US Air Force preps for mega overhaul with an eye toward China

The US Air Force is putting the final touches on a major structural shakeup that would remake the force as part of the Pentagon’s push to keep up with China’s military buildup, Report informs via POLITICO .

Within the next few weeks, the service will announce it is consolidating some of its major three- and four-star commands, integrating fighter jets and bomber aircraft into single units, and beefing up its budget and planning shop, according to six people familiar with the plans.

The goal, the people said, is to streamline the Air Force’s lumbering bureaucracy and meet China head-on. The overhaul involves reorganizing how the service plans for, budgets and designs new aircraft, while likely kick-starting new uncrewed aircraft and fighter plane projects in an era when defense budgets are expected to increase slightly or stay relatively flat.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has been working on the plan — called “Reoptimizing for Great Power Competition” — since September. The people who spoke to POLITICO — a Space Force official, three congressional aides and two Air Force advisers — were granted anonymity to discuss plans not yet made public. All have been briefed on the project.

“It will be a really big deal,” said one of the advisers who is regularly briefed on Pentagon modernization plans familiar with the effort.

The Air Force is expected to announce its plans on Feb. 12 at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Colorado. Many of the particulars remain in flux as complicated basing issues are worked out and tensions between civilians and uniformed officers running some of the commands are addressed, according to the two advisers.

Kendall himself mentioned planning for a reorganization in September when he told the AFA’s annual conference that he was working on a “sweeping” review of Air Force readiness that would “reoptimize” the service to be prepared for war. He said at the time that the plan should be ready by January.

Two Air Force spokespeople acknowledged that changes are in the works, but declined to offer details. The shakeup is necessary due to “significant and dangerous shifts in the strategic environment,” leading the service to launch “a major effort to reoptimize the Department of the Air Force,” according to a statement provided by the officials.

Space Force Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, commander of Space Systems Command, previewed some of the changes coming during a Dec. 13 speech at a conference. The Air Force, he said, “is going to get rid of the major commands structure,” under Kendall’s plan.

“Think about how fundamental that is to the way we fight today and the way we’ve always thought about the Air Force,” he said. “And we’re going to step away from what we know as the majcom structure. That’s going to be a huge change.”

Within hours, Guetlein backtracked, saying no final decision had been made.

However, his broad outlines track with what the congressional staffers and Air Force advisers described to POLITICO, though what is being dubbed the “Reoptimization” plan will continue to be refined over the next several weeks.

Kendall’s plans would cut to the heart of how the Air Force has structured itself for decades in order to make the service leaner, while consolidating more analysis and planning at the top under a reporting structure that goes straight to the civilian secretary.

The idea is for the Air Force to beef up civilian planning and budget analysis that is normally done by the Pentagon staff. The change would better refine what the Air Force wants to buy and how it can afford it. Much of that work will be done by civilians, creating “some significant tension between the civilians and the blue suits” within the Air Force, according to one of the people familiar with the planning.

“It’s actually much more complicated than the creation of the Space Force,” the person added.

The Air Force’s operational structure is built on nine major commands run by three- and four-star generals, and organizes Air Force missions by either function or region. For example, Air Mobility Command oversees airlift and refueling, while Pacific Air Forces provide units for US Indo-Pacific Command.

Working versions of the plan call for some meshing of some of those responsibilities, although details are not finalized.

It will be the first time the service altered the major command structure since December 2019, when Air Force Space Command was redesignated as the interim headquarters for Space Force.