Mark and Kim Smith wrote:
The Air Force doesn't have enough planes to fly Stryker Force around the
world when it needs to go someplace? Since when did the Air Force have
a shortage of planes?

Since the US has gutted all its Armed Forces by at least 1/3 starting
during the Clinton days, and the US Armed Forces are in more places
doing more missions, how could you not expect the Air Force to be short?

There's been a shortage of many types of planes for years, especially in
the small, specialized areas (so-called “low-density, high-demand”
areas). There's also issues with mission-available rates as planes get
older and require more maintenance hours per flight hour.

In this particluar case, Air Mobility Command (AMC) has had shortages of
its capacity to move enough tons per day for quite a few years,
especially since the number of tons per day seems to continue to increase.

To quote:
"The current requirements document—called MRS-05—was the first to take
into account the need for more airlifters to fill special operations
requirements. However, MRS-05 was completed before the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. It was largely based on diminished airlift requirements then
considered adequate for the post-Cold War world. The document noted that
the airlift fleet even then was insufficient for known requirements, and
it further stated that wartime needs could be met only with “a high
degree of risk.”"

This quote came from: The Squeeze on Air Mobility
(http://www.afa.org/magazine/july2003/0703mobility.asp)

And it's not getting any better, nor is availability and usage for other
areas as well.

Also read "It Means “We Didn’t Buy Enough”"
(http://www.afa.org/magazine/july2003/0703enough.asp) for a good
discussion of current “low-density, high-demand” problems.