The growing missile threat in the Pacific region has led the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to assess air base defense. In this report, RAND researchers examine how the services have invested in air base defense and what these investments suggest about commitments to defending air bases. They also provide recommendations for how the USAF can prioritize air base defense moving forward, specifically focusing on the Indo-Pacific Command theater.

Assessing Progress on Air Base Defense

Past Investments and Future Options

Sean M. Zeigler, Dwight Phillips, John Hoehn, Jeff Hagen, Nathaniel Edenfield, Devon Hill, Abby Doll

ResearchPublished Jun 3, 2025

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The growing cruise and ballistic missile threat to U.S. Air Force (USAF) bases in the Pacific has led the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) to assess progress on air base defense. Air bases, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, are increasingly vulnerable to current and evolving threats from China and other actors. Although such vulnerabilities are well-known, air base defense has not kept pace with the continued technological threats to air bases and other military installations.

In this report, RAND researchers provide a clear-eyed assessment of what progress the joint force has made on air base defense and offer recommendations moving forward. They put together a streamlined effort to answer the following questions: To what extent have the services, particularly the USAF, invested in air base defense in recent years, and what does this level of investment suggest about commitments to defending air bases? They also probe the issue of how the USAF can and should prioritize investments in air base defense moving forward. They specifically focus on the Indo-Pacific Command theater to assess how the USAF can allocate resources across the investment options.

Key Findings

  • The USAF continues to explore various options to improve installation resiliency; however, improvements to date have been limited, though the threat has advanced substantially.
  • Over time, the USAF can expect future air base defense costs for achieving desired sortie generation in wartime or contested environments to increase.
  • Since 2018, air base defense procurement budgets have been trending upward, but spending on passive defenses has significantly lagged behind spending on active defenses.
  • From 2019 to 2024, active defense appropriations averaged $1.2 billion annually and passive defense appropriations averaged $0.8 billion, but military construction (MILCON) infrastructure appropriations on new bases or base hardening in the Pacific region averaged only $0.3 billion annually.
  • Passive defense procurement funding has not had strong advocacy within the USAF and had continually been deferred until fiscal year 2024.
  • Approximately 70 percent of PACAF MILCON has been allocated toward either hardening existing infrastructure or building new locations.
  • Investments from the USAF's fifth operational imperative are likely to provide a noticeable improvement to air base resiliency, but they must be deployed, manned, and sustained appropriately.
  • The introduction of collaborative combat aircraft into the fleet may provide an opportunity to plan for implementing an extremely agile basing concept that could be quite resilient to attack.

Recommendations

  • The U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF) should take advantage of momentum in Congress and among Pentagon leadership and should enhance relationships with allies and partners in the Pacific region to make more substantive improvements to installation resiliency.
  • After several years of delays, the DAF should prioritize investments in passive defenses to decrease risks to its air bases.
  • After a consideration of trade-offs, the DAF should explore options with the government of Australia to sustain and substantially expand infrastructure investment there.
  • PACAF should engage with Headquarters USAF, particularly with the new Integrated Capabilities Command and Integrated Capabilities Office, to explore options for DAF ownership and operation of active defenses.
  • Proposed efforts should include a review of changes that would be required across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy and their associated costs; an assessment of future threats, including proliferated autonomous small unmanned aircraft systems; a technical review of defensive options for these threats; and engagement with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff on authorities.

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Zeigler, Sean M., Dwight Phillips, John Hoehn, Jeff Hagen, Nathaniel Edenfield, Devon Hill, and Abby Doll, Assessing Progress on Air Base Defense: Past Investments and Future Options. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3142-1.html.
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The research reported here was commissioned by PACAF A5/8 and conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.

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