United States Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies

03/07/2024

03/06/2024

The challenge of analyzing China’s intentions toward Taiwan is not a new one. In 2002, Professor Lawrence Grinter developed this monograph to examine the various options that China might take to forcibly overthrow Taiwan. He notes “Should China attack Taiwan, either as a jump-off from ongoing naval and air exercises, or in a sequenced, testing manner as previously outlined, a fundamental question for U.S. war fighters, assuming Washington came to Taiwan’s defense, is whether U.S. contingency plans already exist, or whether they would have to be cobbled together in the midst of a developing crisis. If planning is in place, that would simplify Washington’s pre-hostilities actions. If not, the U.S. response would have to be developed through “crisis action planning.

02/21/2024

One of the Air Force’s greatest debates after the Persian Gulf War was how to work on counter-strike operations against WMD delivery systems, or “The Great Scud Hunt.” Colonel Mark Kipphut offered this analysis of the past event to suggest that planners needed to consider several factors in facing future counerballistic and cruise missile operations, in particular to anticipate how the adversary would adapt operations to avoid U.S. theater air and missile defenses. If an adversarial nation has a large number of ballistic missiles, it will take considerable resources to counter that threat. The development of unmanned aerial systems and new theater ballistic missiles will only make that job more complicated. Political pressure to reduce an adversarial missile capability will be significant. If the Air Force is to remain the leader in air and space power, it must require its members to become better students of history. While not yielding specific doctrinal templates, history does provide fertile ground for developing judgment.

02/20/2024

Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center

The Department of the Air Force announced 24 key decisions to reshape, refocus, and reoptimize the services to maintain superiority amid an era of great power competition.
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3674442/air-force-space-force-announce-sweeping-changes-to-maintain-superiority-amid-gr/

02/20/2024

United States Strategic Command

02/13/2024

01/30/2024

01/29/2024

The debate over the use of vaccines is not a new one. For the US military, the development and use of anthrax vaccines was particularly contentious and yet necessary given the possible use of anthrax as a biological weapon in the Middle East and North East Asia. This debate was magnified after the 2001 Amerithrax incident, in which the military became concerned that its personnel on US military installations might face the threat of a biological terrorist incident. Col Richard Hersack offered a medical review for Air Force commanders in our tenth monograph, dated 2001, to make the case that the “Anthrax Vaccine, Adsorbed,” was demonstrated to be clinically safe and effective for preventing inhalation anthrax after exposure to anthrax spores.

01/26/2024

Our Center’s interest in deterrence policy and strategy goes back to some of its earliest student research. This monograph examines potential U.S. approaches to deterring Muammar Qaddafi’s potential employment of weapons of mass destruction. The author notes that Qaddafi is not an irrational actor but in fact is concerned with safeguarding his position in Libya. The recommended course of action is economic sanctions rather than offensive military strikes. In retrospect, it may seem odd that so much attention within the U.S. government was focused on this man and his country’s investment in WMD, but it directly leads into the development of a U.S. counterproliferation concept.

01/16/2024

Our seventh monograph examined the potential challenge of arming cruise missiles with warheads containing biological warfare agents. Given the greater ease of production of biological weapons compared to nuclear or chemical weapons and the ease of acquisition of a cruise missile delivery system compared to ballistic missiles, several operational scenarios may prove inviting to states or non[1]state actors intent on influencing the United States or attacking its forces. This paper reviews proliferation and ease of weaponization of biological agents, as well as the extent of proliferation of cruise missiles, along with their general capabilities. Finally, it reviews constraints, which may be inhibiting the use of biological weapons, and poses plausible employment scenarios that could have significant impact on United States decision[1]makers as well as on USAF Air Expeditionary Forces. This paper seeks to raise the level of awareness of a threat, which is not “emerging” as much as it is already a clear and present danger to the United States and USAF expeditionary operations.