Supplemental funding for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has “masked” consistent shortfalls in the Air Force Reserve budget, a situation that the Reserve officials are working “very hard right now” to readjust, said Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, AFR chief. He cited global airlift as one example of a mission that the supplemental war funding has covered over the past decade. Since such missions exist “whether there’s a war or not,” efforts are underway so that “we can get to where a baseline is actually available to us with sufficient funds to do what we need to do,” he told reporters last week in Orlando, Fla., during AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium. Stenner said the Reserve faces an 18-month gap until that will be possible—in 2013.
House Armed Services Committee members are launching a task force to dig into defense supply chain issues, the panel said March 4. Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) will co-chair the group as it looks at threats to and vulnerabilities in the defense industrial base. Pentagon officials, lawmakers,…