The Air Force says its China think-tank will continue. It’s director says it’s basically dead.

Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) honour guard members shout as they march during a welcoming ceremony for King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People on November 12, 2025 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Over the last few days, confusion and outrage have swirled over the fate of the Air Force’s premier think tank focused on Chinese air and space power, as fears mounted that the organization faced the axe.

On Monday, social media posts revealed that officials planned to eliminate civilian staff positions at the Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute , seemingly the end of the organization. The Air Force then released a statement that CASI will continue, but operating only with uniformed personnel. After that, CASI itself published a press release stating that the institute will close — a post that has since been taken down from the website of its parent organization, Air University.

In a new statement to Breaking Defense Wednesday, an Air Force spokesperson doubled down on its stance that CASI will remain open. “Air University continues to evaluate the alignment of the CASI mission to best support DAF [Department of the Air Force] priorities,” the spokesperson said. “The mission will continue using assigned military personnel and civilian personnel to execute priorities outlined in their charter.”

The Air Force spokesperson said eight civilian positions would be affected by the reduction, and that “[e]mployees filling those positions will continue to serve and support CASI” with five military staff “for the foreseeable future.”

So what’s actually going on?

Formally, the Air Force is keeping CASI open, and the organization will still function normally in the short term. But in the long run, the Air Force is doing little more than keeping the lights on, at least according to Brendan Mulvaney, the institute’s director.

In an interview and in emails with Breaking Defense, Mulvaney praised the organization’s military personnel. But he said that CASI’s research — which draws heavily from open-source material published in Mandarin — is largely carried out by its 10-member civilian staff whose positions are now all being eliminated.

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“The idea that you could do research or the translations that we’re doing is not credible” without civilian experts, he said.

The description of five military positions is “disingenuous,” Mulvaney asserted, explaining that number includes two fellows and one military post unmanned since last year. He also noted that two civilian positions were already vacant. The director added that his understanding is Pentagon-wide workforce cuts “trickled down” to Air University, and that the timing was driven by the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

“So it had no reflection on CASI, our mission, our work, or any of that stuff,” he said of the staff cuts. “It was just simply, ‘Hey, we are getting forced to give up a certain number of positions, and yours are the ones we’re giving up.’”

Mulvaney said he published the now-deleted post announcing CASI’s closure to provide a clear picture of its fate. Civilian positions are converting to an unfunded status, meaning that staffers will continue to work until being moved to a different role elsewhere in the DAF. (He said the press release must have been taken down by Air University.)

CASI’s current batch of commitments will stretch until probably around March, according to Mulvaney. There could be a range of outcomes for employees: some might continue in an unfunded status for an unclear amount of time, others may find other government roles, and others still could pursue opportunities in the private sector, he said.

Once a position opens up, it can’t be backfilled, and new employees can’t be hired. Eliminating a position outright would require what’s known as a reduction in force — a key tool used by the Department of Government Efficiency initiative in 2025 to cull thousands of Pentagon workers — but that hasn’t happened yet, Mulvaney said.

CASI regularly publishes research on Beijing’s air and space forces. The entity shares its findings within the US military and the broader defense community to promote understanding of China’s military prowess, with the goal of shaping policy and strategy. Experts expressed dismay about its fate.

“I’ll admit there are opportunities to rationalize how the U.S. government buys the development and sustainment of China knowledge and expertise,” Jacob Stokes, senior fellow and deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, posted on X . “But closing CASI should *not* be on that list. Immense analytic and educational value per dollar, lost.”

William Yale, a Navy surface warfare officer whose social media post widely raised awareness of the CASI downsizing, told Breaking Defense he’s benefited from the institute’s research. He agreed with Mulvaney that while military staff are skilled, they “can’t replicate” the work done by civilian employees.

“While CASI staff will likely land on their feet, the institutional knowledge and influence that CASI built over many years will be lost, and CASI’s research collection at the National Defense University (NDU) will be at risk,” Yale said, stressing his opinions were solely his own and not those of the Pentagon. “If there is any consolation from the defunding of CASI, the ensuing publicity is a good thing and may open the door to some way of salvaging the situation.”

News of the CASI cuts raised questions about similar programs run by the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Spokespeople for the Army and Navy confirmed that the services’ Beijing-focused research programs, known respectively as the China Landpower Studies Center and China Maritime Studies Institute, are not expecting any changes.

Marine Corps Base Quantico did not respond to a request for comment about the status of the China Warfighting Initiative, housed at the Marine Corps War College located on the base.

Mulvaney has run CASI since its inception nearly a decade ago, and said he’s going to stick around as long as he can to ensure its staff find new roles. He’s additionally seeking a way to keep the organization open, or move it elsewhere.

“I was the one that turned on the lights,” he said, “and I’ll be the last one out the door — with the exception, obviously, of the military members, assuming that they keep them for that long and don’t reassign them.”

2025年11月12日，中国人民解放军仪仗队队员在北京人民大会堂参加欢迎西班牙国王费利佩六世和王后莱蒂齐亚的仪式，仪式由中国国家主席习近平主持。（图片来源：Maxim Shemetov-Pool/Getty Images）

华盛顿——过去几天，围绕美国空军主要研究中国空天力量的智库的命运，各种混乱和愤怒的情绪不断涌现，人们越来越担心该机构面临被裁撤的风险。

周一，社交媒体上的消息显示，官员们计划裁减空军中国航天研究院的文职人员，这似乎预示着该机构的终结。随后，空军发表声明称，中国航天研究院将继续运作，但只保留军人。之后，中国航天研究院自身也发布新闻稿，宣布该研究院即将关闭——但该新闻稿随后已从其母机构空军大学的网站上删除。

周三，空军发言人向《防务新闻》发表声明，重申了空军科学与技术研究所（CASI）将继续开放的立场。发言人表示：“空军大学将继续评估CASI的任务是否与空军部（DAF）的优先事项相符。该研究所将继续派遣指定的军事人员和文职人员执行其章程中规定的各项优先事项。”

空军发言人表示，此次裁员将影响八个文职职位，并且“在可预见的未来，担任这些职位的员工将继续为CASI提供服务和支持”，同时还将有五名军事人员参与其中。

所以到底发生了什么？

表面上看，空军仍在维持CASI的运转，该机构短期内也将继续正常运作。但从长远来看，至少据该机构主任布伦丹·穆尔瓦尼所说，空军所做的不过是维持机构的运转而已。

在接受《防务新闻》（Breaking Defense）采访以及通过电子邮件中，穆尔瓦尼对该组织的军事人员表示赞赏。但他指出，CASI的研究——大量引用中文开源资料——主要由其10名文职人员完成，而这些文职人员的职位现在全部将被裁撤。

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他说：“如果没有民间专家，就无法进行我们正在进行的研究或翻译工作，这种想法是不可信的。”

穆尔瓦尼断言，所谓五个军事职位的说法“不实”，并解释说，这个数字包括两名研究员和一个自去年以来就无人值守的军事岗位。他还指出，另有两个文职职位已经空缺。这位主任补充说，据他了解，五角大楼范围内的裁员“波及”了空军大学，而裁员的时间点则与10月1日开始的新财年有关。

“所以，裁员与CASI、我们的使命、我们的工作或任何相关方面都没有关系，”他谈到裁员时说。“这仅仅是因为，‘嘿，我们被迫裁减一些职位，而你们的职位就是我们要裁减的。’”

穆尔瓦尼表示，他发布那篇现已删除的关于CASI关闭的帖子是为了清楚地说明其命运。文职岗位将转为无经费编制，这意味着员工将继续工作，直到被调到DAF的其他岗位。（他说，那篇新闻稿一定是空军大学撤下的。）

据穆尔瓦尼称，CASI目前的这批承诺可能会持续到明年3月左右。他表示，员工的最终结果可能各不相同：一些人可能会在不确定的时间里继续处于无薪状态，一些人可能会找到其他政府职位，还有一些人可能会寻求私营部门的机会。

一旦职位空缺，就无法填补，也无法招聘新员工。穆尔瓦尼表示，彻底取消职位需要采取所谓的裁员措施——这是美国政府效率提升计划在2025年用来精简五角大楼数千名员工的关键手段——但这种情况尚未发生。

中国航空航天科学研究院（CASI）定期发布有关北京空军和太空部队的研究报告。该机构与美国军方及更广泛的国防界分享研究成果，以增进对中国军事实力的了解，从而影响相关政策和战略。专家们对其命运表示惋惜。

“我承认，美国政府在购买和维护中国相关知识和专业技能方面确实存在一些合理化的理由，”新美国安全中心高级研究员兼印太安全项目副主任雅各布·斯托克斯在X网站上发帖称，“但关闭中国科学研究院（CASI）绝对不应该列入其中。这笔钱本可以带来巨大的分析和教育价值，现在却白白损失了。”

海军水面作战军官威廉·耶鲁（William Yale）在社交媒体上发帖，广泛宣传了CASI（国防科学研究所）的裁员计划。他告诉《防务新闻》（Breaking Defense），自己也从该研究所的研究中受益。他同意穆尔瓦尼的观点，即虽然军方人员技能娴熟，但他们“无法复制”文职人员的工作。

耶鲁表示：“虽然CASI的员工或许能勉强维持生计，但CASI多年来积累的机构知识和影响力将会丧失，CASI在国防大学（NDU）的研究资料也将面临风险。”他强调，这些观点仅代表他个人，并不代表五角大楼的立场。“如果说CASI被取消经费有什么好处的话，那就是由此引发的公众关注是一件好事，或许能为挽救局面找到一些途径。”

中国陆军科学研究院（CASI）预算削减的消息引发了人们对陆军、海军和海军陆战队类似项目的关注。陆军和海军发言人证实，两军分别以北京为研究重点的科研项目——中国陆军科学研究院和中国海洋科学研究院——预计不会受到任何影响。

匡蒂科海军陆战队基地没有回应关于设在该基地海军陆战队战争学院的“中国作战倡议”现状的置评请求。

穆尔瓦尼自CASI成立以来就一直担任负责人，至今已有近十年。他表示，只要条件允许，他就会继续留任，确保员工找到新的工作。此外，他还在寻求维持该机构运营或将其迁往他处的方法。

“是我打开的灯，”他说，“我也会是最后一个离开的人——当然，军人除外，前提是他们能一直待在那里，不被重新分配任务。”