James C. Kitfield
James C. Kitfield is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress. He is a three time recipient of the Gerald R. Ford Award for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense.
Recent stories by James C. Kitfield
Pentagon Leaders Emphasize ‘Responsible’ Options for Countering Space Weapons
While China and Russia have ramped up testing of advanced space weaponry in recent years and observers call for the U.S. to develop more offensive capabilities of its own, senior Pentagon officials at the recent Aspen Security Forum highlighted the fine line America faces in ...
On ABMS, Air Force Steers Between Status Quo and ‘Boiling the Ocean’
Years after the Air Force began reimagining what the Advanced Battle Management System would be, Air Force and industry experts made clear at the AFA Warfare Symposium last week that the precise parameters and definition of the ABMS program remain a work in progress.
Dispersed But Resilient: Air Force Gets to Work on New Basing Construct Under ACE
Last month, the Air Force’s evolving Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine received arguably its most rigorous test yet in the annual Cope North exercise, as Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fighter and bomber aircraft, backed by aerial refuelers and airborne early warning and control ...
What Air Force Leaders Are Considering to Better Defend Forward Bases
Air Force and Space Force leaders are thinking long and hard about the need to better defend U.S. forward-deployed forces and allies in a world awash in cruise and ballistic missiles, armed drones, and potential adversaries increasingly emboldened to use them, they said March 7 ...
Freedom Ride
Inside the Biggest Noncombatant Evacuation in U.S. Air Force History.
World: The Pacific
With the Russian army pummeling Ukraine in Europe, and China increasingly threatening its neighbor Taiwan militarily in the Indo-Pacific, the Air National Guard has embraced the culture of can-do innovation at the core of ACE.
Air National Guard Embraces ACE Amid Tensions in Europe, Pacific
With the Russian army pummeling Ukraine in Europe, and China increasingly threatening its neighbor Taiwan militarily in the Indo-Pacific, the Air National Guard has embraced the culture of can-do innovation at the core of agile combat employment.
Reserve Misses Recruiting Goal; Leaders Cite Decline in Accessions
The Air Force will hit its Active-duty recruiting goals for fiscal 2022, which ends Sept. 30, but the Guard and Reserve will fall short by about 1,500 recruits each, or about 2.1 percent for the Air Force Reserve. Air Force Reserve Command boss Lt. Gen. ...
Senior Enlisted Leader: Ukraine is an ACE Success Story
Pacific Air Forces only recently developed the concept of agile combat employment in response to the growing threat to its air bases from China’s ballistic missiles, and already ACE is rapidly transforming Air Force planning, training, and doctrine. At its core, ACE is officially “a ...
ACEing the China Challenge
Senior Air Force officials revealed during AFA's Air, Space & Cyber Conference just how profoundly the potential for conflict with an increasingly aggressive China has come to dominate internal counsels and the service’s strategic plans.
Remembering the Largest Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation in US History
Aug. 30 marks the one-year anniversary of the end of Operation Allies Refuge (OAR), the final act in the longest war in U.S. history. Historians will long study the United States’ post-9/11 Global War on Terrorism and, in particular, the failed, two-decade effort to plant ...
Kendall, Brown Address the Question of Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine
The question has darkened the counsels of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months to a degree arguably not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis: If Russian President Vladimir Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon to gain the upper hand in its already historically ...
Raymond: Space Companies ‘Helpful’ in Russia-Ukraine War
Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. "Jay" Raymond offered some of his early observations on the role of space activities in the war in Ukraine. After nearly a three-year pandemic hiatus, many of the world's top national security and foreign affairs officials gathered in ...
The Reunification Option
With the US and North Korea on a collision course that would threaten Pyongyang’s survival, some exper
Airpower Comes of Age
After a quarter-century of continuous combat, USAF is much closer to achieving the battlespace dominan