Experts weigh in on future AF challenges - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Experts weigh in on future AF challenges

The Air Force has undergone significant changes in the past two decades in terms of technology and potential threats.

Today’s Air Force is adapting 21st-century asymmetric warfare, with a growing emphasis on drone aircraft and cybersecurity. Its fleet of F-15s and F-16s is shrinking, and its number of F-22s will be much smaller than originally anticipated. Instead, the F-35 is expected to fill that role.

How will the Air Force evolve in the next 20 years, and what kind of equipment will be used? What are some of the biggest challenges looming?

Air Force Times asked experts from government, think tanks and academia to provide their predictions. Here are some of there answers:

Austin Long

Assistant professor of international and public affairs, Columbia University

The last major transition in Air Force leadership took place in the aftermath of years of counterinsurgency in South Vietnam, when the fighter community began to take over from the nuclear-focused bomber community. It seems likely that a similar transition will begin in the aftermath of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The next two decades will see an increase in the importance of the Air Force special operations, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance communities, the latter including both manned and unmanned platforms. Indeed, the selection of General [Norton] Schwartz, a pilot with special operations experience but without a fighter or bomber background, as chief of staff suggests that this transition may already be underway.

These communities will be of critical importance for key missions in the likely strategic environment in 2030, including countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and counterterrorism. The Air Force role in these missions, already prominent, will increase in importance as the large-scale commitment of ground forces for these missions will be unlikely in the period 2010-2030. This will mean more drones and probably more combat controllers, along with modernized fixed-wing gunships.

At the same time, the nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile force will likely contract substantially, if not disappear altogether, although it will likely be replaced to some degree by conventional ICBMs or other weapons for prompt global strike. The 2030 Air Force will, despite these changes, remain dedicated to the strategic application of airpower in the national interest.

Steve Hagel

Military defense analyst, Air Force Research Institute, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

Trends are interesting and sometimes instructive.

Personnel, equipment and infrastructure over the last 20 years have decreased dramatically, while expenditures for have grown by 52 percent, from $95 billion to $145 billion. The 1989 Air Force enjoyed approximately 1 million members, 570,900 of them on active duty, at 102 major CONUS installations and 38 major foreign locations. By 2009, the total slipped to approximately 724,500 members, with 331,700 on active duty. Those members operated from 72 major U.S. bases and 12 major foreign locations. Platforms decreased from 9,300 aircraft and 1,000 ICBMs to 5,500 aircraft and 450 ICBMs.

Examining the trends since 1995 after personnel, aircraft and installation numbers had greatly declined, one could extrapolate (with understandable risk) that the 2030 force will operate on a $216 billion budget and host 536,000 members, with 245,000 on active duty at 64 major CONUS and 10 overseas locations. Driven by budget, strategy and technology, multi-role, smaller, faster, automated and “unmanned” trends will continue. The majority of the 4,000 multi-role systems will employ improved sensors; combat platforms will employ stand-off munitions or directed-energy weapons, increasing their strike distance and capability; and remotely piloted systems, some semi-autonomous, [will] supplant manned aircraft.

Trends indicate fiscal reality will drive the 2030 aerospace force of ever-fewer personnel, equipment and installations. As in years past, a strategy incorporating innovative technologies must then provide the edge for air and space global power projection. Of course, anticipating a 20-year future solely on trends is risky; one emerging existential threat could alter the trend and become part of it.

P.W. Singer

Director, 21st Century Defense Initiative, Brookings Institution

On Oct. 9, 1903, The New York Times predicted that “The flying machine which might really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one to ten million years.” That same day, two brothers who owned a bicycle shop in Ohio started assembling the very first airplane, which would take flight just a few weeks later. It is stories like that which should give pause to anyone trying to predict something as distant as what the Air Force of 2030 will look like. Perhaps the best way, then, is to focus on the trends that might shape change and what we can guess will remain the same.

Technology will certainly be a key driver for how the Air Force might change, with perhaps the most important being the continued expansion of unmanned systems in terms of their roles and capabilities. With robotics and [artificial intelligence], we are only at the World War I stage, if airplanes are a parallel. Indeed, just as the airplane started out being used just for observation ... and soon began to be used for everything from bombing to mail delivery, we are seeing a similar expansion with unmanned systems. Technology will also shape the domains in which battle will take place, with zones like cyber and outer space being where we are increasingly placing nodes of value, which, in turn, makes these domains more likely zones of conflict in the future. We should also expect the global pace of urbanization to continue (over the next two decades, there will be as many as 30 more mega-cities of 10 million-plus residents, often living in squalor), which will shift the likely locales of battle (something to think about as we contort our force to focus more and more on engaging with village elders in rural Afghanistan).

But technology won’t end our own central place in war. The specifics of the roles may be altered (just as we no longer have navigators or tail gunners) and the demographics of those who serve will certainly shift (both to reflect a changing America and maybe even shifting needs; does a cyber warrior need a crew cut and the ability to do 50 sit-ups?). But war will remain a human affair fought over human needs, desires and flaws. And for that reason, we can be certain of one thing — that the America of 2030 will still need the men and women of a strong and powerful Air Force to ensure her security.

Related reading

* Schwartz outlines possible future changes