11 books by New England authors to prepare for 2025

Arts & Culture, Books

Literature writer Katherine Ouellette recommends 11 books to read this winter. (Courtesy the publishers)If you’re having trouble summoning enthusiasm for the new year, you’re not alone. As I took my first cautious steps into 2025, I found comfort in these books by authors with New England ties. From self-improvement tips to practical activism to escapist romance, set your intention for the upcoming months with your first reads of the year.Jan. 7New Year’s resolutions are irresistible to perfectionists. (Surely this will be the year I finish writing my book, stick to my exercise routine and spend less time on my phone.) But we tend to be our own worst critics when life inevitably gets in the way of achieving our idealistic goals. In this relatable guide, author Ellen Hendriksen empowers readers with practical strategies for shifting to a kinder and healthier mindset. As a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Hendriksen offers judgment-free anecdotal success stories to illustrate why these scientifically proven methods are effective. An insightful read for anyone feeling the mental and physical tolls of imposter syndrome and overthinking.Jan. 14Part poetry, part family biography, part social history, “Three Leaves, Three Roots” is an exceptional feat from Boston’s former poet laureate, Danielle Legros Georges. In this triumphant collection, she breathes life into an under-documented period of Haitian history. In the 1960s, Legros Georges’ parents and other Haitian professionals migrated to the Congo to help the newly independent country develop its infrastructure. Weaving together lyrical language with interviews and letters from her parents, political leaders and other primary sources, this collection highlights the parallels of repression and revolution in Haiti and the Congo, reckons with the deep scars of colonization, and offers an enduring hope for the resilience and solidarity throughout the African diaspora.Danielle Legros Georges will discuss “Three Leaves, Three Roots” with Charlot Lucien at justBook-ish on Wednesday, Jan. 29 at 6:30 p.m. This event is free and tickets aren’t required.Advertisement’Too Soon’By Betty ShamiehJan. 28Arabella swings between two modes: grief and rage. She wants to be recognized for her expansive talent as a theater director in an industry determined to pigeonhole her into her Palestinian American identity. So when her next — and potentially, only — opportunity is a genderbent production of “Hamlet” in the West Bank, Arabella must contend with what it means to return to the homeland her grandmother Zoya was forced to flee. “When the country you are from no longer exists, you can’t ever truly emigrate from it,” Arabella reflects. Alternating between the perspectives of Arabella’s post 9/11 New York, her mother Naya’s younger years in Detroit and San Francisco, and Teta Zoya’s final days in Jaffa, each woman unabashedly carves her own identity in spite of the tragedies unfolding in their community, personal lives and onstage. With scathing humor and raw emotion oozing off of every page, “Too Soon” is an engrossing 80-year saga that still ends too soon, leaving you ravenous for more. Author Betty Shamieh is a graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, playwright of 15 plays and the founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective that supports innovative theater co-created by Arab and Jewish Americans.Betty Shamieh will discuss “Too Soon” with Ricky Moody at the Harvard Book Store on Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. This event is free and tickets aren’t required.Feb. 4As a human rights activist since the 1970s, Loretta J. Ross has seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t to create lasting change. Now an associate professor at Smith College, Ross has extensive experience supporting victims of sexual assault, pursuing reproductive justice, dismantling white supremacy, and more with diverse groups ranging from the tenants in her building to the National Organization for Women (NOW) — one of the largest feminist organizations in the U.S. “Calling In” provides easy-to-digest strategies for navigating disagreements with both your allies and your opponents. This handbook invites readers to imagine “a world with more joy and forgiveness and less shame and cruelty, a world where people don’t need to feel afraid and can feel empowered to pursue the common good, even if we make mistakes along the way.” Using personal examples, Ross makes a compelling case for why building bridges is the most effective way to solve societal problems.Loretta J. Ross will discuss “Calling In” at the Cambridge Public Library on Monday, Feb. 10 at 6 p.m. This event is free with RSVP or $30.80 with book purchase included.Feb. 11When Prudence goes to dinner at a high-end restaurant, she yearns for lighthearted conversation with her husband, his new colleague, and his colleague’s “Tinder girlfriend.” But when an unwelcome figure from her past is revealed as the guest of honor, Prudence suddenly has to prevent decades of repressed traumas from bubbling to the surface. This thrilling novel alternates between 2018 Washington, D.C., and 1996 Johannesburg. Prudence was a law student interning in South Africa when the country held its Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, the post-apartheid attempt to heal the nation through reparations rather than retaliation. But moving forward from gross human rights violations is easier said than done when it’s personal. Prudence now stands on a taut line of suspense to shield her husband from the truth about her past, protect her son, and heal her own inner turmoil. Lauren Francis-Sharma is the assistant director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College.Lauren Francis-Sharma will discuss “Casualties of Truth” with author Mark Cecil at the Harvard Book Store on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. This event is free and tickets aren’t required. Feb. 25Following their 2018 debut chapbook “Breakfast for Dinner & Other Blasphemous Things,” Boston-based poet Zenaida Peterson returns with a new poetry collection, “In the Loud and Crashing.” Their propulsive slam poetry embodies their experiences as a Black, queer and nonbinary person. Now, they’re also exploring “what it means to live and be kinder through nature connection.” Peterson has been a stalwart of the Boston poetry community for over a decade, receiving mentorship from Boston poet laureate Porsha Olayiwola and encouraging upcoming poets, like former city of Boston Boston artist-in-residence Golden. Peterson founded and ran the Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam from 2017-2022. Other accolades include ranking third in the 2017 National Poetry Slam with the Haley House Slam team, winning one of the Women of the World Poetry Slam’s last chance slams, and representing Simmons College at the 2015 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitationals. This collection is a delightful discovery of how Peterson transforms their poems from the stage to the page.March 4Amanda Nguyen will be the first woman of Vietnamese descent to fly to space. But her moonshot dream of becoming an astronaut almost didn’t take flight after she was raped in 2013 while attending Harvard University. Determined to fight for change for herself and survivors of sexual assault everywhere, Nguyen decided to dedicate herself to activist advocacy, which resulted in the Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act of 2016 and the Stop Asian Hate movement of 2021. After garnering international recognition as a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and one of the 2022 Time Women of the Year, Nguyen’s memoir “Saving Five” is an introspective journey written with cinematic prose. Between recounting the worst experience of her life, Nguyen offers imagined scenes of her past selves at ages 5, 15, 22 and 30 going on an epic journey to heal her inner child, meeting personified versions of the stages of grief along the way. This book is a testament to the resilience of survivors, showing that survivors can still shoot for the stars while giving themselves grace to process their trauma.March 11If “A Complete Unknown” leaves you craving more behind-the-scenes stories about rock stars, look no further than the autobiography of Boston’s own Peter Wolf. The frontman of The J. Geils Band and DJ for legendary radio station WBCN shares anecdotes throughout his star-studded life. From his New York youth napping on Marilyn Monroe’s shoulder at the movies and seeing Bob Dylan’s early performances, to his Tufts University days rooming with David Lynch, through his marriage to Faye Dunaway and storied music career, “Waiting on the Moon” illustrates the serendipity that occurs when creative minds intersect. These contemplative vignettes will satisfy anyone wishing they could have been a fly on the wall for spellbinding conversations between musicians, poets, actresses and all other manner of artists.Peter Wolf will discuss “Waiting on the Moon” with Peter Guralnick at the Harvard Book Store on Tuesday, March 11 at 6 p.m. Tickets are $38 with book purchase included.March 11As career and romance prospects dry up for the unnamed narrator of “Liquid,” the 31-year-old decides to marry rich. The narrator uniquely understands the benefits of “refreshingly clear terms: my time, his money” since her Ph.D. dissertation critiqued modern marriages based on feelings, as opposed to traditional Western and Islamic marriages treated as contracts. She tasks herself with going on 100 dates that summer with the academic rigor of a research project. This rom-com infused with sharp literary prose muses on the ridiculous indignities of modern courtship, the nuances of Persian literature, and the thoughtful contrast between the narrator’s despondent (yet hopeful) descent into American independence and her parents’ hard-won career paths as Iranian and Indian immigrants. Author Mariam Rahmani serves on the faculty at Bennington College.March 11Lord Christopher Eden is just fine and dandy (pun intended) living away from London society if it means living peacefully as a trans man in this Regency-era romance. When he discovers he’ll lose his late family’s fortune and estate if he doesn’t marry before his 25th birthday, Christopher is forced to depart the countryside and hire a valet to help him search for a wife. Christopher’s easygoing demeanor and disregard for rank initially chafes against the rigid formalities of his valet, James Harding. But as the London social season progresses and Christopher grows closer to James, Christopher must consider if a love match is right under his nose. Author TJ Alexander received their master’s from Emerson College.March 25After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the number of abortions performed in the U.S. actually increased. This statistic is a testament to the healthcare providers and communities working tirelessly to provide safe and affordable care to anyone who doesn’t want to be pregnant. Law professor David S. Cohen and sociologist Carole Joffe had the unique opportunity to conduct three rounds of interviews about abortion in early 2022, then immediately following the Dobbs ruling, and again six months later. “After Dobbs” shares the perspectives of 24 people in a variety of abortion fields with different state laws. Even though the emotional, financial and time costs of accessing abortions are becoming increasingly difficult, especially for people of color and people with low incomes, this book is a reminder that there will always be fierce defenders of bodily autonomy and there will always be abortions.

Climate science must look ahead

Science and Health

As 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is reached, climate science must look to the future, writes Aditi Mukherji, director of CGIAR’s Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Action Platform and IPCC author.
[NAIROBI] By the time the world’s leading climate scientists publish their next report in 2028-29, the world will already have possibly breached 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era for a few years and the deadline for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will be on the horizon.
The threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to reduce the impacts of climate change was passed for the first time in 2024, the EU’s climate change service, Copernicus, confirmed last week (10 January).
So, as the next assessment of climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gets under way, it’s vital that we answer the questions that will serve us in the future. Navigating the challenges of tomorrow requires forward-looking science today and in the months ahead.
Central to our mission to limit climate change are the communities and sectors most vulnerable to its impacts, especially agriculture and smallholder farmers, who play a critical role in feeding the world yet are particularly exposed to the effects of climate change.
The next cycle of climate science must therefore fill the gaps in evidence and solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture while also ensuring farming remains viable in a warmer, less predictable world.
We know that food systems are a major contributor to climate change, accounting for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. The sector clearly needs to transition to more sustainable means of food production, consumption, and disposal to support global emissions reductions.
However, food systems are also vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Agricultural losses from climate-related disasters totalled US$3.8 trillion in the past 30 years, with the highest relative losses in the poorest countries. A 2 degrees Celsius increase in temperatures will worsen already serious long-term food insecurity in many countries, putting up to 80 million people at risk of hunger by 2050.
Burning questions
This coming cycle of IPCC assessments must answer at least three core questions related to the agri-food systems and climate change to help the world move from understanding the climate crisis to tackling it with utmost urgency.
The first question for climate scientists is how to make best use of existing technologies that help farmers combat and cope with climate change—and increase their adoption and use.
Innovations to help farmers adapt to new conditions, such as digital climate information services and climate-resilient crops, already exist along with developments like solar-powered irrigation pumps and low-emission forages, or feeds, that reduce farming’s carbon footprint. But they are not reaching farmers at the scale needed to make a difference.
How to more effectively channel climate finance, resources and support from wealthier countries to roll out these innovations in low- and middle-income countries is a science question.
Similarly, we also need to assess which tools and technologies will enable farmers to adapt to warmer conditions in the future. Previous IPCC research cycles have shown that the ability to adapt to climate change becomes increasingly difficult as temperatures continue to rise. Scientists need to investigate which crop, livestock, or fishery adaptations will remain viable at 1.5 degrees Celsius or beyond.
The second question for climate scientists is how to make low-emissions technologies cost-effective and accessible.
For farmers to have the best chance of adapting and avoiding future losses, it’s crucial that global temperatures stabilise and this requires emissions to come down, including those from agriculture.
However, unlike the energy sector, which has benefited from research and innovation into renewable sources like solar energy, the agriculture sector has lagged on investments into research and development for low-emission technologies.
We urgently need to identify emerging and promising fields of research as well as the policies, infrastructure and governance needed to make clean technologies affordable and widely available.
Finally, scientists need to tackle the question of how to accelerate carbon dioxide removal to complement emissions reductions.
As temperatures rise, the natural ability of land and oceans to sequester carbon weakens, intensifying the need for human-led carbon dioxide removal (CDR). However, interventions like afforestation could reduce agricultural land, particularly in lower-income countries, posing risks to food security. Climate scientists must map the impacts of both higher temperatures and large-scale CDR efforts on food systems and livelihoods to chart a course that does not jeopardise food security.
Future-facing science
The decisions shaped by the IPCC’s reports will define how the world navigates the unprecedented challenges of a rapidly warming planet, especially as it approaches the conclusion of this pivotal decade.
As IPCC report authors, our role extends beyond delivering insights; we must provide actionable, evidence-based, future-facing science to empower governments to act decisively and effectively. This includes equipping innovators and policymakers to harness climate finance, tailor solutions to local contexts, and prepare for future temperature rises.
Most of all, we must not forget climate justice as the guiding principle of this green transition. Ensuring that the most vulnerable — often also the least responsible — remain front and centre of our plans can help to achieve an inclusive future where no one is left behind.
This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.
Aditi Mukherji is director of CGIAR’s Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Action Platform and a contributor to reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Buy banned books

Arts & Culture, Books

Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes just resigned from her position at the Washington Post after a drawing was unilaterally rejected by the newspaper. The cartoon, which shows Jeff Bezos and other tech gurus bowing before a gigantic statue of Donald Trump, was apparently considered too controversial for publication. Cartoonists have always been at the forefront of freedom of speech; but the case of Telnaes is not reassuring for what is to come in 2025.
2024 was a bleak year for writers, journalists and all those whose jobs consist of discussing ideas. Numbers show a steady increase in censorship over the last few years; one reliable indicator is the American Library Association’s yearly report on challenged books. In 2023, Maia Kobabe’s comic book Gender Queer: A Memoir was challenged 106 times. This means 106 libraries were asked to remove the book from their shelves, as the content was considered offensive. An autobiographic comic book, Gender Queer tells the true story of a girl who discovers that she identifies as non-binary. I personally found the book a bit dull, but apparently that’s just me: some people were so upset by its sheer existence, they found it worth spending hours trying to ban the book from public libraries. This may look like an anecdotal case involving a few obsessional conservatives, but banning books is never benign. As Heinrich Heine said: “Where you burn books, you end up burning people.”

Great minds think alike, especially those obsessed with censorship

Having your books banned or destroyed, however, is nowhere near the worst that can happen to writers these days. In 2023, Dmitry Glukhovsky, author of worldwide bestseller Metro 2033 (Have you read it? Read it now. It’s mind blowing), was sentenced to 15 years in prison by Russian courts. His crime: speaking out against the war in Ukraine. Glukhovsky, who had moved to Western Europe before he was convicted, is no longer welcome in his home country. Authoritarian regimes offer writers a choice between self-censorship, exile and prison.
And not all of them are able to escape their sentence by finding refuge abroad. The latest example is French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who has been incarcerated since November 2024 for political activism. In Iran, writer, journalist and Nobel Prize-winner Narges Mohammadi has now spent a total of 26 years in prison. As she suffers from serious health issues, Iranian authorities repeatedly offered to take her to hospital, if only she would wear a headscarf. She refused. While she has been walking free since December 2024, she is liable to be arrested again at any moment. She makes use of her freedom by giving out interviews, including one with Margaret Atwood – whose book The Handmaid’s Tale, as it happens, was repeatedly banned in the US in 2024. Great minds think alike, especially those obsessed with censorship.
There are those who will say that, after all, maybe these writers and artists simply went too far. It is particularly striking in the case of Sansal. His incarceration sparked widespread outrage in intellectual circles, but some argued that, while imprisoning people is wrong, Sansal really should have avoided saying certain things. The trouble is, in authoritarian regimes, the cursor of things that should be left unsaid can be moved until nothing but silence is allowed. In modern-day Russia, “anything at all can be labelled as propaganda”. 
It is a striking coincidence that Telnaes should resign on the 10th anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo killings. After all these years, not only have things not improved; they have clearly worsened, and it looks like censorship is threatening almost every field of literary and artistic creation. Even a cartoon as benign as Telnae’s, which can hardly be suspected of hurting anyone’s feelings (except maybe Mickey Mouse’s), is labelled as dangerously edgy. Censorship is now something we take into account when expressing ourselves, no matter how unconsciously.
It is unlikely 2025 will be the year freedom of speech hits back. But, as the situation worsens for artists and writers, there is no shortage of courageous intellectuals who are unafraid of standing their ground no matter what. From Narges Mohammadi to Dmitry Glukhovsky, and from Maria Ressa to Margaret Atwood, they show us how to renounce self-censorship and stop fearing those in power. In an increasingly crappy world, we find hope in their courage.
Your New Year resolution as a writer: be unapologetically free. As a reader: buy banned books.
Reading list
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret AtwoodMetro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky,Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia KobabeDisturbance: Surviving Charlie Hebdo by Philippe Lançon White Torture: Interviews with Iranian women prisoners by Narges MohammadiHow to Stand Up to a Dictator by Maria RessaThe Satanic Verses by Salman RushdieAn Unfinished Business by Boualem SansalHumor’s Edge: Cartoons by Ann Telnaes

The United States Can’t Afford to Not Harden its Air Bases

Technology

For decades, the United States has relied on airpower and the qualitative superiority of its aircraft to gain an advantage over its adversaries. But that advantage is rapidly eroding. The Chinese military is fielding sophisticated air defense networks that include robust passive defenses, challenging sensors, and highly capable missiles and aircraft. In fact, by our calculations, the amount of concrete used by China to improve the resilience of its air base network could pave a four-lane highway from Washington, D.C. to Chicago.
China’s strike forces of aircraft, ground-based missile launchers, and special forces can attack U.S. airfields globally. The U.S. Department of Defense has consistently expressed concern regarding threats to airfields, and military analyses of potential conflicts involving China and the United States demonstrate that most U.S. aircraft losses would likely occur on the ground at airfields. Despite these concerns, the U.S. military has devoted relatively little attention to countering these threats compared to its focus on developing modern aircraft.
U.S. airpower concepts have largely assumed that U.S. forces would deploy to forward airfields uncontested and that small-scale forward threats to airfields could be nullified. However, China is capable of mounting large-scale, sustained attacks against U.S. and allied airfields in the Indo-Pacific elsewhere. To generate airpower amid this onslaught, U.S. and allied forces need to devote a radical level of effort to learn how to “fight in the shade.”
This is the subject of our new report for the Hudson Institute. In the report, we make two observations. First, China seems to expect its airfields to come under heavy attack in a potential conflict and has made major investments to defend, expand, and fortify them. Second, American investments have been much smaller in scale and scope. Given the Chinese military’s threat to air bases, the United States needs to both be ready to disperse and undertake an urgent campaign to rapidly harden the bases that it and its allies and partners need to operate from in the event of a conflict with China. America has done so before in the face of other threats. To not do so today invites aggression — and could result in losing a major war.

Dealing with Past Threats
The U.S. Air Force has contended with varying levels and types of threats to its air bases. First, during the 1950s, concerns about the vulnerability of NATO air bases to nuclear attack led to the development of a dispersed operating concept to mitigate damage from nuclear and conventional attacks. Later, during the Vietnam War, aircraft losses due to mortar and rocket attacks prompted the Air Force to initiate the Concrete Sky program — a crash effort to build hardened aircraft shelters at the Air Force’s main operating bases in Vietnam. From 1968 to 1970, the Air Force built 373 such shelters, which it found to be effective in defeating attacks. It also conducted a study of air base vulnerability that prompted the construction of hardened aircraft shelters at air bases in Europe and the Pacific. The United States and its allies built roughly 1,000 by the end of the Cold War, including more than 100 in Japan.
In the first decades after the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force operated in support of U.S. combat operations from locations of relative sanctuary. About a decade into this period, analysts began to recognize that new weapons combining satellite-guided precision, long ranges, and submunitions could provide an otherwise inferior adversary with the means to disrupt or defeat U.S. Air Force combat and airlift operations in a conflict. For example, a 1999 RAND study estimated that — if sufficiently accurate and equipped with submunitions — a single Chinese ballistic missile could damage scores of American fighters parked at standard spacing intervals on an open ramp.
Hardening in the Indo-Pacific
To support of an invasion of Taiwan, open source Chinese publications call for seizing air dominance by using surprise attacks to destroy and paralyze an opponent’s air force on the ground. In recent decades, the Chinese military has been building what appear to be the capabilities to carry this out. China’s air force has developed a large force of cruise-missile-equipped strike aircraft. China’s Rocket Force has acquired over 1,000 medium-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting air bases across Japan and the Philippines, and 500 intermediate-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Guam and the other Mariana Islands. That strike force — combining long range, precision guidance, and in some cases submunitions — appears to have made real the threat to U.S. air bases that analysts began to talk about years ago.
Analysts have explicitly called out robust passive defenses, such as hardened shelters for aircraft, as “the most cost-effective ways to improve air base resilience.” Unfortunately, Air Force leaders have a mixed record when it comes to base hardening. In 2022, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall voiced support for hardening Air Force bases in the Pacific, but the next year the then-Pacific Air Forces commander said he did not see base hardening as a cost-effective way to respond.
Since the early 2010s, the U.S. military has added only two hardened shelters and 41 non-hardened ones at airfields within 1,000 nautical miles of the Taiwan Strait and outside of South Korea. It also does not appear likely to add any new hardened shelters anytime soon. Including allied airfields outside Taiwan, combined military airfield capacity within 1,000 nautical miles of the Taiwan Strait is roughly one-third of China’s. As can be seen in Figure 1, without airfields in South Korea this ratio drops to one-quarter, and without airfields in the Philippines it falls to 15 percent.
To figure out what China has done to make its air bases resilient, we used commercial satellite imagery to generate estimates of the aggregate improvements to its air bases. In summary, China’s efforts dwarf those of the United States. Entering the 2010s with about 370 hardened shelters, the Chinese military has more than doubled that number, to over 800. The number of non-hardened shelters also more than doubled, giving China a total of more than 3,100 aircraft shelters — enough to shelter the vast majority of its combat aircraft. Over roughly the last decade, China has also added numerous runways and runway-length taxiways, and increased its ramp area nationwide by almost 75 percent. It now has 134 air bases within 1,000 nautical miles of the Taiwan Strait. These bases boast more than 650 hardened shelters and almost 2,000 non-hardened shelters.

Figure 1: Comparison of features at Chinese, U.S., and allied airfields within 1,000 nautical miles of the Taiwan Strait, by location
This has created an imbalance (see Figure 2) in which Chinese forces would need to fire far fewer “shots” to suppress or destroy U.S., allied, and partner airfields than the converse. This imbalance ranges from approximately 25 percent to as great as 88 percent if the United States employed only military airfields in Japan. Strategically, this asymmetry risks incentivizing Beijing to exercise a first-mover advantage — China could strike first if it sees an opportunity to nullify adversary airpower on the ramp.

Figure 2: Estimated munitions required to neutralize airfields, by location
Recommendations
The United States can continue to largely ignore this menace and watch as risk levels increase, or it can face the reality and shape its forces and infrastructure to prevail.
One element of a competitive strategy to gain an advantage is to paradoxically motivate China to double-down on its defensive investment. To do so, the United States should continue improving its ability to strike Chinese forces and key critical infrastructure. By influencing Beijing to spend funds on additional defense measures, Washington can reduce the relative proportion of funds for alternative investments, including strike capabilities.
A strong offense alone, however, will not solve the Defense Department’s problems. Without a baseline level of resilience, it is reasonable to expect U.S. air offensive capabilities will be suppressed in a conflict. Thankfully, the suite of specific improvements is straightforward.
Defend Airfields
First, active defenses are essential to sustained air operations. In the 1980s, amid the threat of Soviet conventional air and ground attacks, the U.S. Army committed itself to “fund, equip, and man ground-based air defenses” as well as air base perimeter defense, for Air Force bases. Those Cold War agreements lapsed in the 1990s and early 2000s, and Army investments in air defense artillery forces have been relatively modest since.
Air base defense is arguably the most important mission the Army could perform in the Indo-Pacific, and Congress should robustly fund the air defense branch. Given competing priorities in the Army budget, this will require accelerating and deepening the Army’s shift of personnel and resources away from ground maneuver forces and toward air defense artillery.
Harden Airfields
Passive defenses are “the most-cost-effective ways to improve air base resilience.” But the military services have spent relatively little on them, which can include not only hardening but also redundancy measures, prepositioning of supplies, reconstitution capabilities, and camouflage, concealment, and deception measures.
To comprehensively harden airfields, the Defense Department will need to shift from treating each construction project individually to conducting a campaign of construction. A major, multi-year campaign of bundled construction at airfields inside and outside the United States — especially in the Indo-Pacific — would create a sustained push for military construction activities at bases, allow the creation of consortia of commercial contractors, and reduce construction costs. 
Over the past couple of decades, there has been growing recognition that the U.S. military needs to invest much more in passive airfield defenses. Fiscal limits and a preference for funding other military systems, such as aircraft, have driven a lack of action. Congress could direct the department to rapidly compose a report that assesses the worldwide U.S. demand for airfield resilience measures, including hardened shelters, hardened fuel stores, reconstitution systems, and the like, and to prioritize funding a percentage of the demand each year in its budget submission.
Similarly, Congress could adopt an approach to directly identify and fund these systems. For example, for every new combat aircraft, it will acquire a new personnel bunker, hardened shelter, munitions bunker, or hardened fuel store for an airfield in the United States and another one in the Indo-Pacific. It should also explicitly authorize and appropriate the construction of shelters for high-value aircraft in the United States, such as the B-21, and ensure military construction proposals in the Indo-Pacific account for threats and are hardened. Of note, Congress recently authorized $289 million for hardened aircraft shelters at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, though the Air Force requested no such funds and it is unclear whether Congress will appropriate those funds.
Absent a major topline budget increase, the Defense Department will need to fund these investments by decreasing spending in other areas, such as reducing funding for the Department of the Army or aircraft procurement. Although reducing aircraft procurement is problematic, modest trades could have outsized positive effects. For example, procuring one fewer B-21 per year over five years could provide enough funding to build 100 hardened shelters in the continental United States, ensuring that in a conflict, Chinese forces will not be able to easily destroy the B-21 fleet in the United States. By buying one fewer F-15EX or F-35A per year, the Defense Department could resource 20 new hardened shelters in the Western Pacific each year.
Evolve the Force
The Defense Department should also accelerate the development and fielding of forces that enable operations that are less susceptible to China’s airfield attacks. This includes long-range aircraft and aircraft and weapons that can operate from short or damaged runways or operate independently of them. However, the U.S. military will not field these types of forces in large numbers until the 2030s, and it will still require active and passive defenses at airfields regardless of these changes in force design.

Counterarguments and Conclusion
Passive defenses may seem at odds with a predominantly expeditionary U.S. approach to warfare. Why spend limited resources on defenses at home and abroad when the U.S. plans on projecting power overseas? However, unless U.S. forces can defend airfields at home and abroad, they will be unable to support U.S. and allied interests in a conflict. As we consider investments in this area, we should be cautious of three seemingly sensible counterarguments.
“Hardening is not cost-effective — instead, rely on dispersal.”
In general, investments in other passive defenses are less costly and have a higher tactical benefit return than hardening. This has led some observers to think hardening is not cost-effective and is unwise. Even though hardening is relatively expensive and, in some cases, may be lower on the priority list of passive defenses, it is highly valuable, and a range of passive defense measures is necessary.
 “U.S. forces need only do X.”
Some analyses overestimate the positive impact of single or limited facets of passive defenses, such as runway reconstitution or expeditionary fuel storage. Sustained air combat operations require an interdependent system of systems of personnel, fuel, munitions, maintenance, and other support assets. As it considers investments, the U.S. military will need to holistically enhance the passive defenses of airfields. This may require it to prioritize funding a comprehensive set of improvements to a limited number of locations, rather than attempting to field disjointed improvements to many sites.
“Forget hardening — rather, operate from range.”
Facing major threats to airfields in the Western Pacific, the Department of Defense could forgo fortifying airfields that could come under attack and instead adopt a force design that attempts to operate solely from range. Although the force design of U.S. air forces has become heavily reliant on short-range forces, the strategy of completely retiring from forward airfields has three flaws. First, operative forward airfields can provide three to five times as much capacity on station as distant airfields. Consequently, unless the size of U.S. air forces dramatically increases, they will be necessary to provide appropriate levels of capacity. Second, there is no sanctuary. China will likely be capable in the future of attacking U.S. forces at great distances — even within the continental United States. Third, it takes time to adjust force design. Given current airfield manufacturing timelines, it would likely take more than a decade for the Department of Defense to adopt enough long-range combat aircraft, tankers, and weapons to enable a solely stand-off approach or to adopt sufficient runway-independent capabilities. Such future forces will not solve current airfield challenges, and the ability to operate a major proportion of U.S. aircraft from forward airfields would still be highly valuable.
Executing an effective campaign to enhance the resilience of U.S. airfield operations will require informed decisions to prioritize projects and sustained funding. What is clear, however, is that U.S. airfields do face the threat of attack, and the current approach of largely ignoring this menace invites Chinese aggression and risks losing a war. Passive defenses, including hardening, are essential, and other countries have invested heavily in them to sustain airfield operations amidst attack. It is past time for the United States to do so again.

Thomas Shugart is a retired U.S. Navy submarine warfare officer. He is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and the founder of Archer Strategic Consulting.
Timothy A. Walton is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Image: Tech. Sgt. Eric Summers (U.S. Air Force)

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