Feb. 7, 2020

A Blue-Collar Approach to Operational Analysis: A Special Operations Case Study

For many military commanders, the word assessment induces bouts of eye-rolling, daytime drowsiness and nausea. This condition results from years of overly complicated briefings which are unintelligible to everyone but the presenter. This manuscript offers a remedy: a set of guiding principles to help make better decisions built on better data. Breaking from traditional assessment approaches, the authors focus on building collaborative teams to pursue questions of primary concern to the commander. This article can help every commander and their staff learn to ask questions that matter, conduct useful, hard-nosed analysis, and enhance decision-making across the organization.

Feb. 7, 2020

Clausewitz’s Wondrous Yet Paradoxical Trinity: The Nature of War as a Complex Adaptive System

Clausewitz described war as a paradoxical trinity comprised of the tendencies of the people, the commander and his army, and the government. The three elements of the Clausewitz trinity interact within and among the other elements to create a pattern of behavior that is understandable yet unpredictable. Within this trinity, Clausewitz captured the social dynamics in war that characterize a complex adaptive system. This article provides an overview of Clausewitz’s paradoxical trinity, and illustrates how complexity theory can be applied as a framework to examine Clausewitz’s observations of the interactions between chance, politics and passion.

Feb. 7, 2020

Asking Strategic Questions: A Primer for National Security Professionals

Asking good strategic questions is not just a useful leadership habit. In the national security profession, it can save lives and change history. Because leaders have so much power over which questions organizations ask, it is essential that leaders understand the basic characteristics of good strategic questions. Leaders cannot be expected to be experts in all things, but guiding or assessing a strategic question is one area in which they must be active and involved. Strategic questions drive organizational attention, energy, and resources, say the authors, and can make the difference between success and failure.

Feb. 7, 2020

Beyond Auftragstaktik: The Case Against Hyper-Decentralized Command

The Prussian concept of mission command emphasizes hyper-decentralization, commander’s intent and low-level initiative. This article argues that such decentralization is no guarantee of command effectiveness. While there is a need to resolve the inherent tension between centralization and decentralization, the author recommends taking a balanced approach, which would empower subordinates to take the initiative while retaining the commander’s ability to coordinate mutual support and mass combat power. While the Prussian approach has some qualities worth emulating, it is less than ideal. An iterative approach based on a continual cycle of synchronization, dissemination and initiative offers the most promising way ahead.

Feb. 7, 2020

Adapting for Victory: DOD Laboratories for the 21st Century

The US’s technological advantage is now under threat. In the era of Great Power competition, the People’s Republic of China and Russian Federation are approaching parity in many areas. Their stated intent is to reach full parity and then technological dominance, a situation which would be unacceptable to the US and its allies. The authors call upon the DOD and other government agencies, as well as key partners in industry and academia, to join in a new venture which would reimagine how the US conducts research in fields such as directed energy, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and other emergent technologies.

Feb. 7, 2020

Reconceiving Modern Warfare: A Unified Model

Joint warfighting requires integrated thinking across many different capabilities, technologies and functions. This article proposes a new model of joint warfare, which brings together several existing paradigms and facilitates strategic discussion, tactical planning and operational design. First, the author presents and defines the new model, and then applies it to the Joint Planning Process. Tailored for modern technologies and emerging concepts, this unified model serves an example of enhanced thinking that goes into the development of warfighting plans and operations, and enables military strategists, planners, and operators to execute modern warfare.

Feb. 7, 2020

The Intellectual Edge: A Competitive Advantage for Future War and Strategic Competition

The changing nature of work, demographics and greater integration of national security endeavors will have a major impact on future military personnel. Only by thinking better and building an intellectual edge will military organizations have sufficient capacity to accomplish future national security objectives. Attaining this intellectual edge will require an enterprise wide approach that embraces strategic vision and engagement, and increases investment in joint professional military education. Because the global security environment has changed fundamentally, military organizations must take a more sophisticated approach to academic technology in order to create a culture of continuous learning.

Feb. 7, 2020

Executive Summary

This issue of JFQ covers many topics about the decade ahead. In our Forum section there’s an article about the Australian Army’s efforts to advance intellectual development. In JPME Today, we cover the JPME experience and the nature of war. In Commentary, authors write about climate change and great power competition. In our Features section are articles about the role of chaplains in humanitarian assistance and aerial combat during the Vietnam War. As usual, good thinking leads to good writing on many issues facing the Joint Force.

Feb. 7, 2020

Letter to the Editor

The article “Joint Integrative Solutions for Combat Casualty Care in a Pacific War at Sea” by Dion Moten, Bryan Teff, Michael Pyle, Gerald Delk, and Randel Clark (JFQ 94, 3rd Quarter 2019) is an insightful piece that brings to light many issues that the Department of the Navy has been diligently pursuing over the past 2 years. In May 2018, the Chief of Naval Operations directed a comprehensive review of Navy Medicine’s ability to support the concepts of Distributed Maritime Operations and Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations with the underlying concept of Fleet Design. This review was not conducted solely under the auspices of medical operational requirements in a distributed maritime environment. Rather, it was developed by leveraging capabilities across surface platforms and the combat logistics force in order to enable a comprehensive approach for medical capabilities across warfighting domains.

Feb. 3, 2020

10. The Moral Status of Chemical Weapons: Arguments from World War I

While the human condition affords countless examples of what Pope had in mind, perhaps no more striking wartime example can be found than that of the employment of chemical weapons in World War I. Chemical weapons—regarded as vicious and hated by all self-identified “civilized peoples”—were first endured, then pitied, then embraced by both sides, even as both sides held their noses, both literally and figuratively, for having chosen to employ weapons condemned throughout history. Then, in a turn so quick as to make the head of the body politic spin, the international community roundly condemned these weapons, even as individual states muttered under their breath—in the form of treaty reservations—their willingness to employ them again if an enemy did. At least some in Germany took all of this in stride, as evidenced in a now famous diary entry by army officer and author Rudolf Binding, written in the immediate aftermath of the gas attacks at Ypres, Belgium: “I am not pleased with the idea of poisoning men. Of course, the entire world will rage about it at first and then imitate us.” Imitation did, indeed, follow, both in the attacks employing progressively more lethal weapons and the amassing, over the course of the 20th century, of huge stockpiles of chemical weapons.

Feb. 3, 2020

9. The Ethical Challenge of Information Warfare: Nothing New

This chapter considers the ethical challenge of a problem that was not new in 1914, had not been resolved by 1918, and continues to exist: the strategic weaponization of information as an instrument of war. It describes how Great Britain used its global cable and high-powered network in conjunction with its cryptographic expertise and military assets to conduct a highly successful information war campaign against Germany and its allies. The interception of the now famous Zimmermann Telegram, which many historians and analysts see as critical to the U.S. entry into the conflict in 1917, is the focal event.1 Drawing on the experiences of Britain’s 1914–1918 information war, this chapter next draws out five challenges that states continue to face in the increasingly ubiquitous domain of cyberspace.

Feb. 3, 2020

8. The Ethics of Care for Civilians, Internally Displaced Persons, and Enemy Prisoners of War

On the Web site of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a film titled The Path to Nazi Genocide, which gives a 38-minute overview of the history of Nazi Germany, World War II, and the genocide of the European Jews.1 The film begins not with the 1933 ascent of the Nazis to power in Berlin or the German invasion of Poland in 1939, but with the events in Sarajevo in 1914—because so much of what occurred during the years of National Socialism, World War II, and the Holocaust itself can be traced back to the events of World War I and its turbulent aftermath.

Feb. 3, 2020

7. A Profession of Arms? Conflicting Views and the Lack of Virtue Ethics in Professional Military Education

The profession of arms is viewed in one of two ways by those who put on a military uniform. Holders of one perspective see what they do as an occupation—the principal means of making a living. From an occupational point of view, the profession of arms is a collection of technical skills, or what I call a more quantitative view, that encompasses performing the duties that are expected of them, but such performance may not necessarily be a part of their self-identity. The evaluation of their job is associated with some end result: increasing profit margin, meeting quotas, completing a mission or report, and the like. In the military, extensive training hones skills in a particular context to reach outcomes desired by higher authorities.

Feb. 3, 2020

6. Society and Intensive Conflict

On a well-known Internet auction site, it is quite easy to find the commemorative medals that Great Britain and the United States issued to veterans of the Great War. Both nations used the identical phrase on the reverse of the medal—The Great War for Civilisation. However odd such an inscription might seem a century later, it clearly had a contemporary resonance. Moving to the next war, the resonance continues. In his thoughtful account of the closing days of World War II, Max Hastings argues that the character of the conflict in Western Europe was determined by the character of the Western democracies themselves. The armies of Great Britain, the United States, and their associates, he suggests, may have lacked the ruthless military prowess and determination of the German and Soviet forces, but they “fought as bravely and well as any democracy could ask, if the values of civilization were to be retained in their ranks.”1 When Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt invoked “Christian civilization” in public pronouncements as the grand cause worthy of sacrifice, they were not so much making a religious statement as appealing to a shared sense of identity, one that they expected their listeners to understand and relate to.2 Eighty years later, it is by no means obvious that this shared identity still holds.

Feb. 3, 2020

5. The Law of the Great War as an Ethical Paradigm, 1918–2038

The law of war as recognizable to modern military leaders comes from World War I in both its form and practice. Though the basic rules guiding care for the wounded and sick and the protection of captured enemy combatants and civilians long predate the Great War, no historical inevitability dictated the makeup of the law of war as it has formed over the past hundred years.

Feb. 3, 2020

4. Incompetence, Technology, and Justice: Today’s Lessons from World War I

This chapter looks at leadership issues from the Great War and draws lessons regarding accountability, the philosophy of technology, and postwar justice. Each of these areas tracks with one of the three basic components of just war thinking: the ethics of going to war (jus ad bellum), of how war is fought (jus in bello), and of ending war well (jus post bellum). When thinking about World War I, one has to consider whether the grotesque body counts were the result of incompetent leadership, and, if so, why were these incompetent leaders not fired? Second, World War I was characterized by the pell-mell introduction of new armaments and technologies, including tanks, machine guns, submarines, and chemical agents. What is the appropriate philosophical framework for establishing protocols for use and restraint of the tools of modern warfare? Third, each of the principal victors—Georges Clemenceau (France), David Lloyd George (the United Kingdom), and Woodrow Wilson (the United States)—took a different approach to postwar justice, ranging from vengeance to restoration. What was at stake, and which was the most appropriate? Operating from the just war framework, this chapter argues that these questions have currency today, whether in the consideration of how to measure the success of battlefield commanders, defining the norms and limits of cyber warfare, or advancing postconflict stability and justice.

Feb. 3, 2020

3. The Ethics of Nationalism

We are observing the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War I, a war that has been blamed to a large degree on the passions of nationalism. Today we see a debate over the virtues of nationalism vis-à-vis a growth in the importance of supranational institutions and more global governance that is strikingly similar in many ways to that which occurred in the aftermath of the war. The Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump, and the surge of what has been referred to in a pejorative manner as “populist” and “nationalist” movements throughout the West are only the opening salvos of what I am convinced will be a mammoth struggle over ideas regarding national identity versus cosmopolitanism, more local national governments versus transnational governmental institutions, and so forth, and the impact that these ideas will have on the shape of the future international order.

Feb. 3, 2020

2. Grim Virtue: Decisiveness as an Implication of the Just War Tradition

So proclaims J.R.R. Tolkien’s Faramir, second son of Denethor, brother of Boromir, captain of the rangers of Ithilien, and later captain of the white tower when his brother falls. Faramir makes this assertion in a moment of great peril, in the midst of conflict, when he is given an opportunity to do a terrible thing in order to bring about a great good. He does not do it, and his proclamation, above, as to why he does not provides a tidy summary of the core of the just war framework, which could be rendered thus: Wars may be justly fought only in the last resort and for the aim of peace, when a sovereign authority—over whom there is no one greater charged with the care of the political community—determines that nothing else will properly retribute a sufficiently grave evil, take back what has been wrongly taken, or protect the innocent. In such cases, and only such, force may be rightly deployed to restore justice, order, and peace.

Feb. 3, 2020

1. What Should Military Ethics Learn from World War I? A Christian Assessment

The Somme has become a byword for disproportionate military slaughter, caused by criminally stupid and callous generals in the prosecution of a senseless, futile war. This narrative began to take root in Great Britain when I was a teenager in the 1960s and against the background of widespread opposition to America’s war in Vietnam. Although now under challenge from professional historians, it remains a common view and received something of a boost 5 years ago with the publication of Christopher Clark’s widely celebrated The Sleepwalkers. Clark concludes his account of the outbreak and escalation of World War I thus: “There is no smoking gun in this story; or, rather, there is one in the hand of every major character. . . . The outbreak of war was a tragedy, not a crime.” “The crisis that brought war in 1914,” he tells us, “was the fruit of a shared political culture,” which rendered Europe’s leaders “sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.”

Feb. 3, 2020

Introduction

The profession of arms in the 21st century is at significant risk of losing its status as a profession due to several salient factors. Because of the rapid development of technology in relation to warfare, for instance, there are growing questions as to how much control human beings will retain of future combat, particularly given the speed of decisionmaking required for victory on the modern battlefield. As well, with the rise of new geopolitical and military coalitions, many are concerned as to how much war will remain an act of and in accordance with the political interests, values, and histories of individual nation-states, especially considering the thornier problem of developing the same for coalitions or allied forces. Furthermore, amid an increase in value-neutral societies (and the concomitant lack of personal moral formation of individual citizens), it may rightly be asked whether values-based institutions such as professional militaries can be adequately shaped to reflect any coherent national ethical consensus.

Feb. 3, 2020

Acknowledgments

The completion of this work stands on the efforts of many tireless professionals, all of whom are deserving of tremendous thanks. First, the staff officers and noncommissioned officers of both the U.S. Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains and Royal Army Chaplains Department deserve mention, including Chaplain (Major General) Paul K. Hurley, USA, and Rev. Dr. (Chaplain General) David C. Coulter (co-hosts of the International Military Ethics Symposium 2018); Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) Grace Hollis, USA; Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) “Bogie” Augustyn, USA; Rev. Father (Lieutenant Colonel) Pascal Hanrahan, Royal Army Chaplains’ Department (British Army); Sergeant First Class Jason Gaulke, USA (action officer); and from NCI, Inc., Ms. Alana Gates and Ms. Tina Mincks (logistical organizers).

Feb. 3, 2020

Preface

The Army’s professional ethic is built on the trust granted to our profession and the legal authorization to use violence in order to compel an adversary and to assert the Nation’s will. The military remains among the most trusted professions in America. Our continued ethical conduct is paramount to maintaining the respect that generations of Soldiers have forged.

Feb. 3, 2020

17. Toward a Resilient Military Ethic

As this volume of reflections on military ethics in light of World War I comes to a close, a framing of diverse insights is both necessary and beneficial. This evaluation may be accomplished, I suggest, by relating military ethics more broadly to the overall purpose of military action, as well as of human life. Within this schema, war may be understood as an attempt at resilience—a striving after societal flourishing that was as evident in the Great War as it is today. By situating discussion about military ethics in this way, we may achieve greater clarity regarding the purpose and nature of war as well as insight into possible present and future expressions of warfare and the place of ethics in them.

Feb. 3, 2020

16. The Proper Marking of Medical Personnel and Equipment: Lessons from the Great War

In April 1917, after repeated attempts at diplomacy aimed at keeping itself out of the conflict raging in Europe, the United States declared war against Imperial Germany and later its allies. The 65th Congress authorized and directed that the President “employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial German Government; and . . . bring the conflict to a successful termination all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged.”1 Thus, the United States entered into the first world conflict in which Allied nations truly attempted to undertake a whole-of-government approach, with the aim of achieving unity of effort between its joint military forces, interagency communities, and intergovernmental entities. In addition, the Allied nations attempted to extend this coordination not only within their own governments but also among their Allies as well.

Feb. 3, 2020

A Persistent Fire: The Strategic Ethical Impact of World War I on the Global Profession of Arms

The profession of arms in the 21st century is at significant risk of losing its status as a profession due to several salient factors. Because of the rapid development of technology in relation to warfare, for instance, there are growing questions as to how much control human beings will retain of future combat, particularly given the speed of decisionmaking required for victory on the modern battlefield. As well, with the rise of new geopolitical and military coalitions, many are concerned as to how much war will remain an act of and in accordance with the political interests, values, and histories of individual nation-states, especially considering the thornier problem of developing the same for coalitions or allied forces. Furthermore, amid an increase in value-neutral societies (and the concomitant lack of personal moral formation of individual citizens), it may rightly be asked whether values-based institutions such as professional militaries can be adequately shaped to reflect any coherent national ethical consensus.

Feb. 3, 2020

15. Soldier Enhancement Ethics and the Lessons of World War I

World War I is sometimes described as either the last of the Napoleonic wars or the first of the modern ones. In truth, it was both. While it was largely fought by the kinds of mass formations perfected by Napoleon Bonaparte 100 years earlier, it was also characterized by innovations such as the tank, airplane, flamethrowers, poison gas, and hydrophones, to name only a few, that gave rise to what we now call “modern warfare.”

Feb. 3, 2020

14. Twin Children of the Great War: Assessing the Effects of Moral and Spiritual Injury Today

If World War I demonstrated anything, it was the sheer brutality, wastage, and immensity of industrial-age combat. Against this tide, the warrior in the trench or the line, in the sky or on the waves appeared to have little or no hope of coming out unscathed either in body or in soul. Indeed, the postwar social pathos for the plight of the warrior seemed to be a type of hope-filled social exercise in revaluing human life and straining against the goads of this new scale of war.1 Postwar Western societies yearned to reclaim an optimism about war—that somehow it would never again reach the scale of carnage the world had just witnessed, though this was not to be. Metaphorically, war from 1914 to 1919 crossed the Rubicon, never to return to its former land.

Feb. 3, 2020

13. Growth After Trauma: Moral Injury, PTSD, and PTG

Combat deployments affect people, and veterans return changed. Some come back worse than others, but no one comes back the same. Many have experienced various forms of trauma, and whether directly from combat operations or not, trauma can be a significant part of one’s experience in war. Trauma can cause severe physical, emotional, and psychological reactions, often displaying symptoms referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trauma may manifest symptoms of PTSD, but the injury to the psyche, or soul, is much more than just symptoms of a disorder, reparable through medication and therapy. There is a deeply spiritual aspect to combat that is much more than merely psychological or physiological, yet they are interrelated. Therefore, the treatment of combat veterans’ symptoms needs to address the moral aspects of the combat experience.1 Hence, some behavioral health and religious professionals have begun to talk more about moral injury in the last few years.

Feb. 3, 2020

11. Anglo-American Army Chaplaincy in World War I: A Centenary Perspective

The history of Anglo-American chaplaincy cooperation is curiously neglected. Since 1900, British and American forces have served together in the Boxer Rebellion, two world wars, the Korean War, Gulf War, and the war on terror, to say nothing of their routine collaboration in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although histories of 20th-century British and American chaplaincy have multiplied in recent decades, almost all focus on a single national context, an individual service, a specific conflict, and/or a certain religious tradition. However useful in other respects, such selectivity has served to obscure the fundamental connection between British and U.S. Army chaplaincy, especially that which occurred in World War I. If mentioned at all, this collaboration usually receives only a nod of acknowledgment, although Richard Budd has rightly emphasized its formative role in shaping the organization of American chaplaincy.

Feb. 3, 2020

About the Contributors

Contributors to A Persistent Fire: The Strategic Ethical Impact of World War I on the Global Profession of Arms.

Jan. 31, 2020

Baltics Left of Bang: Nordic Total Defense and Implications for the Baltic Sea Region

Sponsored by the U.S. National Defense University (NDU) and the Swedish National Defense University, this paper is the second in a series of Institute for National Strategic Studies Strategic Forums dedicated to the multinational exploration of the strategic and defense challenges faced by the Baltic states. The December 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy described Russia as “using subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments.” The U.S. and European authors of this paper, along with many others, came together in late 2017 to explore possible responses to the security challenges facing the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). This second report highlights early research and gaming insights indicating the importance of total defense and comprehensive security, whole-of-society approaches to deterrence and defense of the Baltic Sea Region from Russian aggression. It also provides recommendations for how the Nordic and Baltic states can leverage aspects of total defense and comprehensive security to generate a credible asymmetric defense and build societal resilience.

Jan. 22, 2020

The PLA Beyond Asia: China’s Growing Military Presence in the Red Sea Region

China’s establishment of a military base in Djibouti in 2017 was an important “first” for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which had never operated a base on foreign territory. It was also a milestone in a gradually expanding PLA presence in the Red Sea region. Over the previous decade, China deployed peacekeepers to conflicts in the oil-producing states of Sudan and South Sudan, conducted anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, and increased its military diplomacy throughout the area. By the time the Djibouti base opened, the PLA was already maintaining a presence of more than 2,000 personnel in the region—far more than in any other area outside the Indo-Pacific. While PLA capabilities have remained largely concentrated in Asia, its Red Sea presence showcased an increasing ability to project power to other regions and suggested that additional deployments may occur as China seeks to defend its overseas interests. The PLA role in the region has also entered the Chinese popular imagination: the navy’s evacuation of Chinese and foreign citizens from Yemen in 2015 was the basis of Operation Red Sea, one of China’s top grossing films of 2018.

Jan. 22, 2020

The European Union’s Permanent Structured Cooperation: Implications for Transatlantic Security

In November of 2017, the European Union (EU) officially launched the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) project, its latest attempt to deepen defense cooperation among EU members. Earlier that same year, the EU approved two other important initiatives designed to strengthen defense cooperation: the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) and the European Defence Fund (EDF). Shortly after the launch of PESCO, many U.S. defense officials expressed skepticism about its value. This is not surprising; U.S. officials have reflexively opposed European defense initiatives such as PESCO since the end of the Cold War. U.S. opposition to these initiatives reflects its fear that they could lead the EU to become a competitor to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for European security issues and resources, and in so doing reduce U.S. influence in European security.

Jan. 10, 2020

PRISM Vol. 8, No. 3 (January 2020)

Emerging disruptive technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, and neuroscience will dramatically alter the global security environment. PRISM V.8,N.3 “Singularity” maps this evolving challenge and propose solutions. 

Jan. 10, 2020

The Future of Leadership: Rise of Automation, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence

It seems like we are continuously bombarded with prophecies about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and all of its permutations—from quantum computing and machine learning to RPA and Skynet—will radically change just about everything we do.1 However, much of its potential (whether as promise or pariah) remains prospective, more speculative than real.

Jan. 10, 2020

“Thinking About What Could Be” An Interview with General John M. Murray, Commanding General, Army Futures Command

Army Futures Command is an adaptation to the on-going change in the international order we have seen since the end of World War Two. The rules of the road for international order have changed; Russian destabilization of Ukraine, Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, and the inevitable shift from an Atlantic-based global economy to a Pacific-based economy.

Jan. 10, 2020

A Small State Perspective on the Evolving Nature of Cyber Conflict: Lessons from Singapore

Cyber conflicts among states are still largely driven by geopolitical and political considerations and should not be seen as separate from other kinds of conflict or political objectives. Brandon Valeriano, Benjamin Jensen, and Ryan Maness observe that modern cyber strategies are neither new nor revolutionary and that actions in cyberspace fall into “a domain of limited coercive actions designed to alter the balance of information as well as manage escalation risks in long-term competitive interactions.” Cyber operations may offer new ways to test the robustness of networks, control messaging, or degrade a network, but they do not fundamentally change great power competition or the hierarchy of states in the international system.

Jan. 10, 2020

The Challenges Facing 21st Century Military Modernization

When a military organization undertakes a modernization program, it is intuitive to expect that existing capabilities are going to be replaced by superior capabilities. There is an implied suggestion that a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of this superiority is enhanced lethality; lethality surely constitutes a necessary condition of the strategic effectiveness of the military organization in question. At the risk of stating the obvious, military organizations around the world exist to protect the security of their respective countries: in peacetime, by deterring the adversaries of the country from waging war, and in wartime, by defeating these adversaries should they choose the war option. These two missions are not mutually exclusive: “The surest way to prevent war is to be prepared to win one.” Nevertheless, it is possible to question the extent to which lethality subsequently connects to strategic effectiveness, which is understood here as the ability to win wars. In other words, while modernization ought to result in a military organization that is more lethal than before, this enhanced lethality does not guarantee strategic effectiveness.

Jan. 10, 2020

The Ethics of Acquiring Disruptive Technologies: Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Weapons, and Decision Support Systems

Reluctance to develop AI applications for military purposes is not going to go away as the development, acquisition, and employment of these systems challenge the traditional norms associated with not just war­fighting but morality in general. Meanwhile, as the debate rages, adversaries of the United States who do not have these ethical concerns continue with their development. China, for example, has vowed to be the leader in AI by 2030. No one should have any illusions that the Chinese will not use this dominance for military as well as civilian purposes. So, to maintain parity, if not advantage, DOD has little choice but to proceed with the development and employment of artificially intelligent systems. As it does so, ethical concerns will continue to arise, potentially excluding important expertise for their development. To include this expertise, DOD needs to confront these concerns upfront.

Jan. 10, 2020

Killing Me Softly: Competition in Artificial Intelligence and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The conduct of war is being fundamentally altered by the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence (AI). The competition in AI and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) marks the onset of the “7th Military Revolution” and the states that integrate these advances first will have a prodigious military advantage.” China has seized this moment, increasingly posing a risk to the historical technological advantage of the United States and destabilizing the foundations of modern warfare.

Jan. 9, 2020

Minds at War: China’s Pursuit of Military Advantage through Cognitive Science and Biotechnology

The United States is starting to confront unprecedented challenges to the military and technological superiority that it has enjoyed in recent history. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is emerging as a powerhouse across a range of emerging technologies, and Chinese leaders recognize today’s technological revolution as a critical, even historic, opportunity to achieve strategic advantage. As Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and Commander-in-Chief of the CMC Joint Operations Center, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping has highlighted the importance of military innovation to “keep pace with the times” (与时俱进) and adapt to the global revolution in military affairs.

Jan. 9, 2020

Strategic Competition for Emerging Military Technologies: Comparative Paths and Patterns

One of the most pressing issues in contemporary international relations is the expectation of a new era of intensifying strategic competition, characterized by the confluence of political, economic, and military-technological competitions in the context of major shifts in the global security environment.1 At the forefront of this growing strategic rivalry is the contest for future supremacy over global security and economic institutional grids between the world’s major military powers—the United States, China, and to a lesser degree, Russia.

Jan. 9, 2020

Redefining Neuroweapons: Emerging Capabilities in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology

While many types of weaponizable neuroscience and technology (neuroS/T) have been addressed in and by extant forums, treaties, conventions, and laws, other newer techniques and technologies have not. Thus, particular advances in neuroS/T have an increased potential for dual use and direct use in warfare, intelligence, and national security (WINS). In this light, this article (1) presents the WINS utility and possible applicability of gene editing methods, nanoparticles, and other tools that can modify the central nervous system; (2) discusses the value and vulnerabilities of big data and bio-cybersecurity in WINS; (3) posits how such developments bring into stark relief existing gaps in international biological and chemical weapons conventions; and (4) proposes steps toward rectification of current and future oversight and governance.

Jan. 9, 2020

Directed Energy Weapons Are Real . . . And Disruptive

What exactly is a directed energy weapon? Are these weapons still science fiction, lab experiments, or are they real? How can they be used and how disruptive can they be? What are the challenges and next steps? This article will examine answers to these questions.

Jan. 9, 2020

The Worst Possible Day: U.S. Telecommunications and Huawei

As a global power, the United States must be able to sustain military forces and project power anywhere in the world, even in the face of resistance from a sophisticated adversary with the ability to infiltrate or disrupt telecommunications and other critical infrastructure within the United States, in space, under the ocean, and in other regions of the world. Policy must consider the worst possible day, not the routine day.

Jan. 9, 2020

Cyber Physical Systems: The Coming Singularity

At this moment, a subtle but fundamental technological shift is occurring that is uniting our digital and physical worlds at the deepest architectural and operational levels. This technological shift will alter the global business, government, military and intelligence ecosystems. It is nothing less than a technological singularity and this technology will forever change our world—it is called Cyber Physical Systems (CPS).

Dec. 4, 2019

Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today

Mercenaries are more powerful than experts realize, a grave oversight. Those who assume they are cheap imitations of national armed forces invite disaster because for-profit warriors are a wholly different genus and species of fighter. Private military companies such as the Wagner Group are more like heavily armed multinational corporations than the Marine Corps. Their employees are recruited from different countries, and profitability is everything. Patriotism is unimportant, and sometimes a liability. Unsurprisingly, mercenaries do not fight conventionally, and traditional war strategies used against them may backfire.

Dec. 4, 2019

Fentanyl as a Chemical Weapon

Fentanyl is a major topic in the news these days because of its significant contribution to the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States. It clearly is a major counternarcotic challenge. But there also has been some reporting, including about congressional interest, as to whether fentanyl additionally should be considered a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) and whether U.S. Government chemical defense efforts should place greater emphasis on it. This paper provides some perspective on fentanyl as a chemical weapon.

Nov. 22, 2019

Joint Force Quarterly 95 (4th Quarter, October 2019)

Our world is in constant motion, and as a result change is what we must always seek to adjust and improve our situations. If you have a setback, a delay, or a loss, you do as the unofficial slogan of the U.S. Marine Corps suggests—you improvise, adapt, and overcome. I would add that we need to be constantly learning both from what we see and from what others experienced. As former Secretary James Mattis asked our professional military education (PME) institutions to do, developing our critical thinking skills and testing our intellectual limits in new and engaging ways are no longer options for a select few. To that end for the joint force, Joint Force Quarterly continues to offer discussions about past conflicts and current issues and to frame future concepts and issues in ways that hopefully help each of us better use our minds. With that as a goal, we offer a wide range of ideas to help you keep your intellectual edge. Hopefully, you will read them and send us your best ideas on how to keep improving the joint force.

Nov. 18, 2019

Joint Doctrine Updates

Joint Doctrine Updates