Congress, irritated at not hearing what it wanted to hear, put together a commission that would tell it what it wanted to hear. Addressing that commission, Fogleman said “If I were a senior leader of the Air Force right now, first of all, I’d be a little embarrassed that Congress had to put you all together,” though perhaps what he meant was “If I were a senior leader of the Air Force right now, first of all, I’d be a little embarrassed that I told Congress the truth.”
Politico’s Leigh Munsil summarizes the general’s rap as follows:
Fogleman laid out some possible fixes to the ballooning personnel costs associated with a large active-duty force — modernize; make the active-duty force smaller; enable the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve to meet tighter readiness timelines; allow for “tiered” readiness; and make a place in the force structure for an operational Reserve.
But first, he said, the Air Force and the commission need accurate data on the cost of keeping and maintaining Reserve and Guard units, something he says has been lacking in the past. The timeline idea is key, Fogleman said, because if Reserve units can’t mobilize quickly that drives up the size of the active force, which he said happened in the 1990s.
*The fact that, in the past, these units couldn’t be mobilized quickly enough to actually be usable is an entirely separate laughing matter.
