No More Stovepipes: Unifying Air Operations Planning Doctrine to Enable Multirole Mission Success

Education is the Premise to Progress

 Back to School In his recent keynote speech at the Air, Space, and Cyber Symposium, Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr. stated that “we must build our culture, not just our concepts” to meet potential threats. He identified multiple lines of effort “that will drive culture change,

Why the A-Staff?

 Imperative for ChangeThe US may now face adversaries capable of wielding a disruptive and dangerous operational reach with mass, precision, and speed in all domains.[1] This increasingly complex environment requires the Air Force to shift away from centralized organizational constructs that were

Beneath The Surface: China’s Subtle, Tightening Grip On Filipino Affairs

The Indo-Pacific region is a hotly contested arena where China and the United States vie for influence. Nowhere is this struggle more evident than in China's backyard, the South China Sea (SCS). Like picnic goers tip-toeing past a bee-infested trashcan, many smaller and developing countries of the

Attritable Intelligence, Surveillance, And Reconnaissance (ISR): Concepts and Employment

The concept of Attritable ISR is not exactly new, but rather a return to warfare between great powers. Having engaged primarily in conflicts with non-peer countries with long-range ISR aircraft (such as the U-2 or SR-71) and satellite imagery, the US is not used to the idea of losing its ISR

A Better Approach to Competing with China among “Middle Powers” in Southeast Asia

In the maritime expanse of Southeast Asia (SEA), US challenges in power projection and deterrence are the result of complex geopolitical realities as much as “the tyranny of distance” or the growth of Chinese conventional missile forces.[1] Even as the United States loses its (relative) military

Before Mission Command

The Air Force is not prepared to implement Mission Command (MC.)[1] Although an increasing number of Air Force senior leaders embrace the idea of MC, at least rhetorically, if it is to become a reality, there is much to overcome.[2]Conferences, new doctrine, and General Officers espousing the

The Legacy of LDC: Leaders Thriving with Trust and Confidence v. “Just Surviving” or Getting Fired

IntroductionThis article situates trust and confidence as hallmarks of leaders who thrive in leading organizations. Within the military, trust exemplifies integrity over time and indicates how others feel that someone has the ability to achieve what is expected of them. Confidence indicates a belief

Dynamic Command, De-Centralized Execution

By examining how authority has been delegated historically, this article considers the application of mesh-node architecture in the military’s command hierarchy to develop decentralized, dynamic commands for future conflicts against a peer adversary, identifying

Not Your Grandfather’s Nukes

From 1950-1980, the United States (US) nuclear weapons program experienced its share of accidents with 32 on record in the opening decades of the Atomic Era. Practitioners call these events Broken Arrows. Analysts often illuminate the danger of these near misses and the trial-and-error safety