Distributed Operations in a Contested Environment Implications for USAF Force Presentation

Abstract

The 2018 National Defense Strategy instructed the services to prioritize capabilities for conflict with another great power. This gave new urgency to ongoing initiatives within the Air Force to prepare for growing air and missile threats to bases and a contested communications environment. There is a wide range of possible counters to the particular problem of air base vulnerability, including greater reliance on long-range systems, active defenses, hardening of bases, and on-base dispersal of assets. This study focuses on a particular set of emerging concepts for distributed operations that call for using a larger number of air bases to complicate enemy targeting and using a more decentralized command and control (C2) approach. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) asked the RAND Corporation to consider whether the USAF needs to change its force presentation model (FPM), the way it organizes to use airpower as part of a joint operation, to implement these concepts.

Document Details

• Document Type: Technical Report
• Publication Date: Jan 01, 2019
• Accession Number: AD1077812

Entities

People

• Alan J. Vick
• Jacob L. Heim
• Meagan L. Smith
• Miranda Priebe

Organizations

• RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Air Platforms
• C4I
• Cyber
• Electronic Warfare
• Engineered Resilient Systems
• Human Systems
• Space
• Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Aerial Warfare
• Air Force
• Airframes
• Civil Engineering
• Combat Areas
• Contingency Operations (Military)
• Employment
• Fighter Aircraft
• Geography
• Military Force Levels
• Military Organizations
• Military Science
• National Security
• Organizational Structure
• Tanker Aircraft
• Transport Aircraft
• Warfare

Readers

• Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
• Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.

Technology Areas

• Fully Networked C3
• Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control