John Stillion

Less than a decade ago, China's air force was an antiquated service equipped almost exclusively with weapons based on 1950s-era Soviet designs and operated by personnel with questionable training according to outdated employment concepts. This monograph analyzes published Chinese and Western sources about current and future capabilities and employment concepts of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). It describes how those capabilities and concepts might be realized in a conflict over Taiwan, assesses the implications of China implementing them, and provides recommendations about actions that should be taken in response.

A set of recommendations for a global access strategy to render the USAF better equipped to meet its access and basing needs and hence to perform its missions both rapidly and effectively. The post-Cold War era has ushered in an unprecedented need for responsiveness on the part of all U. S. services to fast-moving, rapidly evolving contingencies around the globe. Ready access to overseas installations, foreign territory, and foreign airspace has assumed particular importance to the United States Air Force (USAF), the majority of whose aircraft are configured to operate from bases relatively close to their intended targets. Accordingly, this report outlines an approach that the USAF can take to secure such access across a wide range of potential contingencies. The report begins by analyzing the variables that have affected other countries' decisions either to grant or to deny the United States access, and it then discusses the tools that are available to the United States to help ensure such access in the future. Subsequently, the report evaluates the effects that less-than-optimal basing and access might have on future USAF operations and the manner in which such effects might be mitigated. The demands that military operations other than war might impose on the USAF are similarly assessed. Finally, the report offers a set of recommendations that, taken together, constitute the basis for a global access strategy aimed at rendering the USAF better equipped to meet its access and basing needs - and hence to perform its missions both rapidly and effectively - in the future. [AF] The post-Cold War era has ushered in an unprecedented need for U. S. services' responsiveness to fast-moving, rapidly evolving contingencies around the globe. Ready access to overseas installations and foreign territory and airspace has assumed particular importance to the United States Air Force (USAF). Accordingly, this report outlines an approach that the USAF can take to secure such access across a wide range of potential contingencies.

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.

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.