Military

The Air Force wants to accelerate its plans to retire old and outdated aircraft to meet Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order for services to cut and reallocate a portion of their spending.
But the service’s previous efforts to cut planes like the A-10 Warthog and older F-22 Raptors have shown that making such plans is easy, while actually seeing them through is far trickier.
That is because lawmakers who have the power to block cuts they disagree with, or which they fear may harm their constituents, have stymied multiple administrations’ efforts to tame and reshape Pentagon budgets.
If the Trump administration — with its focus on cutting perceived government waste — is able to break through the logjam on Capitol Hill and enact significant reductions to the Air Force’s legacy fleet, it will have accomplished something that has eluded previous administrations.
Hegseth last week ordered military leaders to draw up plans to free up 8% of the fiscal 2026 budg..

An Air Force two-star general warned Wednesday that potential 8% cuts to the service’s budget would be “painful.”
But Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, the service’s director for force design, integration and wargaming, expressed hope that the Air Force could still receive additional funding for its top priorities, citing its alignment with the Trump administration’s focus on lethality and deterrence and the potential for redirected funding from cost-cutting measures outside the service.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered services to review their budgets and find 8% of planned fiscal 2026 spending that could be redirected from noncrucial programs toward efforts that make the military more effective. The Air Force has said one avenue it plans to pursue to meet these goals is accelerating its retirement of older and outdated aircraft.
Kunkel said Wednesday that with the Air Force now smaller and older than at any other time in its nearly 80-year history, “there&rsq..