Shaping Air Mobility Forces for Future Relevance

This report asks whether the national air mobility system (NAMS) of the United States will or will not be able to accomplish its full spread of mission responsibilities in an uncertain future fraught with emerging challenges and threats. More specifically this report will examine operational institutional doctrinal and technological trends shaping a useful answer to that question. That answer will recognize the unequalled readiness of the NAMS for future wars and conflicts while also identifying some of its more troubling shortfalls in specific task areas. In the end this study will identify opportunities to mitigate those shortfalls in the near term and without breaking the defense budget and it will propose some initial steps along a path to further reducing or even eliminating them over the longer term. Accordingly this report proceeds in four sections. It begins with a brief discussion of some of the more influential and enduring contextual elements of air mobility policy-namely structure mission and technology. It describes some emerging challenges to the nations ability to conduct global air mobility operations effectively. It then discusses shortfalls in the current program of record fleets ability to address those challenges and ends by identifying near- and longer-term opportunities to make things better in a challenging fiscal environment.