Long-range requirements will be documented as required operational capabilities (ROC). These will be the basis for research and development objectives (RDO) and for system development requirements (SDR). They will give detailed guidance to basic research and advanced development. Advanced development system studies (ADSS) will determine and recommend general approaches and specific systems best suited to meet required future capabilities. Based on results of these studies and on qualitative operational requirements (QOR) submitted from the field, specific operational requirements (SOR) for individual systems will be established.

As we gain experience during the coming years, the present administrative/documentation system undoubtedly will need to be further modified, improved, and streamlined. We believe nevertheless that changes will still adhere to the same basic philosophies and principles. The system must be highly flexible and responsive. It must be geared to give the earliest possible requirements decisions. Above all, it must facilitate rapid and orderly development of weapon systems.

During the next 10 to 15 years other services and Government agencies may also have interest in and responsibility for aerospace. systems. For reasons of national economy and considering Air Force budgetary limitations, the Air Force must and will strive to prevent needless duplication and waste. Nevertheless our prime concern must be with the military tasks assigned to us, since they are vital to national survival. Compromises that might seriously degrade our military capability will not be acceptable, either to the Air Force or to the Nation.

In broad terms, we have seen something of the nature of the requirements function, now and for the next decade. Greatly increased emphasis will have to be placed on careful delineation of our long-range needs. Requirements planning will have to be cast further ahead with keener vision than ever before. It must take the lead, pointing out the path we want to travel. As time progresses, requirements planning will have to be alertly receptive to new ideas, new situations, new possibilities. It must not be afraid of change when change is indicated, but at the same time it must work with care and wisdom to preclude vacillation, confusion, and wasted effort. Solving this dilemma will take mature judgment of the highest order. Individual weapon systems will have to be selected earlier. They will have to be described in more careful detail than ever before.

The requirements function in Air Force planning, like the Air Force and the Nation itself, faces a challenge ahead that is without parallel. The mushrooming rate of technological growth will give a new perspective to the element of time. Progress that might formerly have taken a generation will now be possible in several short years. To the Directorate of Requirements, this means that evaluations must be completed and decisions rendered within radically compressed time spans. At the same time the complexity of advanced systems will be coupled with a vastly increased number of

alternatives from which we must choose. The evaluation process will therefore be more complicated and must be more comprehensive than ever before. The decisions we reach will be more vital to national survival. This, then, is the real challenge requirements planners must meet: Can we carefully consider, fully evaluate, and then decide at a pace to match our science? We are confident that we can and will.

Headquarters United States Air Force

Budgeting for the Aerospace Force

MAJOR GENERAL Robert J. FRIEDMAN

HE interested reader of this publication devoted to aerospace force in concept and in being might well be excused for asking before this point, "When are you going to get to the all-important question of buying the aerospace force?" His impatience may reflect a cynicism stemming from personal knowledge of the impact of budgetary decisions on military programs.

It would be naive to deny the importance of funds in the attainment of military objectives. Yet the late positioning of the subject in the order of this publication is not accidental. Rather it is intended to emphasize the fact that the budget is one of the final considerations in the process of conceiving, planning, and programing the aerospace force. I realize this is directly contrary to the idea which has been nurtured, particularly by the events of recent years, that the budget comes first and rules all and that everything else must be made to conform to the rigid framework it establishes. But a moment's reflection upon a few fundamental truths will, I believe, bear out the premise.

The budget makers cannot put a price tag on mirages or on concepts. They must deal in tangibles-in men, machines, facilities, goods, and services. In a word, theirs is the finishing touch. First come the men of vision who can foresee the force of tomorrow and can communicate their thoughts and concepts tangibly to those who will bring them to fruition. Next, obviously, are the efforts of those whom, for want of a better label, we might call the more practical people, although with no intent to belittle those whose priceless gift of vision, forethought-or prescience, if you will-is so vital to achieving the aerospace force of the future. They must translate ideas into new items of hardware and plan the utilization of forces which will be equipped with the new hardware. This practical planning includes all components of the weapon or support systems involved, including material, manning, logistics, operations, bases and installations, communications, etc. Finally we must program the "bits and pieces" according to realistically attainable increments, quantitywise, qualitywise, and timewise. Only then can we fashion a budget, solidly grounded in all that has gone before.

Having gone through this sequence and arrived at the point where we must express all our dreams, aspirations, plans, and programs in the cold dollars-and-cents terms of the Federal budget, what now are our chances of success in "buying the aerospace force"? True, there are constraints; but there is also the relentless force of progress.

When we talk about buying the aerospace force of the future, we must

consider that, to the extent it is bought, it will be paid for by taxpaying, earthbound United States citizens. These citizens will have a number of things on their minds besides space, and many other demands upon their resources. One has only to reflect upon his own personal budget to get the full import of this fact. As for new types of defense programs in space, to many people an understanding of the need to be there at all is as "far out" as space itself. One thing is crystal clear: space programs will be extremely costly. This is especially pertinent if military requirements also continue to exist for the more conventional weapons. It is predictable, therefore, that the question of how much military strength is enough will be encountered with increasing regularity.

As the aerospace force will be but one of the claimants for whatever defense resources are available, so will defense needs be but one of the claimants to total available Federal resources. It is not widely recognized, but true nevertheless, that some of the most explosive pressures in regard to the national budgets for the past several years have been generated in nondefense programs. It is unlikely that this trend will now be reversed. Education, for example, is certain to receive increased attention and assistance at the Federal level. While this assistance will increase the competition with defense programs for funding, obviously improved education is essential to the aerospace force of the future. We must have a growing source of the men of vision and the other scientists, mathematicians, specialists, and leaders to conceive, plan, build, operate, and control the force of tomorrow. Increased emphasis on education complements, rather than competes with, the defense program.

Increased pressures on the national budget will also develop from other programs, in such areas as increased assistance to the aged and the impoverished, relief of depressed areas, or increased public works. While perhaps not directly, defense does nevertheless reap an advantage from these programs in that they maintain or enhance the vigor of the national economy and contribute to its growth. For it is upon increased economic growth or increased rate of taxation, or both, that we must rely for the ability to buy the aerospace force that we will need.

As a frame of reference for discussion of the interrelated elements of gross national product, economic growth, taxation, personal consumption, and Government expenditures, the accompanying chart which is taken from Department of Commerce estimates graphically compares gross national product, personal consumption expenditures, and Government expenditures for the period 1930 to 1960.

First, as to increased taxation, the chart clearly indicates that Government expenditures have not risen in proportion to the rise in gross national product and personal consumption expenditures. Even in the war years 19411945 Government spending did not reach the level of personal spending. It is apparent that a higher proportion of the national resources can be devoted to Government expenditure if required for attainment of the aerospace

1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960

force. What is not indicated by the chart is the high degree of courage that will be required if increased taxation is necessary. If to the abstract nature of space in the minds of men is added the normal antipathy of taxpayers toward increased Government spending, one may appreciate the political courage that will be required to levy new taxes or increase existing rates.

The chart, however, also suggests that perhaps the sacrifice on the part of the taxpayers need not be great to provide dramatic increases in resources available for Government and defense spending. Government spending is no higher today than at the peak hit in 1944, yet since that time personal spending has climbed from approximately $120 billion to $330 billion-a 275 per cent increase. As the 1944 Government spending represented World War II expenditures, the period 1952-1960 may provide a fairer comparison. During this period Government expenditures rose approximately $20 billion, from $80 billion to $100 billion, or 25 per cent, while personal consumption expenditures rose approximately $100 billion, from $230 billion to $330 billion, or 43 per cent. Viewed another way, at the end 1959 point a reduction of only 5 per cent in personal consumption expenditures would have provided an increase of some 161⁄2 per cent in total Government spending, or an increase of some 40 per cent in de