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Interviews with current and former senior military leaders from both inside and outside the Air Force suggested that the most critical positions are ones that directly influence both U.S. national security strategy and the nation's warfighting capability. 1 These positions include such Joint Staff positions as the CJCS, the VCJCS, the ACJCS, the DJS, and the directors of the following directorates: Operations (DJ3), Strategic Plans and Policy (DJ5), and Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment (DJ8), as well as leadership of the combatant commands and JTFs. The authors' analysis of data revealed that the Air Force is, in fact, consistently underrepresented in the joint positions that interviewees saw as most critical to the nation's warfighting apparatus. Since the 1986 enactment of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Air Force has held the CJCS job only once, or 13 percent of the time, compared with 51 percent for the Army, 25 percent for the Navy, and 11 percent for the Marine Corps. During the same era, the Air Force held 24 percent of combatant commander positions overall, but that representation is skewed toward functional commands (41 percent) and away from geographic commands (10 percent), the latter Key findings: • Airmen are underrepresented in senior joint positions critical to shaping U.S. national security strategy and warfighting capability.