USAF: No Big Force Structure Changes Amid Modernization, Pacific Shift

The U.S. Air Force is undergoing a modernization effort to overhaul its fighter, bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile fleets as the Pentagon is shifting further to the Pacific, but even with all that change the service’s top official says there should not be a big change in its force structure.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, speaking Nov. 1 at Aviation Week’s A&D Programs event in Washington, says, “Do not expect major changes in force structure. Expect major changes in equipment and modernization.”

The Air Force is “transforming for the future” with next-generation capabilities, but there likely won’t be changes to things such as the number of fighter squadrons across the service, Kendall says. The Air Force has global commitments and needs to stay a certain size to maintain this presence. At the same time, the service wants to divest much of its aging aircraft to free up resources. 

While it is “possible to imagine a larger force structure” over the next 5, 10 or 15 years, it is also likely it would remain stable as equipment gets swapped out, he says. 

Three years after its establishment, the U.S. Space Force is going through a transformation as space becomes more contested—a process Kendall likened to a merchant marine service transforming into a navy. This means shifting to a more resilient space architecture through steps such as the Space Development Agency’s proliferated layers of missile tracking and data transport satellites.

The Space Force also needs to further its offensive capability from space, to protect the military from adversary capabilities, Kendall says.

“The job of the Space Force is to provide a bunch of services that enable the joint force and to protect the joint force from the other guys’ space assets. And we need to do both of those to be successful,” Kendall says. “We can’t project power without those services and we can’t project power … if [our] assets are subject to attack based on space-based targeting. We’ve got to address those two problems.”