Arlington, VA | February 9, 2026 — The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is pleased to announce a new entry in its Policy Paper series, Strategic Attack: Maintaining the Air Force’s Capacity to Deny Enemy Sanctuaries, by Col Mark A Gunzinger, USAF (Ret.), Director of Future Concepts and Capability Assessments, and Heather R. Penney, Director of Studies and Research.
Allowing adversaries to operate from operational sanctuaries is a losing proposition. A war-winning strategy for the U.S. military must involve applying long-range penetrating airpower to hold targets at risk–anytime, anywhere. This includes an adversary’s ability to launch air and missile salvos that could cripple U.S. operations.
However, decades of force cuts and deferred modernization have reduced the Air Force’s combat capacity to the point where it cannot simultaneously deter nuclear attacks, defend the U.S. homeland, and defeat adversary aggression at acceptable levels of risk. New, long-range, stealthy bombers and fighters that can deny sanctuaries to adversary forces wherever they are located are required at scale. A less-capable force cannot achieve peace through strength or win if deterrence fails. This is a strategic choice for the nation, not just the Air Force.
The Mitchell Institute Policy Papers is a series that presents new thinking and policy proposals to address the emerging security, airpower, and spacepower challenges of the 21st century. These papers are written for lawmakers and their staffs, policy professionals, business and industry, academics, journalists, and the informed public.
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