Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces

📖 The Scoop

The Department of Defense in recent years has shifted from a focus on sizing and shaping its forces to meet specific war plans to policies based on capabilities that can be directed toward a spectrum of missions. Concurrently, the Air Force has developed new policies governing deployments. Under these policies, Air Force personnel and materiel are organized into Air and Space Expeditionary Forces (AEFs). The AEF policies specify which personnel are expected to deploy if they are needed at some time, how long those personnel will remain deployed, and when they will be expected to deploy again. This shift to capabilities-based planning and AEF deployments has dramatically changed the manner in which the Air Force organizes and deploys its forces. Given these changes, the need has arisen for new methods to assess Air Force deployment capabilities. This monograph describes a method for assessing deployment capabilities in light of the new AEF policies. This analytical approach can be used to evaluate a range of policy issues, which are described here, including expressing the deployment capabilities of the Air Force in terms of AEF policies, comparing alternative AEF policies with the current set of policies, sizing and balancing manpower positions among the combat support functional areas to meet specific deployment scenarios, and examining the impact of basing structures on the burden of deployment for Air Force personnel in certain support positions. Research for this report was completed in October 2004.

Genre: History / Military / United States (fancy, right?)