Air Force, civilian staff dispute status of China Aerospace Studies Institute

On Oct. 1, the Air Force will eliminate all 10 civilian positions at the China Aerospace Studies Institute, the Air University center that publishes unclassified research on the People’s Liberation Army’s air, space and missile forces. Its director said the move will effectively end the institute, even as the service says CASI’s mission will continue.

“As a part of the ongoing civilian restructure within Air Education and Training Command, civilian positions will no longer be assigned to China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI),” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to Defense News on Tuesday. “The CASI mission continues, with the organization leveraging assigned military service members to accomplish its objectives.”

Civilians affected by the restructuring will stay in their current positions until further notice and will be evaluated for reassignment, the spokesperson said.

CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney described the fallout differently. All of the institute’s civilian billets are being eliminated, “effectively ending CASI,” he said Tuesday. No military positions are affected, he said, noting the institute has two master sergeant billets and a deputy position that has remained unfilled for over a year.

Asked how the cut would impact the institute’s research, Mulvaney said, “All of the research has always been done by the civilian personnel.”

According to Mulvaney, the decision was made by the previous Air University commander and forwarded by AETC under a requirement to cut civilian jobs across the Department of the Air Force. The quota originated with the Air Force’s manpower and reserve affairs office, he said.

The cut “had nothing to do with CASI’s mission,” Mulvaney said, but due to the fact that the institute does not produce professional military education students, which is Air University’s primary mission.

Asked whether another organization would take on CASI’s China aerospace research, Mulvaney said, “Nothing has been identified.” It is also unknown whether CASI’s reports, translations and course materials will remain publicly available, or whether its website will remain online, he said.

The cuts became public Monday, when a note from a CASI civilian circulated on social media. The employee wrote that every CASI civilian position would be unfunded as of Oct. 1 and that the staff would become “surplus federal employees,” a federal personnel term for workers whose positions are being eliminated.

The note described CASI’s future as “uncertain,” adding that “CASI punched above its weight given our small team and budget.”

Will Yale, a Navy surface warfare officer who posted the note on X, wrote that it was “extremely unfortunate and regrettable” that the Department of the Air Force “has decided to shutter” CASI. He described the institute as one of the most prominent in its field and wrote that it had “measurably increased knowledge about the PLA” inside the U.S. government and outside it.

Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College professor and CASI associate, noted that the news is “specific to CASI only.” Mulvaney said the action does not affect the Navy’s China Maritime Studies Institute, the Army War College’s China Landpower Studies Center or the Marine Corps War College’s China Warfighting Initiative.

CASI was established in 2017 and formally chartered on June 15, 2021 , by then-Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. The charter tasked the institute with studying “everything that flies” in China, calling CASI the Air Force’s leading center for the study of China and its aerospace capabilities. It has offices at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, and Fort McNair in Washington.

The institute’s research was unclassified by design, according to its charter, which directed CASI to use publicly available native-language sources and publish its findings. CASI translated PLA textbooks and doctrine, published reference primers and ran a free three-day PLA Fundamentals course that required no security clearance.

Its biennial CASI Conference, held in May at National Defense University, drew more than 250 attendees and featured the release of the fifth edition of its “PLA Aerospace Power” primer, CASI said .

In 2025, nearly 80,000 people visited CASI’s website and downloaded more than 50,000 reports, according to the institute . The site remains live and posted a new paper on Sept. 21, “From Vision to Vigilance: How Beijing’s Space-Science Roadmap Builds a Real-Time Kill Web.”

CASI had already lost staff a year ago. In an October 2025 quarterly update , the institute said a Defense Department efficiency drive had eliminated its director of education and education program manager positions as the Department of the Air Force was “reorganizing, inactivating, and realigning organizations.” CASI said things were “in flux” and it would provide a status update once it knew more.

Ryan Fedasiuk, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, called the move “ a devastating loss for the analytic community” and an “incomprehensible decision.”

The Air Force said CASI’s mission will continue, with military members carrying on the work Mulvaney said civilians have always done.

Michael Scanlon is a defense journalist covering air and space warfare. A former U.S. Air Force A-10 crew chief, he has supported land and sea programs for the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

10月1日，美国空军将裁撤中国航天研究院的全部10个文职岗位。该研究院隶属于空军大学，主要发布有关中国人民解放军空军、航天部队和导弹部队的非机密研究报告。研究院院长表示，此举实际上将终结该研究院的运作，但空军方面则声称研究院的任务将继续进行。

“作为空军教育训练司令部正在进行的文职人员重组的一部分，中国航天研究院（CASI）将不再配备文职人员，”一位空军发言人周二在发给《防务新闻》的一份声明中表示。“CASI的任务仍在继续，该机构将继续利用其分配的军事人员来实现其目标。”

发言人表示，受重组影响的文职人员将继续留在目前的岗位，直至另行通知，并将接受重新分配评估。

CASI主任布伦丹·穆尔瓦尼对此次事件的后果有不同的描述。他周二表示，该研究所的所有文职岗位都将被取消，“实际上意味着CASI的终结”。他指出，没有军事职位受到影响，并提到该研究所还有两个一级军士长职位和一个副手职位，该职位已空缺一年多。

当被问及此次削减将如何影响该研究所的研究时，穆尔瓦尼表示：“所有的研究一直都是由文职人员完成的。”

据穆尔瓦尼称，这项决定是由前任空军大学司令做出的，并由空军教育训练司令部（AETC）根据削减空军部文职人员岗位的要求予以下达。他还表示，配额制度最初是由空军人力和预备役事务办公室提出的。

穆尔瓦尼表示，此次削减“与CASI的使命无关”，而是因为该研究所不培养专业的军事教育学生，而这正是空军大学的主要使命。

当被问及是否会有其他机构接手中国航天科学研究院（CASI）的中国航天研究时，穆尔瓦尼表示：“目前还没有确定。”他还说，CASI的报告、译文和课程资料是否会继续公开，以及其网站是否会继续在线，目前都不得而知。

裁员消息于周一公开，当时一位CASI文职人员的留言在社交媒体上流传开来。这位员工写道，从10月1日起，CASI所有文职岗位都将停止拨款，员工将成为“联邦剩余雇员”，这是联邦政府对即将被裁撤岗位的员工的称呼。

该说明称 CASI 的未来“不确定”，并补充说“考虑到我们团队规模小、预算有限，CASI 的表现已经超出了我们的预期”。

海军水面作战军官威尔·耶鲁在X网站上发布了一则消息，称空军部“决定关闭”中国人民解放军战略研究所（CASI）“极其不幸和令人遗憾”。他称该研究所是其领域内最杰出的机构之一，并写道，该研究所“显著提升了美国政府内外对解放军的了解”。

海军战争学院教授兼中国海事研究所（CASI）研究员安德鲁·埃里克森指出，这一消息“仅针对中国海事研究所（CASI）”。穆尔瓦尼表示，此举不影响海军中国海事研究所、陆军战争学院中国陆军研究中心或海军陆战队战争学院中国作战计划。

中国航空航天研究所（CASI）成立于2017年，并于2021年6月15日由时任空军参谋长小查尔斯·Q·布朗将军正式授予特许状。该特许状赋予该研究所研究中国“所有飞行器”的任务，称CASI是美国空军研究中国及其航空航天能力的领先中心。该研究所在阿拉巴马州麦克斯韦空军基地和华盛顿州麦克奈尔堡设有办公室。

根据其章程，该研究所的研究工作特意不设机密，章程指示CASI使用公开的母语资料并发表研究成果。CASI翻译了解放军教科书和条令，出版了参考入门读物，并开设了一门为期三天的免费解放军基础知识课程，该课程无需安全许可。

CASI表示，其两年一度的CASI会议于5月在国防大学举行，吸引了250多名与会者，并发布了第五版《解放军航空航天力量》入门读物。

据中国航天科技研究院（CASI）统计，2025年，近8万人访问了该研究院的网站，下载了超过5万份报告。该网站目前仍然在线，并于9月21日发布了一篇新论文，题为《从愿景到警戒：北京的空间科学路线图如何构建实时杀伤网络》。

CASI早在一年多前就已出现人员流失。在2025年10月的季度报告中，该研究所表示，由于美国国防部正在进行“机构重组、撤销和调整”，国防部的一项效率提升计划取消了其教育主任和教育项目经理的职位。CASI表示，目前情况“尚不明朗”，一旦掌握更多信息，将提供最新进展。

美国企业研究所的研究员瑞安·费达修克称此举是“分析界的毁灭性损失”和“令人费解的决定”。

空军表示，CASI 的任务将继续进行，军事人员将继续开展穆尔瓦尼所说的平民一直以来所做的工作。

迈克尔·斯坎伦是一位报道空天战的国防记者。他曾是美国空军A-10攻击机的机组长，并为美国陆军、海军、海军陆战队和海岸警卫队的陆地和海上项目提供支持。