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There Currently Is Disagreement over the Utility of Long-Term Strategic Planning

• Some senior leaders interviewed doubted their ability to predict and plan decades out in a concrete sense.
• Other senior leaders interviewed for this report worried that the Air Force's public documents have become too abstract and technology-focused, rather than concrete and strategic.
• Current and former planners tend to place a higher premium on strategic planning.

Historically, the Air Force Used Strategic Planning to Accomplish Four Key Tasks

• Justify resources to U.S. Congress and to the rest of U.S. Department of Defense
• Structure the force and explain the structure to the rest of the service.
• Define and shape the service's mission and even identity particularly at strategic pivot points.
• Create a dialogue about the direction of the service within the service and with Congress and other key constituencies.

The Most Successful Air Force Strategies Have Applied Five Basic Lessons

• Understanding the policy environment.
• Encouraging ideas from the bottom.
• Starting the strategy from the top.
• Keeping the message succinct, substantive, and sharp.
• Focusing on process as much as product.

This report examines the history of strategic planning efforts in the U.S. Air Force and asks three basic questions. First, what does Air Force strategic planning actually accomplish? Second, what should it accomplish? Third, how can the process be modified to best fit that goal? The report finds that many of the most innovative Air Force strategy documents were produced outside the bureaucratic structure. Still, the Air Force has successfully used strategic planning to accomplish four basic tasks: allocate resources; structure the force; define and shape the service's mission and identity; and, perhaps most importantly, create a dialogue about the direction of the service. For the most part, successful strategic plans have achieved these results by applying five key lessons: understanding the policy environment; encouraging ideas from the bottom; starting the strategy from the top; keeping the message succinct, substantive, and sharp; and focusing on process as much as product.

• Chapter One

  Strategic Planning and Its Discontents

• Chapter Two

  Defining Strategy and Measuring Its Effect

• Chapter Three

  Air Force Strategy from Its Formation Through the Cold War

• Chapter Four

  Air Force Strategy from 1990 to the Present

• Chapter Five

  Lessons for Air Force Strategic Planning

• Chapter Six

  Postscript: The Future of Air Force Strategy

• Appendix

  Effect of Specific Air Force Strategic Documents