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The Government Accountability Office has a simple question for the Air Force: who will run bases when whole wings deploy under the service’s new force generation model?
The Air Force, unlike other services, has long relied on picking small groups of airmen from multiple units to fill overseas force packages. This meant airmen often deployed overseas with personnel they had never met, let alone worked with, harming unit cohesion and performance.
In a report released Nov. 26, the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, acknowledged the need for change but expressed concern that the Air Force has not yet thought the whole concept through, leaving potential gaps.
The fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act included a provision for the GAO to examine Air Force Force Generation implementation, which the service began to roll out in 2022.
The watchdog agency said it analyzed Air Force documentation, interviewed Defense Department and Air Force officials and visited selected major commands and units to identify challenges in implementing AFFORGEN.
"Continuous deployments over the past two decades have reduced the Air Force’s readiness —affecting personnel, equipment and aircraft," the GAO wrote.
But the service’s answer to those issues "has challenges," it concluded.
"For example, the Air Force … hasn’t assessed whether bases will have enough staff to operate when units deploy — to fill jobs like guarding entrances or providing security. Also, it hasn’t set timelines for its efforts," the report states.
The jobs that may be short-staffed could include civil engineers, supply support, medical staff, air traffic controllers, gate security and nuclear weapons handling, wing and command officials told the GAO.
The GAO said the Air Force does not know how many personnel its bases would need to keep operating while large groups of airmen are deployed and overestimated how many personnel some bases had to provide to deploying units.
The service also did not consider how much daily support these airmen provide to their home bases when it planned for the first expeditionary air base deployments in 2023, the GAO said.
This limited some bases’ ability to defend IT systems, the GAO noted, putting bases at greater risk.
The GAO recommended the Air Force conduct a service-wide assessment of the minimum number of airmen needed to keep running its bases while others are deployed and identify potential gaps and risks bases might face during deployments.
DoD agreed and said those assessments would be finished by Jan. 1.
— By John Goheen
