In many parts of joint warfighting, getting the right situational awareness (SA) is essential to success, especially to those of us in a position of military or civilian leadership. I must admit to a lack of SA in recent years as I, like many, have been drawn into an information cycle centered around less-traditional media sources. Because I live and work in the Nation’s capital area, I fully accept that I live in a “bubble,” where I may not have an accurate picture of events. But in recent years, with the rise of social media platforms—including active disinformation campaigns, both foreign and domestic—getting and keeping good SA is increasingly difficult. Where does one scan to find an objective view? As always, we look forward to hearing from you about what you think we need to do in the years ahead.

Modern command and control (C2) systems depend on connectivity to collect information, issue orders, detect changes in the environment, and exploit successes. While the United States focused on counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, competitors invested in technologies that can neutralize that connectivity.

The art and science of decisionmaking begin with the establishment of an effective, efficient, and agile battle rhythm. Combat and stability operations throughout the past 20 years have enabled commanders and staffs to execute real-world operations based on established battle rhythms. Unfortunately, current operational-level exercises to evaluate joint force commands and their components in the U.S. Armed Forces and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization increasingly observe battle rhythms that do not effectively provide the commander and subordinates with timely information to make decisions.

The belief that the U.S. military finds itself in a “complex environment”—one in which conventional war is rare, but Great Power competition has returned, coupled with the persistent threat of violent nonstate actors—is so commonplace that it can now be considered a truism. This article better conceptualizes a type of military operation that is often misunderstood and understudied and that has the potential to become one of the most frequent tools of interstate competition in the coming decades.

There is a widespread notion today that the United States inherited from Great Britain and defended a liberal world premised on the free exchange of goods and capital (particularly by sea). This article suggests we can better understand the origins of this system and its possible future by integrating hydrocarbons—specifically coal and oil—into our analysis.

Whether combined forces are jumping out of airplanes together, turning wrenches side by side, or providing direct patient care as a clinical team, security cooperation activities must bridge the culture and language divides between our partner militaries.

Even in our modern age we look to old ideas for wisdom, but old does not mean obsolete, and old voices can offer counsel.

Since its introduction to the joint force in the 2016 National Military Strategy (NMS), global integration has led to sweeping changes not only in strategy but also in the processes and instruments that implement it. A fuller understanding of those activities and their differences will better enable those responsible for visualizing tomorrow’s force and the strategic choices that will shape the future U.S. military.

According to Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas, leadership development represents an increasingly critical component of national readiness, and its importance is not restricted to the military. Specifically, modern training should increasingly emphasize individual initiative, relational and communication skills, and organizational capabilities.

For some, the end of the Cold War in 1991 was a vindication of democracy’s supremacy over dogmatic Marxist ideology—a victory underwritten by the free flow of capital leading to sustained improvements in prosperity wherever capitalism was embraced. That period in history is over, however, having been replaced with the stark realism of Great Power competition.

Scholars and practitioners in the area of cyber strategy and conflict focus on two key strategic imperatives for the United States: first, to maintain and strengthen the current deterrence of cyberattacks of significant consequence; and second, to reverse the tide of malicious behavior that may not rise to a level of armed attack but nevertheless has cumulative strategic implications as part of adversary campaigns. The Department of Defense (DOD) strategic concept of defend forward and U.S. Cyber Command’s concept of persistent engagement are largely directed toward this latter challenge.

Joint special operations forces (SOF) integration with conventional forces (CF) is a difficult undertaking in missions ranging from humanitarian to combat, yet all future military operations against peer adversaries will require the close cooperation of SOF and CF for success. This axiom is especially true for liberation operations entailing collaboration with national resistance groups in occupied territories, where the latter will be engaged by U.S. SOF formations as part of their unconventional warfare mandate.

Can the policy and academic communities work together more effectively to address America’s toughest national security problems? In Cult of the Irrelevant, Michael Desch takes readers on a 100-year examination of the relationship between national security practitioners and social scientists in an effort to answer this question.

Since humanity has waged war, scholars have debated the greatest captains, commanders, and warriors. Continuing this long tradition of friendly and sometimes competitive discussion is James Lacey and Williamson Murray’s Gods of War

In An Open World, Dr. Rebecca Lissner and Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper provide a compelling argument for a new U.S. strategy of “global openness.” Readers will find much to consider as the book is presented as an executable blueprint for a new Presidential administration. It is worth noting that many elements of their strategy are already in motion on the global stage.

Net Assessment and Military Strategy, a timely collection of essays, offers an important look at the history, application, and future of the multidisciplinary analysis approach called net assessment.

Joint Publications (JPs) under revision and signed within the past six months.