Publications Archives - Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies

Decades of Air Force Underfunding Threaten America’s Ability to Win

The Air Force’s budget has been less than the Navy and Army’s for the last 30 years in a row. The Army received over $1.3 trillion more than the Air Force between 2002–2021, an average of $66 billion more per year than the Air Force. These sorts of realities repeatedly prompted service officials to pursue “divest to invest” modernization strategies that introduced significant risk and failed to effectively balance modernization, force size, and readiness. Resetting the Air Force to meet the national security demands of today and tomorrow is possible, but it will take forceful leadership at the highest levels of the Department of Defense. Without modernizing our geriatric Air Force and building it to the capacity required by our national defense strategy, the U.S. is a great risk of losing its next major conflict.

Beyond Pixie Dust: A Framework for Understanding and Developing Autonomy in Unmanned Aircraft

ARLINGTON, VA | February 10, 2022 — The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is pleased to announce a new Research Study, Beyond Pixie Dust: A Framework for Understanding and Developing Autonomy in Unmanned Aircraft, by Heather Penney, Senior Resident Fellow at the Mitchell Institute, and Maj Christopher Olsen, USAF, with Foreword by Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.). Nearly every vision, strategy, and flight plan the U.S. Air Force has released over the past decade identified

Keynote Remarks at the Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell’s Sinking of the Battleship Ostfriesland

ARLINGTON, VA | July 30, 2021 — The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is pleased to announce a new entry in its Mitchell Forum short paper series, Keynote Remarks at the Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell’s Sinking of the Battleship Ostfriesland by Lt Gen (Ret.) David A. Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. While the sinking of the Ostfriesland is incredibly significant unto itself, it’s also crucial

Speed is Life: Accelerating the Air Force’s Ability to Adapt and Win

Arlington, VA | July 20, 2021 — The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is pleased to announce a new entry in its Policy Paper series, Speed is Life: Accelerating the Air Force’s Ability to Adapt and Win by Lt Gen (Ret.) David A. Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and Heather Penney, Senior Resident Fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Success in tomorrow’s conflicts will largely depend on how warfighters

Building an Agile Force: The Imperative for Speed and Adaptation in the U.S. Aerospace Industrial Base

ARLINGTON, VA | May 18, 2021 — The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is pleased to announce a new Research Study, Building and Agile Force: The Imperative for Speed and Adaptation in the U.S. Aerospace Industrial Base, by Lt Gen David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.), Dean; and Heather R. Penney, Senior Resident Fellow at the Mitchell Institute. The U.S. Air Force is the only service that can “meet our nation’s adversaries with mass, speed, agility, and

Desert Storm: 25 Years later – Lessons from the 1991 Air Campaign in the Persian Gulf War

In the early morning of January 17, 1991, the United States launched the opening strikes of Operation Desert Storm. These missions unveiled new technologies, strategies, and tactics that forever changed the parameters of war. The pairing of stealth, precision and an effects-based strategy bridged the gap between the long-promised potential of aerial attack with the actual means of real-world employment. This publication is a 25-year retrospective, which opens with a summary of how the crisis

Publications

Decades of Air Force Underfunding Threaten America’s Ability to Win

Beyond Pixie Dust: A Framework for Understanding and Developing Autonomy in Unmanned Aircraft

Keynote Remarks at the Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell’s Sinking of the Battleship Ostfriesland

Speed is Life: Accelerating the Air Force’s Ability to Adapt and Win

Building an Agile Force: The Imperative for Speed and Adaptation in the U.S. Aerospace Industrial Base

Desert Storm: 25 Years later – Lessons from the 1991 Air Campaign in the Persian Gulf War

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