Air Force Installation Operations Center

The United States (US) military is undergoing a tremendous transformation. Much of the change uses technology to improve command and control (C2) of military forces. The end state gives the commander the ability to command a more flexible and adaptive force. Since the early 1990s, the US Air Force has focused much of its effort on command and control networks to enable centralized control and decentralized execution. The Air Operations Center used in Desert Storm was a major step towards improved C2 in the USAF. In the late 1990s a wing level command and control center was developed. This center, now the Installation Command Center (referred to as the Installation Operations Center (IOC) in this paper) is being incorporated into Air Force doctrine. The research question focuses on what the installation operations center provides to the deployed commander. Using doctrine and history as a baseline and fourteen criteria for measurement, the installation operations center greatly enhances the deployed commander's ability to integrate the unit mission into the joint fight. The installation operations center provides the commander with a tailorable command and control center, with better trained personnel, greater flexibility in personnel to run the center, significantly better situational awareness for local and area of responsibility operations, and also improves information sharing and integration vertically and horizontally. The IOC will substantially increase the deployed commander's combat capability.