Our world is in constant motion. If you have a setback or loss, you would be wise to do as the unofficial slogan of the U.S. Marine Corps suggests: improvise, adapt and overcome. Former Secretary James Mattis asked our professional military education (PME) institutions to develop their critical thinking skills and push their intellectual limits. To that end, in the pages of Joint Force Quarterly, we examine past and present conflicts to help you become a better leader. And we offer new ideas to help you maintain your intellectual advantage and keep the Joint Force moving forward.

Warfare in the information age is a new battleground. The disinformation campaigns of our adversaries undermine trust across the Joint Force and degrade the legitimacy of liberal democracies. The Australian Army serves as a case study of building trust domestically, regionally and globally in order to strengthen the entire rules-based global order. Trust is a strategic asset, say the authors, which strengthens our defense capabilities and can diminish the power of our adversaries. In order to realize a truly strategic army, force design and force structure should complement high quality combat capability.

Strategic Foresight is an interdisciplinary skillset concerned with identifying signals of change in uncertain environments. This article argues first that national security professionals need this skillset in this era of ambiguity and unpredictability. In addition, the author identifies several areas where Strategic Foresight can be improved. First, shift analytic focus from technology-focused futures to a more integrated vision of future environments. Second, use lessons from systems thinking to evaluate more accurately the global system. Third, provide more instruction on complexity thinking. Fourth, introduce foresight thinking early in professional development. Fifth, create a unified lexicon of the concepts and terms.

The Department of Defense (DOD) 2012 Mission Assurance Strategy does not account for the risk that cyberattacks on critical infrastructure could degrade mission execution. Adversaries are rapidly improving their ability to attack such infrastructure by accessing industrial control systems and exploiting other cyber vulnerabilities. At the same time, US infrastructure systems are becoming increasingly interdependent, heightening the risk of cascading failures across multiple sectors on which the Department depends. The department must strengthen the culture of mission assurance, say the authors, by bringing cybersecurity into the heart of mission assurance and extending such initiatives to all overseas defense installations.

NDU Press congratulates the winners of the 2019 Essay Competitions.

Having fought three wars and numerous border clashes, the potential for future conflict between Pakistan and India remains high. This includes the future potential of a nuclear exchange. While the nuclear evolution of both countries trace back to the 1960s, this article focuses on developments since the formal declaration of nuclear weapons in 1998. The nuclear rivalry between Pakistan and India has produced several close calls though neither state has resorted to using nuclear weapons. While there is cause for concern, encouraging Pakistan and India to comply with international norms may defuse tensions and give us reason for hope.

In the early 20th century, visionary Marine officer Pete Ellis compiled remarkable studies of islands in the Western Pacific and studied the practical means for the seizure or defense of advanced bases. Ellis’s description of an island cloud (as opposed to an island chain) aptly captures the complexity and diversity of this geography and provides a framework for lasting and dispersed strength. A century after Ellis’s work, China presents new strategic and operational challenges to the US in Asia. Now is the time to develop a coherent strategy that will last another hundred years.

On October 4, 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the release of the new National Strategy for Counterterrorism, emphasizing the importance of diplomacy and the role of international partnerships. The first page of this strategy includes the statement “America First does not mean America alone,” indicating the essential role of key international partners. The US should highlight Morocco as an example for other countries in the region and capitalize on Morocco’s status as a net security exporter. Encouraging the success of countries like Morocco would reduce the threat of terrorism and give meaning to the America First concept.

Operation Overlord took place seventy-five years ago. Operation Overlord was strategically audacious and required an amazing amount of intellectual capacity and organizational acumen to have any chance of success. Today it teaches valuable lessons concerning the difficulty of planning and conducting integrated, all-domain, joint and combined forced-entry operations against a lethal enemy whose anti-access and area denial preparations were immense. Though much has changed since June 1944, this article highlights the operational approach, all-domain planning, and synchronized integration of Operation Overlord and asks if today’s Joint Force is intellectually prepared to plan such an operation.

The ability of air forces to attack ground forces has been disputed since airplanes first strafed enemy trenches in World War I. The controversy that arose over NATO’s Battle Damage Assessment after the joint air campaign in Kosovo in 1999 is a case study in the effectiveness of air forces directly attacking ground forces. This article takes the experience of an A-10 pilot who flew numerous combat missions over Kosovo and visited his strike sites eleven years later. The author highlights lessons learned for joint military leaders on the conduct of joint air operations against conventional ground forces.

The current geopolitical environment is complex, dynamic and dangerous. Since the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has battled an assortment of rogue regimes and violent extremist organizations (VEOs). While these actors remain a security threat to the US and its allies, the 2018 National Defense Strategy directs the DOD to focus on long-term, strategic competition with two revisionist powers: Russia and China. The regional and global ambitions of these two nuclear powers, along with the emergent threats posed by rogue regimes and VEOs, presents the Joint Force with a unique security challenge.

The Joint Qualification System’s narrow focus on officers working at the strategic level is insufficient to build the joint-ready force needed to meet our nation’s warfighting demands. Given that the Joint Qualification System was introduced ten years ago, it is time to assess how well the current system is meeting current needs. The Air Force is developing a talent management system to complement the Joint Qualification System. This initiative can inform similar efforts in other services to ensure that leaders are prepared for the challenges they will confront in increasingly sophisticated complex joint operations of the future.

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, can enable the production of replacement parts when and where they are needed, which is required to enable future agile operations. As such, AM development in the DOD represents a critical enabler of forward basing and denied area operations. However, creating reliable and trusted repair parts to the correct specification is challenging, especially in an austere environment. In order to overcome AM employment challenges and leverage this technology effectively and efficiently, unity of effort for development and implementation is required across the joint enterprise.

The Chain Home Early Warning Radar System played an important role in Great Britain’s defense during the 1940 Battle of Britain. The system’s ability to warn the Royal Air Force about incoming Luftwaffe attacks helped restore a measure of Britain’s protection from continental states, contributing to the resistance and eventual defeat of Nazi Germany. Today, creation of the Chain Home System serves as a case study in military innovation, which shows the importance of strategic planning in the acquisition process, the importance of wartime adaptation, and the need to have the right team to manage development and implementation.

Analysis of the 1759 French and Indian War Quebec Campaign demonstrates that Britain achieved victory because it adhered to the principles of joint operations better than the French did. This historical case study examines the commanders’ uneven application of joint operating principles given contemporary technology and the physical environment. While the British lacked formal doctrine listing the principles of joint operations, the thought process and underlying concepts of current doctrinal principles shaped their military decisions. It is important that our joint leaders can do likewise, to learn from history and use their creativity to apply joint operating principles in combat.

Colonel Joseph Collins, USA (Ret.), PhD reviews The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order by Hal Brands and Charles Edel. In this excellent book, the focus is on great power politics. And the centrality of survival and security supports this approach. However, the international order has a number of important aspects beyond interstate security politics. The issues of international political economy, trade, globalization and regional/global organizations are a big part of the story. If you can read only one book on world order, says Collins, you would do well to read Lessons of Tragedy. Aristotle would salute your prudence.

While the emphasis is on naval leaders, Sailing True North provides insights relevant to the entire Joint Force and beyond. This book is for anyone who wants to understand the essential questions of character and leadership under stress. The author is supremely well read, and provides an invaluable distillation over a vast span of history. This book encourages self-examination as the author challenges you, and asks you to identify your heroes and the qualities you admire. Given the author’s leadership experience at the most consequential levels of command, his scholarship on this topic is recommended reading.

Long interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations have resulted in increased scrutiny of civil-military relations and the interagency intelligence community. Subordinating Intelligence analyzes the evolution of civil-military relationships with an emphasis on the post–Cold War era. This book identifies the barriers to cooperation, but also identifies the factors that made a difference where integration was achieved. Given that interagency alignment is a prerequisite for success, both military and intelligence professionals would be well served to read Oakley’s excellent book to find examples of what can go wrong, but also what can go right.

This article examines the potential of artificial intelligence to improve joint electromagnetic spectrum operations along three lines of discussion. First, current doctrine and process limitations may impact a Joint Force commander’s ability to visualize and understand how Joint Forces are operating within the spectrum. Second, artificial intelligence and specific learning models can help understand how the electromagnetic spectrum connects military forces. And finally, the role of data can fuel machine learning despite the associated risks. Artificial intelligence can improve Joint Force understanding and visualization, say the authors, and help commanders make more accurate and timely decisions.

Joint Doctrine Updates