This paper examines the counterterrorist strategy employed on the Island of Basilan during Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines (OEF-P) and discusses its potential applicability in the current Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) insurgency. The strategy used the principles found in the Diamond Model, the counterinsurgency (COIN) model that Dr. Gordon McCormick developed. The Diamond Model establishes the interactions of four key players in an insurgency environment, pinpoints the "people" as the center of gravity, and demonstrates how either the insurgent or the counterinsurgent can take...

Dr. David R. Mets's "The Long Search for a Surgical Strike: Precision Munitions and the Revolution in Military Affairs" is a broad, though-provoking examination of the relationship between the advancement in conventional weapons guidance technology and the "revolution in military affairs" (RMA). He defines and RMA as a rapid change in military technology, doctrine, and organization leading to a sweeping new way that wars are fought. Dr. Mets then considers whether the improvement in conventional air weapons accuracy since World War II is the foundation, the main pillar, one of the principal...

In The Politics of Coercion: Toward a Theory of Coercive Airpower for Post-Cold War Conflict, Lt. Col. Ellwood P. "Skip" Hinman IV confronts an issue of high interest to airmen and policy makers alike: What does coercion theory suggest about the use of airpower in the early twenty-first century? More specifically, Colonel Hinman seeks to determine whether any of the existing theories of coercion can stand alone as a coherent, substantive, and codified approach to airpower employment. Framing his analysis on three key attributes of conflict in the post-Cold War era - limited, nonprotracted...

The Department of Defense (DOD) is quickly reaching an information technology (IT) crossroad; its choices will determine whether it achieves decisional superiority or becomes paralyzed and drowns in its own data. Information management technologies and practices currently used to exploit the exponentially growing volumes of data are rapidly becoming inadequate. For instance, a battalion intelligence analyst requires time-critical information spread across 200 different networks in 20 different languages. Upon uncovering a bad lot of batteries, a satellite program manager must survey 15...

Lack of investment in future agile combat-support technologies could lead to a strategic surprise that diverts military attention and resources from critical air, space, and cyber operations. Looking to the national security environment in 2030, this research explores one technology-the microbial fuel cell (MFC)-that gives life to self-contained facilities decoupled from vulnerable supply lines and infrastructure networks. MFCs can dispose of waste (sewage, food scraps, gray water, etc.) while producing clean water (up to 70 percent of required volumes) and power (up to 600 watts per person)....

The current service-centric approach to bare base capability has produced capability overlaps and logistics inefficiencies. The two primary bare base systems-the Air Force Basic Expeditionary Airfield Resources (BEAR) and the Army Force Provider-have limited interoperability. In recent conflicts, the lack of joint doctrine or joint bare base architecture has hampered the ability of the services to achieve fully operational forward locations within a satisfactory length of time. The current approach to bare base operations is at odds with Department of Defense (DOD) transformation plans, which...

Air Force Smart Operations for the Twenty-first Century (AFSO 21) is the Air Force's initiative to recapitalize funds by maximizing value and minimizing waste in operations. This is a fundamental shift by the Air Force toward a desired end state of continuous process improvement. Will AFSO 21 change the culture of the Air Force? A successful change requires a balance between the system components of culture, vision, structure, leadership, and systems. Air Force leadership may avoid failure in its AFSO 21 implementation if it addresses potential failure points before they fester and take root....

A call is being made for an aircraft dedicated to the counterinsurgency (COIN) mission within military academic circles and the special operations community. Support for a COIN aircraft needs hard numbers, given the Air Force's budget constraints brought on by the dedication to the F-22A. Building on Arthur Davis's COIN aircraft advocacy paper, this research doesn't focus on further advocacy, but on a process and method for COIN aircraft procurement. The acquisition focus is on United States Special Operations Command's (USSOCOM) acquisition authority to couple its global war on terrorism...

As political and military leaders ponder the future of space operations, the time has come to frame propositions regarding spacepower. Specifically, this study seeks to answer the question, "What is the nature of spacepower?" It also tests the aerospace integration school's hypothesis that space power is simply a continuation or extension of airpower. Two points come immediately to the forefront of this work. First, spacepower is different from airpower even though both share the vertical dimension of warfare. Second, space operations have matured to a point wherein valid and unique...

After the United States and coalition forces failed to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) stockpiled after Operation Iraqi Freedom, the president charged a congressional commission with examining US intelligence capabilities regarding WMD. No great surprise, the commission found that the intelligence community had been "dead wrong" in many of its prewar estimates. Air Force intelligence is part of that intelligence community and shares responsibility for that failure. Air Force intelligence professionals play important combating-WMD roles at combatant commands, components, national...