Air Force senior leaders approve service doctrine restructuring

by Phil Berube
Air University Public Affairs

11/7/2012 - MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- Officials at the LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., announce that by next fall, Air Force doctrine will be restructured, streamlined and accessible to anyone with an e-reader, smartphone or tablet.

Dubbed "Doctrine Next," the initiative overhauls doctrine development processes to better reflect Air Force and Joint "best practices" in a much timelier manner while reducing subject matter redundancy and repetitive content.

In early October, the LeMay Center presented Doctrine Next to senior Air Force leaders at the annual Doctrine Summit held at the Air Force Academy. The leaders unanimously supported the initiative and tasked the Center to proceed with immediate implementation.

"Doctrine Next is a totally new way we will develop and present our doctrine," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III. "Any opportunity we have to streamline and improve the timeliness of Air Force doctrine will have an immediate impact on the way we team with Joint and Coalition partners."

Currently, the complete list of Air Force doctrine includes 32 singularly focused publications that amass more than 2,600 pages. Doctrine Next dramatically reduces that page count and aligns the doctrine into five unifying volumes and 28 supporting annexes. The five volumes will be Air Force Basic Doctrine; Leadership and Force Development; Commanding and Organizing Air Force Forces; Operations; and Support.
Each annex will be derived from the current library of doctrine publications and rewritten to focus on the five unifying documents.

"The annexes will be all doctrine, no filler," said Lt. Col. Brian Thompson, LeMay Center's Doctrine Development Directorate. "One of the immediate effects of eliminating non-doctrinal text is a 30 percent word-count reduction across the entire Air Force doctrine library."

"Doctrine Next fundamentally improves the alignment, currency, accessibility, readability and ultimately the relevance of our Air Force Doctrine ... our service's best practices," said Maj. Gen. Tom Andersen, commander of the LeMay Center.

Airmen should start seeing newly formatted annexes by May 2013, with full implementation not later than Oct. 1, 2013.