Call for Submissions: Air Littoral Published April 30, 2024 In 2021, Kelly Grieco and Max Bremer proposed a “paradigm change in American military thinking about verticality.” In that Parameters article, the authors proposed the notion of an “air littoral,” the airspace between fighting forces on the ground and the fighter, attack, and bomber aircraft aloft, encouraging policymakers and defense planners and strategists to think about the convergence of the land and air domains. In the intervening three years, Russia’s war in Ukraine and other emerging conflicts have cemented understanding about the critical impacts of drone warfare on army, naval, and air forces alike, prompting, among other efforts, the US Department of Defense’s Replicator Initiative. In a March 2024 article in War on the Rocks, Nora Bensahel and David Barno went so far as to assert that the US Air Force is facing “an almost existential crisis,” due in part to the fact that “masses of uncrewed drones have now wrested command of the air away from manned aircraft in the skies above the modern battlefield.” Further, the impacts are not restricted to the heat of battle—broken things and dead people—but are manifesting months and years later as increasing rates of mental health crises including moral injury and PTSD among those operating some types of uncrewed aircraft. What does a notion of air superiority look like today? Is it a revolution in military affairs? If the air littoral is the newest subdomain, or at any rate, a region of critical domain convergence, what are the implications of civil- military coexistence in this area? What are the environmental implications of drone warfare? What will coercion look like between nation-states and nonstate actors? What role will commercial multinational companies, and the democratization and diffusion of technology play? Is the idea of an air littoral the best framework with which to analyze future warfare? What changes must be made to military doctrine? At the tactical level, how will military training for the services have to change to adapt to the new battlefield realities unmanned aircraft pose? What changes do the services have to make in warrior aftercare for the resulting invisible wounds? These and other essential questions require careful, well-reasoned research and analysis in support of civilian and military decisionmakers. Æther: A Journal of Strategic Airpower & Spacepower is accepting articles on the subject of the air littoral and the role drones play in this region for a dedicated issue in fall 2024. Please see the Æther website for submission requirements. Abstracts are due by May 15; full draft articles by May 31.