The Air Force is in the midst of a series of strategy meetings to figure out how it would function if the government shuts down, Secretary Michael Donley said Tuesday. Members of Congress have so far failed to reach a compromise either to approve a Fiscal 2011 spending bill or extend the current continuing resolution that expires on Friday. “The Department [of Defense] is using a template that was last used in 1995,” when the government last went through a shutdown in the midst of a budget battle, said Donley. USAF is struggling with “the definition of exempt and non-exempt personnel, how that would be applied, how that would be potentially implemented,” he explained. The discussions have thus far not yielded an action plan, he said. Military operations and military personnel supporting those operations comprise “one category of likely-to-be-exempt personnel, but there are variations on that,” said Donley. He said it’s not clear how the civilian or contractor workforce involved in operations would be affected.
NATO Scrambles Fighter in Newest Response to Russian Drones
Sept. 16, 2025
NATO scrambled its first fighter Sept. 13 under its new plan to bolster its defenses against Russian air incursions that was put into place after an array of Russian drones flew into Polish airspace last week, the officials from the alliance’s military command said.
