Air Force officials believe they have worked out a plan to cut the total force by 40,000 full-time equivalent positions by 2011—and it is “fairly front-loaded,” says Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, USAF’s manpower and personnel chief. That means the service will take the bulk of the cuts—some 20,000 positions—next year. Brady says that it’s a question of maintaining the “relative balance” of USAF’s three main funding accounts: base operations, equipment investment, and people. Of the three, people are “the most expensive thing we have,” he explains. The plan entails taking more cuts in fields with little forward presence than in those whose people are heavily engaged in the expeditionary force. Brady calls it “a fairly complicated puzzle.”
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.