On 23 November 2010, the chief of staff of the Air Force tasked the Air Force Research Institute to review Air Force command and control (C2) to determine whether doctrine and organizational structures require changes to ensure success in uncertain and dynamic future scenarios. The research team concluded that, to maximize effectiveness, the Air Force must organize, train, and equip its C2 structure to increase adaptability, building improved integration with partners— e...

This analysis takes a didactic approach. It attempts to demystify the aura surrounding operational design by presenting a theoretical framework for comprehending its fundamental precepts. The goals of this analysis are threefold: provide a methodological example for understanding and applying design, show how design enhances decision making and risk analysis, and investigate the major differences between design in major combat operations and design in counterinsurgency (COIN).

Nothing speaks better to the subject of effective leadership than the need to develop professionally. General Lorenz believes that leadership is tied to a continuing study of the profession, thus the need for leaders to read. He particularly advocates reading biographies of great leaders. He found that learning from other’s experiences helped keep him from wasting time reinventing the wheel. And reading, like any other leadership development, is a lifetime experience bec...

Airpower for Strategic Effect is intended to contribute to the understanding of airpower—what it is, what it does, why it does it, and what the consequences are. This is the plot: airpower generates strategic effect. Airpower’s product is strategic effect on the course of strategic history. Everything about military airpower is instrumental to the purpose of securing strategic effect.

In this study, we discuss five issues for change, and our recommendations provide the framework needed to produce the project’s desired end state of a measurable and sustainable expeditionary process that meets combatant commanders’ requirements across the range of military operations. The Air Force continues to support CCDR requirements around the globe. However, the stresses in today’s operating environment have revealed weaknesses in the way the Air Force presents for...

After describing the type of visionary senior officers needed to lead the Air Force of the future, the study team recommends the identification of “high potential” officers upon selection for field-grade rank. This special designation allows the Air Force to focus education and assignment opportunities on those officers most likely to attain flag rank and senior joint billets. Subsequent recommendations are designed to provide additional leadership development opportunit...

Technology Horizons is our vision for key Air Force science and technology investments over the next decade that will provide us with truly game-changing capabilities to meet our strategic and joint force responsibilities. The coming decades hold high promise for amazing new capabilities across the air, space, and cyber domains. Yet the Air Force and our nation will also be confronted with substantial strategic, technology, and budget challenges. Our greatest advances wi...

An extended nuclear deterrent for protecting allies may also contribute significantly to nonproliferation efforts—the nuclear umbrella provides allies an assurance so they do not perceive the need to develop nuclear weapons arsenals for themselves. This study explores the impact of US nuclear weapon policy on the current and future effectiveness of extended nuclear deterrence for the Republic of Turkey. It concludes that the credibility of US extended nuclear deterrence ...

The Department of Defense (DOD) anticipates the realization of biomimetic bird and two-inch, insect-sized systems within the 2015–47 period. Although robot systems of one millimeter or smaller are not explicitly specified in current DOD and Air Force technology road maps, the technological aims towards this size can be clearly inferred from official documents. This research assesses the likelihood of, and barriers to, the realization of true microrobots and nanorobots (d...

National leaders are debating the merits of American weapons in space. A decision to operationally deploy such weapons would reverse the United States’s long-standing commitment to space as a sanctuary. That sanctuary—the idea that space should remain relatively unthreatened by weapons—has been challenged in the past but for the most part still exists today. Further weaponizing space, though, could change that and introduces important issues. The political, military, soc...

In sum, the petroleum-based sector of a nation’s economy offers a large, vulnerable target for today’s air planner. By merging the lessons of the past with current and future trends, one can achieve immediate results and dramatically affect the out-come of war.

This study analyzes the need for a national aerospace strategy that encompasses the two aspects of aerospace power: the aerospace industry and military aerospace. The author assesses the aerospace industry as to its importance to the United States. The conclusion is that this industry provides the kind of high-technology, high-wage jobs necessary to improve the nation’s standard of living in the future. Next, the writer evaluates current military strategies against a set...

The study investigates whether information as a weapon can achieve the purposes of war. Specifically, can the use of the “information weapon” diminish an adversary’s will and capacity to fight. The results indicate that while information may be considered a weapon, it is one that must be used with caution. The more enthusiastic proponents of the information weapon tend to overestimate its ability to diminish enemy will and capacity to fight.

This study analyzes the use of airpower against enemy ground forces. Maj Scott G.Walker assesses current doctrinal definitions of the close air support and interdiction missions as seen by the Air Force and Army, comparing and contrasting the two. The themes that recur throughout are the need for planning to remain flexible, using the speed and firepower of air attack to concentrate force where needed, and the requirement for good operational and tactical intelligence.

The United States continues to challenge its military forces to provide maximum capability with minimum resources. In order to meet that challenge effectively, the US must take full advantage of the synergy provided by the unified action of joint forces. Those forces are employed in a wide variety of missions that change during development and execution. Formation of the joint task force (JTF) is one of several options to organize our military forces. This thesis exami...

I submit there are two ways we can use limited numbers of prototype systems to ensure we learn relevant tactical lessons before we have to fight:(1) capitalizing on interactive computing technologies to better develop requirements and tactics throughout the system life cycle and (2) changing our concept of prototypes from the buying of one or two “experimental”items to procuring entire “prototypical” units.

The primary conclusion of this study is that airpower, as a pervasive element of combat operations, will have an important impact on any peace enforcement operation. Strong, centrally controlled air forces serve to assert escalation dominance at the higher end of the conflict spectrum. They can also provide a coercive force that can threaten to escalate the fighting beyond peace enforcement on short notice.However, in almost all cases tactical aviation and special operat...

This thesis examines three campaigns during which aerial terror raids, peripheral to the main war efforts and incapable of destroying the enemy war-making capacity, elicited disproportionate reactions from the targeted leaderships. The raids on London during World War I, the V-1 and V-2 raids on London three decades later, and the Scud attacks on Israel during Desert Storm each show evidence of overreaction by Allied/coalition leaders. A review of the nature of terrorism...

The traditional American military brute-force strategy does not always meet our national needs in this new world order. Strategic Coercion offers one alternative to this brute-force approach. Simply stated, strategic coercion is the act of inducing or compelling an adversary to do something to which he is averse. It involves using force and threatening action to compel an adversary to cease his current activity, or coerce him to reverse actions already taken. Two contemp...

This study analyzes the role of the military commander in termination planning during operations other than war. First, the author assesses past and present political guidance, such as the Weinberger doctrine and the presidential directive on peace operations, as well as conditions that affect exit strategy planning. The conclusion is that most of the guidance is vague and that internal and external influences make the process of transforming political goals into viable ...