Author Description

Every few years, the Air Force develops the Strategic Environment Assessment (AFSEA). The 2016 AFSEA is a 30-year look into the future for Air Force planning. As part of this process, Air Force asked RAND researchers to identify plausible futures based on nine trends in the categories of Geopolitical, Military & Warfare, and Human & Workforce to assist Air Force strategic planning in developing the AFSEA. The RAND team generated a range of future projections based on each of these trends and then convened a collaborative structured workshop to identify important interactions between these trends and to develop a set of future worlds during a 30-year time frame to assist the Air Force during the AFSEA. The workshop was a two-day event during which the RAND trend experts (1) presented their trend assessments and plausible futures; (2) conducted a cross-consistency analysis to look for any combinations of futures that they felt would be inconsistent with each other; (3) identified "interesting pairings" of futures; and (4) developed future worlds using different combinations of trend futures. The purpose of the workshop was to create a set of future worlds that represented diverse contexts and potential challenges for the Air Force to consider. This report presents the results of that workshop