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June 19, 2017

Executive Summary

One of the most important questions we ask students of national and international security is “What is war?” Many will provide a solid response citing one of the great war “thinkers” like Thucydides or Carl von Clausewitz. An equally important set of questions flows from these responses. When should a country like the United States become involved? Why should the United States risk our “blood and treasure” in this war? What instruments of national power should be used and to what measure? What will the end of the war look like? How will we know our side is winning? Who will fight with us? How are we to fight and when should we expect to be done? Issues of strategy, operational art, tactics, and forces of the military instrument of national power come into view along with the diplomatic, informational, and economic instruments. The civilian-military relationship that is at the heart of our national security structure ultimately shapes the outcome in victory, stalemate, or defeat.

May 22, 2017

Like, Comment, Retweet: The State of the Military's Nonpartisan Ethic in the World of Social Media

Through a survey of more than 500 military elites attending the United States Military Academy and National Defense University, this project seeks to establish the nature and extent of political expression by members of the military throughout social media and whether or not such expression is in keeping with the norm of nonpartisanship.

May 16, 2017

A Reply to Jerome Lynes’ Critique

In reference to a recent critique of the article “Special Operations Doctrine: Is It Needed,” by Jerome M. Lynes (12/21/16), we acknowledge the existence of Joint Special Operations doctrine. Upon reflection, we could title the article “Special Operations Doctrine: It Is Needed!” The intent of this article was to capture, share, and address recent accomplishments in Army Special Operations Force (ARSOF) concepts, doctrine, organizational lessons learned, and new ideas.

May 16, 2017

A Letters to the Editor A Critique of 'Special Operations Doctrine: is it Needed

Regarding the PRISM Vol 6. No.3 article “Special Operations Doctrine: Is it Needed?” by Charles T. Cleveland, James B. Linder, and Ronald Dempsey, I am struck by the curious absence of reference to the long established and mature body of Joint Special Operations doctrine. The authors write as if there was no special operations doctrine until Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3–05 came along in 2012. They opine as to the various reasons for this, including accusing “...the general military doctrine community (of holding) a myopic view of U.S. Special Operations Capabilities.” In truth, their contention is not factually correct.

May 16, 2017

BR: The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World

In 1990, with the Cold War having just concluded, I delighted in reviewing analyses written during the previous decade, which confidently assumed that the bipolar world order was a permanent description of the global landscape. 2016 may represent another threshold year. The Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election require re-examination of critical assumptions that gained traction between the end of the Cold War and 2015 regarding the inevitability of economic and political progress in the developing world, including Africa.

May 16, 2017

Islam in from the Cold: A Muslim Brother’s Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Islamic Movement in the Sudan

Ahmed found himself in Khartoum’s notorious Kober prison with Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi, éminence grise of political Islam, shortly after the 1989 coup d’état in the Republic of the Sudan.1 He and the coup leader al-Turabi, who infamously welcomed Osama bin Laden into the country in 1991, were close friends for years before he served as one of the leading members of the Sudanese Islamic Movement’s shura.2 Thus prison began the saga of the second Islamist rule in the Sudan with all of its twists and turns, and a watershed moment in Ahmed’s long journey as a Muslim Brother.3

May 16, 2017

BR: This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organized Crime

Nigerians are no strangers to international controversy. This book opens by recounting a comment by erstwhile U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who described Nigerians as scammers who “tend not to be honest.” In May 2016 then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron described Nigerians as “fantastically corrupt” during an unguarded conversation with Queen Elizabeth. Regardless of how one interprets these comments, there is no denying that unlawful activity is ubiquitous across Nigerian society. Multiple decades of criminal activity have been debilitating and stultifying for the vast majority, but extraordinarily profitable for a few.

May 16, 2017

BR: Security in Africa: A Critical Approach to Western Indicators of Threat

Claire Metelits in Security in Africa: A Critical Approach to Western Indicators of Threat illustrates clearly and concisely that the most commonly used threat indicators provide a narrow, flawed view of threats in sub-Saharan Africa. Metelits’ work should not be as groundbreaking as it is: consider that on a recent survey conducted by AfroBarometer—a pan–African, non-partisan research network that conducts public attitude surveys in more than 35 countries in Africa—the police were perceived as the most corrupt institution throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where survey data from Gallup suggests that police are among the most trusted institutions in the United States—even when trust levels are at a 22–year low.1 However, Metelits’ book is one of the few venues that fully appreciates the ramifications of this disconnect between citizens and states throughout the region. Metelits demonstrates how western, and particularly American, state-centric security indicators are ill-suited to understanding power structures and governance on the continent. Security in Africa unpacks what it means for a country to be “stable” and “secure,” or “impoverished” and “ungoverned;” she also delves into the significance of who is given the authority to characterize regions as such.

May 16, 2017

The Armies of the Great Lakes Countries

Precolonial Africa was a rather special part of the world because durable state structures were extremely rare. Local chiefdoms or large (but transient) multi-ethnic empires—yes. Tight nation-states—hardly. Except in a rather limited geographical area to the east of the continent, a cluster of sacred monarchic states grew, expanded, and fought each other around the shores of the Great Lakes in Africa. There are no written records, so we can only fathom the historical depth of these monarch states through oral traditions, and these date to the 10th century.

May 16, 2017

Brothers Came Back with Weapons: The Effects of Arms Proliferation from Libya

In November 2011, Mokhtar Belmokhtar of the North Africa-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) told the Mauritanian news agency ANI that “We have been one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world…As for our acquisition of Libyan armaments that is an absolutely natural thing.”1 His statement summed up the fears expressed by many commentators—to include the author of this article—that large quantities of arms within Libya were left in unsecured stockpiles and would be proliferated to terrorists and insurgents around the world.2 Most vividly, in 2013 the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, noted “spy chiefs” claim that Libya “has become the Tesco [supermarket] of the world’s illegal arms trade.”3