March 31, 2021

Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East

Few authors are more qualified to write on U.S.-sponsored regime change in the Middle East than Philip Gordon, who worked as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama for the Middle East (2013–2015) and as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2009–2013). His book, Losing the Long Game, is elegant, thoroughly researched, and comprehensible; it belongs on the syllabus of every war college and policymaker’s desk.

March 31, 2021

Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime

In the 1970s, the late Sir Michael Howard cautioned military leaders that they would inevitably fail in predicting the conduct of the next war. What really mattered, he opined, was not getting it right, but not being “too badly wrong” and having the individual and institutional wherewithal to adapt to the new or revealed conditions of conflict in time to avoid defeat and ultimately prevail.

March 31, 2021

Accelerating Adaptation on the Western Front and Today

In wars, militaries rarely start out perfectly suited for the challenges they will encounter. Their organization, tactics, and weapons are not optimally matched to their environment or their enemies. The ability to adapt more quickly than an adversary gives a force a significant advantage. The growing role software plays in military technology could augment the speed of adaptation, but to capture such advantages, the joint force must invest in its digital workforce and infrastructure.

March 31, 2021

Embracing Asymmetry: Assessing Iranian National Security Strategy, 1983–1987

The success of Iran’s asymmetric warfare in advancing its objectives in Iraq in the 2000s likely reinforced the wrong lessons about the coercive power of asymmetric warfare and colored the country’s analysis of the Iran-Iraq War. Given the lasting impact the war has had on Iran’s military actions, examining the country’s experience during the conflict offers a unique window into Iranian decisionmaking today.

March 31, 2021

Sustaining Relevance: Repositioning Strategic Logistics Innovation in the Military

Military organizations tend to think about their overarching strategy in two ways: how their organization will remain relevant and which future operations they must be able to conduct. In the information era, military organizations struggle with the “design capabilities that will offer . . . credible strategic options and then the ability to win, through fighting smarter.” Building on the revolution in military affairs programs, a new era of digital innovations in the commercial realm underpins the U.S. National Defense Strategy and Third Offset Strategy to explore the use of new technologies for the military. While new operational concepts such as hyper war and kill webs are emerging, attention to the strategic element of innovation seems difficult to realize regarding military logistics. Strategic innovation concerns processes of proactive and systematic thinking about gaps that an organization can fulfill by developing new game plans.

March 31, 2021

The Future Joint Medical Force Through the Lens of Operational Art: A Case for Clinical Interchangeability

The joint health enterprise (JHE)—commonly referred to as the military health system (MHS)—has been key in driving recent combat casualty rates to the lowest in the Nation’s history. However, with the advent of a new, uncertain future security environment, the JHE faces potentially overwhelming obstacles that threaten a reversal. It therefore must contemplate national strategic redirection through novel and innovative means.

March 31, 2021

Flawed Jointness in the War Against the So-Called Islamic State: How a Different Planning Approach Might Have Worked Better

Not long after the first round of anemic air strikes against the so-called Islamic State (IS) on August 8, 2014, it became clear to most that the initial effort ordered by President Barack Obama and undertaken by U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) lacked an overarching strategy based on a well-founded understanding of the enemy and on a weighing of the full spectrum of available response options. Instead, USCENTCOM’s leaders fell back on their familiar past experiences and assessed IS as simply a resurrection of the recently defeated Iraqi insurgency rather than as the very different and ambitiously aggressive state-in-the-making that it actually was. As a result, they opted to engage the jihadist movement with an inappropriate counterinsurgency (COIN) approach that misprioritized rebuilding the Iraqi army as its predominant concern rather than pursuing a more promising strategy aimed at not only addressing Iraq’s most immediate security needs but also attacking the enemy’s most vulnerable center of gravity in Syria from the first day onward.

March 31, 2021

Conquering the Ethical Temptations of Command: Lessons from the Field Grades

Ethical lapses committed by senior business leaders are reported almost daily. Unfortunately, similar reports about military leaders also frequently appear; browse almost any contemporary military publication, and there is usually an article discussing an ethical failure by a high-ranking Servicemember. Although Department of Defense figures attest that the actual number of these failings is statistically small, they garner disproportionate attention. The critical nature of the U.S. military mission makes it incumbent on leaders to possess not only great technical competency in their jobs but also great character and integrity. Because of this demand, the U.S. military has high formal standards for ethical leadership behavior.

March 31, 2021

Educating Our Leaders in the Art and Science of Stakeholder Management

This article seeks to bridge a perceived knowledge gap with leaders and their executive communication skills by introducing them to a more disciplined, formal approach of identifying, prioritizing, and engaging stakeholders. This article suggests new and creative ways to conduct stakeholder management (identification, prioritization, and engagement)—techniques borrowed from practices employed in the private and commercial sectors.

March 31, 2021

Gray Is the New Black: A Framework to Counter Gray Zone Conflicts

Gray zone conflicts are difficult to address through traditional combat power. In today’s complex and competitive international environment, some states may appear to pursue the status quo, particularly in areas of benefit to them, while also seeking to amend other circumstances in their favor. To deter these aims, joint doctrine must address gray zone conflicts and incorporate strategies for countering these approaches into planning for steady-state activities and all phases of theater campaign planning. To do anything less is to relinquish the advantage.

March 30, 2021

Design Thinking

Iraq, Afghanistan, and, to an extent, Syria are all recent examples of situations where U.S. military involvement “solved” some elements of perceived problems but consequently created other issues. Following the invasion of Iraq in 2006, when the initial assessments seemed wrong and the situation was deteriorating simultaneously in Afghanistan, the Army began investigating alternative approaches to conceptual planning. Design methodology, now validated in joint doctrine, is the result of that inquiry. Using the methodology will not guarantee a successful outcome and is not a panacea for solving pandemics or complex problems. It does, however, provide a general framework, supported by an underlying logic, for discussing problems and developing approaches.

March 30, 2021

Deter in Competition, Deescalate in Crisis, and Defeat in Conflict

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), both located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are two distinct commands, bound together and united in a common purpose—charged with the resolute mission of defending North America. NORAD defends the United States and Canada against threats in the air domain and provides aerospace and maritime warning. Founded in 2002 in the wake of 9/11, USNORTHCOM defends the United States against threats across all domains, conducts cooperative defense activities with our allies and partners in North America, and, when required, supports Federal, state, and local agencies with unique military capabilities to conduct defense support of civil authorities.

March 30, 2021

Executive Summary

In 1993, General Powell encouraged members of the joint force to “Read JFQ. Study it. Mark it up—underline and write in the margins. Get mad. Then contribute your own views.” What do you think? How do you read JFQ? How can we make it better suited to the world you find yourself in? We are soon posting up a way for you to provide us more feedback. Watch this space. In the meantime, read on!

March 24, 2021

Rector Federica Mogherini Reprise

March 24, 2021 — The US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program hosted a special one-hour session on March 24, 2021, with Rector Federica Mogherini (College of Europe; Former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), as a part of its SMA INSS/PRISM Speaker Series.

March 19, 2021

PRISM Vol. 9, No. 2 (March 2021)

The global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 has catalyzed a re-examination of what national security consists of, and what responsibilities the world’s armed forces must or should assume to meet such non-military challenges. Yet the competition between the United States and its adversaries has intensified, requiring that the national security enterprise retain traditional capabilities while keeping up with the fierce pace of technological innovation. PRISM V.9,N.2 authors address the emerging challenges armed forces must meet, offer perspectives on competitors, and suggest major changes in the innovation ecosystem.

March 19, 2021

Power on the Precipice: The Six Choices America Faces in a Turbulent World

Clearly argued, lucidly written, and well-documented, Andrew Imbrie’s Power on the Precipice deserves a large audience, not just of foreign affairs specialists but also of those concerned about America’s place in the world and how to improve it. Imbrie is ambitious. In 205 printed pages (plus notes), he addresses diplomatic challenges that any Washington administration will face and suggests ways forward. In such a wide-ranging work, area experts will question some of his analysis and conclusions. Nevertheless, Imbrie should be applauded as he seeks to persuade policymakers and voters to think harder about different policy choices and tradeoffs from the optic of the long term rather than the short. Identifying national interests and how to promote them is always a challenge, but especially so in the United States, where the 24-hour news cycle is supreme. Elections every 2 years result in never-ending campaigning, and social media—with all its superficialities—has become a news source of choice for many, if not most.

March 19, 2021

Weaponized Words: The Strategic Role of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter- Radicalization

Preoccupation with the effort to fight extremist propaganda in an increasingly complex information environment has produced an overwhelming amount of literature from professors, practitioners, policymakers, and pundits. The problem of terrorist messaging is easily defined; solutions, in the form of effective counter-narrative strategies and the tools to disseminate them, are much harder to come by. Kurt Braddock’s Weaponized Words: The Strategic Role of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization takes this on, providing well-researched and relatively jargon-free guidelines to the development of persuasive counter-narratives and the use of emerging communications technologies to fight back.

March 19, 2021

The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

In the introduction to Kill Chain, Christian Brose issues a blunt warning. “Over the past decade, in U.S. war games against China, the United States has a nearly perfect record: we have lost almost every single time.” (pp. xii) The statement is meant to be shocking—more so because Brose brings significant credibility and inside information to this work. He served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, as a senior policy advisor to Senator John McCain, and as staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee where he supervised four National Defense Authorization Acts.

March 19, 2021

How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Toughest Decisions

Part memoir, part historical recounting, part leadership lesson, Susan Eisenhower’s How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Toughest Decisions is not only the sum, but the product of its parts, in keeping with her grandfather’s own “Great Equation.” Each part magnifies and amplifies the other: exploring Eisenhower in such a personal way helps us understand his historical period; delving into the historical context informs us about the man; providing the strategic insights illuminates both Ike and his times. This is a rich, multiform yet still cohesive book.

March 19, 2021

America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy

The book should deservedly become a canonical text for students and teachers of U.S. foreign relations, American and foreign diplomats, and importantly, the U.S. military.

March 19, 2021

“GeoEconomics and the Emerging World Order: The Power of the U.S. Dollar”: Interview with the Honorable Jacob J. Lew

Let me start with the positive—being the world’s reserve currency gives us enormous capacity to support our own fiscal and trade objectives in a way that strengthens our economy and our country. One of the reasons that the United States has the ability to borrow as much as it needs to at a moment like this—during a pandemic, when other countries might not have such easy access—is that when you have the world’s reserve currency, there is depth and liquidity in the markets for your securities unavailable to other currencies.

March 19, 2021

Negotiating [Im]plausible Deniability: Strategic Guidelines for U.S. Engagement in Modern Indirect Warfare

American adversaries such as Russia and Iran are persistently challenging U.S. interests around the world through indirect attacks. Rather than threaten the United States head-on, these competitors employ nebulous tools like private military contractors, proxies, and cyber-driven disinformation campaigns that are difficult to attribute, enabling plausible deniability, and muddle the distinction between violent and nonviolent actions. The frequency and ubiquity of these incidents—whether in Syria, Afghanistan, or even back home—suggest that indirect attacks will remain a primary tactic in geopolitical competition for the foreseeable future. Yet, the implications of these indirect means of competition for U.S. policy are not well understood. The centerpiece of these attacks is adversaries’ ability to threaten U.S. interests repeatedly over time and geographies while obfuscating the seriousness of the threat and keeping the acts below the threshold of public attention. We find that by mitigating domestic political pressure in the targeted state to react decisively, indirect attacks provide that state the benefit of decision space for how to respond. The aggregate implication for national security is that the use of indirect attacks may have the overall effect of reducing the level of conflict in the international system by increasing opportunities to offramp escalation. For this to be true, however, states must take advantage of the space to leverage other tools like diplomacy to reduce tensions.

March 19, 2021

A Friend to All is a Friend to None: Analysis of Russian Strategy in the Middle East

Since the start of the Arab Spring, Russia has sought increased influence in the Middle East, rekindling relationships and building influence in Syria, Turkey, Libya, Israel, and elsewhere. The return of Russian influence puts pressure on U.S. interests in the region. In the increasingly complex security environment of today’s world defined by transregional and multi-functional challenges across all domains, the United States is constrained in the Middle East by both available resources and an American public exhausted by military efforts in the region. America must make difficult choices and prioritize efforts. This article analyzes Russia’s strategy in the region, framed by the ways, means, ends, and risk models, to uncover risks to the Russian strategy that the United States could exploit.

March 19, 2021

Iran’s Gray Zone Strategy: Cornerstone of its Asymmetric Way of War

Since the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran has distinguished itself (along with Russia and China) as one of the world’s foremost “gray zone” actors. For nearly four decades, however, the United States has struggled to respond effectively to this asymmetric “way of war.” Washington has often treated Tehran with caution and granted it significant leeway in the conduct of its gray zone activities due to fears that U.S. pushback would lead to “all-out” war—fears that the Islamic Republic actively encourages. Yet, the very purpose of this modus operandi is to enable Iran to pursue its interests and advance its anti-status quo agenda while avoiding escalation that could lead to a wider conflict. Because of the potentially high costs of war—especially in a proliferated world—gray zone conflicts are likely to become increasingly common in the years to come. For this reason, it is more important than ever for the United States to understand the logic underpinning these types of activities, in all their manifestations.

March 19, 2021

Time for a New National Innovation System for Security and Prosperity

In his 1989 classic The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers Paul Kennedy wrote, “To be a Great Power—by definition, a state capable of holding its own against any other nation—demands a flourishing economic base.” Kennedy should have added, “an economic (and technology) base that is flourishing more than its competitors.”

March 19, 2021

China and America: A New Game in a New Era

China and the United States are in a different game than the rising power/established power conflicts of the past. Most analyses of such rivalries are based on pre–World War II history and fail to notice that the game changed radically after World War II. Sometimes when alterations are made in the rules or implements of a game, the risks and the optimal strategies change.

March 19, 2021

Natural Hazards and National Security: The COVID-19 Lessons

Natural hazards can have serious implications for national security. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates how first-order challenges are created for our national security planners, not least maintaining SSBN and SSN submarine crew and air crew rosters during quarantine restrictions, as well as keeping forces operationally effective while establishing social distancing in supply, repair and support facilities, gyms, and mess halls. We must also expect our adversaries to try to exploit the dislocation such events cause to further their own agendas.

March 17, 2021

The Role of Europe in the New Great Power Competition

The US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program hosted a speaker session on March 17, 2021, presented by Rector Federica Mogherini (College of Europe; Former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), as a part of its SMA INSS/PRISM Speaker Series.

Feb. 24, 2021

Innovating for National Security

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program hosted a speaker session on February 24, 2021, presented by Mr. Michael Brown (Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)), as a part of its SMA NDU/PRISM Innovation Series. 

Feb. 18, 2021

The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War

On February 18, 2021, this discussion led by James Schmeling, President and CEO, explores and explains why Taiwan is emerging as a potential flashpoint for a war that could include US intervention. Featuring AMB. Robert Blackwill & Professor Philip Zelikow, they propose a realistic strategic objective for Taiwan, and the associated policy prescriptions, to sustain the political balance that has kept the peace for the last fifty years.

Feb. 17, 2021

Joint Force Quarterly 100 (1st Quarter, January 2021)

Whether you are on the ground halfway around the world or standing point here at home in Washington, DC, whether you are in uniform or civil service, in defending our Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic you are defending both a way of life and a precious set of values all freedom-loving people around the world believe in. Your team here at NDU Press supports your efforts and wants to hear from you as you work the difficult issues and tasks in the days and months ahead. Stay safe.

Feb. 17, 2021

From the Chiefs of the Joint Staff

The American people have trusted the Armed Forces of the United States to protect them and our Constitution for almost 250 years. As we have done throughout our history, the U.S. military will obey lawful orders from civilian leadership, support civil authorities to protect lives and property, ensure public safety in accordance with the law, and remain fully committed to protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Feb. 17, 2021

Military Health System Preparedness in Humanitarian Action

The Department of Defense (DOD) will continue to have a more prominent and active role in support of disaster relief operations due to the increasing frequency and severity of disasters worldwide.The need for defense support to civil authority (DSCA) in domestic disasters is occurring in increasingly complex circumstances, along with analogous humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities overseas.

Feb. 17, 2021

Behind Enemy Plans: A Process-Tracing Analysis of Germany’s Operational Approach to a Western Invasion

Sixty-four years after Moltke’s observation, two mid-level German commanders, faced with the herculean task of changing the course of history on an early June 1944 morning, failed in their duties. In using structured and qualitative analysis to examine German strategy and operations in the events leading up to and on D-Day, the loss can be traced to Admiral Theodor Krancke, commander of Naval Group West, and Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, commander of Luftwaffe Third Air Fleet. Infighting, conflicting authorities, and lack of warfighting capabilities clearly hampered German command and control of operations on the Normandy coast. The Germans did have a plan, however, and Krancke and Sperrle proved to be the weak links: Both failed to execute when facing an Allied invasion on the Western Front.

Feb. 17, 2021

Multidomain Ready: How Integrated Air and Missile Defense Is Leading the Way

The U.S. military’s dominance in the traditional domains of land, sea, and air has been a key advantage that has greatly helped ground forces succeed in recent conflicts. However, strategic competitors have begun to challenge U.S. dominance in these domains with advanced surface-to-air missiles, antiship cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs), antisatellite weapons, mobile sea mines, drones, electronic warfare, and cyber/electronic warfare. Along with these new technologies, new tactics, such as the use of Russian paramilitaries in Ukraine1 and of Chinese fishing boats to enforce territorial claims in the South China Sea,2 have further challenged U.S. military dominance.

Feb. 17, 2021

A New Look at Operational Art: How We View War Dictates How We Fight It

The War of 1812, the Banana Wars, World War I, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan all saw brilliant battlefield victories with limited strategic success. These failures are not a product of the American intellect, spirit, ingenuity, or will. They are a failure of the American view of war and a failure of our model for operational art. The current method by which the United States views the interplay of the levels of war is insufficient to translate tactical victories into strategic and political successes, requiring a new way of viewing operational art and warfare.

Feb. 17, 2021

Modernizing the Operational Design of the Medical Readiness Training Exercise

Each year, the U.S. military deploys hundreds of medics to see patients in direct patient care training exercises throughout the Americas, Asia, and other regions around the world. “More patients mean better training” is the mantra of mission planners, commanders, and public affairs teams. Only cursory efforts are made during these missions toward building partnerships and host-nation institutional capacity. Geographic combatant commanders, however, expect to leverage these operational readiness training exercises, funded by humanitarian and civic assistance (HCA) dollars, to promote regional security and stability, while host nations want to improve their populations’ health, health systems, and institutional legitimacy. At great cost in money and opportunity, the legacy health fair–style medical readiness training exercise (MEDRETE) and its thousands of patients seen grossly underdeliver on all counts.

Feb. 17, 2021

Fight Tonight: Reenergizing the Pentagon for Great Power Competition

From General Ulysses S. Grant and the Wilderness Campaign to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Normandy invasion, war planning has long been considered central to the study of U.S. military history. But due to a confluence of political circumstances and a series of unique demands placed on the U.S. military from the end of the Cold War through the war on terror, the Pentagon’s bureaucratic capacity for strategic planning gradually eroded, eventually giving way to an overreliance on operational plans and grand tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan. Circumstances have changed, however. As Russia and China espouse revisionist aims and U.S. global hegemony comes increasingly into question, it is more important than ever for the Department of Defense (DOD) to reenergize its war-planning apparatus and prepare for what will likely be a prolonged era of Great Power competition (GPC).

Feb. 17, 2021

Geoeconomics and Great Power Competition

The US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program hosted a speaker session on February 17, 2021, presented by General (Ret.) David Petraeus, as a part of its SMA INSS/PRISM Speaker Series.

Feb. 16, 2021

The Myths of Lyme Disease: Separating Fact from Fiction for Military Personnel

No one is immune to, and there is no cure for, tickborne diseases. Just one tick bite can destroy a person’s career. Given the dire health consequences, the poor diagnostic tools, the effects of climate change in increasing tick habitats, and the endemic nature of the disease in geographical areas where the military lives, works, and plays, Lyme should be a serious concern for the entire joint force.

Feb. 16, 2021

Restoring Thucydides: Testing Familiar Lessons and Deriving New Ones

Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War offers national security pundits a plethora of persuasive “dead man quotes.” However, they and their audiences have rarely digested, and infrequently understood, the context and history surrounding the phrases they employ. Professors Andrew Novo and Jay Parker of the National Defense University provide an insightful remedy for students of history and strategy in Restoring Thucydides.

Feb. 16, 2021

Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945–1957

Grand Improvisation is an engaging and well-researched dive into U.S. and British statecraft during the often overlooked power transition between the two nations following World War II. Derek Leebaert immediately sets out to challenge the common historical narrative that “the British Empire was too weak and too dispirited to continue as a global imperial power; thus, a confidently prosperous, well-armed America assumed leadership of the West.” Furthermore, he makes the case that “America’s biggest postwar difficulty—perhaps more than the Soviet threat—was the inability to say no to the British Empire. In effect, serious people in Washington believed that ‘no acceptable foreign policy’ was available to the United States if it was not aligned with its sprawling, problematic ally.” He continues, “History’s largest empire [British] was battling to maintain its standing.”

Feb. 16, 2021

The Battle for Pakistan: The Bitter U.S. Friendship and a Tough Neighbourhood

History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” “This famous and oft-attributed warning of Mark Twain is taken up by Shuja Nawaz, a leading South Asia political and strategic analyst, in his latest book, The Battle for Pakistan. Nawaz is a prolific author serving as a distinguished fellow in the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. His latest book provides a detailed examination of the relationship between Pakistan and the United States from 2007 to 2019 and offers readers insights into navigating the future of the relationship. The author explores watershed moments, providing unique context and conversations that took place behind the scenes to clarify the 70-year-old relationship that sometimes resembles a Hollywood drama. His interviews with Pakistani military and political leaders, as well as American diplomats, offer unique insights for joint force planners by capturing the nuances of a complex relationship, allowing readers to peer behind the veil of Pakistani politics and critically examine missteps and misperceptions by both countries in the hope of forging a more cooperative future.

Feb. 16, 2021

Independent and Credible: Advising Afghan Security Forces During the 2019 Presidential Election

The 2019 Afghan presidential election presented a unique opportunity to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Resolute Support (RS) mission. Specifically, RS leaders needed to align the coalition to support election security operations while reinforcing the independence and credibility of the Afghan-led process. Assessing this challenge required knowledge of recent Afghan history, the roles of election stakeholders, and the capabilities of the Afghan National Defense Security Forces (ANDSF).

Feb. 16, 2021

Logistics Under Fire: Changes for Meeting Dynamically Employed Forces

The United States has not faced contested lines of logistics since World War II. Over time, U.S. forces have become dangerously comfortable with having what they need, when they need it. The most notable difference between logistics during World War II and logistics now is that our supply lines are spread much thinner. The Department of Defense (DOD) can no longer rely on established forward bases and uncontested lines of supply.

Feb. 16, 2021

It’s Not Just About Cyber Anymore: Multidisciplinary Cyber Education and Training Under the New Information Warfare Paradigm

Education and training have been complementary philosophical cognitive frameworks necessarily focused on harmonious, yet separate, areas of information delivery to people in a vast array of careers. Much research has compared and contrasted these two philosophies, revealing the need for an understanding of how best to target learning in order to accommodate the needs of students, of organizations in need of talent, and of society as a whole. The fact is that we need welders and plumbers just as badly as we need doctors and lawyers. However, the way we train and educate across these vastly different career trajectories must by necessity flow and work in different ways.

Feb. 16, 2021

Beneath the Crosshairs: Remotely Piloted Airstrikes as a Foreign Policy Tool

Without a clearly identified endstate and coordinated whole-of-government strategy, remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) strikes alone increase risk to national policy objectives, destabilize fragile regions, and isolate key partners.

Feb. 10, 2021

Joint Doctrine Updates

Joint Doctrine Updates.

Feb. 10, 2021

Beyond Bean Bags and Rubber Bullets: Intermediate Force Capabilities Across the Competition Continuum

Nonlethal weapons technological advancements could provide a variety of counterpersonnel and countermateriel effects without destruction. Could this new generation of capabilities provide senior leaders and operational commanders intermediate force options that support the full spectrum of military objectives? If so, how do they fit in the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) focus on increased lethality?

Feb. 10, 2021

Harnessing the Power of Information: A Better Approach for Countering Chinese Coercion

China has implemented an incremental approach toward coercive activities in the Indo-Pacific region, placing the United States and its allies in a deteriorating position to counteract Beijing effectively. An information-centric strategy offers the best opportunity to counter Chinese influence and advance U.S. interests in the region without a greater risk of military conflict.