Stars and Stripes carries a report that the Air Force intends to rethink its ongoing cut of some 40,000 personnel, referring to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne’s Sept. 19 remarks before a Washington think tank. The intent of Wynne’s comments about the personnel cut were not that the service plans to halt the 40,000-person slice, but that it alone is insufficient to support the service’s recapitalization efforts. At this week’s AFA Air & Space Conference, Wynne left no doubt that the Air Force intended to continue with the cuts, drawing down to an end strength of 316,000 in 2009. That said, there is a possibility that the service would add back some 2,000 airmen—but they probably would be the highly specialized battlefield airmen not the rank and file included in the ongoing cuts—to accommodate the growth in ground forces. Meanwhile, the service plans to ask Congress for more money to continue its vital recapitalization of systems.
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.