$2.3B in DOGE Cuts Buried in Air and Space Force Budget Proposal

The Air Force and Space Force budgets call for nearly $2.3 billion in spending cuts in 2026, including funding for more than 5,700 full-time civilian jobs, linked to the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, an Air & Space Forces Magazine analysis has found.

The cuts are spread across 400 line items throughout the 2026 budget and affect nearly every mission area in the Air Force and Space Force. The reductions provide the most detailed insights yet into how DOGE’s efforts to shrink federal spending affect the Department of the Air Force.

Air Force spokespeople did not answer whether the reductions identified in the fiscal 2026 request were included in the $10.4 billion in savings Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced as part of the DOGE initiative last month. 

“The Department of the Air Force is optimizing its civilian workforce in line with Presidential directives and Secretarial orders to reform the Federal workforce, maximizing efficiency and productivity,” a service spokesperson said.

Budget documents referencing proposed reductions cite a pair of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in February that directed federal agency leaders to work with DOGE staffers to reshape the workforce and rein in spending. Many of the cuts note they “promote efficiencies and advance the policies of the administration.” Nowhere in those documents, however, are all the DOGE cuts laid out in full.

The bulk of the cuts, nearly $2 billion, impact Air Force programs, while about $289 million would affect the Space Force. Some $695 million in 28 separate line items would reduce spending on air operations. Another $539 million in budget savings comes from cuts to 183 research and development programs, the budget documents show.

Base support for air operations would see the single most expensive cut at $296 million and the equivalent of 2,150 full-time jobs, or 7 percent of that workforce, according to the budget request. Another $115 million in proposed savings comes from the acquisition workforce, where cuts were made to capability integration staff.

Other staff cuts include about a quarter of full-time civilians doing cyberspace activities, and about 1 in 5 civilians would be cut from enlisted recruit training and Air Force Reserve military manpower and personnel management.

“Cuts to the civilian workforce are likely to have a substantial impact on acquisition programs, and specifically the ability to start new programs and get companies on contract sooner,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. He disagreed with the tactics used to reduce staff, which included eliminating senior volunteers and junior staff still in probationary status.

“If the cuts had been made on the basis of merit,” he added, “the impacts would have been much less—perhaps positive by getting rid of organizational dead weight. But the way DOGE implemented the reductions was not merit-based at all.”

Overall, the Department of the Air Force’s base budget request of $211 billion was about $2 billion less than what it received for 2025. But that figure leaves out funds included in the One Big Beautiful Bill passed this summer, which directed nearly $39 billion to the Air Force and Space Force. It also does not include “pass-through” money that is listed as part of the department’s budget but in fact funds the National Reconnaissance Office and other secret, non-Air Force programs.

Cuts to consulting contracts and various acquisition and integration activities target what one former defense official called “the institutional knowledge” in those activities. Those experienced individuals are important, the official said, because “you have … uniformed officers that rotate through a program every two or three years,” while the civilians stay put. “But I don’t see [advisory cuts] as an existential threat to these programs.”

It’s unclear who decided where the cuts should land. Neither officials in the Pentagon nor Congress could say whether it was DOGE analysts directing the cuts or service leaders more familiar with the programs. Some of the apparent job cuts may reflect unfilled positions that are eliminated.

Harrison said he believes “DOGE was driving the workforce reductions for both advisory and assistance service contractors and civilian employees, but the individual services and components determined what specifically to cut.”

He noted the cuts implemented in fiscal 2025 won’t manifest until the next fiscal year. “Many of the contractor cuts have already taken place or will by the end of FY25, and many of the civilian cuts have already been made, but the savings won’t begin to accrue until FY26 since many of the people leaving are through the deferred resignation program,” Harrison said.

In total, Air & Space Forces Magazine found $1.2 billion in civilian job cuts, $837.2 million in advisory and assistance contract reductions, and $221.8 million in reduced travel expenses that cited DOGE. That appears to be an undercount: An Air Force overview of the 2026 request lists $1.7 billion in savings via “civilian workforce optimization,” $1 billion in cuts to advisory and assistance services contracts, and $368.1 million recouped from discretionary travel.

Fiscal 2026 budget documents “do not reflect comprehensive DOGE savings,” a service spokesperson said.

Owen West, the former assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict who currently runs the Pentagon’s roughly 12-person DOGE team, did not respond to an interview request. Nor did Yinon Weiss, who left the role in July.

Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters Aug. 7 that the department hasn’t decided whether to lay off more civilians. The Department of the Air Force’s budget overview calls for about 9,800 fewer civilian workers across the two services; in May, the Air Force’s uniformed personnel chief said she expected to lose about 12,000 civilians, or 6 percent of the workforce.

“DOGE’s work at the department is not going to stop, that is absolutely for certain,” Wilson said. “We are committed to cutting government waste and bureaucracy wherever we can. So our DOGE team is going to be looking into all facets of that across this department, across the services, and they’re going to be engaging with the services to make sure that we’re doing everything in a uniform fashion that makes sense, and make sure that our warfighters have everything they need at the end of the day. … That relies on a department that is functioning efficiently.” 

Recruiting and training

The service has proposed slashing $21.5 million for civilian staff and travel expenses supporting Air Force recruiting, advertising, basic training, collegiate Reserve Officer Training Corps, and high school Junior ROTC programs.

That includes 127 full-time jobs, or about 10 percent of the civilian workforce in those areas, budget documents show. The biggest cuts are to civilian staff in enlisted recruit training. The Air Force and Space Force hit their annual recruiting goal months early this year following several years of struggle. The Air Force Accessions Center, which oversees recruiting, declined to comment.

Tens of millions of dollars in cuts would also hit other educational programs, including flight training.

Combat and base operations

Cuts to civilian staff, travel, and management and technical support contracts for combat operations and installation upkeep were also extensive, trimming spending on operations in the Middle East, cyber, and even snow removal equipment.

Alex Wagner, who served as assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs under the Biden administration, argued that eliminating the civilian staff who handle essential functions on military installations will likely lead to lower quality of life for on-base communities. Those cracks will emerge over months and years, he said.

Major acquisition programs

Millions of dollars in relatively small chunks reduce spending for many Air Force and Space Force acquisition programs. The KC-46 Pegasus tanker and Combat Rescue Helicopter would lose about $6 million apiece in support services; the nuclear-tipped Long-Range Standoff Weapon would be trimmed by $8.6 million and the B-52 bomber re-engining effort by $4.2 million, all from support contracts and civilian staff, respectively, among dozens of other tweaks to research and development projects from F-35 Lightning II upgrades to the T-7 training jet to integrating Collaborative Combat Aircraft wingman drones with F-22 fighters.

Research on cutting-edge technology may be a casualty, Harrison warned.

“The deferred resignation program incentivized many of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees to leave, which is likely to come back and undercut the administration’s efforts to accelerate new initiatives like Golden Dome,” Harrison said.

Space Force

The Space Force stands to lose upwards of $288 million in civilian staff, advisory contracts, and travel funds, including $36 million for its space and missile systems acquisition workforce and $90 million affecting space operations.

More than $25 million would be cut from the launch enterprise as the Pentagon rushes to get new satellite arrays on orbit and pick up the launch tempo each year, among other priorities for the newest branch of the armed forces.

Harrison, who has dug into the Space Force’s civilian cuts, believes the service has lost about 10 percent of its workforce overall: “in line with the Army, but much deeper than the Navy or Air Force,” he said.

Advisory contractors could return if a future administration changes course, the former defense official said. But in the meantime, the Pentagon is losing workers with decades of knowledge in technical areas like space launch, who will find opportunities in the growing civilian space workforce.

“There will be a cost in terms of that technical and institutional knowledge that just can’t be immediately reconstituted,” the former official said. “But then, I’d say … the whole point of contractors is you can either surge or decrement based on what your needs are.”

Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon contributed to this story.