AGILE COMBAT EMPLOYMENT UNDER FIRE: A QUANTITATIVE AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The U.S. Air Force faces increasing anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) threats from peer adversaries like China, whose advanced missiles—such as the DF-26B—threaten centralized basing in contested environments. This thesis addresses gaps in evaluating Agile Combat Employment (ACE), a strategy that decentralizes operations to improve survivability but involves tradeoffs in sortie production and diplomatic risks. The research quantifies tradeoffs and validates ACE's viability by balancing survivability, sortie generation, and diplomatic risk. Using an inductive mixed-methods approach, it analyzes four historical cases—(1) Operation Odyssey Dawn, (2) Operation Enduring Freedom, (3) the Ninth Air Force in Europe, and (4) the Cactus Air Force in the Pacific—to develop and operationalize variables, which inform a discrete-event simulation model of C-130J logistics over 30 days in hub-and-spoke clusters under stochastic threats. Results show that diplomatic denial causes a 15–20% sortie loss with no impact on survival, while attacks lead to a 35–40% decrease in production and ~60% aircraft survival, combining both slightly improves survival but further reduces tempo. Posture adjustments (hub allocation) help mitigate risks. Stakeholders can incorporate these insights into doctrine and planning for resilient ACE implementation, emphasizing joint frameworks and prepositioned access. Future research should refine models to include dynamic rebasing and real-time decision-making tools.