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The Relative Influence of Basing Criteria

• The Air Force makes basing decisions according to criteria that can generally be categorized into four categories: base attributes that affect the mission, whether the base has the current capacity to accommodate the proposed basing action, cost criteria that generally reflect regional economic factors, and environmental conditions that might inhibit accommodating the proposed mission.
• The current basing process is designed so that installations with high mission scores are advanced toward site selection, but capacity scores largely influence the final candidate list.

Data Quality

• Data used to make basing decisions are derived from authoritative sources.
• Sources used to answer data call questions are consistent.
• The auditability of underlying data used in the basing action process is weak. It is challenging to trace specific sources used to answer questions.
• A majority of "data errors" may be unrelated to data quality and result from the data collection process or human error, or potentially both.

Role of Strategy in Basing Decisions

• The Air Force and the U.S. government choose and maintain overseas bases principally for their strategic and diplomatic value, whereas decisions about domestic bases are driven by other criteria, such as access to training ranges, utilizing existing capacity, and satisfying political considerations.
• The current domestic basing process does not include a portfolio-wide assessment of individual decisions or explicitly incorporate broader Air Force strategic concerns. The lack of strategic input is a post–Cold War phenomenon.