Running head: U.S.
AIR FORCE SWOT ANALYSIS
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U.S. AIR FORCE SWOT ANALYSIS
James F Tetrault
Columbia Southern University
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The U.S. Air Force recently released a talking paper titled A Call to the Future. In the
paper the Air Force highlighted some of their accomplishment over the last 10 years. More
importantly, they review their strategic vision for the next thirty years. The paper was filled with
numerous strengths of the Air Force.
Strengths
A core strength of the Air Force is innovation. Constant improvement has always been
crucial to mission success. Learning from mistakes, taking corrective actions, and succeeding is
something the Air Force does well. This process is built into the culture of their Airmen the
minute they put on the uniform. No civilian institution has the culture of the military. The
civilian sector sees our culture as a strength so much so that several corporations target prior
military personnel. They appreciate and want to hire employees that come from a strong culture.
The culture traverses throughout the total force. The total force is a key component to the
culture.
There are several advantages to having the National Guard, Reserves, and active duty
serve side by side. This gives the Air Force the opportunity to have part time and full time
Airmen work together. Those part time Airmen bring certain skills the civilian sector teaches
them that active duty Airmen do not normally contribute. The Air Force believes this so much
that they have announced breaks in service, or transitions between full-time and parttime service will no longer hurt the development of an Airmens career. Instead, the
experience gained out of uniform will be seen as career development.
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Career development is something the Air Force realized could be used as a
recruitment tool. Amongst the four services the Air Force does the best job of
helping Airmen develop both personally and professionally. One of the ways they do
this is through the Community College of the Air Force (CCAF). CCAF awards twoyear Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degrees. The CCAF is an accredited
institution through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools through Air
University (*). Airmen take core college courses through a civilian institution which are
coupled with technical training credits to obtain AASs. The Air Force encourages it Airmen to
seek civilian education not only for the betterment of the Airmen but also for the Air Force.
Highly technical Airmen that can critically think are essential to the Air Forces success. This has
never been more prevalent than in the cyberspace arena.
The Air Force is at the forefront of cyberspace providing the central part of the
Department of Defenses (DoD) cyberspace forces. Of course, they also provide resilient and
cost-effective space capabilities for the Joint Force and the Nation. (*) The Air Force through its
space command makes space reliable to United States military and its civilian populace by
defending critical space infrastructure from enemy attack. It also is a major player in the DoDs
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) program. The Air Force provides planes,
personnel, and ground resources to gather data to support the combatant commander. Through
inventive ways the Air Force has become a leader in the ISR field. Of course, the greatest
strength of the Air Force is its dominance of the air domain.
There are two capabilities in the air that no other service can contest; the capabilities are
close air support and unmanned aerial surveillance. With the A-10 Warthog the Air Force can
provide ground forces freedom to maneuver at will. By flying drones the Air Force can provide
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an eye in the sky giving commanders actionable intelligence and the ability to dial in airstrike
that would not be able to be carried out by manned aircraft due to the risk. Of course, along with
these strengths the Air Force has numerous weaknesses.
Weaknesses
One weakness the Air Force has is its pay scale. For most jobs the civilian pay scale is
much higher. For instance, pilots at major airlines earn an average salary of $123,480 (WSJ) this
is about $20,000 higher than the average salary for a military pilot. Also, the average age for the
aircraft they fly in the Air Force is older and has more miles on it. Not to mention some of those
miles are combat miles which can put a lot of stress on the airframe. Both the low pay and aging
aircraft are weaknesses. This in addition to 24 years of constant war (the Air Force has been
flying combat missions nonstop since the Gulf War ended in 1991) have exhausted the force and
the infrastructure it is responsible for operating. This high operations tempo has created
numerous other problems throughout the force.
For instance, in recent years the nuclear mission has not been maintained properly. An
example of this was when a B-52 bomber was loaded with six nuclear warheads and flown from
Louisiana to North Dakota before anybody realized the warheads were live and not training
simulators (*). After numerous investigations the bomber community of pilots and ammunition
crews stated that they lacked proper training. The lack of training for noncombat forces has
dwindled over the last ten years. This is primarily due to budget cuts within the Air force. The
dwindling budget has had a rippling effect on the force creating several weaknesses. Base
infrastructure is starting to crumble and morale facilities like bowling alleys and clubs are being
closed rather than replaced. Of course, the Air Force has only its self to blame.
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In 2003, the Air Force hired a private contractor to build a logistics management system
to expedite troop movement from stateside locations to overseas locations. By 2012 the system
was still not fully functional after already giving the contract company $1.2 billion. Earlier this
year the Air Force cancelled the contract and got nothing in return for the $1.2 billion. This type
of wasteful unaccounted for spending is a huge weakness to the Air Force. Because of blunders
like this the Air Force chose to cut research and development spending to save funds. This
creates weakness within the force. Over the next decade, the Air Force must spend money to
figure out how to restore the force, including the Long-Range Strike Bomber, the KC-46 tanker,
and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (*). If it does not figure this out it will surely lose its edge in
the air domain. The current pace of operations does not help either.
Certain conflicts are evident and can be planned for but the popup missions are the
difficult ones that place undue stress on the force. An example would be the Ebola outbreak in
Africa. Thousands of Airmen and several planes were sent to Africa to combat this deadly
disease. This type of unplanned stretching of the force makes it weaker. To add to the
weakening, years of sexual abuse was uncovered in the basic training pipeline and throughout
the force. This type of behavior has garnered public attention and congressional involvement.
Worst, it distracts Airmen from doing the mission and pulls resources to fix the underlying
problems. What it also does is give the Air Force an opportunity to tighten ties with Congress.
Opportunities
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Congress has the authority and responsibility to provide the resources for our national
security; the Air force has the responsibility to employ those resources properly (*). The Air
Force must work with Congress to acquire the necessary funding needed to keep the personnel
and planes for the future force. The Air force must also leverage existing industry partnerships.
Contracting has become a great way to fill the gaps left by a dwindling force. The Air Force
seeks out non-traditional teams that are leading in the areas of innovation and agility.
Partnerships at the senior level should be based upon a shared commitment to solve challenges
common to both the Air Force and our industry partners, supported by aggressive goals and
tangible objectives(*). The Air Force must also look within.
Collaboration is essential if cost savings is important. This year the Air Force created the
Airmen Powered by Innovation program. The program serves as a follow-on program to
institutionalize the success of the 2013 Every Dollar Counts campaign. During the campaign,
302 ideas submitted by Airmen were implemented by the Air Force, generating savings of $71
million and 24,000 hours annually (*). This not only saves money it also shows Congress and
the public that tax dollars are spent carefully.
The Air Force has gained important experience and learned valuable lessons on leading
people and integrating capabilities across joint operations over the last twenty years. They must
build upon these lessons and weave them into operational doctrine. This will ensure a more allinclusive approach to the integration of air, space, and cyberspace capabilities with those joint
partners (*). There are also untapped opportunities in building partnerships with coalition
forces. These relationships enhance deterrence, build regional stability, offset
costs, increase capability and capacity, and ensure access. Requesting NATOs
assistance in maintaining peace and regional stability in places like Iraq,
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Afghanistan, and Africa will help relieve an already stressed force. The Air Force
also has an opportunity to provide training and lesson learned in Iraq to the
Afghanistan Air Force. We must train them to a level to where they can fly sorties
on behalf of their government. Unlike Iraq we cannot leave Afghanistan and return
two years later.
Before the economy recovers the Air Force has a unique opportunity to get
recruits with desperately needed skills. During troubled economic times the military
has been able to offer new college graduates good benefits for certain skill sets.
Most of these graduates would seek employment in the civilian sector but because
of the weak economy civilian jobs do not exist. This provides an awesome opening
to recruit those graduates. Also, the military recently lifted its ban on women
serving in combat positions. Between the flow of educated recruits and women
serving in combat positions the force can be stretched. One area that may hurt
recruitment in the military is the obesity epidemic in America.
Threats
According to U.S. Army recruiting command statistics, more than 71% of America's
youth would fail to qualify for military service because of their physical shortcomings. In 2010,
23% of young adults age 18 to 24 were obese (*). At the current pace the future of qualified
military personnel who may be physical unable to serve may shrink drastically in the coming
years. This problem is homegrown but abroad there are also numerous threats.
First, Chinese defense spending has grown at nearly 10 percent per year for the last ten
years, reaching somewhere between $120 billion and $145 billion in 2013 (*). The cyber
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division of Chinas Army poses a real threat to America. Second, North Koreas unstable political
environment makes them difficult to predict. U.S. forces are on constant alert and North Koreas
unpredictability pulls Air Force resources. Finally, Africa is the new hotbed for terrorism and the
Air Force is being tasked to provide forces for training and to fly rescue missions. Members
from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron in the past have trained hundreds of commandos in
Libya, Niger, Mauritania, and Mali last year (*). Africa poses a bigger threat because the
funding to send these forces often falls short. Since Africa is not in the news as much as other
countries that support terrorism. When the funding falls short the Air Force has to pull that
money from other areas. For instance, Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA)
systems security.
SCADA systems are an essential part of Americas infrastructure; they help to control
water and power. These systems are antiquated and desperately need to be updated. Because
they are so out of date they pose a vector for hackers to disrupt common everyday life for many
Americans. The Air Force sees SCADA vulnerabilities as a serious threat because without
power, satellites shut down and planes do not fly; which would essentially ground the Air Force
mission. Another virtual area that concerns the Air force is the acceptance of virtual currency.
The ability to move money around anonymously can create all sorts of problems. It allows cyber
crimes to be committed but not traced. Virtual currency also can be used to pay the insider
threat. An insider threat is a person with high level clearances that steals information and
normally sells it to adversarial governments.
The Air Force has some tough decisions over the next thirty years. By strengthening
relationships, curtailing spending, and eliminating threats these decisions can be made easier.
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References