Innovation in the United States Air Force: Evidence from Six Cases

Abstract

Innovation is central to the USAF’s identity and purpose. With its origins in the airpower revolution of the early modern era, the service has long embraced the role of developing innovative means of going “over, not through” strategic challenges confronting the United States. Recently, however, the Air Force senior leadership has initiated a wide-ranging conversation about whether the service is sufficiently innovative today and what can be done to make it more innovative for the future. This report contributes to that conversation by assessing six historical cases of potential Air Force innovation, some successful and others unsuccessful, in the context of the scholarly literature on military innovation. The insights we develop across these cases will, we hope, help senior Air Force leaders sharpen the emerging conversation and develop a common understanding of the distinctly Air Force approach to innovation. This report should therefore be of interest to all airmen engaged in the emerging conversation, but particularly Air Force senior leaders.