David T. Orletsky

In light of the impending drawdown of forces and the pressure to reduce defense budgets, this report describes research to quantify the rescuability window of downed aircrews to assist the U.S. Air Force s reassessment of its personnel recovery force structure. The current research quantifies the relationship between rescuability and time so that the most cost-effective options for increasing the rescuability of downed personnel can be pursued."

The relationship between China and Taiwan is more stable in 2009 than it has been years; at the same time, the cross-strait military balance is shifting in ways that are problematic for Taiwan's defense. This volume examines the changing China-Taiwan political dynamic, evaluates key aspects of the cross-strait military balance, and considers how Taiwan might be successfully defended against a Chinese invasion attempt.

This book emphasises on creating a new partnership to integrate air operations with ground fire and maneuver more effectively on future battlefields.

Assesses the homeland security implications of publicly available geospatial data and information. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, many agencies within the federal government began restricting some of their publicly available geospatial data and information from such sources as the World Wide Web. As time passes, however, decisionmakers have begun to ask whether and how such information specifically helps potential attackers, including terrorists, to select U.S. homeland sites and prepare for better attacks. The research detailed in this book aims to assist decisionmakers tasked with the responsibility of choosing which geospatial information to make available and which to restrict.

Examines alternative means to decrease the deployment time for the new Army medium-weight brigade, comparing air and sealift from the United States with air and fast (but short-range) sealift from forward bases or preposition sites. Historical experience and an assessment of U.S. regional interests are used to determine how much warning time the United States typically has before major force deployments and where it is most likely to deploy such forces.

Among the hottest flashpoints in the world today, U.S. policymakers and diplomats cannot ignore the Taiwan Strait. China regularly rattles its saber to intimidate Taiwan and influence U.S. policy but has thus far stopped short of overt military action. This report analyzes the steps Taiwan should take to bolster the odds in its favor should a conflict with the mainland occur and describes how the United States can most effectively contribute in both peace and crisis. The authors conclude that the United States and Taiwan can take a number of fairly simple and relatively inexpensive measures - including hardening air bases and other facilities and upgrading the air defense command and control system - that would significantly enhance Taiwan's ability to defend itself against a large-scale Chinese attack.

The U.S. Air Force is exploring adaptive basing (AB) concepts to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. forces and to preserve critical combat capabilities in highly contested environments. These concepts are likely to stress the U.S. Air Force's global mobility capabilities. This report assesses the impact of AB concepts on the Mobility Air Forces and to recommends enhancements to better support AB operations in a contested environment.

Because U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) rotary-wing aircraft are nearing their ends of life, the USCG is reassessing its airpower needs for its current missions and future operational requirements. Researchers assessed what airpower mixes could help the USCG execute its missions across the entire geographic domain for operations in the next 30 years. In this report, they document their findings and make recommendations.

This report discusses the challenges associated with potential confrontations between the United States and hostile states with small nuclear arsenals. It examines prospects for neutralizing their nuclear capabilities via combinations of offensive and defensive options at varying levels of opponent nuclear development and managing escalation risks in conventional wars with them across a range of scenarios.

This functional area analysis lays out the tasks, conditions, and standards for the intratheater airlift fleet, taken from high-level guidance, various operational concepts, and recent operational experience and the key variables for later analyses.

One liner: Each of the three defense reviews of the last decade fell short of fully apprehending the demands of the emerging threat environment, and the budgets that would be needed and afforded, resulting in a growing imbalance between strategy, forces, and resources over the decade. The end of the Cold War ushered in an era of profound change in the international arena and hence in the policymaking environment as well. Yet the changes that have characterized the post-Cold War era have often proceeded at different paces and have at times moved in opposing directions, placing unprecedented strain on policymakers seeking to shape a new national security and military strategy. This report describes the challenges policymakers have faced as seen through the lens of the three major force structure reviews that have taken place over the past decade; the 1990 Base Force, the 1993 Bottom-Up Review, and the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review. The report focuses on the assumptions, decisions, and outcomes associated with these reviews as well as the planning and execution of each.It concludes that all three reviews fell short of fully apprehending the demands of the emerging threat environment, and the budgets that would be needed and afforded, resulting in a growing imbalance between strategy, forces, and resources over the decade. Accordingly, the report recommends that future defense planners adopt an assumption-based approach in which key planning assumptions are continually reassessed with a view toward recognizing--and rapidly responding to--emerging gaps and shortfalls. [AF]

As part of a two-year effort to develop an expansive construct of air and space power in the early twenty-first century that capitalizes on forthcoming air and space technologies and concepts of operation and is effective against adversaries with diverse economies, cultures, political institutions, and military capabilities, the research team investigated the possibility that future adversaries might be able to mount effective missile attacks on U.S. Air Force (USAF) main operating bases in critical regions. This report does not assess the relative vulnerabilities of various force elements and facilities; instead, it aids the USAF in addressing a potential vulnerability of its in-theater bases: highly accurate attacks against USAF aircraft on parking ramps at such bases made possible by the proliferation of Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance and submunition warhead technologies.