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Air Force Installation Energy Assurance: An Assessment Framework
Air Force mission success is increasingly dependent on assured access to electricity. A number of factors can interrupt supply of electric power, including natural disasters, accidents, and deliberate interference. The authors present a framework to assess energy assurance at Air Force installations.
Categories: Defense Policy
Air Force Officer Management Flexibilities: Modeling Potential Policies
This report assesses the effect that proposed military human resource management flexibilities could have on Air Force officer accessions, promotions, separations, and other force management outcomes. The assessments identified flexibilities that would benefit the Air Force and characterized subsets of the military workforce to which they could be advantageously applied.
Categories: Defense Policy
Assessing Russian Reactions to U.S. and NATO Posture Enhancements
Heightened tensions between Russia and NATO since 2014 have prompted the Alliance to take a fresh look at NATO's ability to deter potential Russian aggression. In this report, RAND researchers develop a framework that analysts can use to assess likely Russian reactions to ongoing and proposed NATO posture enhancements in Europe, which can help policymakers determine the utility and advisability of different options.
Categories: Defense Policy
Air Force Senior Leader Representation in the Joint Community
Airmen are underrepresented in senior joint positions critical to shaping U.S. national security strategy and warfighting capability. Increasing competitiveness for senior joint positions may entail risks and will require cultural transformation.
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #44 - Comparative Connections Summaries
Regional Overview: Déjà Vu All Over Again … Only Worse!
by Ralph A. Cossa and Brad Glosserman
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #44 - Comparative Connections Summaries
Regional Overview: Déjà Vu All Over Again … Only Worse!
by Ralph A. Cossa and Brad Glosserman
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #44 - Comparative Connections Summaries
Regional Overview: Déjà Vu All Over Again … Only Worse!
by Ralph A. Cossa and Brad Glosserman
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #44 - Comparative Connections Summaries
Regional Overview: Déjà Vu All Over Again … Only Worse!
by Ralph A. Cossa and Brad Glosserman
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #44 - Comparative Connections Summaries
Regional Overview: Déjà Vu All Over Again … Only Worse!
by Ralph A. Cossa and Brad Glosserman
Categories: Defense Policy
Back to the Future: Devolving Acquisition to the Services
On May 12, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released a summary of its long-anticipated proposals for the reform of organizations and processes in the defense acquisition system. Taken together, these proposals would dramatically extend the devolution of acquisition to the services that was initiated in the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Categories: Defense Policy
Word of the Day: Nordic + Easy = NORD-EASY
“If only everyone could be like the Scandinavians, this would all be easy…” President Obama
Categories: Defense Policy
Restructuring National Security Organizations and Decisionmaking
On May 12, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released its long-anticipated proposals for reform of organizations and processes in the national security enterprise. The proposals come on top of earlier proposals by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The proposals are not entirely consistent.
Categories: Defense Policy
U.S. Strategy and the War in Iraq and Syria
Iraq has just seen one of its most horrifying days of terrorism in what is now some thirteen years of war. ISIS has struck at Iraq’s civilian population with the clear goal of dividing the country between Sunni and Shi’ite—although one of its three bombs did kill Sunnis as well.
Categories: Defense Policy
Fully Lifting the U.S. Lethal Arms Ban Will Add Momentum to U.S.-Vietnam Relations
Ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit to Vietnam in late May, officials and analysts in both Washington and Hanoi have been talking about whether the United States should fully lift the ban on the sale of lethal weapons to Vietnam that was imposed when the Vietnam War ended in 1975.
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #43 - U.S.-India Defense Partnership 2.0: Making Good (incrementally) on Strategic Congruence
Against many odds, Prime Minister Narendra Modi – with capable assists from President Obama – has repaired the US-India strategic equation that had begun to fray during the latter years of his predecessor’s second term in office.
Categories: Defense Policy
Why the U.S.-Nordic Leaders Summit Matters to the Next U.S. President
Clarifying his views on U.S.
Categories: Defense Policy
The Middle East's Centenarian
One hundred years into the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a growing chorus of voices is asserting its imminent demise. Skeptics say that few of the Arab states’ borders ever made any sense, and the uprisings sweeping through Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere represent the long-overdue death rattle of the post-colonial order in the Middle East.
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #42 - Regional strategic challenges and East Asia Summit
Growing contestation among big powers, mostly between the United States and China, has become a key strategic issue underlining the security environment and architecture in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific. Regional security forums, and the East Asia Summit (EAS) in particular, can help mitigate the negative implications of intensified strategic competition.
Categories: Defense Policy
PacNet #41 - Philippines’ next president: implications for ASEAN
Filipinos went to the polls on May 9, 2016 to elect a new president. All indications point to the victory of the maverick, front-runner candidate Rodrigo Duterte, a long-time mayor of Davao city in the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.
Categories: Defense Policy
A Rebalanced Transatlantic Policy Toward the Asia-Pacific Region
The United States and the European Union share similar interests and objectives in the Asia Pacific. Trade and investment are key components of U.S. and EU policy, and both have launched ambitious negotiations with regional partners to liberalize trade with East Asia’s burgeoning economies.
Categories: Defense Policy
