Policy and Methodology to Incorporate Wartime Plans into Total U.S. Air Force Manpower Requirements

Manpower is a major component of the Air Force's capability to meet its designated wartime and peacetime missions. However, manpower requirements also are a major driver of costs in the Air Force budget. Periodically, the Air Force goes through an internal process that arrives at revised estimates of its manpower needs. The Total Force Assessment (TFA) carried out from 1999 to 2001 is the latest exercise to examine the wartime and peacetime demands for Air Force capability and to estimate overall manpower requirements. In 2000, Air Force Manpower and Organization (AF/XPM) asked the RAND Corporation to participate in the TFA. Robert Corsi, the deputy director at the time, emphasized the need for RAND to provide an independent assessment of the TFA process (later called TFA Phase I TFA-I) and its results, in addition to challenging assumptions while participating in the TFA. More recently, with the increased interest in sizing requirements for scenarios short of two major theater wars (MTWs), Brigadier General Joseph Stein, while at AF/XPM, asked RAND to provide a requirements-estimating methodology that would accommodate scenarios not previously used in requirements determination; this work would be part of a TFA Phase II (TFA-II). This report, which documents the information briefed to Colonel William Bennett, AF/XPMR, in October 2001, serves as a response to both of these Air Force requests. This report describes the new methodology that RAND proposed, which also uses some concepts that were part of the Air Force's TFA-I methods. The authors show how various Air Force policies and other alternatives affect requirements. Using Air Force data, the report also contrasts its requirements results for two MTW scenarios with those TFA-I provided the Air Force. They also considered the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF) environment to check the suitability of requirements for meeting the AEF's needs during peacetime to participate in small scale contingencies. ISBN-0-8330-3581-9 (paperback).