LONDON — The war against Iran has strained the Air Force’s budget, and the US military needs “all three” Trump administration military spending proposals — a base budget of $1.1 trillion, a reconciliation boost of $350 billion and a multibillion-dollar supplemental package — to keep its edge, the Air Force’s top officer told Breaking Defense.
“Here’s the dilemma: In 2026, we executed and are executing Epic Fury. Wasn’t budgeted for. So what we’re doing is, we’re cash flowing payments to pay for Epic Fury, and the way that we’ve cash flowed is, we have stopped spending money on other things that needed to be done this year,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Air & Space Chiefs Conference here.
“There’s a wide array of things that we have stopped spending money on so that we could pay for the bills that are associated with Epic Fury,” he continued, referring to the Pentagon’s nomenclature for combat operations in Iran. “That’s why you need a supplemental for this year.”
Wilsbach did not describe where the Air Force has shifted money from, but a recent $4.3 billion Pentagon reprogramming request for “unforeseen military requirements” offers some clues. According to the document, the Defense Department plans to cut $1.5 billion from the Air Force, including a reduction of $774 million from aircraft procurement programs and $99 million from personnel accounts. (The document does not mentioned Epic Fury, and some spending shifts may not be associated with the conflict.)
