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The purpose of training and education in the United States Department of the Air Force (DAF) is to develop and sustain mission-critical knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) among airmen, guardians, and civilians. The DAF must deliver effective training and education to fully use its human capital, provide warfighting assets to combatant commanders, and maintain asymmetric advantage over competitors. Yet training and education is costly. A recent budget request included more than

Cognitive science. --- Educational technology. --- Military education --- Educational Software --- Military Education And Training --- Modeling And Simulation --- United States Air Force --- Simulation methods. --- United States. --- Airmen --- Training of.

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Given the military's continuing effort to "train as we fight," warfighters must be prepared to collaborate with other services. There is a need to ensure coordination and interoperability within and across the services with respect to simulation-based training. However, because of organic changes in policies and organizational structures, there are significant challenges for the services to coordinate within their own organizations and to collaborate with one another while working toward joint training needs. Concurrent with the growing need for virtual distributed training capabilities, the military simulation-and-training market is growing, and this market includes substantial efforts to develop new training-simulator capabilities. However, technological development is not always driven by training needs, especially for cross-service exercises. Development of training simulators often drives the users rather than the reverse, especially with respect to distributed training systems. With a focus on air and ground training simulators for Tier 3 and Tier 4 exercises—i.e., training at the service component (operational) and individual unit (tactical) levels—the authors of this report investigate the gap between joint training needs and currently available and forthcoming technology in the training-simulator field. They provide a broad analysis of the simulation-based training enterprise and the organizational structure, requirements processes, and acquisition processes for each service. They also analyze joint training needs, organizational and policy mechanisms for coordination between services, and incentives structures for cross-service simulator development.

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This report addresses how climate change could affect the frequency of conflict in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR). The report begins with an examination of how the current literature characterizes the relationship between climate change and the incidence of conflict. The report then presents conflict projections out to 2070 for the AOR at the provincial level. The projections are made on the basis of a machine learning framework that uses historical data to train and validate a forecasting model. The projections incorporate anticipated changes in temperature and levels of precipitation, although these climate factors are used to complement other known drivers of conflict, such as an area's political and economic development. This is followed by an analysis of why the strength of the relationship between climate change and future conflict could be underestimated by the consensus in the field and the modeling in this report. The report ends with a modeling excursion that shows how drought could increase conflict risk by affecting economic growth. The purpose of this research is to support CENTCOM leadership and planners and their interagency partners to prepare for a future security environment that is affected by climate change. Understanding the frequency of future conflict in the AOR, as well as the marginal increase that is owed to climate change as a threat multiplier, will enable the U.S. government to better prepare for this future. This report is the third in a series focused on climate change and the security environment.

Climatic changes. --- Natural disasters. --- Low-intensity conflicts (Military science) --- War --- Machine learning. --- Forecasting Methodology --- Global Climate Change --- Low-Intensity Conflict --- Machine Learning --- Natural Hazards --- Forecasting --- Methodology. --- United States.

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This report synthesizes the findings and recommendations from two companion reports on intrastate proxy wars: civil wars in which at least one local warring party receives material support from an external state. One of these companion reports examines motives and trends for great powers' use of proxy warfare in intrastate conflict, while the other examines the military implications of these wars. The authors conducted the research for these reports using a quantitative analysis of proxy wars since 1946, case studies on major powers that have sponsored surrogates in such conflicts, and case studies on the military implications of such conflicts. Looking forward, there are worrying indications that geopolitical factors may be driving countries, including Russia and Iran, to more frequent use of proxy warfare, and China might return to such forms of competition under certain circumstances. Ideology seems less likely to fuel proxy wars than it did during the Cold War, however, and China has a number of economic incentives to avoid such practices. The prospect of the increasing use of proxy warfare has a number of implications for U.S. defense policy. Violent nonstate actors supported by states tend to be much more lethal than those without state support. These enhanced capabilities appear to make them much more threatening to U.S. allies and partners, potentially forcing the United States to intervene on their behalf to protect them.

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The authors used both quantitative analysis and case studies of China, Iran, and Russia to examine the causes and likely future trends in proxy wars: civil wars in which at least one local warring party receives material support from an external state. The purpose of the project was to provide insight into the determinants of state support for violent nonstate actors, assess the risks that third-party support poses to U.S. overseas contingency operations, and analyze policy options available to the United States to counter such foreign support. With the renewed focus in many regions on strategic competition, there seems to be a growing risk that states will feel increasingly threatened by their rivals and take greater steps to counteract these threats in the years to come. The case studies highlight how such an environment can often, though not always, lead to an increased interest in supporting proxy warfare. Of even greater concern is the fact that geopolitical drivers of proxy warfare can often be self-reinforcing. The states considered in the case studies were usually able to develop at least a rudimentary capability for proxy warfare very quickly, within a couple of years, often building on the capabilities of prior efforts or regimes. Beyond this baseline capability, however, a relatively lengthy period of learning and growth to better develop proxy warfare capabilities appears to be common.