Planning U.S. General Purpose Forces: The Tactical Air Forces
Abstract
As the Congress makes decisions on budget targets for the First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 1978, the appropriate size of the defense budget will be one of the most important issues. The military forces which that budget buys can be divided into two parts: the strategic retaliatory forces--intercontinental missiles and bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles; and the general purpose forces--all the rest of the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps. The general purpose forces account for most of the defense budget, and decisions about their size, location, equipment, and level of readiness determine much of the defense budget. The appropriate character and size of these forces, in turn, is tied to conceptions of how and where they would be used and assessments of the capability of likely adversaries. The group of CBO Budget Issue Papers, of which this is a part, is intended to lay out the most important assumptions underlying current planning of the general purpose forces, discuss the match between those assumptions and the current or projected forces, and suggest what might change in defense programs if somewhat different planning assumptions were adopted. The other paper in this series are: Overview, Army Procurement Issues, The Navy, Theater Nuclear Forces, and Forces Related to Asia.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1977
- Accession Number
- ADA593863
Entities
People
- Nancy J. Bearg
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office