Adversary strategies seek to exploit perceived vulnerabilities in the American way of war now and into the future. Countering their attempts to challenge the Joint Force and weaken the foundations of a stable and open international system requires balancing near-term activities with mid- and long-term investments. The Joint Force needs new approaches to guide senior-leader decision making across time and the tools at our disposal. Key questions include: What frameworks or conceptual models can help clarify potential trade-offs between epochs? What decision support tools, including visualizations, can support senior decision-makers? What capabilities can allies offer to reliably provide bridge solutions? ARC submissions should develop a framework, conceptual model, or decision support tool that helps clarify these tradeoffs for senior decision-makers, using amplifying tools (e.g., visualization) as applicable.
- Beers. Lt. Col. Shannon, "Congress, Commander in Chief and the Implications for the Department of Defense," AF Fellows Portfolio (Georgetown), 2025, 19 pgs.
- Beers highlights a flaw in how the Department of Defense is currently balancing its investments over time. He points out that the current force structure strategy focuses on accepting near-term risk to build the force required to defeat China in the future. However, he argues this long-term investment strategy fails to account for the reality that the executive branch will continue to unilaterally deploy the military for near-term "limited, imperfect engagements". To effectively balance these epochs, the USAF must not divest too heavily in near-term capabilities, but rather maintain a force design capable of executing rapid deployments to higher-threat environments.
- Wendler, JohnRoss, "With Great Power Comes Great Risk Aversion? Examining the Role of Risk Propensity in Inter-State Conflict," SAASS thesis, 2024, 103 pgs.