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"The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the Soviet Union and the United States signed in 1987, prohibits conventional and nuclear-armed land-based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km. The U.S. Department of State concluded in 2014 that Russia is in violation of its treaty obligations, raising doubts about the treaty's durability and how the United States should respond. At the moment, U.S. policy remains committed to the treaty and seeks to encourage Russia to return to compliance by eliminating prohibited systems, but attempts to revive the treaty could take several years and might not succeed. While arguing that it is too soon for the United States to withdraw from the treaty, the author suggests that, in the meantime, the U.S. Army should start a rigorous assessment of the potential military value of conventional land-based theater ballistic missiles (TBMs). No rigorous analysis thus far has measured how land-based TBMs could contribute to solving key operational challenges in relevant scenarios. This report focuses on potential operations in East Asia, showing that TBMs offer both benefits and risks. If a strong, evidence-based case can be made for the military value of TBMs, a strategic assessment could weigh whether the military benefits plausibly exceed the risks to structural stability, crisis management, regional access, and proliferation. By beginning to analyze these questions now, the Army will be prepared to offer well-considered options if current U.S. policy fails to revive the INF Treaty"--Publisher's web site.
Ballistic missiles --- Ballistic missiles --- Ballistic missiles --- Security, International --- Security, International --- Evaluation. --- Evaluation. --- Evaluation. --- United States. --- Operational readiness. --- Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles
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There is growing concern that U.S. power has been declining relative to the growing power of Russia and China. This concern renews long-standing questions about how we should measure national power, which nations have the most power, which states are gaining and losing power, and when such shifts in relative or perceived power might portend conflict. The authors explore these questions, illustrating a quantitative, scenario-based approach for policymakers who are interested in measuring the interstate balance of power, assessing the impact of shocks on the balance of power, and identifying periods during which shifts in the balance of power could portend conflict between major powers. The methodology demonstrates how different climate change scenarios, population projections, or economic growth forecasts lead to different balances of global power, then uses power cycle theory to map those changes in the distribution of global power to changes in the risk of conflict between major global powers. The authors demonstrate the potential of this methodology using three illustrative examples. They find that global power can be "sticky," meaning it takes drastic assumptions about the future to create meaningful changes in the global balance of power. Further, because their model treats global power as a relative concept, the authors find that the types of shocks that affect the risk of conflict are the types that create relative "winners" and "losers."
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The 2018 National Defense Strategy instructed the services to prioritize capabilities for conflict with another great power. This gave new urgency to ongoing initiatives within the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to prepare for growing air and missile threats to bases and a contested communications environment. There are a wide range of possible counters to the particular problem of air base vulnerability, including greater reliance on long-range systems, active defenses, hardening of bases, and on-base dispersal of assets. The authors of this report focus on a particular set of emerging concepts for distributed operations that call for using a larger number of air bases to complicate enemy targeting and employing a more decentralized command and control approach. The USAF asked RAND to consider whether it needs to change its force presentation model (FPM), the way it organizes to employ airpower as part of a joint operation, to implement these concepts. Since the USAF has not developed a single, detailed concept for distributed operations, in this report the authors synthesize and extend the logic of emerging concepts. They then identify an initial list of capabilities the USAF may need in order to protect, command and control, and sustain fighter forces at a larger number of operating locations. Finally, the authors assess whether the current USAF FPM for fighter forces provides these capabilities and identify the trade-offs associated with force presentation changes.
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"Although much work has been done considering the issue of airbase resilience especially in the Asia-Pacific region these studies have typically focused on a single aspect of the problem (such as hardening or runway repair) but have not considered the issues in total. There is a need to view the issue more holistically, especially given the strategic implications of U.S. power projection in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environments. The authors of this report developed a modeling framework and lexicon for conducting a detailed analysis of future Air Force operational resilience in an A2/AD environment; the analysis itself focused on different regions (Pacific, Southwest Asia, etc.) to bound the problem and identify a robust set of strategic assumptions and planning requirements. The study was set within the context of efforts to rebalance the joint force in the Asia-Pacific region. This report describes the Operational Resilience Analysis Model (ORAM) built for this effort, which was used to evaluate the impact of different courses of action from an operational standpoint. The authors explain the ORAM model, discuss the inputs that go into modeling Blue (friendly) and Red (enemy) capabilities, and illustrate the model using a simple notional case. They conclude with some suggestions for follow-on work to improve the functionality of ORAM and to address data uncertainties in the model"--Publisher's website.
Air bases, American. --- Military planning --- Reliability (Engineering) --- Access denial (Military science) --- Evaluation. --- Data processing. --- United States. --- United States. --- Operational readiness. --- United States.
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