Long–Range Corporate Strategic Planning in Government Organizations: The Case of the U.S. Air Force

Since 1994, the United States Air Force has undertaken two major reviews of its long–range corporate strategy. Both exercises stretched very substantially beyond the previous horizons for such reviews. Through visioning forward as far as 30 years, the Air Force leadership sought to quicken support for substantial reassessments of core programmatic commitments. The availability of two iterations of strategic visioning of this sort affords a rare opportunity to track the effects of an innovative approach to planning under different leaders, institutional approaches, and circumstances. Along the way, the analysis uncovers a number of important issues that might find applicability to other government organizations, whether in the United States or elsewhere.