tailieunhanh - The U.s. Air Force Budget And Posture Over Time

Based on large-scale trends regarding Air Force planning over the 25 years from fiscal years 1962 to 1986, this report compares inputs — in the form of defense resources — with posture outputs — such as alert strategic warheads, tactical fighter squadrons, airlift ton-mile potential, etc. After examining important trends in Department of Defense and Air Force budgets, the author | R-3807-AF The . Air Force Budget and Posture over Time Kevin N. Lewis February 1990 A Project AIR FORCE report prepared for the United States Air Force RAND Approved for public release distribution unlimited PREFACE The problem of reconciling the changing requirements of our national security strategies with resource constraints has vexed . political and military planners since the end of World War II. Planners and policymakers readily acknowledge that the budgets needed to maintain all of the military capabilities called for by any conservative needs-based estimate of . posture capabilities such as those prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff are unlikely to be available short of national mobilization in the face of a grave emergency. Accordingly resource allocation within the total national security planning process can be reasonably thought of as a process of deciding where shortages can be best tolerated in our defense postures and preparations and what the consequences may be of a gap between desirable and realistic force goals. To better comprehend the issues at stake in the complicated process of budget and posture policymaking RAND s Project AIR FORCE sponsored a study entitled Major Air Force Issues the main goal of which has been the analysis of certain strategy vs. force imbalances and the distillation of meaningful historical lessons for planning choices in the future. These assessments should be of interest to planners involved with strategic deliberations as well as to those concerned with more day-to-day planning tasks. This work was conducted under the auspices of the National Security Strategies Program. .