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Air Warfare

Air warfare is the ability to disable an opponent's military using strategic strikes from manned and unmanned aircraft. RAND has extensive experience evaluating and providing recommendations to military decisionmakers to ensure rapid, effective, and sustainable airborne deployments to counter regional threats.

Report

Report

Overview of People's Liberation Army Air Force "Elite Pilots"

This report draws on a wide variety of Chinese primary sources to provide an overview of how the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) selects and trains what it calls its elite fighter pilots.

Aug 24, 2016
Report

Report

The Foundations of Operational Resilience — Assessing the Ability to Operate in an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) Environment: The Analytical Framework, Lexicon, and Characteristics of the Operational Resilience Analysis Model (ORAM)

Describes a modeling framework and lexicon for conducting a detailed analysis of future Air Force operational resilience in an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment.

Jul 7, 2016
Report

Report

Improvements to Air Force Strategic Basing Decisions

Examines the Air Force's basing decisionmaking process and assesses the quality of the underlying data.

Apr 15, 2016
Commentary

Insights on the Paris Terror Attacks from RAND Experts

RAND experts weigh in on what the wave of coordinated terror attacks across Paris means for France, the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, the global refugee crisis, and more.

Nov 17, 2015
Commentary

The French Way of War

There is a French way of warfare that reflects the French military's lack of resources and its modest sense of what it can achieve. They specialize in carefully apportioned and usually small but lethal operations, often behind the scenes.

Nov 17, 2015
Commentary

A No-Fly Zone Over Syria: Q&A with Karl Mueller

Some are advocating a no-fly zone in Syria to protect civilians from both ISIS and forces loyal to Assad. What constraints complicate establishing a no-fly zone and realizing its expected benefits? And how might Assad supporters, such as Russia, respond?

Oct 15, 2015
Multimedia

United States and China: Trends in Military Competition

In this October 2015 congressional briefing, Eric Heginbotham discusses relative U.S. and Chinese military capabilities, including the evolution of Chinese military capabilities, steps the United States can take to limit the impact of a growing Chinese military on deterrence, and other U.S. strategic interests.

Oct 5, 2015
News Release

News Release

China's Military Modernization Increasingly Challenges U.S. Defense Capabilities in Asia

Although China continues to lag behind the United States in terms of aggregate military hardware and operational skills, it has improved its capabilities relative to those of the U.S. in many critical areas. Moreover, China does not need to catch up fully in order to challenge U.S. ability to conduct effective military operations near the Chinese mainland.

Sep 14, 2015
Research Brief

Chinese Attacks on U.S. Air Bases in Asia: An Assessment of Relative Capabilities

China has the most active ballistic-missile program in the world. It has made rapid and substantial relative improvements in its ability to disrupt or degrade U.S. air operations by attacking air bases.

Sep 14, 2015
Research Brief

Tallying the U.S.-China Military Scorecard

A set of “scorecards” assesses the relative capabilities of U.S. and Chinese military forces in diverse types of conflict, at varying distances from the Chinese mainland, and at different points in time.

Sep 14, 2015
Research Brief

U.S. and Chinese Air Superiority Capabilities

The United States maintains unparalleled air-to-air capabilities. But the modernization of Chinese air forces, combined with the difficulties of operating over long distances in Asia, would make it more and more challenging for the United States to gain air superiority during the beginning of a possible conflict with China.

Sep 14, 2015
Report

China's Military Modernization Increasingly Challenges U.S. Defense Capabilities in Asia

Although China continues to lag behind the United States in terms of aggregate military hardware and operational skills, it has improved its capabilities relative to those of the U.S. in many critical areas. Moreover, China does not need to catch up fully in order to challenge U.S. ability to conduct effective military operations near the Chinese mainland.

Sep 14, 2015
Report

Airpower in the Libyan Civil War

In 2011, a coalition of nations waged a war against Muammar Qaddafi's regime that reversed the tide of Libya's civil war. The intervention's central element was a relatively small air campaign. What lessons did each nation glean from the experience?

Jul 8, 2015
Commentary

NATO's Campaign in Libya Offers Salient Lessons for the Air War Against ISIL

The NATO air campaign that helped defeat Qaddafi's regime in Libya has received relatively little mention in public discussion of the ongoing air strikes against ISIS. But the campaign in Libya offers at least five lessons that deserve greater attention today.

Nov 25, 2014
Commentary

Destroy ISIL's Heavy Weapons and Vehicles: Level the Playing Field

More than any other option, employing air power decisively to deny ISIL the ability to use its armor and artillery has the potential to immediately and dramatically shift the battlefield balance against it.

Oct 20, 2014
Commentary

Air Campaign Against ISIS Is Just Getting Off the Ground

More than 60 countries have joined the coalition against ISIS, with at least 12 participating in the air campaign. Eventually, this will be an impressive armada, but the campaign is still in its first stage, and most of the coalition participants joined the effort only recently.

Oct 17, 2014
Q&A

RAND Experts Discuss U.S. Airstrikes Against ISIS in Syria

The United States and five of its partner nations are conducting strikes against ISIS terrorists in Syria using fighters, bombers, remotely piloted aircraft, and Tomahawk Land Attack missiles. RAND experts discuss the bombings and possible ramifications.

Sep 24, 2014
Commentary

The Grim Lessons of “Protective Edge”

For all the attempts to find technological quick fixes or enforce a permanent settlement, Operation Protective Edge has highlighted that a war of attrition, known as a “long war,” remains the only viable strategy in the current environment.

Sep 3, 2014
Commentary

What's Going on in Iraq?

While the United States could embark on a much wider war in Iraq, there's little reason to think it will rush to do so or that using airpower to help defend the Kurds will make such an escalation inevitable.

Aug 14, 2014
Commentary

A Long-Term Strategy for a Democratic Iraq

Unfortunately, no strategic option for a unified, democratic Iraq has a good chance of success. But any well-considered option that doesn't involve ineffective killing or risking U.S. lives is preferable to simply allowing Iraq to disintegrate and feed broader regional instability.

Jun 30, 2014

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RAND Topic:
Air Warfare

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