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Editorial

It was a startling, if not unexpected, admission.

Discussing the ongoing effort to cut the force by 40,000 airmen to pay for aircraft modernization, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne confessed: “It isn’t working.”

Despite the drawdown, the average age of aircraft is actually going up, he said. And what does that mean?

“It means you are going out of business,” he said. “It is simply a matter of time.”

Wynne’s remarks Sept. 19 at a jet modernization conference in Washington likely were not aimed at the audience, but at Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, defense budgeteers at the Office of Management and Budget and those on Capitol Hill.

When they took over, Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley believed cutting 6 percent to 7 percent of the total force structure was going to yield high dividends, which the Air Force could then use to recapitalize.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way. The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to grow, and unexpectedly high bills for fuel, health care, retirement funds, shared intelligence assets and other needs have eaten into the savings.

But the important question now is: What next?

It’s past time for Air Force and Pentagon officials and Congress to agree on a course of action that makes sense for the future of the Air Force and the future of this country.

Congressional restrictions on the retirement of old, expensive-to-maintain airplanes must be lifted.

Congress and defense and administration leaders need to provide more money.

And Air Force officials should scale back some of their expectations — if not by cutting the number of F-35s, then perhaps by sacrificing a next-generation bomber.