Air Force Operations Overseas in Peacetime OPTEMPO and Force Structure Implications

📖 The Scoop

Since the end of the Cold War, the size and character of U.S. military forces largely have been determined by the need to fight and win two nearly simultaneous major theater wars (MTWs). In the paSt few years, temporary duty (TDY) deployments abroad short of war-particularly those with a duration of months and years-have consumed an increasing amount of the military's time, energy, and resources. As a result, the capacity to fulfill commitments abroad in peacetime has become a key test of adequacy for U.S. force structure. It is instructive that, in the 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR), the U.S. Navy (USN) and Marine Corps (USMC) used "overseas presence" as the primary basis for sizing the USN's fleet of large-deck aircraft carriers and for setting the USMC's manpower end strength. In contrast, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) presented very little on the roles of its assets in operations during peacetime-in part because the intensity of such operations was a relatively new phenomenon. Recent reviews of military strategy, force structure, and modernization priorities-the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the National Defense Panel (NDP)-offered an opening to forge a new understanding in the Department of Defense (DoD) and Congress of the breadth of the USAF's commitment to the missions of the combatant commanders (CINCs) in peacetime. Unfortunately, the QDR did little more than the BUR in recognizing the growing role of aerospace power in fulfilling these missions on a daily basis. The QDR Report mentioned only in passing the profound impacts of ongoing activities on the USAF's tempo of operations (OPThMPO) and force structure. The purpose of this documented briefing is to articulate the contribution of USAF forces in meeting national security objectives in peacetime and to assess the implications of ongoing operations abroad for USAF force structure.

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