Why Readiness Matters

The President Is Right – He Paid to Rebuild the World’s Greatest Military – If Only the Services Used the Money to Build It.

The United States Air Force dominate execution has sent much more than shock waves into Iran during Operation Epic Fury. It has been instrumental in taking out Iran’s leadership, destroying every long-range radar and radar-controlled surface-to-air missile system, crushing its air force, and burying the product of its nuclear weapons program under tons of rubble

Yet as good as our Air Force has been, that performance masks readiness and capacity challenges currently plaguing the service – challenges that would make dominating a fight against a peer competitor problematic, particularly an extended campaign.

The truth is, the service is a shadow of its former self in both of those areas and President Trump needs to both fund and direct the Air Force to significantly grow in size and re-hone readiness levels before we find ourselves at odds with a peer competitor.

The number of fighter, bomber and logistical support sorties flown by the Air Force in this conflict dwarf all other services combined. The resounding success of those missions—with tens of thousands of targets struck—says a great deal about USAF’s ability to dominate a sophisticated, if second-rate military power.

Unfortunately, the threat landscape facing the United States continues to grow and includes not just the likes of Iran, but power players like China, Russia, a nuclear armed North Korea, and non-state actors like the Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. The challenges are arguably greater than they were at any point since the start of World War II.

Readiness began to suffer with the downsizing at the end of the Cold War

At the end of the Cold War, the United States stood as the sole superpower. The Soviet Union’s collapse enabled deep cuts in military spending, which were initially well thought out. Then-Secretary of the Air Force Don Rice penned a white paper titled “Global Reach, Global Power” that guided the service for much of the next decade. It framed a responsible reduction in the size and overseas footprint of the Air Force, trading quantity for quality in a smaller post-Cold War force that would preserve readiness, modernization, and rapid global force projection.

The key was that, despite the downsizing, Air Force bombers would be able to put ordnance on targets within hours, and fighters would still be capable of deploying and fighting anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. These were givens: In 1990, eight out of every ten aircraft in Secretary Rice’s fighter and bomber fleets were ready for combat. Aircrew readiness was at an all-time high. Fighter pilots flew three to four sorties and bomber crews averaged at least one 4-to-8-hour sortie per week. Spare parts were plentiful, and the military-industrial complex that built our combat aircraft and produced those parts was robust and highly competent.

The feeling of dominance that permeated the Air Force in 1990, paired with high readiness levels and exceptionally well-prepared combat aircrews—made the service ready for any challenge. Secretary Rice’s vision responsibly balanced political necessities with the need to sustain a dominant edge.

Further decline

Much has changed in the three-and-a-half decades since. The fighter fleet was relatively new in 1990; today, those planes are old and, having failed to replace planes at a sustainable rate, we are left with less than half as many fighters as we had then. The bomber force is now one-third its former size, and the B-2 fleet, the nation’s newest bombers, are already 30 years old. Older aircraft demand far more maintenance hours and spare parts per flight hour – just six out of every ten jets are now ready to fight. Yet the service has chronically underfunded maintenance, both personnel and spare parts, for a decade, resulting in abysmal readiness levels across the combat aircraft inventory.

The pandemic accelerated the decline. Fighter pilots now average just 1-2 sorties a week, while bomber crews manage only one or two sorties a month. Imagine an NFL team that practiced only two days a week facing a franchise that trained every day—the losses would be as catastrophic as they would be predictable. Because the Air Force is almost always the lead element in joint combat operations, the national implications of it being dominated on the battlefield would be devastating.

That same lethargy has infected the military’s industrial base, which even now, five years later, still cites the pandemic supply chain disruptions for its chronic delays and cost overruns.

Trump paid for readiness, but the services squandered the cash

Recent statements the President regarding how he rebuilt the military during his first administration may seem blind to those challenges but make no mistake about it, he has every right believe his own rhetoric. During his first term in office, Trump answered the Air Force’s call to grow its number of squadrons by 25 percent by investing billions to increase its combat capacity. Trump increased the Air Force’s budget by some $97 billion over those four years and, through then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis, he directed the service to significantly improve readiness.

Yet through all that time, despite a 35 percent increase in the Department’s top line, the Air Force failed to gain any semblance of the SECDEF ordered readiness levels. And procurement funding, the account the service uses to acquire new aircraft, decreased by almost half a billion dollars a year—before inflation.

The Biden administration only exacerbated those problems.

There’s no doubt that American Airmen performed in exemplary fashion in Operation Epic Fury. But that impressive performance has masked the atrophied state of today’s Air Force and the risks faced by continued reliance on too few aging aircraft.

That state must now be reversed—urgently and decisively—before a peer adversary challenges us in a fight, we are unprepared to win.

This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.