March 29, 2016

Rediscovering the Art of Strategic Thinking: Developing 21st-Century Strategic Leaders

At a time when global instability and uncertainty are undeniable, the demand for astute American global strategic leadership is greater than ever. Unfortunately, tactical superficiality and parochial policies of convenience are undermining joint strategic leader development and the ability to operate effectively around the world. Tactical supremacy and the lack of a peer competitor have contributed to strategic thinking becoming a lost art. This critical shortfall has been recognized for a number of years. General Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.), and Tony Koltz stated in their 2009 book Leading the Charge that leaders today have no vision and consequently have “lost the ability to look and plan ahead.” Trapped within rigid bureaucracies, today’s joint strategic leaders immerse themselves in current operations, reacting to, rather than shaping, future events.

March 29, 2016

Strategic Agility: Theory and Practice

As the combatant commander for the homeland, every day I contemplated the extant and emerging threats to our people, territory, and way of life. Defense of the homeland in depth was one of the strategic ends that I was charged with, and like the other combatant commanders (CCDRs) who are faced with sustaining U.S. leadership and protecting U.S. interests in a complex and dangerous world, I worked with my staff to find effective ways to employ available means in support of my assigned strategic ends. I also had responsibility for the accrued risk. This is the strategic calculus that all CCDRs must continually manage in the face of changing realities. In the homeland, the consequences of miscalculation come at the direct expense of our people and way of life.

March 29, 2016

Sustaining the "New Norm" of Jointness

On May 25, 2011, a platoon from the U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 133nd Infantry Regiment, was ambushed near the village of Do Ab, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan. An estimated force of more than 300 Taliban engaged the small unit. As mortars and rocket-propelled grenades exploded around the Americans, two U.S. Air Force joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) contacted a U.S. Air Force MC-12 tactical reconnaissance aircraft to relay requests for air support to other aircraft. While the Soldiers fought the Taliban, who outnumbered them roughly five to one, the JTACs directed fires from Air Force F-16s, F-15Es, and AC-130s; Navy F/A-18s; and Army AH-64s and OH-58s. The battle raged for 12 hours before the Taliban abandoned their attempts to overrun the platoon. More than 250 enemy forces were killed during the engagement. No American lives were lost.

March 29, 2016

Officers Are Less Intelligent: What Does It Mean?

The American military is not getting the leaders it needs for the complexities of 21st-century warfare. This refrain has been a centerpiece of the “Force for the Future” initiative, and now there is some hard evidence to support it. According to data obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request, the intelligence of new Marine Corps officers has declined steadily since 1980. Two-thirds of the new officers commissioned in 2014 would be in the bottom one-third of the class of 1980; 41 percent of new officers in 2014 would not have qualified to be officers by the standards held at the time of World War II. Similarly, at the top of the distribution, there are fewer of the very intelligent officers who will eventually become senior leaders.

March 29, 2016

Fighting Ebola: An Interagency Collaboration Paradigm

An old fable tells that a single stick by itself is weak; bundled with others, however, the stick will be much stronger. Likewise, during the world’s 2014–2015 response to the Ebola crisis in Liberia, interagency, intergovernmental, and international forces were strong and firmly united, moving forward with a singular agenda. If, on the other hand, all 100-plus organizations had not been united by the Liberian government to stamp out Ebola, the effort would have been weak and ineffective.

March 29, 2016

Harnessing the Influence of Senior Enlisted Leaders

Over the past 11 years I have had the privilege to serve as a senior enlisted leader (SEL) in a variety of billets. I have engaged with a wide audience of enlisted and officer leaders in a variety of formal and informal settings. Although I have been fortunate to work for many officers who valued my skill sets, it has become clear to me that many leaders are not fully harnessing the influence and capabilities of their SELs. SELs today now serve on a much broader scale than perhaps in previous generations, influencing and advising Service and Department of Defense (DOD) leaders and staffs at the operational and strategic levels—but perhaps we have failed to completely consider and effectively communicate the full value we can provide. It is important for commanders to understand the full potential of the SEL position to align expectations and ensure they know how to get “max return on investment” from us; similarly, as SELs, we must understand how our roles and influence change in these billets to ensure we are providing maximum value to our commanders.

March 29, 2016

Cheap Technology Will Challenge U.S. Tactical Dominance

The convergence of dramatic improvements in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, materials, additive manufacturing, and nanoenergetics is dramatically changing the character of conflict in all domains. This convergence is creating a massive increase in capabilities available to increasingly smaller political entities—extending even to the individual. This new diffusion of power has major implications for the conduct of warfare, not the least of which are the major hazards or opportunities that it presents to medium and even small powers. The outcome will depend on the paths they choose.

March 29, 2016

The Missing Lever: A Joint Military Advisory Command for Partner-Nation Engagement

With the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the subsequent requirement to retrain a partially collapsed Iraqi military and provide advisors to moderate elements of the Syrian opposition, the primacy of the military advisory mission for U.S. forces comes again to the forefront. Though the tradition of military advising efforts is ancient, modern U.S. efforts began with Korea and Vietnam and continue with Iraq and Afghanistan. The military advisory mission has proved cost effective with relatively small footprints and inexpensive technologies, while leveraging foreign partners. These characteristics make the advisory focus both attractive and effective in today’s sequestration environment.

March 29, 2016

Back to Basics on Hybrid Warfare in Europe: A Lesson from the Balkans

The complex mix of aggressive behaviors Russia used in Georgia and Ukraine is commonly referred to as hybrid warfare, defined by one scholar as “a tailored mix of conventional weapons, irregular tactics, terrorism, and criminal behavior in the same time and battle space to obtain political objectives.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders fear Russia will use hybrid warfare to destabilize or occupy parts of Poland, the Baltic states, or other countries. They are trying to devise more effective responses to counter such a possibility. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg asserts that NATO must adapt to meet the hybrid warfare threat. Speaking at the same event, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter agreed and suggested “part of the answer” was “increased readiness, special operation forces, and more intelligence.” Several months earlier, Carter’s deputy, Robert Work, declared the United States also needed “new operational concepts” to confront hybrid warfare. Meanwhile some NATO countries are establishing special units to counter hybrid warfare tactics, and the U.S. Congress has required the Pentagon to come up with a strategy to counter hybrid warfare.

March 29, 2016

Economic Development in Counterinsurgency: Building a Stable Second Pillar

The future of U.S. participation in counterinsurgency (COIN) is uncertain, but not so the probability that future adversaries will avoid U.S. conventional military dominance by using asymmetric, unconventional methods. As COIN theorist David Kilcullen warns, “Any smart future enemy will likely sidestep our unprecedented superiority in traditional, force-on-force, state-on-state warfare. And so insurgency . . . will be our enemies’ weapon of choice until we prove we can master it.”1 Unfortunately, because no two insurgencies are exactly alike, mastering COIN will be a perpetual endeavor.