Additional Force Cutbacks -- if the cost of operating the oldest airplanes becomes prohibitive
 

• Cost Overruns or Budget Cutbacks - Could replacement rates further & magnify the rate of age growth, thereby increasing the pressure to cut back force size

More Readiness Reductions:
 

• Reduce Training Rates to contain age-driven growth of operating costs & effects of assigning a smaller number of older aircraft to combat units and bases

• Declining Retention - skilled maintenance personnel leave because of higher workloads and morale-busting workarounds that are needed to support aging, depot-intensive, hi-tech equipment

• Increasing Morale Problems & Decreased Training Opportunities - if smaller forces make it necessary to increase the proportion of deployed units in support of foreign policy commitments

• Planners or Politicians Might Rob Readiness - bail out the collapsing modernization program

Change the Strategy to Conform to Consequences of Cost Growth in Procurement:
 

• Cave In to the Pork-Barreling Pressures of the Defense Industry - adjust the National Strategy to match the shrinking forces made inevitable by out-of-control costs in the procurement program

Rationalize Status Quo With Half-Baked Theories of Technological Revolutions:
 

• Declare that Further Force Reductions are Not Only necessary, but Desirable - because technological Breakthroughs make it possible to replace manned weapons with a variety of un-manned, higher-cost, remote-controlled, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors, computerized command and control systems, and precision-guided weapons - all wired together into an all-seeing, all-knowing war machine