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        Policy UpdatesNewsroomReoptimizationBIOGRAPHIESAF Senior Leaders      Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III answers a question during the Air Force Posture hearing for fiscal year 2016 before the Senate Armed Services Committee March 18, 2015, in Washington, D.C.  Welsh and Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James delivered their budget proposal alongside the Army with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)Leaders Bring Air Force Posture to the Senate Armed Services Committee
                        
                        
                        Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III answers a question during the Air Force Posture hearing for fiscal year 2016 before the Senate Armed Services Committee March 18, 2015, in Washington, D.C.  Welsh and Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James delivered their budget proposal alongside the Army with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)
                
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        Air Force and Army senior leaders testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on both the Army's and Air Force posture for fiscal year 2016 March 18, 2015, in Washington, D.C. Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III delivered their budget proposal with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)Leaders Bring Air Force Posture to the Senate Armed Services Committee
                        
                        
                        Air Force and Army senior leaders testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on both the Army's and Air Force posture for fiscal year 2016 March 18, 2015, in Washington, D.C. Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III delivered their budget proposal with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)
                
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        Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James answers a question during the Air Force Posture hearing for fiscal year 2016 before the Senate Armed Services Committee March 18, 2015, in Washington, D.C.  James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III delivered their budget proposal alongside the Army with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)Leaders Bring Air Force Posture to the Senate Armed Services Committee
                        
                        
                        Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James answers a question during the Air Force Posture hearing for fiscal year 2016 before the Senate Armed Services Committee March 18, 2015, in Washington, D.C.  James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III delivered their budget proposal alongside the Army with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)
                
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        Air Force and Army senior leaders testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee  March 18, 2015, on both the Army's and Air Force Posture  for fiscal year 2016 in Washington, D.C.  Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III delivered their budget proposal with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)Leaders Bring Air Force Posture to the Senate Armed Services Committee
                        
                        
                        Air Force and Army senior leaders testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee  March 18, 2015, on both the Army's and Air Force Posture  for fiscal year 2016 in Washington, D.C.  Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III delivered their budget proposal with Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. "Ray" Odierno.  (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)
                
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Army, AF leaders: Lack of resources jeopardizes national defensePublished March 19, 2015
                    
                    By Staff Sgt. Torri Ingalsbe
                    
                    
                    Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs Command Information
            **WASHINGTON (AFNS) --**Army and Air Force senior leaders spoke with one message to the Senate Armed Services Committee March 18, and the message was clear – it’s time for tough decisions.
“Your Air Force is working very, very hard to meet the combatant commanders’ most urgent needs,” said Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James. “But I have to join with my colleague Secretary (of the Army John) McHugh in saying that if we are forced to live with the sequestration-level budget, simply we will not be able to sustain this pace.”
The national defense strategy requires America’s military to simultaneously defeat the current adversary, deny a second adversary from becoming a significant threat and defend the homeland. Under sequestration, neither service said they are confident those requirements can be met.
“Put plainly, sequestration, I believe, will put American lives at greater risk,” James said.
She cited Sen. John McCain’s recent statement about the link between “arbitrary defense cuts” and the military’s ability to keep Americans safe.
“I think you are absolutely correct and this is simply not acceptable,” she said. “Something has got to give.”
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno spoke in detail about the increasingly contested and volatile world stage, and the crippling effect further force reductions will have on the Army. While both the Army and Air Force are meeting current needs, both secretaries and generals candidly shared their fears of meeting defense requirements in an unseen catastrophic event.
“We are way past easy choices,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III. “If the Congress makes the decision ... to stay at (the Budget Control Act) levels of funding, and then delays making the hard decisions that will allow us to reshape the Air Force to be successful at that level of funding, then our Air Force could very quickly become irrelevant. If our Air Force is irrelevant, our joint force is irrelevant. In modern warfare, without the full spectrum of air, space and cyber capabilities that air power brings to the table, you will lose.”
Current requirements from combatant commanders call for 65 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance combat air patrols (CAP), but this requirement is stretching the Air Force too thin.
“We have 60 CAPs funded in the budget with the ability to surge to 65,” James said. “We are at 65 today, but we have 55 CAPs worth of people. There’s the fundamental problem. As the years have progressed, even as we have built our force, the requirements or the desires of the combatant commanders, given all that has been happening around the world, has been going up, up, up. We haven’t been able to catch up with ourselves.”
The service leaders explained to the committee the effects of sequestration-level funding, even with a dangling carrot of possible higher funding later in the year, would cause irreversible effects to training, readiness and programs requiring more steady and predictable funding levels. This ultimately risks American service members going to war without the proper training and equipment.
“When sequestration first hit in 2013, we saw the domino effect it had on pilots, maintainers, weapons loaders, air-traffic controllers, fighter squadrons and bomber squadrons,” Welsh said. “Readiness levels plummeted across the Air Force in every organization central to combat operations. We were not fully ready if the nation had needed us for a larger effort. We just simply can’t accept that.”
The service leaders said they understand and embrace the fact that the Defense Department must be part of the solution to the nation’s debt problem, but they still seek relief and assistance from the Congress to maintain the proper funding for winning today’s fight and investing in future operations.
“The world conditions are as unpredictable and dangerous as I can ever remember them being in the (last) 34 years,” James said. “We know you (the Senate Armed Services Committee) are working hard to get sequestration lifted, and we ask you to please keep that up because we need it lifted, permanently.”

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