It is my great pleasure to present another issue of The Wright Flyer Papers. Through this series, Air Command and Staff College presents a sampling of exemplary research produced by our residence and distance-learning students. This series has long showcased the kind of visionary thinking that drove the aspirations and activities of the earliest aviation pioneers. This year’s selection of essays admirably extends that tradition. As the series title indicates, these papers aim to present cutting-edge, actionable knowledge—research that addresses some of the most complex security and defense challenges facing us today.
Recently, The Wright Flyer Papers transitioned to...
Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is exactly what happened when the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) mandated $487 billion in cuts across the Department of Defense (DOD) over the next 10 years. The drastic measures call for an equally massive review of strategy, force structure, readiness, and modernization across all services.¹ The Air Force, at a 60-year low in personnel strength, plans to trade size for quality in an effort to become a more agile and responsive force.² Part of this trade requires a migration from traditional niche platforms to ones that support multirole capabilities. Fortunately, the Air...