel said.

“We used to measure capability in sheer numbers of troops,” he said. “We (now) measure it in a lot of different ways. We’re very capability-focused. We probably have more capability in some areas of the world that we ever had, but we have less troops there.”

Major Air Force installations in Germany would be untouched by the reduction plans, said Gen. Charles F. Wald, deputy commander of U.S. European Command.

The Air Force is not moving forces as dramatically as the Army is because it already has, Colonel Cunningham said. The Air Force’s major transformation began in the early 1990s, shortly after Operation Desert Storm, when the service relocated thousands of Airmen and several weapon systems.

“The president said (the military) is more responsive (if based) at home,” the colonel said. “To do that, we need to invest more in the ability to get our forces to where we want them -- through the mobility system, to forward-operating sites and into cooperative security locations.”

While the plan is specifically designed to increase capability and flexibility, Colonel Cunningham said individual servicemembers would see quality-of-life improvements as well.

“Military members can expect more time between deployments and more notice of when they will deploy,” he said. “That shift will give them better predictability and quality of life. That’s how this will affect the Airman on the street.”

The entire program may take more than 10 years to complete, Colonel Cunningham said.

“It’s very complicated, in that there are moving parts all over the world,” he said. “Some, with higher priority, will happen soon. Others will be phased over time.”

Another complicating piece of the puzzle is where to put all of these homebound servicemembers.

There are base realignment and closure implications, Colonel Cunningham said.

“We have all these troops coming back to the United States, but where are they going to go?” he asked.

The colonel said BRAC and basing strategy “are two sides of a coin,” as a senior defense official said in a press briefing after the president’s announcement.

“This new plan is a good thing,” Colonel Cunningham said. “We’re supporting the combatant commanders and posturing our forces to better meet the challenges of the future.”