Fiscal Year 2007 Research Agenda

Strategy and Doctrine Program:

Improving the U.S. Air Force Ability to Build Partner Capacity

The QDR recognized that enhancing the capabilities of U.S. friends and allies is a critical military task in the prosecution of the “long war” against Jihadist terrorism. The USAF has important responsibilities in this arena, and this project is intended to help inform Air Force actions by addressing the kinds of assistance that offer the most impact in helping achieve U.S. objectives and how USAF doctrine, force structure, and posture might be adjusted to enable it to better provide this aid.

Sponsor: SAF/IA
Project Leader: Karl Mueller

Persia Rising: Meeting Future Security Challenges Presented by Iran

Iran´s nuclear ambitions have the potential to transform the security dynamics of the Greater Middle East, and the U.S. role in them. Whether or not the U.S. chooses to attempt to derail or delay Tehran´s nuclear program through military action, it is likely that dealing with the Iranian challenge will be a major driver of U.S. security policy in the coming years. Since the U.S. Air Force would bear the burden of much responsibility in a future military confrontation, it is important that USAF leadership understand the likely nature of such a future confrontation with Iran, the tasks it would be called upon to perform, and the implications for its force posture both in the greater Middle East and globally. To provide the USAF with these vital insights, PAF will leverage work performed in FY05 and FY06 on Iran´s strategic thinking and political, economic, and social evolution; and the assessments of the implications of confronting nuclear-armed adversaries conducted in a series of path-breaking studies over the past three fiscal years.

Sponsor: AF/A5X
Project Leader: David Ochmanek

Managing Risk in the Future Air Force

The nation faces daunting challenges as the post-post Cold War world continues to unfold: the “long war” against Islamic terrorism, emerging nuclear powers in North Korea and possibly Iran, the emergence of China as a true great power in East Asia, and encouraging stability and security in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Department of Defense and the USAF are being asked to perform their parts in securing the U.S. against these threats in the context of flat or falling budgets, adding a tremendous degree of complexity to their tasks. Within such a complicated and stressful environment, balancing risk operational risk across possible missions, political risk to U.S. alliances and security relationships, and fiscal risk across program options is of pre-eminent importance and fraught with difficulty. PAF´s trademark interdisciplinary analytic approach, its deep knowledge of USAF culture, institutions, and programs, and its unparalleled body of work on the strategic and operational demands of security environment will enable it to inform the Air Force leadership as they chart the service´s course through the coming years.

Sponsor: AF/A8X
Project Leader: Alan Vick

Chinese Air and Space Power

The intelligence community and the USAF have substantial information about the technical capabilities of Chinese air and space systems; however, understanding how China might employ those capabilities in a range of circumstances is much more limited. There is a substantial body of work in Chinese on air and space doctrine and strategy that have not been translated and remain unanalyzed by U.S. intelligence. With its ability to bring together analysts who can read and analyze Chinese military-doctrinal writings in the original Chinese and understand the political, cultural, and organizational context in which they are written, with analysts with deep understanding of air and space force employment, PAF is uniquely positioned to exploit these and other materials to describe formal Chinese doctrine for air and space operations, analyze how that doctrine is likely implemented and thus assess how China would actually employ its forces for air and space control in the event of a conflict.

Sponsor: PACAF/CC
Project Leader: Roger Cliff

Joint Warfighting Headquarters

The USAF is standing up multiple “warfighting headquarters,” such as the Kenney HQ in PACAF, to provide the Joint force with pre-existing, staffed, and trained, air component commanders who are also prepared to serve as Joint task force commanders. This project will address how well the warfighting headquarters construct is understood and implemented in the Joint community and suggest improvements to the concept to make it a more useful mechanism for Joint planning and execution.

Sponsor: AF/A3/5; ACC/A5
Project Leader: David Shlapak

Exploring New Concepts for Joint Air-Naval Operations

This project follows on to FY06 work that has focused on how USAF and USN forces can exploit latent and potential synergies in major maritime combat operations. In FY07 we will focus on other arenas, such as securing the "maritime commons" of SLOCS against pirates, terrorists, and limited attacks; and protecting the United States´ sea borders. By combining the understanding of naval operations developed in the course of the ongoing project (which takes full advantage of serving Naval officers who are at RAND on fellowships as well as the knowledge built over years of work for the Navy by RAND´s National Defense Research Institute) with PAF´s decades of experience studying USAF operations and capabilities and 10 years of innovative and influential work on the roles of air power in Joint environments, we will inform USAF leaders regarding doctrinal, operational, and programmatic initiatives that could increase the Air Force´s interoperability with the US Navy, Coast Guard and Marines to protect the nation´s vital interests when they are threatened in the maritime domain.

Sponsor: AF/A5X
Project Leader: David Orletsky

Troubled Partnerships: The Growing Challenge of Managing U.S. Security Relationships and Implications for the U.S. Air Force

The United States faces challenges in maintaining a number of its long-term security relationships. Divergent threat assessments, disagreements about regional and global issues, and changing public perceptions among allied populations threaten to drive wedges between Washington and long-time friends such as South Korea, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Even the relationship with Tokyo, which remains strong, stands to be transformed as an increasingly confident and assertive Japan emerges as a more independent actor in Asia and globally. The U.S. Air Force has enormous stakes in how these dynamics play out, and USAF leaders need to understand the factors driving the relationships and the implications of possible changes on Air Force basing, access, and posture. This study follows from FY06 work on trends in U.S. alliances and will exploit RAND´s unequalled knowledge of regional issues and understanding of USAF posture.

Sponsor: AF/A5X
Project Leader: Jennifer Moroney

The View from Moscow: A Strategic Assessment

Over the past three years, events in Russia have increasingly shown that the West´s fondest hopes for Moscow´s political evolution are falling far short of realization. As power has once again grown increasingly centralized behind the Kremlin´s walls, statements from Russian leaders including President Putin have grown somewhat more bellicose and at times even shrill. Russia´s economic recovery, accelerated by its greatly-increased earnings from energy exports, is also enabling the beginning of a military modernization program that could begin to reverse the decay of the last 15 years and enable a more energetic and potentially-troublesome foreign policy. This project will conduct an initial net assessment of Russia´s future, addressing its foreign policy goals, strategies, and military resources and priorities; and Russia´s likely impacts on the security priorities of the United States and its key partners. Like PAF´s extensive and influential series of projects assessing China´s rise, the analysis will be highly interdisciplinary and produce actionable insights of the USAF as it seeks to adapt its posture to better respond to potential changes in Russia´s capabilities and intentions.

Sponsor: USAFE/CC
Project Leader: Olga Oliker

U.S. Security Roles in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa looms increasingly large in U.S. security calculations. The region´s many countries include a number whose governments are so inept or corrupt as to put in question their ability to avoid failure, and the concomitant danger of becoming new havens for terrorist groups that threaten the U.S. and its friends. At the same time, Africa´s wealth of natural resources, including energy and critical minerals, makes it a possible locus for a new competition for influence, as indicated by China´s rising profile on the continent. This project will assess Africa´s strategic place in U.S. policy: what are the important American interests in the region, and what pressures are being brought to bear on them? What roles will the U.S. military and especially the USAF have in defending those interests, and how should the Air Force posture itself to fulfill those responsibilities? PAF´s interdisciplinary approach and regional knowledge equip it to provide new and important insights to the USAF leadership.

Sponsor: USAFE/A5
Project Leader: Adam Grissom