National Security
This acronym names the four instruments of national power.
What is DIME - Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic?
This aspect of war - its essence and purpose - remains constant; this other aspect - how warfare is conducted - changes with society and technology.
What are the nature of war and the character of war?
Define airpower and military spacepower using the domains through which each projects or accomplishes military objectives.
What are military power projected through control and exploitation in, from, and through the air; and military objectives accomplished in, from, and to space?
Name the seven Joint Planning Process steps in order.
What are Planning Initiation; Mission Analysis; COA Development; COA Analysis and Wargaming; COA Comparison; COA Approval; Plan or Order Development?
This sustainable, capacity-driven model presents Air Force forces to joint commanders using three principles: readiness, predictability, and sustainability.
What is AFFORGEN?
Put the strategy chain in order from national purpose to the people who execute it, and identify who prepares or signs the NSS, NDS, and NMS.
What is National Objectives -> NSS (prepared by NSC, signed by President) -> NDS (SecDef) -> NMS (CJCS) -> Service Strategy/Policy -> Airmen and Guardians?
Name Clausewitz's three enduring truths of war and the two basic themes they connect.
What are war as an instrument of policy, a complex and chaotic human endeavor, and a clash of opposing wills - connecting policy and violence?
Name the five USAF core functions and the four USSF core-and-enterprise functions from the lesson.
What are Air Superiority, Global Precision Attack, Rapid Global Mobility, Global ISR, C2; and Space Control, Global Mission Operations, Space Access, Enterprise?
A quality course of action must possess these five attributes.
What are Feasible, Acceptable, Suitable, Distinguishable, and Complete?
Name the four AFFORGEN phases and the three SPAFORGEN phases.
What are AFFORGEN: Reset, Prepare, Ready, Commit; and SPAFORGEN: Prepare, Ready, Commit?
Match Ends, Ways, and Means to the three national strategy documents and their guiding questions.
What are NSS = Ends/What; NDS = Ways/How; NMS = Means/Resources?
Name the three factors dominating war, then distinguish traditional from irregular warfare.
What are fog, friction, and chance; traditional is conventional force-on-force, while irregular uses indirect/asymmetric, population-centric approaches?
This is official advice - not directive - built from fundamental principles that guide military action and require judgment in application.
What is doctrine?
This simulation tests friendly COAs against adversary COAs using action-reaction-counteraction; comparison then uses head-to-head trade-offs and sensitivity analysis.
What are wargaming and COA comparison?
Define readiness, give two individual readiness areas, and explain the leader's role in sustaining it.
What is the ability to fulfill mission requirements - maintained through training, medical, fitness, personal affairs, and mental preparation - while leaders build culture and provide resources?
An adversary coerces an ally without open war. Build an integrated response using all four instruments of national power.
What are diplomatic coalition-building, informational exposure and messaging, military deterrence or posture, and economic sanctions or incentives?
A campaign combines conventional strikes with indirect influence over a population. Classify the forms of warfare and explain what changed versus what remained constant.
What is a combination of traditional and irregular warfare - a changing character of war serving the constant nature of violence, policy, and opposing wills?
A joint campaign needs freedom from air attack, precise target effects, rapid troop movement, adversary awareness, and synchronized direction. Map each need to a USAF core function.
What are Air Superiority, Global Precision Attack, Rapid Global Mobility, Global ISR, and Command and Control?
Match each flawed COA to the missing quality: insufficient resources; excessive risk; misaligned with higher intent; nearly identical to another COA; omits logistics.
What are Feasible, Acceptable, Suitable, Distinguishable, and Complete?
Differentiate AFFORGEN from ACE and explain how the two relate.
What is AFFORGEN as the force-generation model that organizes and presents ready people and equipment, while ACE is an operational scheme of maneuver enabled by those forces?
A new National Security Strategy changes national ends. Trace how that change should reach an Airman's daily task through ways, means, and service direction.
What is NSS ends driving NDS ways, NMS military means, service strategy and policy, and finally unit missions and Airman or Guardian tasks?
Commanders receive conflicting reports, equipment fails during a simple maneuver, and an unexpected weather break creates an opportunity. Identify the three dominant factors and connect them to an enduring truth.
What are fog, friction, and chance - demonstrating that war is a complex and chaotic human endeavor?
A space campaign must contest hostile activity, deliver space-enabled effects, launch and control payloads, and support decisions with intelligence, cyber, C2, and domain awareness. Map the functions.
What are Space Control, Global Mission Operations, Space Access, and the Enterprise functions?
Planners test action-reaction-counteraction, discover second-order effects, compare trade-offs, and brief a recommendation. Identify the JPP steps and their decision purpose.
What are COA Analysis and Wargaming, COA Comparison, and COA Approval - exposing risk, ranking options, and enabling the commander's decision?
A unit in Prepare has overdue medical requirements, incomplete training, and unresolved personal affairs. Explain what individuals and leaders must do before Ready and Commit.
What is close readiness gaps through training, medical, fitness, personal, and mental preparation while leaders set priorities, provide resources, track eligibility, and build a readiness culture before validation and tasking?