The Defense Department is facing intense budget pressure that makes increased joint and Total Force collaboration across the US military all the more important, said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. “We will have to work together, even more cohesively, across the board, from operating around the world, to protecting the homeland, to strategizing investments for our capabilities, both in terms of materiel and personnel,” Schwartz told attendees at the Reserve Officers Association’s national security symposium in Washington, D.C. Exacerbating this budget pressure is the fact that the Pentagon is operating under a continuing resolution since Congress has thus far not completed a defense spending bill for Fiscal 2011, he said in his remarks Jan. 30. The continuing resolution is more restrictive in nature. Schwartz said it “effectively cuts another $23 billion” from the defense budget. “We’ll do our best to utilize operations and maintenance accounts to compensate for the difference, but that means stretching programs and possibly affecting training and readiness, which really concerns me,” he said. (SAF/PA report by Capt. Chris Sukach)
The Air Force kicked off one of its biggest exercises this week with the latest edition of Bamboo Eagle, featuring combined virtual and live training scenarios focused on test the command-and-control “nervous system” leaders need to operate on a complex joint battlefield spread over vast distances.
