Air Force chief of staff: 40,000 to 60,000 more airmen needed

As his tenure as Air Force chief of staff winds down, Gen. Mark Welsh is becoming increasingly blunt about where he thinks manpower levels should be — and that's at full manning, 40,000 to 60,000 more airmen.

Air Force leaders have been advocating for more airmen to sustain the overworked and undermanned force. It’s where all the “bigger problems” stem from, Welsh said during a speech at an Air Force Association breakfast in the Washington, D.C.-area, Thursday.
"Every problem we have in growing, in modernizing, increasing mission capability, is manpower related,” he said.

The service expects to grow from its current level of about 311,000 active duty airmen to 317,000 by the end of fiscal 2016, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in February. But she plans to push past the end strength and request an additional 4,000 airmen.

But Welsh, who will retire in July, said that number is far short of what's really needed to get manning levels to 100 percent.

The service is working harder to build up its cyber and intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance units, and is training more airmen in newer aircraft systems like the F-35, which is supposed to reach initial operational capability between August and December.

Welsh pointed to the example of ISR, which is steadily increasing from 60 daily remotely piloted aircraft combat air patrols (or caps) a day, to 70 flights. And amid that increase, somewhere else in the world, an entirely new requirement for Air Force ISR assets is popping up.
“The pace of this support is wearing people out," Welsh said, and "to get to 100 percent manning, or close to … my guess is 40,000 to 60,000 more people.

“People are a limiting factor right now,” Welsh said, “and adding more burden to them in any way, shape or form is a bad idea.”

Without additional manpower, the service — and the nation — risk losing a capable and fast-responding Air Force.

“The nation that’s going to win [the next war] is not the one with the biggest army,” Welsh said. “It’s not necessarily the one that has the most tanks, or longest range artillery systems. The one that’s going to win is the one with the best Air Force.

“It doesn’t mean that air power is pre-eminent," he added, "but it does mean it is equally as critical as land and maritime power, and if you don’t have it, you will lose.”