Alan J. Vick

Senior Political Scientist; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Off Site Office

Education

Ph.D. in political science, University of California, Irvine; M.A. in social science, UC, Irvine; B.A. in political science, UC, Irvine

Media Resources

This researcher is available for interviews.

To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.

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Overview

Alan Vick is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He has co-authored RAND reports on air base resiliency, a framework for USAF global presence, air-naval concepts for maritime interdiction, ground threats to air bases, air operations in urban operations, options to improve air operations against light infantry and elusive targets, air and sea options for deploying the Army Stryker Brigade, new concepts for joint air-ground operations, and air power's role in countering insurgencies. Vick was associate director of RAND Project AIR FORCE (2002-2004), acting director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program, a RAND Project AIR FORCE program, (2003-2004), associate director of RAND's Strategy and Doctrine Program, (1998-2001), and Project AIR FORCE liaison to the Air Staff (1989-1994). He served as an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division (1973-1976). Vick holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Irvine.

Research Focus

Previous Positions

Associate Director, RAND Project AIR FORCE

Selected Publications

Alan J. Vick, Sean M. Zeigler, Julia Brackup, John Speed Meyers, Air Base Defense: Rethinking Army and Air Force Roles and Functions, RAND (RR-4368-AF), 2020

Alan J. Vick, Paul Dreyer, John Speed Meyers, Is the USAF Flying Force Large Enough? Assessing Capacity Demands in Four Alternative Futures, RAND Corporation (RR-2500-AF), 2018

Alan J. Vick, Stacie L. Pettyjohn, Meagan L. Smith, Sean M. Zeigler, Daniel Tremblay, Phillip Johnson, Continuity and Contingency in USAF Posture Planning, RAND (RR-1471-AF), 2016

Alan Vick, Air Base Attacks and Defensive Counters: Historical Lessons, Future Challenges, RAND Corporation (RR-968), 2015

Alan Vick, Proclaiming Airpower: Air Force Narratives and American Public Opinion from 1917 to 2014, RAND Corporation (RR-1044-AF), 2015

Stacie L. Pettyjohn, Alan J. Vick, The Posture Triangle: A New Framework for U.S. Air Force Global Presence, RAND (RR-402-AF), 2013

Frank Camm, Lauren Caston, Alexander Hou, Forrest Morgan, Alan Vick, Managing Risk in USAF Force Planning, RAND Corporation (MG-827), 2009

Alan Vick, Adam Grissom, William Rosenau, Beth Grill, Karl Mueller, Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era: The Strategic Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions, RAND Corporation (MG-509), 2006

Recent Media Appearances

Interviews: Air Force Magazine; Air Force Times; Defense News; New York Times

Commentary

Okinawa Remains an Intractable Thorn for US and Japan
The relocation of the Marines is a first step toward a more sustainable US military presence in the Asia-Pacific. Yet policymakers in Washington and Tokyo should not expect this move to eliminate an enduring source of tension in US-Japanese relations, write Stacie L. Pettyjohn and Alan J. Vick.
May 25, 2012 Asia Times

Publications

Report
Winning the Battle of the Airfields: Seventy Years of RAND Analysis on Air Base Defense and Attack
This report provides an overview of RAND's work on air base defense and attack from 1951 through 2020, describes RAND's contributions, and identifies enduring insights for improving the resiliency of U.S. air bases in the face of modern threats.
Feb 24, 2021
Report
Air Base Defense: Rethinking Army and Air Force Roles and Functions
The gap between the growing cruise and ballistic missile threat to U.S. Air Force bases in Europe and the U.S. capacity and capability to counter the threat is worrisome. This report assesses alternative Air Force courses of action.
May 29, 2020
Report
Distributed Operations in a Contested Environment: Implications for USAF Force Presentation
This report's authors identify capabilities the Air Force needs to carry out distributed operations in a contested environment. They then assess whether the current force presentation model can provide such capabilities.
Jul 17, 2019
Report
Is the USAF Flying Force Large Enough? Assessing Capacity Demands in Four Alternative Futures
This report draws on historical data to quantify gaps in the U.S. Air Force's capacity to meet potential future demands.
Aug 28, 2018
Report
Force Presentation in U.S. Air Force History and Airpower Narratives
USAF leaders are concerned that their force presentation construct is lacking. This report presents historical analysis and recommendations to inform USAF deliberations regarding future force presentation constructs.
May 7, 2018
Report
Continuity and Contingency in USAF Posture Planning
This study develops a framework for long-term U.S. Air Force (USAF) posture planning that accounts for drivers of USAF posture and identifies steps the USAF can take to increase posture robustness and agility over the 30-year planning period.
Nov 18, 2016
Report
Proclaiming Airpower: Air Force Narratives and American Public Opinion from 1917 to 2014
Examines how U.S. Air Force narratives and public attitudes toward civil and military aviation have evolved and interacted over the past century.
Jul 17, 2015
Report
Air Base Attacks and Defensive Counters: Historical Lessons and Future Challenges
This report provides a reference on air-base attack and defense, describes the post-Cold War American way of war, identifies defensive options, and offers recommendations on how best to win the battle of the airfields.
Jun 12, 2015
Multimedia
U.S.–Japan Alliance Conference Series Proceedings
In a series of conferences, U.S. and Japanese experts explored the challenges for the U.S.-Japan alliance associated with China's military modernization drive and increasing foreign policy assertiveness.
Jan 21, 2015
Report
The Posture Triangle: A New Framework for U.S. Air Force Global Presence
Identifies why the U.S. Air Force (USAF) needs a global posture, where it needs basing and access, the types of security partnerships that minimize peacetime access risk, and the amount of forward presence that the USAF requires.
Dec 5, 2013
Report
Managing Risk in USAF Force Planning
Presents a framework for force planning that would help guide Air Force leaders as they make the difficult decisions necessary to manage risk across multiple possible missions and between current and future priorities.
May 13, 2009
Report
A New Division of Labor: Meeting America's Security Challenges Beyond Iraq
The promotion of democracy and freedom abroad will continue to require changes in how U.S. armed forces are organized and employed and how the services relate to one another and to U.S. allies.
Apr 8, 2007
Research Brief
America's Security Challenges Require a New Division of Labor Among the Armed Forces
This research brief assesses the primary challenges to U.S. security in the emerging security environment and offers suggestions for how the U.S. strategy and the defense program should be adjusted in order to meet these challenges.
Mar 27, 2007
Research Brief
Building Partner Capacity Is the Key to a Successful Counterinsurgency Strategy
This research brief examines ways the U.S. Air Force can contribute to allies' conterinsurgency efforts by providing advice; education; and, when necessary, physical and technological assistance to partner-nation air forces.
Aug 31, 2006
Report
Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era: The Strategic Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions
History shows that an afflicted nation must itself defeat an insurgency politically and militarily, and the best way to help is to offer advice, training, and equipment.
Aug 16, 2006
Research Brief
Beyond Close Air Support: Forging a New Air-Ground Partnership
RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) concluded that the Army and U.S. Air Force should get beyond a debate over which force supports the other and instead develop a partnership in which either may predominate, depending upon the situation.
Nov 25, 2005
Report
Beyond Close Air Support: Forging a New Air-Ground Partnership
Creating a new partnership to integrate air operations with ground fire and maneuver more effectively on future battlefields.
Feb 28, 2005
Report
Aerospace Operations in Urban Environments: Exploring New Concepts
This study sought to help the USAF better understand how the urban physical, social, and political environment constrains aerospace operations and to identify key operational tasks that aerospace forces can help accomplish.
2002
Report
The Stryker Brigade Combat Team: Rethinking Strategic Responsiveness and Assessing Deployment Options
Assesses how rapidly the Army's new medium-weight Stryker Brigade can be deployed by air or sealift from planned bases in the United States versus forward bases in key regions and explores how rapidly large U.S. forces need to deploy.
2002
Research Brief
Meeting the Challenge of Elusive Ground Targets
Summary of "Aerospace Operations Against Elusive Ground Targets," which seeks to identify concepts and technologies that could improve the United States Air Force's capability to detect, classify, recognize, and defeat elusive targets.
2002
Report
Aerospace Operations Against Elusive Ground Targets
This book seeks to identify concepts and technologies that could improve the USAF's capability to detect, classify, recognize, and defeat elusive targets, whether dispersed ground forces or mobile ballistic missiles.
2001
Report
Preparing the U.S. Air Force for Military Operations Other Than War
To help the USAF better understand the effects of current MOOTW on training and readiness, to explore some options to reduce those effects, and to propose new concepts of operations to enhance USAF capabilities to accomplish future MOOTW tasks.
1997
Research Brief
The U.S. Air Force and Operations Other Than War: Reducing Current Stresses and Meeting Future Demand
Study of USAF involvement in military operations other than war delineates the challenges facing the USAF at this optempo level and offers new approaches aimed not only at minimizing existing problems but also at enhancing USAF MOOTW capabilities.
1997
Report
Enhancing Air Power’s Contribution Against Light Infantry Targets
The objective of this effort was to explore the signatures and vulnerabilities of adversary light forces, to identify promising sensor and weapon technologies applicable to this target set, and to develop new concepts of operation (OPCONs).
1996
Research Brief
Finding Needles in Haystacks: Enhancing Air Power's Contribution Against Light Infantry
Discusses the challenges posed by light infantry opponents and presents new operational concepts that may help meet such challenges.
1996
Report
''Check Six begins on the ground'': Responding to the Evolving Ground Threat to U.S. Air Force Bases
Explores the possibility that future adversaries will use ground attacks on U.S. Air Force (USAF) bases as at least a partial countermeasure to overwhelming U.S. air superiority.
1995
Research Brief
Snakes in the Eagle's Nest: Ground Attacks on Air Bases, 1940–1992
Shows that ground attacks on air bases have been much more frequent and successful than is commonly appreciated.
1995
Report
Snakes in the Eagle's Nest: A History of Ground Attacks on Air Bases
This report presents a comprehensive overview of ground attacks on air bases from the first known attacks in 1940 to the most recent in 1992.
1995
Report
Challenges to U.S. Security in the 1990's and Beyond
With the end of the Cold War, U.S. defense planning has shifted from a focus on a major war against the Soviet Union and her allies to preparations for Major Regional Contingencies in the Persian Gulf and Far East. These preparations are severely con...
1994
Report
Building Confidence During Peace and War
Considers what effect confidence- and security-building measures (CBMs) might have on the achievement of U.S. objectives in situations of crisis or conflict.
1988
Report
The Military Significance of Restrictions on Strategic Nuclear Force Operations
This Note examines some problems associated with the application of the concept of confidence building to strategic nuclear force operations.
1984
Report
A national strategy hierarchy
This paper outlines some differences between tactical and strategic issues in an effort to define an "architecture" to make sense of the political, economic, and military dimensions of national strategy. It defines a national strategy hierarchy that ...
1984
Report
Nonnuclear strategic weapons: implications for arms control policy
The future acquisition of nonnuclear strategic weapons (NNSW) is likely to have profound consequences for a wide range of U.S. foreign and defense policy issues. This paper examines the implications of NNSW acquisition for arms control policy, focusi...
1984
Report
The RAND Winter Study on Nonnuclear Strategic Weapons: Executive Summary
Advancing technologies, particularly in micro-electronics and manifested in "smart" munitions, are offering the future prospect of nonnuclear weapons capable of performing some of the missions now assigned to strategic nuclear forces. That prospect m...
1984
Report
Some Thoughts on Deterrence
This paper reviews conventional expected value calculations and suggests that the use of boundary conditions, such as the concept of negative infinity, more closely approximates real world decisionmaking.
1983

Multimedia

2:10:15
Security Ties and Defense Industrial Cooperation in the Alliance
Dec 5, 2014