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Schwartz outlines possible future changes

The Air Force’s top uniformed official believes big changes are on the way for the service in coming decades.

A review of Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz’s comments to Military Times newspapers and before congressional hearings show a need to decrease budgetary purchasing power, expand personnel costs, shift to modern warfare and transition to new fighters, bombers, tankers and other aircraft.

Here are some of the topics the Air Force will face in the coming decades, and Schwartz’s take on each of them:

A smaller force

The service will grow in some areas, such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, but shrink in others, such as fighters and airlift, because of modern warfare. Collaboration between the services means the Air Force will likely shrink in the future.

Schwartz’s take: “The bottom line is not about the Air Force as an individual institution. It is important to see this in a broader context, and I do believe in looking at this collectively in how this plays for joint capabilities more broadly. We probably will be a smaller Air Force when all is said and done. It’s likely that the other services will face similar pressures and will have to make choices.”

Ballooning long-term personnel costs

The Air Force’s drawdown is a response in part to the increasing personnel costs, including training, benefits and retirement perks.

Schwartz’s take: The service will have to come to terms with the costs. “Other industries in the country have had to do this, and we will as well. That is one of the reasons why the United States Air Force is not going to grow, even though we have a demand signal for manpower that exceeds our statutory ceiling of about 332,000 active-duty. The reason is because we cannot afford it. Or that we have to trade something that we think is very important with respect to our capabilities.”

A weaker budget

Schwartz told Defense News in May that the future holds budgets that won’t allow the Air Force to purchase as much as it does today.

Schwartz’s take: “That decreasing purchasing power and the reality of where investments are required. For example, our personnel costs for the department continue to increase, and there are good and valid reasons for that. But the reality is that that kind of scenario is going to force out content elsewhere in the portfolio.”

More automation

The manpower required to operate an unmanned aerial system is adding stress to the overall workload of the Air Force.

Schwartz’s take: The trend “cannot continue indefinitely. There is a place for automation here that reduces the manpower requirement, both to operate and to process the backend data stream,” he said. “Here’s a case where we have to use modern techniques. With basketball replays, the data comes to them — they don’t screen the thing. It’s done very smart. Similar techniques will apply to our business as well.”

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