Preparing the U.S. Air Force for Military Operations Other Than War

Alan J. Vick, David T. Orletsky, Abram N. Shulsky, John Stillion

ResearchPublished 1997

Among the current military operations other than war (MOOTW), ongoing peace operations in Iraq and Bosnia, in particular, are producing an operations tempo unprecedented in peacetime. This optempo is stressing people and equipment, making it difficult for the United States Air Force (USAF) to prepare fully for potential combat operations in major regional conflicts. The objectives of this report are 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. The report first looks at the types of MOOTW the Air Force and its predecessors have participated in since 1916 (including a database of 869 missions), and the changes in those types since the end of the Cold War. It then analyzes how MOOTW optempo is affecting force training, readiness, and morale, and explores several options for addressing these problems, including a "cop-on-the-beat" operational concept to reduce the size of deployed forces. Next, it discusses the reasons MOOTW have taken on greater importance in the post-Cold War environment, identifies current and future MOOTW tasks that the USAF could be assigned, and presents some new concepts of operation to accomplish these tasks.

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Vick, Alan J., David T. Orletsky, Abram N. Shulsky, and John Stillion, Preparing the U.S. Air Force for Military Operations Other Than War. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1997. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR842.html.
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