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The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest U.S. government user of energy, typically accounting for about 80 percent of all government energy consumption. DoD has reduced its fuel use in recent years, including a 4 percent reduction in use of petroleum from fiscal year (FY) 2005 to FY 2011. However, the cost saving associated with reduced consumption was offset by sharp increases in the price of fuel. Aviation fuel accounts for about half of DoD s total energy use. Much of this is for the Mobility Air Forces (MAF), which consumes about 60 percent of the Air Force s aviation fuel. To identify and implement fuel reduction initiatives, the Air Mobility Command (AMC) chartered its Fuel Efficiency Office (FEO) in 2008. The Air Force also launched an initiative that reduced its fuel consumption by 12 percent from 2006 to 2013, exceeding a 10 percent reduction goal it had set for 2015. Although this goal has been met, it is still prudent for the Air Force to pursue cost-effective options to further reduce fuel use. To reduce MAF energy costs further, the AMC Director of Operations asked RAND Project AIR FORCE to quantify the fuel savings potential of options for the AMC enterprise. This summary report provides this analysis. Readers interested in further detail are strongly encouraged to consult the main report, which documents the full analysis.

Reducing aviation fuel use has been an ongoing goal for military and civil operators, and there is an extensive literature on the topic. As early as 1976, the Military Airlift Command (MAC), now Air Mobility Command (AMC), published a pamphlet entitled Birds Fly Free, MAC Doesn't. Although the material is presented in a humorous way, the topics it discusses are still relevant today, and many of the fuel saving concepts presented therein are revisited in our work. This is a reminder that fuel efficiency is not necessarily about groundbreaking new ideas; rather, it is about consistently implementing and following known best practices. AMC consumed just over half of all aviation fuel used by the Air Force in fiscal year 2008. As a result, there has been increasing pressure for AMC to seek opportunities to reduce fuel use. To this end, the AMC Fuel Efficiency Office was chartered in 2008 to identify and implement opportunities for fuel reduction. As part of the increased emphasis on fuel efficiency, the Air Force set a goal to reduce fuel consumption by 10 percent from a 2006 baseline by 2015. In March 2013, the Air Force had already achieved a 12 percent reduction. Although this goal has been met, it is still prudent for the Air Force to pursue cost-effective options to further reduce fuel use. The literature on fuel use in the aviation industry is extensive, but there are two difficulties applying this to AMC. First, most existing literature does not broadly calculate savings at the enterprise level. Second, existing literature focuses mainly on commercial operations. One intention of this report is to determine when applying commercial standards to the Air Force is appropriate and to calculate the enterprise-level savings such practices would impart. After reviewing academic research and existing fuel reduction initiatives in the Air Force and industry, we developed a list of fuel reduction options.

To help the Air Force understand the implications of the Internet, social media, and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) for Airmen s social support networks, mental health, suicide prevention programs, and outreach, RAND conducted a survey of 3,479 active-duty, guard, and reserve Airmen in 2012. Using survey responses weighted to represent the gender, age group, component and officer/enlisted composition of the force, RAND found that 6 percent of the sample scored on the negative end of the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 (GPIUS2) (Caplan, 2010, pp. 1089 1097). This 15-item scale measures indicators of undesirable behavior such as turning to the Internet when feeling down or lonely, thinking obsessively about going online, having difficulty controlling Internet use, and experiencing adverse life events due to Internet use. Among Airmen, negative GPIUS2 scores were significantly correlated with poor self-rated mental health, depressed mood, and loneliness. If the survey results are representative, more than 30,000 Airmen may be struggling with unhealthy patterns of Internet use. These findings are documented in a previous RAND report, entitled, Information and Communication Technologies To Promote Social And Psychological Well- Being In The Air Force: A 2012 Survey Of Airmen (Miller, Martin, Yeung, Trujillo, and Timmer, 2014). This report documents follow-on research providing the Air Force with a more in-depth review of the current state of knowledge on problematic Internet use (PIU), with special attention to populations and considerations most relevant for the military population and setting. It also draws implications for military leaders interested in potentially identifying, tracking, treating, or learning more about PIU within their organization. This report is written for both military and general readers. Subject-matter expertise is not required.

This analysis begins by positing that a final nuclear agreement is reached between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany (P5+1). (See the box on p. 2 for the assumed contours of an agreement.) One of a series of RAND reports on what the Middle East and U.S. policy might look like in the days after a deal, this Perspective examines the implications of a potential deal for the U.S. military posture and activities in the Middle East, with a focus on the U.S. Air Force (USAF).1 In the design of U.S. policies in the aftermath of a nuclear agreement, the United States will have many different instruments available, including diplomacy, political interactions, and economic incentives and disincentives. U.S. military posture and activities in the Middle East will also have a role to play in support of any agreement s implementation. For example, enhancing the USAF rotational presence in the region could signal to Iran the consequences of noncompliance, while also reassuring U.S. partners anxious about Iran s remaining nuclear infrastructure and its broader regional political and military activities. Alternatively, the United States could reduce its overt military threats against Iran to signal to Iran that it will reap benefits from complying with an agreement. Because policymakers will face a complex set of trade-offs in the design of U.S. military posture and activities in the region, now is the time to consider possible implications of a nuclear deal for the USAF that is already strained by budget pressures and an array of global commitments. The high-level policy decisions on this issue will be made at the national level, but the USAF has a critical role to play in informing senior-level policy discussions as to how the USAF military posture and activities in the region could be designed in support of alternative U.S. policies toward Iran and in assessing the implications of these alternatives for the readiness of its forces.

This report provides the results of Air Force weapon system cost growth analyses based on the RAND Corporation s internal Selected Acquisition Report database. The database provides consistent, current metrics to support analyses both within RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) and in the Air Force acquisition community. This work assesses, quantifies, and documents cost and schedule growth of Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) and provides data and detailed program histories. A forthcoming companion document, Causes of Cost Growth: Themes from Six Programs with Extreme Cost Growth, assesses root causes of cost growth in six Air Force MDAPs of recent years using both quantitative and qualitative analyses.1 The research reported here was commissioned by the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Integration, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and conducted within the Resource Management Program of PAF as part of a project called Umbrella Acquisition Policy and Cost Analysis. The project monitor was the technical director of the Air Force Cost Analysis Agency.

Treaties and agreements are powerful foreign policy tools that the United States uses to build and solidify relationships with partners and to influence the behavior of other states. As a result, the overall U.S. portfolio of treaties and agreements can offer insight into the distribution and depth of U.S. commitments internationally, including its military commitments and presence in a given country or region. However, despite their importance, there is currently no comprehensive record of current or historical security-related treaties signed by the United States that can be used for empirical analysis. To address the shortcomings in existing datasets and indexes to contribute to the study of U.S. security treaties and agreements, we have developed a new, more comprehensive treaty database that will enhance the ability of researchers to study the full portfolio of U.S. security agreements. This report discusses our approach to data collection and coding and also presents a summary of the database s content. Its appendixes define each individual variable used in the analysis. The database was developed as part of a larger project focused on estimating the economic value of U.S. military presence overseas. In the context of this larger project, the treaty database provided an alternative way to measure military presence. In addition to using numbers of troops as a measure of presence, we also used numbers of security-related agreements, drawing on the information in the treaty database described in this report. This measure provided us with additional insight into the value and role of U.S. engagement and operations in overseas areas. This research was co-commissioned by the Office of the Air Force Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, Air Force Quadrennial Defense Review Directorate. The work was conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE as part of a fiscal year 2013 project Assessing the Value of Overseas Military Presence.

Since 1987, the Strength Aptitude Test (SAT), a test of physical strength, has been used by the Air Force to screen and classify enlisted personnel to their career specialties. The decision to institute the test was the culmination of several years of research on physical skills testing. However, over the past 20 years, the Air Force has not reevaluated the test as a screening and classification tool. RAND was therefore asked to evaluate the current status of the SAT regarding its usefulness, validity, and fairness for classifying enlisted airmen. This report provides the results of our study. Our evaluation began with an initial review of the SAT, existing evidence regarding its validity, and the current processes for developing cut scores on the SAT. Based on that initial review, we concluded that, while strength testing is needed in the Air Force, the SAT and the current processes for establishing the minimum requirements for entry into certain Air Force specialties (AFSs) may not be ideal. In particular, we identified a number of gaps in the evidence supporting current processes and determined that three research efforts would be worthwhile in helping to close the gaps. This study undertook the first two research efforts; however, as part of our conclusions we provide insight into how the third effort might be conducted.

As operations become more jointly connected with other military services and the Air Force becomes smaller, there is concern that more leadership responsibility and authority is being pushed down to noncommissioned officers. Therefore, as the first level of senior noncommissioned officer leadership, the ability of master sergeants (E-7) to be effective leaders is especially critical. In addition to training and development efforts, a key component of ensuring that master sergeants have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) needed to fulfill the required leadership responsibilities is having an effective system to promote airmen with the greatest potential from the E-6 rank of technical sergeant to master sergeant. The current promotion system was developed more than 40 years ago and is designed to identify those people with the highest potential to fill positions of increased grade and responsibility (U.S. Air Force, 1993, p. 1). Despite changes in force size, operational requirements, and airmen s responsibilities, the Weighted Airman Promotion System (WAPS) and its underlying factors have remained largely unchanged since its establishment. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the master sergeant promotion system and provide recommendations for improving it. Our work was driven by three primary research questions: (1) What are the KSAOs that master sergeants need to be good leaders? (2) Is the current system effective at promoting airmen with the KSAOs needed to be good leaders? (3) If necessary, what are potential options for improving the master sergeant promotion system to ensure that master sergeants have the KSAOs they need to succeed?

This report documents research examining requirements across all Air Force functional areas for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-degreed officers and officerequivalent civilians. It documents current STEM requirements, classifies disciplines as STEM or non-STEM, summarizes the prevalence of STEM degrees in the current officer-level workforce, and presents STEM requirements gathered from Air Force career field managers (CFMs) through a structured interview process. Based on the study findings, this report makes recommendations for improvements to the determination, documentation, and projection of STEM degree requirements. The research reported here was commissioned by the Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Integration, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition (SAF/AQX), and by the Director, Force Development, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Headquarters U.S. Air Force (HQ USAF/A1D) as part of fiscal year 2012 project Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and was conducted within the Manpower, Personnel, and Training Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE. This report should be of interest to Air Force leadership and staff involved in the policy and execution of officer accessions, civilian hiring, and the management of the STEM workforce., Project Air Force.

U.S. military personnel have been engaged in operations in Central Asia and the Middle East for the past decade. Members of the armed forces also deploy to other regions of the world. Many aspects of deployments have the potential to contribute to individual stress, such as uncertainty about deployment time lines; culture shock in theater; fear of or confrontation with death or physical injury; environmental challenges, such as extreme climates and geographical features; austere living conditions; separation from friends and family members; and reintegration after deployment. Service members and their families also manage other military-related stressors, such as frequent relocations, long work hours, and the additional family separations associated with unaccompanied tours and domestic training exercises. Some service members and their families may cope well or even thrive as they overcome adversity and accomplish challenging tasks. However, some may suffer negative consequences as a result of military-related stressors, such as physical injury, including traumatic brain injury; depression, anxiety, or other mood disorders; posttraumatic stress disorder; spiritual crises; substance abuse; family dysfunction; marital problems and dissolutions; social isolation; and in extreme cases, even suicide or suicide attempts. With the aim of preventing such deleterious outcomes rather than simply responding to them, the study of resilience is of paramount importance. The Air Force offices of Airman and Family Services (AF/A1S), the Surgeon General (AF/SG), and the Secretary of the Air Force, Force Management and Personnel (SAF/MRM) asked the RAND Corporation to help the Air Force develop its programs to promote resiliency among military and civilian Air Force personnel and their families. This report is one in a series of nine reports that resulted from that research effort., Project Air Force

Processes for determining U.S. Air Force manpower requirements vary considerably across and within the variety of workforces employed to meet Air Force missions. The relevant workforces include active duty military personnel, full-time and part-time Air Force Reserve (AFR) and Air National Guard (ANG) military personnel, civilian employees, and contractors. Distinctive processes have been developed for quantifying needs for operational, maintenance, and non-maintenance agile combat support workforces. Prioritization among requirements is reached through the programming and budgeting processes of the Air Force Corporate Structure, but that structure depends on the development of manpower standards, manpower modeling, and other similar processes to identify the unconstrained manpower costs of executing and supporting various missions. Our primary focus in this report is on those quantitatively oriented manpower requirements processes and the extent to which they are validated, coordinated, and consistent. We also explore the qualitative side of personnel requirements, whereby, through specialty classification standards and other related processes, the required competencies of various workforces are specified.

In 2012, RAND conducted a pioneering exploratory survey of 3,479 active-duty, guard, and reserve Airmen on their use of information and communication technology (ICT), the association between ICT use and social and psychological well-being, and the potential for Air Force mental health professionals to leverage ICT to meet the needs of Airmen. In this study, ICT refers specifically to electronic-mediated communications such as texting, email, phone calls, instant messaging (IM), social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), video chat (e.g., Skype, video teleconferencing), blogging, online multiplayer video games and virtual worlds, and the Internet in general. Before we analyzed the results, the survey data were weighted to ensure that the analytic sample would be representative of the gender, age group, rank (officer, enlisted), and affiliation (active, guard, reserve) composition of the U.S. Air Force. We also reviewed the rapidly expanding literature on the use and impact of ICT. Although this is not a comparative study of American civilians and Airmen, the results of previous studies of civilians provided valuable background information and contributed to the development of the survey, as well as the interpretation of the results.

Using a wide array of primary and secondary source materials, RAND Project AIR FORCE analyzed the drivers of China's policy toward Central Asia as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, ascertained the full range and extent of Chinese activities in these areas, and then carefully assessed the implications of these findings for the United States. This report was part of a larger project that explored the range of possible future demands on and requirements for the U.S. Air Force. The goal of the project was to analyze regional and global challenges, assess the implications of this analysis for U.S. national security, and make recommendations for U.S. Air Force posture.

Battlefield airmen serve in several career specialties that require performing under stressful conditions. Two of these specialties in particular, pararescue and combat control, routinely operate outside the wire (i.e., in enemy territory) to recover downed or injured military personnel and direct military aircraft in hostile or denied regions, respectively. Consequently, effective performance in these careers requires the ability to cope with severe stress to ensure that the mission succeeds. Several strategies can be used to ensure that battlefield airmen are successful and can perform well under stress. First, screening measures can be used to predict and select battlefield airmen who have a higher probability of succeeding in stressful environments. Second, instructors can screen out trainees who are unable to perform successfully under stressful conditions. Third, trainees can self-select out of training if they are unable to cope with the high physical and psychological demands of training. Finally, instructors can educate airmen about stress responses, provide specific behavioral and cognitive skills training, and structure opportunities to practice these skills at different career stages to optimize performance under stress. Overall, the Air Force uses many successful strategies to ensure that battlefield airmen are successful and perform well under stress. However, some components of the last strategy presented above, termed stress inoculation training or stress exposure training, and the primary focus of this report, have not been fully incorporated as a deliberate element in training all battlefield airmen. Although battlefield airmen are given sufficient opportunities to develop and practice their technical skills under a variety of conditions, few resources beyond instruction for PJs have been devoted to developing the cognitive and behavioral skills useful to effectively manage stress.

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is at a potential turning point. It has been engaged in expeditionary operations for more than two decades, developing and adapting its force management concepts to cope with changing demands first in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, and then again in Iraq, as well as elsewhere. As those operations wind down, so do some of the demands that have strained the force for many years, potentially leaving a window within which to reset and prepare for future operations. Recent defense guidance has shifted the focus toward Asia, emphasizing missions that may stress USAF capabilities in new ways. The USAF is currently reexamining its force presentation and management construct, raising questions about how the force will position and prepare itself for the future. Additionally, fiscal pressures make resource trade-offs even more weighty and difficult.

The U.S. Air Force values diversity as a military necessity (Air Force Instruction [AFI] 36-7001). Yet despite its efforts to create a force that mirrors the racial, ethnic, and gender differences of the nation s population, minority groups and women are underrepresented in the active-duty line officer population, especially at senior levels. In general, the representation of women and racial/ethnic minority men and women decreases as rank increases. Over the past 20 years, the representation of racial/ethnic minorities and women among Air Force officers has increased substantially, but the pattern is still a cause of concern to Air Force leaders. This report investigates eligibility, accessions1, retention, and promotions among racial/ethnic minorities and women, with the goal of identifying the factors that led to the current state of workforce diversity and potential policy options for leaders who seek to improve diversity at the most senior levels of the military. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, Office of Strategic Diversity Integration (SAF/MRD), and the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services asked RAND to assist the Air Force in understanding some of the underlying causes for low representation of minorities and women among its officer ranks. We analyzed data from multiple sources on Air Force eligibility, accessions, retention, and promotion, and on youths intention to serve in the armed forces. We developed a conceptual framework based on each of the four career outcomes (eligibility, accessions, promotions, and retention), developed benchmarks, and used quantitative data to assess whether and where barriers to equal opportunity exist. We also developed recommendations to help the Air Force achieve a greater level of racial/ethnic and gender diversity among line officers.

Remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs) notably the medium-altitude MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper have provided crucial support to counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations over the past decade. As these operations come to a close, the Air Force has begun to evaluate additional RPA concepts to meet future needs. In this report, we analyze the operational effectiveness of three RPA design concepts, plus the MQ-9 as a baseline, on a hunter-killer mission: to find and destroy a specific moving vehicle. All the findings in this report are based on the modeling results for a particular scenario (with variants) and should be understood within that context. Although our scenario is representative of many hunter-killer missions as they are executed today, it is not representative of others. It also relies on several crucial assumptions. Most important, the threat environment we modeled is permissive, meaning that there is negligible threat to the aircraft. This permits the use of concepts of operations (CONOPS) untempered by survivability concerns. In the particular scenario we considered, the initial cue for the target vehicle is urgent but imprecise, allowing only that the enemy is expected to emerge from hiding somewhere in a five nmi2 area within 15 minutes. Its ultimate destination is believed to be outside this area but is otherwise unknown. Finding the target vehicle before it leaves the area therefore necessitates a rapid, brute-force search. Because the area is not especially large, the search is not difficult but is complicated by environmental factors. The cued area is an urban environment, which constrains line of sight to steep viewing angles. Moreover, in many of the variants we considered, the RPA sensor operator is forced to contend with other effects detrimental to establishing and maintaining line of sight, including fog and clouds.

As the Air Force plans and implements budget-driven force structure reductions, questions about the right mix of forces have emerged from the active component (AC), the reserve components (RC), and other stakeholders. This document seeks to illuminate the factors that bear on the suitability of various missions for assignment to the RC and should therefore be considered in force mix deliberations. We note at the outset that past force reductions have not been proportional across the components. Nor do we believe that proportionality should be the basis for future reductions. Rather, carefully assessed suitability of the AC and RC to provide force structure for various missions, with cost and effectiveness as a primary concerns, should drive force composition decisions. A primary consideration is the relative availability of the RC for meeting both strategic and operational taskings from combatant commanders. This availability is tempered by statutory and funding restrictions on the use of reservists for active missions. These restrictions establish a primary focus on reserve force training and administration by both full-time reservists and part-time reservists while funded under reserve appropriations. This reduces the utility of the RC as an operational reserve. We also found that management of the Military Personnel Appropriation (MPA) man-day program is not optimal for fully utilizing the RC as an operational reserve, primarily because the man-day program does not explicitly consider access to lower RC flying hour costs available in some missions. In our discussion of relative AC and RC costs, we stress that cost comparisons are meaningful only when costs are expressed in terms of useful unit outputs. For flying units, we identify those outputs as owned aircraft (with ready aircrews and maintenance workforces), total flying hours, and operational flying hours.

Psychological fitness, as part of the Total Force Fitness (TFF) construct, is defined as the integration and optimization of cognitive processes and abilities, behaviors, and emotions to positively affect performance, well-being, and response to stress. These resilience factors can be thought of as antecedents of a complex process whereby individuals deal with stress. As such, they provide the foundation for psychological fitness. This report focuses on three categories of key resilience factors in the psychological domain: cognitive, affective, and self-regulatory. The cognitive category includes constructs that reflect individuals thoughts and beliefs about themselves (e.g., seself-efficacyself-esteem), in addition to interpretations of their situation (e.g., perceived control). The affective category includes constructs that measure the experience of positive and negative emotions (e.g., positive and negative affect). And the seself-regulatoryategory includes constructs that measure self-regulation and control (e.g., coping strategies). In general, the actual measurement of these psychological constructs is primarily accomplished via self-report survey or questionnaire.

The United States has been interested in protecting its on-orbit assets ever since the first U.S. satellite was launched in 1958. Since that time, the United States has been monitoring the location of objects in orbit to maintain custody of its satellite inventory, as well as predict and prevent collisions between known objects. The Space Surveillance Network (SSN), managed by U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) and staffed by 14th Air Force, currently tracks more than 20,000 orbital objects larger than 10 cm in diameter. The data collected by the SSN are used to maintain a master catalog of known space objects, and this catalog is then used to estimate the probability of collisions involving active satellites. When a collision is predicted, the operator is notified, and evasive action can be taken.

The most recent Nuclear Posture Review calls upon the Department of Defense, and therefore the U.S. Air Force, to initiate studies of the future intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force with the objective of defining a cost-effective approach that supports continued reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons, while promoting stable deterrence. In support of this work, the Air Force Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration (AF/A10) and Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) asked the RAND Corporation to examine future ICBM design, basing, and employment options for an ICBM fleet designed to meet evolving U.S. operational requirements. In this report, we present the analysis and findings of RAND's fiscal year (FY) 2011 study intended to lay the groundwork for the upcoming Analysis of Alternatives (AoA). It is the job of this AoA to evaluate alternatives based on technical feasibility, operational effectiveness, and cost. The potential development of a new ICBM poses important questions that demand comprehensive answers requiring objective assessment and rigorous analysis. It is important to start off on the right foot when thinking about this complex and vitally important issue. Considering the longevity of Minuteman, the decisions we make today will likely shape a central component of the U.S. strategic force for decades to come. In this study, we examine ICBMs in the context of current and future national security challenges. We then identify criteria we believe to be important in carrying out an ICBM AoA.

A large body of work in sociology and related fields has found that neighborhood characteristics can have an impact on health and well-being beyond individual-level characteristics. Although members of the military and their families move more frequently than the average citizen and, in the case of active-duty service members, have the opportunity to live on a military installation rather than in the general community, the quality and characteristics of the areas where they live can also affect their, and their families', well-being. Military base services in disadvantaged neighborhoods can compensate for the lack of resources needed to be safe, secure, healthy, and thrive. Air Force Services asked the RAND Corporation to enhance its ability to tailor support for Airmen and their families through analysis of the relevance of neighborhood, or area, characteristics of the areas surrounding major Air Force installations in the United States. We applied established social indicators and neighborhood studies methodology to score 66 major Air Force installations in terms of their areas' social and economic characteristics, and to estimate the association between those scores and self-reported Airman outcomes related to health and well-being, military and neighborhood social cohesion, ratings of neighborhood resources, use of on-base resources, satisfaction, and career intentions. The objective was to identify which areas may have greater need for Air Force resources, so that Air Force Services can enhance its programming in those areas and consider those needs when making budget decisions. This document reports the results of that analysis. The research reported here was sponsored by the Air Force Office of Airman and Family Services (AF/A1SA) and conducted within the Manpower, Personnel, and Training Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.

History suggests that when the Department of Defense (DoD) considers sixth-generation fighter aircraft capabilities, some will argue that a single joint acquisition program would cost less than multiple service-specific programs. Joint aircraft programs, in which two or more services participate in the development, procurement, and sustainment of a single baseline design, are thought to save life-cycle costs by eliminating duplicate research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) efforts and by achieving economies of scale in procurement and operations and support (O&S).1 Yet, the need to accommodate different service requirements in a single design or common design family can lead to greater program complexity, increased technical risk, and common functionality and weight in excess of what is needed by an individual service. These factors can increase the overall cost, despite the efficiencies gained from a joint approach. RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) research shows that historical joint aircraft programs have not saved money, have caused services to accept unwelcome design compromises, have contributed to the shrinking of the industrial base, and have increased strategic and operational risk. Consequently, unless the participating services have identical, stable requirements, DoD should avoid taking a joint approach to acquiring future fighter and other complex aircraft.

Information technology (IT) has come to play an increasingly significant role in the way organizations conduct business, evolving from a narrow tool for automation to a potential enabler of business transformation.1 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are prime examples of IT systems being pursued by the Department of Defense (DoD) to enable transformation and improve efficiency and effectiveness. ERP systems are configurable, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software packages that enable organizations to integrate operational and management processes across a broad range of internal business activities. The DoD and the military services have implemented or are in the process of implementing several ERP systems to enable business transformation goals and meet the fiscal year (FY) 2017 deadline for auditable consolidated financial statements (Public Law 99 433, 2010). The Air Force is implementing two such systems, the Air Force Integrated Personnel and Pay System (AF-IPPS) and the Defense Enterprise Accounting and Management System (DEAMS), and recently canceled a third, Expeditionary Combat Support System (ECSS). These ERPs were initiated with the intent of improving the effectiveness of the Air Force s business functions and providing operational support to the warfighter (e.g., through improved visibility and management of personnel and other assets). Importantly, especially in an era of constrained budgets, these ERPs were also intended to reduce the cost of Air Force business functions, which compete with operations and modernization for funds. Implementing an ERP system can confer a range of benefits to an organization (e.g., see Davenport, 2000; Eckartz, 2009; Shang, 2002; Staehr, 2010).

The U.S. Air Force is facing a number of challenges as a result of the current defense budget downturn along with the uncertainty of its timing and magnitude. This report focuses on the challenge of modernizing the Air Force's aircraft fleet while trying to sustain the industrial base with limited funding. Complicating this challenge is that the pattern of Air Force spending has shifted dramatically away from new aircraft procurement since the previous spending downturn. Moreover, the emergence of a competitor with significant technical and economic capability is another major difference from the previous downturn. Therefore, there is a need for careful strategic management of investment choices--and this goes beyond just aircraft. The Air Force will first need to define its capability priorities that fit within budget constraints, then use those priorities to shape a budget strategy. We explore six different budget strategies for aircraft procurement: from a new high-tech fleet to sustaining and modifying the existing one. Each strategy under a constrained spending future results in challenges and issues for the industrial base. The Air Force will need to help mitigate industrial base problems that result from their chosen budget strategy--but some issues may be beyond their control. There are lessons from foreign acquisitions that the Air Force can leverage to avoid pitfalls. Most importantly, shortfalls in both industry and government skill bases can cause significant problems later during execution. Finding ways to sustain key skills during a spending downturn will be important for the future and potentially produce longer-term savings.

Current military operational needs have driven advances in sensor systems and in the airborne platforms that carry them. In particular, they have brought about the rapid development of motion imagery sensors, including both full-motion video (FMV) and wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) sensors. Moreover, advances in telecommunications now allow raw imagery and other raw intelligence to be transmitted to a worldwide distributed set of military intelligence centers. All these technological advances have led to an information deluge that threatens to overwhelm military intelligence analysts. In this report, we focus on a particular class of tools and technologies (motion imagery processing and exploitation [MIPE]) to help military intelligence analysts take better advantage of the information deluge and to enable them to continue to exploit a wide range of motion imagery collections. We define MIPE as the collection of capabilities and enabling technologies, tools, and systems that aid analysts in the detection, identification, and tracking of objects of interest (OOIs), such as humans and vehicles; in the identification of activities of interest (AOIs); and in the characterization of relationships between and among OOIs and AOIs in live and archival video. We focus on motion imagery collections not only because they are growing so rapidly, but also because motion imagery is still a relatively new intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability. As the military services move toward more multi-intelligence (multi-INT) work, it is important to bring new capabilities up to par with the old ones.

The United States Air Force's current process for producing advanced academic degrees (AADs) requires career field managers (CFMs) to predict specific AAD-coded billet vacancies three to five years before they occur and then submit these requirements to the Air Force Education Requirements Board (AFERB) to fill those projected vacancies. Based on the reported vacancies and other criteria (such as the Chief of Staff's priorities), the AFERB provides quota allocations; any CFM requirements that do not receive a quota allocation become unfunded quota requirements. After an officer earns an AAD, the Air Force Personnel Center assigns the officer to an AAD-coded billet vacancy. The ideal result should be a 100 percent match rate between the Air Force funded AADs earned by officers and the education requirements of the corresponding AAD billet vacancies, irrespective of the number of funded quota allocations allotted at the AFERB. However, our analysis of 8,447 AAD assignments for officers who earned AADs from FY2000 through FY2010 shows that only 58 percent of officer assignments to master's degree billets and 33 percent of officer assignments to doctorate degree billets were made such that the officer's degree level and academic specialty matched the billet requirement. One reason for the low percentage of proper assignments is that the AAD assignment process does not deliberately match officers who have previously earned an AAD to unfunded quota requirements. Furthermore, our analysis points to a lower-than-desired utilization rate of officers who have earned Air Force funded AADs. Our analysis also shows that the career points at which personnel earn AADs are misaligned with the AAD billet grade structure. An analysis of FY2010 data shows that the number of personnel with Air Force funded master s degrees falls short of requirements in early years of service, but exceed requirements by the sixth year of service.

Joint aircraft programs, in which two or more services participate in the development, procurement, and sustainment of a common aircraft design, are thought to save life cycle cost (LCC) by eliminating duplicate efforts and realizing economies of scale. In theory, joint programs have more potential to save costs than multiple comparable single-service programs by sharing total research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) expenditures on a common design, and achieving economies of scale in production and operations and support (O&S). But the need to accommodate different service requirements in a single design or common design family may lead to greater program complexity, increased technical risk, and common functionality or increased weight in excess of that needed for some service variants, potentially leading to higher overall cost despite these efficiencies. The fundamental question we seek to answer is this: On average, are the theoretical savings that should accrue from joint aircraft programs sufficient to offset the additional costs arising from greater complexity? In short, do joint fighter and other aircraft programs cost less overall throughout their entire life cycle than an equivalent set of specialized single-service systems? RAND Project Air Force analyzed the costs and savings of joint tactical aviation acquisition programs to determine whether a joint approach achieves the anticipated cost savings. The study team examined whether historical joint aircraft programs, and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) in particular, have saved LCC compared with comparable notional single-service programs. The team also examined the implications of joint fighter programs for the health of the industrial base and for operational and strategic risk. The major study findings are documented in a separate report. This report provides a series of appendixes that detail the methodology behind the study findings.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has launched or attempted to launch numerous joint fighter and other joint aircraft programs in the past 50 years. The largest and most recent is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), which was designed for use by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and international partners and is currently in low-rate initial production. The main purpose of a joint program, versus a set of single-service programs, is to save overall Life Cycle Cost (LCC) by eliminating duplicate research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) efforts and achieving economies of scale in procurement and operations and support (O&S). Yet, the need to integrate multiple service requirements in a single design increases the complexity of joint programs and potentially leads to higher-than-average cost growth that could reduce or even negate potential savings. There have been no comprehensive assessments of costs and savings in historical joint aircraft programs based on actual joint aircraft program outcomes and historical cost data. To help inform future acquisition strategies for fighter aircraft, the commander of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) asked RAND Project Air Force (PAF) to analyze the costs and benefits of historical joint aircraft programs, from the early 1960s through today's JSF. The project addressed five major questions: Have historical joint aircraft programs saved LCC compared with comparable single-service aircraft programs?; Is JSF on track to save LCC compared with notional equivalent single-service fighter programs?; What factors contributed to cost outcomes in historical joint aircraft programs, as well as JSF?; What are the implications of a joint aircraft approach for the industrial base?; and What are the implications of a joint aircraft approach for operational and strategic risk?

This report develops an economic-based framework that can be used to make weapon system sustainment sourcing decisions as part of a sustainment enterprise posture planning process. We demonstrate the use of this framework by applying it to a new weapon system, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, to identify depot maintenance strategies at the aircraft subsystem/technology level. To ensure that the affordability of the F-35 program is not threatened by continuing O&S cost growth, the Air Force is examining alternative strategies to reduce those costs. The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, through the F-35 Joint Program Office, have determined that all depot-level repairs on the F-35 will have a core component. Having a core component means that the government will maintain the capability to perform some -- but not necessarily all -- repair work at a U.S. government facility. Core decisions are made to protect the services so that, in an event of a natural disaster, war contingency, or disruption in commercial-sector operations, the government will retain the capability to perform certain tasks. Air Force Materiel Command's Depot Operations Division has suggested that approximately 60% of the total depot maintenance workload for the F-35 falls into the core category. Thus, although the U.S. government will retain the capability to perform the range of depot-level repairs, 40% of the workload -- known as above core -- can be considered for sourcing to an organic Air Force facility, another military service's facility, a foreign partner, or the private sector. DoD guidance states that above-core depot workloads should be assigned on the basis of a best-value determination. But this guidance does not specify how to determine best value. To help fill this gap, this report presents an approach to determining best value when assigning above-core depot workloads.

In recent years, discussions about external military intervention in local conflicts have often included consideration of no-fly zones (NFZs) as a policy option. In the past two decades, the U.S. Air Force has participated in three contingencies involving NFZs over Bosnia, Iraq, and Libya, and NFZ proposals have been proffered for some time as an option for intervention in the Syrian civil war that would avoid placing Western troops on the ground. This paper is intended as a preliminary look at NFZs as a strategic approach in such situations, with an emphasis on the forms they might take, their potential utility, and their probable limitations. It should be of interest to readers participating or interested in decision making about military intervention, as well as Air Force and other defense personnel who bear the responsibility of planning for and executing such operations. The research reported here was made possible by RAND concept formulation funds and was conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.

For over 60 years, the present-day Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site (AMOS) has provided the U.S. Department of Defense with space situational awareness capabilities from the island of Maui, Hawaii. AMOS consists of two separate facilities: the Maui Space Surveillance Complex (MSSC) and the Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC). The MSSC is located on the top of the Haleakala volcano and is operated by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). MSSC has three large (meter-class) optical telescopes that were designed to provide situational awareness for missile tests and orbiting man-made objects. Together, these telescopes provide the Air Force with a unique capability to support space situational awareness missions. MHPCC is located in Kihei and is one of the five DoD Supercomputing Resource Centers. MHPCC provides computational resources, high-speed communications infrastructure, and support services to MSSC. Although they are separate facilities, MHPCC and MSSC are often referred to together as AMOS, due to a strong collaboration that exists between them. Since its inception, AMOS has evolved to meet emerging challenges and new missions. It is important for present-day decision makers to understand how AMOS has changed over time as they assess its role for future missions. To this end, this document contains an annotated timeline of AMOS from its origin in 1951 to the present day (2012). It is presented here to provide background for future researchers and strategic planners who need to understand the context and background of the site's history. This timeline was created as part of a larger fiscal year 2012 study, Assessing Current/Future Customers for the Maui Space Surveillance Site, which was designed to assess AMOS's long-term sustainability. In support of the main research objectives, RAND compiled a thorough listing of key events that helped shape the modern-day manifestation of AMOS, and these events are listed in this timeline.

In fiscal year (FY) 2012, the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) reorganized from a 12-center construct to a 5-center construct. The reorganization was driven by Department of Defense (DoD) mandated cuts in civilian manpower levels to respond to the Budget Control Act of 2011 (Public Law 112-25) and was one part of much larger Air Force budget cuts. AFMC restructured its organization more around missions than locations and trimmed staff and overhead administrative positions rather than line positions. In FY 2012, Congress required a review of the reorganization and recommendations for alternative organizational structures, focused on the effects of the reorganization on life-cycle management of weapon systems. A response was completed and submitted in 2012. Subsequently, Congress raised additional concerns about the reorganization in Section 2814 of the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (Public Law 112-339), which is reproduced in full in the appendix. The purpose of this report is to present an assessment of the FY 2012 reorganization of AFMC to respond to the congressional reporting requirements in Section 2814 of the FY 2013 NDAA. This report assesses the following five elements: (1) the effectiveness and efficiency of the reorganization; (2) the extent to which synergies due to collocation among developmental test and evaluation (DT&E), science and technology (S&T), and acquisition can be replicated in the new organization; (3) the reorganization's impact on other commands' ability to meet their responsibilities for operational test and evaluation (OT&E) and follow-on test and evaluation (FOT&E); (4) whether the reorganization is in adherence with 10 U.S. Code Section 2687; and (5) the extent to which the Air Force coordinated the reorganization with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and if any concerns raised by OSD were addressed.

U.S. Air Force (USAF) global posture its overseas forces, facilities, and arrangements with partner nations is a study in contrasts. On the one hand, there are those major bases where combat forces have been permanently deployed since the end of World War II. These bases are characterized by superb infrastructure, a large USAF presence (typically including dependents), and a substantial force element (typically a wing headquarters and associated units). There were dozens of these bases at the height of the Cold War, but relatively few exist today. For example, as of October 2013 there are only seven fighter bases abroad: Royal Air Force (RAF) Station Lakenheath in the United Kingdom; Spangdahlem Air Base (AB) in Germany; Aviano AB in Italy; Osan and Kunsan ABs in South Korea; and Misawa and Kadena ABs in Japan. In contrast to the relatively small number of major bases concentrated in a few countries, the USAF has dozens of smaller facilities hosting other activities. For example, there are early warning radars, space tracking, and communication facilities, such as Thule AB, Greenland; forward operating locations (FOLs), such as Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan; en route airfields for transportation aircraft, such as Yokota AB, Japan; and small USAF training detachments rotating through airfields, such as in Lask, Poland. This global posture faces a variety of political, fiscal, and military challenges. Within the United States, the Cold War consensus in support of a large overseas presence has eroded, while a clear alternative vision has yet to emerge. Fiscal pressures led Department of Defense (DoD) leadership to propose another round of domestic base closings in 2012, but members of Congress made clear that reductions would have to occur abroad before they would support base closings at home.

Overseas military presence has been a central concern of American grand strategy for more than a century, dating to the emergence of the United States as a great power in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. It is equally central to the contemporary debate on the future of American grand strategy in the 21st century. Three particular policies -- the pivot to Asia, a drawdown of U.S. troops from Europe, and two more possible rounds of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) -- are presently the topic of much debate by analysts, policymakers, and military officials alike. The RAND Corporation has drilled down on one common element of these policies -- overseas U.S. military basing -- to answer the following question: What are the potential cost savings associated with altering the U.S. overseas military posture? The analysis in this report estimates the costs associated with Air Force installations and units to provide further insight into the costs and benefits of overseas basing. Our analysis takes three separable elements of overseas basing (force size, force location, and base location), assesses the costs of altering them individually, and then constructs a cost analysis to frame a range of policy options. This document summarizes the findings from our cost calculations, offering a comparison of recurring savings resulting from altering the U.S. overseas presence. The analysis should be of interest to planners, programmers, and policymakers involved in the contemporary debate on grand strategy, particularly those that assess overseas military posture. This research was co-sponsored by the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force (AF/CV), the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans, and Requirements (AF/A3/5), and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and Programs (AF/A8).

The relative costs of operating and supporting Air Force active- and reserve-component units is an important consideration in programming the mix of forces for various missions. Unfortunately, there are no generally accepted or well-documented methodologies for compiling the costs and output measures to be included in these comparisons. This report describes the development of one such methodology and applies it to exploring force mix alternatives in several weapon systems. Our objective is to provide an approach that is sufficiently comprehensive, uses accessible data, and yields replicable results. The analysis underlying this report was based on cost, aircraft inventory, and flying hour data pertaining to Air Force active- and reserve-component flying units from FYs 2006 through 2010. This report explores the relationships among these variables and draws conclusions for their implications regarding the cost-minimizing mix of active and reserve force structure. The Air Force Reserve conducted a detailed review of this report and does not agree with its methodology, analysis, or findings. The Air Force Reserve believes that the conclusions in this paper are not supported by Office of the Secretary of Defense force planning utilization policy and that they underestimate the reserve component s contribution as an operational force. Due to its concerns associated with the report s cost methodology, utilization data, and the over-reliance on the significance of cost per operational flying hour as a single metric, the Air Force Reserve recommends prudence when applying the insights noted in this report.

Intratheater airlift (ITA) is used to deliver critical and time-sensitive supplies, such as blood products for transfusions or repair parts for vehicles, to deployed forces. ITA within a combat theater of operation has traditionally been assumed to be provided by military aircraft. However, in recent years, a number of commercial providers have been providing a significant amount of ITA within U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM). A number of motivations for the use of commercial intratheater airlift (CITA) within USCENTCOM have been identified, such as: (1) concerns about structural fatigue to C-130 aircraft due to the heavy use of these aircraft in USCENTCOM; (2) lack of access to C-130 aircrews, particularly those in the Air Reserve Component, for deployments; (3) a desire to reduce the use of convoys over high-threat roadways. The analysis detailed in this report aims to answer the following question: Were these expenditures on CITA cost-effective, relative to the cost of performing these same movements on organic U.S. Air Force (USAF) aircraft? That is, did the Department of Defense (DoD) get a good value on these purchases?

Breakthroughs in satellite and fiber-optic telecommunication networks and related technologies currently enable almost instantaneous transmission of information across the globe. Many private and public organizations have become used to depending on the global information grid to perform their daily operations. A firm with headquarters in the United States can interact with multiple affiliates and customers located on the other side of the globe in real time. With such technological advances, the need has arisen for virtual collaboration means that allow personnel at geographically diverse sites to interact and communicate effectively. Having the most effective means of virtual collaboration and ensuring they are used in the most effective way are paramount to achieving error-free, real-time communication, a goal that is particularly important for military operations. In this report we address the virtual collaboration needs of organizations whose components have wide geographic distribution, such as U.S. military intelligence organizations or U.S. military operational units.

The biggest challenge likely to confront the U.S. Air Force (USAF) nuclear enterprise in the near future is how to cope with declining total obligation authority and a smaller force structure. To meet this challenge, the USAF needs to have the best processes and tools available to allocate resources across sustainment of all systems in the nuclear enterprise in a way that most efficiently and effectively fulfills its portion of the national nuclear mission. The purpose of this report is to identify ways to strengthen future nuclear deterrence capabilities by better planning and programming for the sustainment of these missions in the present. This cannot be done well by focusing alone on the sustainment of individual platforms. It requires a mission-based planning view that embraces how the various systems work together to perform a mission. For example, for a mission such as nuclear long-range standoff, this integrates the sustainment, modernization, and recapitalization plans for the W80 nuclear warhead; the air-launched cruise missile that carries it; the B-52H that carries the missile; and the relevant nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) systems that support them. Sustainment in this context also extends to the full doctrine (and policy), organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) set of resources, processes, and activities needed to ensure the provision of a continuous, reliable capability to fully execute the missions specified by national guidance for some duration into the future.

Air Force senior leadership relies on inspections, assessments, and evaluations to advise it on the efficiency, effectiveness, readiness, and level of compliance of Air Force activities. Conducted by several different organizations within the Air Force, these oversight tasks have grown dramatically over time, despite repeated efforts to limit the burden they place on individual Air Force units. Although Office of the Inspector General of the Air Force (SAF/IG) inspections constitute only about one-fourth of this burden, SAF/IG has the responsibility to set inspection policy and oversee the inspection and evaluation systems for the Air Force as a whole. In 2010, SAF/IG began an aggressive effort to improve inspection policy by reducing the burden it places on inspected units and increasing the quality of relevant information it generates for the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force and for commanders throughout the Air Force. At SAF/IG s request, in late 2010, RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) joined this effort. The RAND Corporation conducted analyses related to five major inspection system goals that SAF/IG and its Inspection System Improvement Tiger Team (ISITT) were pursuing.

This document presents the results of a cost-effectiveness analysis to determine the best way to recapitalize the USAF intertheater (strategic) airlift fleet. The USAF intertheater airlift fleet consists of C-5s and C-17As. As of 2010, there were 111 C-5s in the inventory; as of 2012, there will be 221 C-17As. Three versions of the C-5 were produced: the C-5A; C-5B; and two special-mission aircraft, C-5Cs. The C-5 fleet is currently undergoing a modernization program to upgrade its avionics, engines, and other components. After an aircraft undergoes this Reliability Enhancement and Reengine Program (RERP), it is designated a C-5M. One C-5A and seven C-5Bs have undergone this upgrade and are now so designated. As of fall 2010, the USAF had 59 C-5As, 42 C-5Bs, two C-5Cs, and eight C-5Ms. The current USAF plan for the C-5 fleet is to implement the RERP upgrade on all the C-5Bs and to retire 22 of the C-5As. Note that a RERP does not affect the service life of the aircraft. The resulting fleet will consist of 37 C-5As and 52 C-5Ms (one of which is an upgraded C-5A, two of which are upgraded C-5Cs, and the rest are upgraded C-5Bs). This fleet is sufficient to meet the demands of Mobility Capabilities and Requirements Study 2016 (MCRS-16) Case 1.

As currently planned, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the largest aircraft acquisition program in the history of the Department of Defense (DoD). According to the December 2011 F-35 Selected Acquisition Report (DoD, 2011), the total acquisition cost to procure 2,457 F-35 aircraft across the United States Air Force (USAF), Navy, and Marine Corps is $331 billion, with total operating and support (O&S) costs of $617 billion to operate the aircraft through 2065 (both costs are computed using a base year of 2012). Moreover, the F-35 cost-per-flying-hour estimate has increased by more than 80 percent (in constant dollars) over the interval 2002 to 2010. To ensure that the affordability of the F-35 program is not threatened by continuing O&S cost growth, the USAF is examining alternative strategies to reduce those costs. One approach to reducing O&S costs is to reduce the number of F-35 home-station operating locations, which is in turn related to the number of F-35 squadrons and the number of Primary Aerospace Vehicle Authorized (PAA) per squadron. In December 2011, RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) presented a preliminary analysis to the Director of Logistics, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Installations and Mission Support, Headquarters USAF (AF/A4L); this analysis found that increasing the combat-coded PAA per squadron while maintaining a constant total number of PAA (thereby reducing the total number of squadrons) could significantly reduce maintenance manpower and support equipment costs. Based upon these findings, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force asked PAF to assess whether savings could be achieved by reconfiguring the USAF s 960 cocombat-coded-35 PAA into larger squadrons (i.e., increasing PAA per squadron), by adjusting the PAA mix across the Active Component and Reserve Component, and by adjusting the percentage of Active Component PAA assigned to continental U.S. home-station locations.

Since civilians were formally incorporated onto the faculty at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in the early 1990s, there has been continued debate over the best mix of military and civilian faculty needed to achieve the Academy s mission. Furthermore, the Air Force currently faces difficulty in meeting USAFA faculty requirements for officers with advanced academic degrees, often resulting in understaffed departments. Funding for temporary faculty to fill these positions is also declining. This report documents research designed to address these issues by examining how potential changes to the current academic faculty composition would affect five areas of importance to USAFA s mission and to the broader U.S. Air Force: (1) cadets officership development, (2) cadets academic development, (3) cost, (4) staffing challenges, and (5) officer career development. The report then makes recommendations for a faculty composition that best balances these key factors and is sustainable into the future.

The genesis for this work was the broader issue of how the Air Force should integrate kinetic and nonkinetic that is, cyber operations.2 Central to this process was careful consideration of how escalation options and risks should be treated, which, in turn, demanded a broader consideration across the entire crisis-management spectrum. To put the material on escalation into a broader context, we preface it with an examination of appropriate norms for international conduct with a focus on modulating day-to-day computer-network exploitation and building international confidence (Chapter Two). Chapter Three covers narratives, dialogue, and signals: what states can and should say about cybercrises. A state that would prevail has to make a clear story with good guys and bad guys without greatly distorting the facts (beyond their normal plasticity).

The current U.S. global defense posture that is, the location and primary operational orientation of the nation s military personnel and the military facilities that its troops have access to is under increasing pressure from a number of sources, including budgetary constraints, precision-guided weapons that reduce the survivability of forward bases, and host-nation opposition to a U.S. military presence. These debates over the shape of the U.S. overseas military presence are not without precedent. As policymakers today evaluate the U.S. forward military presence, it is important that they understand how and why the U.S. global posture has changed. This monograph aims to describe the evolution of the U.S. global defense posture from 1783 to the present and to explain how the United States has grown from a relatively weak and insular regional power that was primarily concerned with territorial defense into the preeminent global power, with an expansive system of overseas bases and forward-deployed forces that enable it to conduct expeditionary operations around the globe. Moreover, this historical overview has important implications for current policy and future efforts to develop a U.S. military strategy, in particular, the scope, size, and type of military presence overseas. As new and unpredictable threats emerge, alliance relationships are revised, and resources decline, past efforts at dealing with similar problems may yield important lessons for future decisions.

As airspace systems around the world are transformed to accommodate growing air traffic demands, the U.S. Air Force must decide whether to modernize its fleets to comply with new equipage mandates. Without avionics modernization, the Mobility Air Force s C-5, C-17, KC-135, and C-130 fleets would lack some of the capabilities required to meet these forthcoming mandates. Modernization ensures continued access to fuel-efficient cruising altitudes and congested airspace, but these future benefits require an upfront investment in avionics upgrade programs. The Air Force plans to operate legacy aircraft well into the future. As they age, these fleets will require modernization to maintain their capabilities. In a fiscally constrained environment, investment decisions must be made in a way that maximizes the benefit of each dollar spent. This analysis looks at a subset of these potential investments, assessing their cost-effectiveness based on quantifiable future costs that would be avoided by modernization. For some programs, there may be additional benefits beyond those resulting from communication, navigation, and surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM) cost avoidance. In many cases, these outcomes reinforce the results presented here. In others, the broader potential benefits must be weighed carefully against program costs that are not fully offset by CNS/ATM cost avoidance.

Many official Department of Defense (DoD) and Air Force sources describe language skills as a key warfighting competency. Given the need to develop the language capabilities of Air Force officers, it has been proposed that all Air Force officers be required to demonstrate a high level of proficiency in a foreign language at the time they are commissioned. The Foreign Policy Advisor to the Air Force Chief of Staff asked Project AIR FORCE to evaluate how best to achieve this goal. In response, we reviewed relevant background information and research on adult language learning and designed and fielded a survey of Air Force officers to address the following: 1. Is a minimum score of 2/2 (limited working proficiency) or 3/3 (general working proficiency) on a language exam a feasible and achievable goal? 2. What potential consequences would implementing a language proficiency requirement for officers have?

Today s defense environment is particularly challenging for two reasons. First, significant portions of the force are continuously engaged in a variety of operations, ranging from active combat to humanitarian assistance, over wide geographical areas where the needs for force projection are often difficult to predict. Even after operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are concluded, it is likely that the world situation will call for worldwide deployment of U.S. forces to support theater security cooperative efforts (with allies) to shape conditions to avoid contingency operations. Second, there is increasing pressure to operate more efficiently. Although there has always been the need to relate combat support resource requirements to operational objectives, today s environment requires quick combat support actions to tailor deployable support packages and sustainment actions to meet specific operational needs. Furthermore, economic pressures are likely to continue and could result in further reductions in the resources set aside to meet contingency operations. In addition to economic pressures, the inability to perfectly predict resource demands, the need to shift funding from one category to another to meet unanticipated needs, and the occurrence of unanticipated world events that require intervention, among other factors, all contribute to having imbalances between needed ACS resources and those that are available at any given time to simultaneously meet all requirements for contingency and training operations. To best use limited resources in providing combat capability, combat support functional areas must work in an integrated fashion across command and control nodes, predicting combat support needs and responding rapidly to dynamic operational needs, and must allocate scarce resources to where they are most needed.