The Government Accountability Office in a new report has identified a key weakness in the Air Force plan to implement its new mission plan for the Air National Guard: There is no clear strategy to address challenges such as no room in schools to train Air Guardsmen in their new missions and a dearth of bridge missions for those units that have to wait for either new aircraft or training in a different role. And, then there is the matter of how to pay for it all. GAO believes the Air Force has underestimated the cost. There’s also some disagreement between GAO and the Air Force about whether the funds for replacement missions should be identified in BRAC dollars. The GAO believes they should be.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…