July 19, 2024

The Other Arctic: Competition, Cooperation, or Coexistence?

In 1959, 12 countries signed the Antarctic Treaty to ensure scientific freedom and equal access for all nations of the world to the continent. Since then, the number of states acceding to the treaty has grown to 56 from all parts of the globe, with just over half—29 states—now granted “consultative” status to make decisions regarding the future protection and use of Antarctica through the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM). For over 60 years, the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) has provided the world with a peaceful and stable environment to conduct scientific inquiry, protect unique biodiversity, and promote regional tourism.

July 16, 2024

DOD’s Need for a Transportable Energy Solution: The Promise of Nuclear Power

In the 42 days following Hurricane Maria in September 2017, the Federal Government deployed 366 generators with a combined 122-megawatt electric (MWe) capacity to Puerto Rico. This supported one-third of critical infrastructure on the island but fell far short of the ~2,400 MWe normally needed just in San Juan. This disaster highlights a profound Department of Defense (DOD) capability gap in providing large-scale transportable electrical power generation to the Defense Support of Civil Authority (DSCA) mission. This disaster should stand as a stark warning to planners as DOD refocuses on peer competition, fields ever more energy-intensive technologies, invests in forward synthetic fuel production, transitions to an all-electric ground, and addresses climate change.

July 16, 2024

Implementing the Chairman’s Guidance on Experiential Learning in PME Classrooms

Major powers are active across all strategic domains—including space and cyberspace—and possess multiple tools of national power to realize their leadership’s core objectives. In turn, the present geopolitical competition among the United States, China, and Russia includes diplomatic, informational, military, and economic dimensions. As stated in Joint Doctrine Note 2-19, Strategy, military strategy requires employment of “the instruments of national power across a broad spectrum of competition and conflict in pursuit of objectives, in a transregional, all-domain, and multifunctional environment.” Given this present and future reality, the education of contemporary strategists should include experiential learning opportunities where participants develop multipronged national strategies within a competitive exercise environment. This type of activity could provide a stimulating, hands-on educational experience that promotes critical thinking on how to balance competing national priorities while yielding important insights into how potential adversaries seek to do the same.

July 16, 2024

Getting the Best Out of Joint Warfighter Development

Is the Department of Defense (DOD) producing the best joint warfighters possible? During strategic competition that increasingly ebbs toward conflict, joint warfighting and joint warfighter development are more important than ever. Joint warfighter development is the catalyst necessary for the U.S. military to conduct joint operations.

July 16, 2024

"Study, Not Doctrine": Prioritizing History in JPME

War is inherently unpredictable, uncertain, and unquantifiable. The insights are timeless, and Carl von Clausewitz suffuses On War with these understandings, but we struggle to come to terms with the implications of those observations. The need to make predictions is seemingly irresistible, but approaches rooted in process or in generalizing about behavior fail in practice. Generic concepts of war facilitate discussion in the abstract but face challenges in accounting for variables such as ambiguity, leadership, personalities, politics, fear, confusion, violence, and friction. The commercial and budgetary attractions of characterizing techniques, technologies, weapons, or approaches to war as seeming to guarantee results can create powerful, if perverse, incentives that frequently lead to disappointing results. Ongoing military operations are understandably closely held or even deceptive.

July 15, 2024

2040 Vision: Designing UK Defence for Advantage in a Competitive Age

Some readers will have a close affinity for Scottish whisky and heroes (rebels?) such as William Wallace. We wonder if the request for us to write an article for Joint Force Quarterly was inspired by another Scottish icon, the poet Robert Burns, who wrote, “Oh, would some Power the gift give us / To see ourselves as others see us!” We are sure that we shall fall short of the literary genius of Burns, but we hope our observations will provide some of the value he describes of being seen through the eyes of others.

July 15, 2024

Breaking the Shield: Countering Drone Defenses

Unmanned systems will help save Taiwan. At least, that is what some recent war games suggest.

July 15, 2024

Accelerating Transition of Biotechnology Products for Military Supply Chains

Biomanufacturing, a process in which organisms and their biological systems are used to produce chemicals and biomaterials, has been a part of the military industrial base since World War I.

July 12, 2024

Taking Cues From Complexity: How Complex Adaptive Systems Prepare for All-Domain Operations

Because of potential increased adversary military expenditures and technological advances, the U.S. military technological advantage that has benefited American interests since the end of World War II is dwindling. To adjust to the increasingly technical global competitive arena, the joint force continues to develop the joint all-domain operations (JADO) concept, mainly adapted from the U.S.

July 12, 2024

Executive Summary

JFQ is certainly the Chairman’s journal, but it exists solely to give voice to you and your ideas on the joint force, jointness in general, and how best to fight and win our Nation’s wars and secure the peace. For over 30 years, the best and brightest among us have sustained the dialogue within these pages, whether physical or virtual. Help us continue this great tradition by sending us your articles and adding to the growing body of knowledge that is Joint Force Quarterly.

June 28, 2024

PRISM Vol. 10, No. 4 (June 2024)

PRISM Vol. 10, No. 4 is now online.

June 28, 2024

Joint Force Quarterly 113 (2nd Quarter 2024)

JFQ is certainly the Chairman’s journal, but it exists solely to give voice to you and your ideas on the joint force, jointness in general, and how best to fight and win our Nation’s wars and secure the peace. For over 30 years, the best and brightest among us have sustained the dialogue within these pages, whether physical or virtual. Help us continue this great tradition by sending us your articles and adding to the growing body of knowledge that is Joint Force Quarterly.

March 4, 2024

Lessons and Legacies of the War in Ukraine: Conference Report

The international conference titled “Lessons and Legacies of the War in Ukraine” took place on November 17, 2023, at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. Hosted by the University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, the conference brought together perspectives from practitioners in the U.S. Government and uniformed military, along with experts from academia and the think tank community in the United States, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Taiwan, to discuss the lessons that the United States and its allies should take from the first year and a half of the effort to repel Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Feb. 16, 2024

Joint Force Quarterly 112 (1st Quarter 2024)

And as you work through some of the pressing issues facing the joint force, we are here to help your ideas get a complete and full airing out. The only way we can change is to help each other to see the need to do so and then suggest a proper path to that new future. We need you to help be a good wingman and show us how to succeed.

Feb. 16, 2024

No Limits: The Inside Story of China’s War With the West

No Limits: The Inside Story of China’s War With the West is a valuable book. It is simultaneously analytical and personal. No Limits is an incisive, selective history about how the promise of China’s integration into Western economic systems and global institutions gave way to acrimony and rivalry. It also is author Andrew Small’s memoir about how his quarter-century-long iterative interactions with China evolved from hope and cautious optimism about Sino-global integration into resigned fatalism that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can never tolerate such a happy ending. The CCP must instead view itself as perpetual victim and implacable rival of the West.

Feb. 16, 2024

Airpower in the War Against ISIS

In Airpower in the War Against ISIS, Benjamin Lambeth not only weaves an account that celebrates the decisive role he insists airpower played in the defeat of the so-called Islamic State (IS) but also depicts tragically missed opportunities and almost incomprehensibly poor judgment on the part of U.S. civilian and military leaders that unnecessarily delayed that defeat.

Feb. 16, 2024

The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology

Emerging biotechnologies have captured the imagination, interest, and concerns of the world. Scenarios once relegated to science fiction movies and novels are now potentially within the grasp of bioengineering. The purposeful design of biology can enable novel ways to meet a variety of societal needs—from the biomanufacturing of commodities to gene therapies and the recreation of once-extinct organisms. This biological revolution, or “bioeconomy,” has the potential to address important issues such as climate change, sustainable energy, and food production, as well as improved medicines and quality of life for all. But with this capability comes dual use (that is, not only for commercial/military use but also by good actors/bad actors) as well as profound ethical concerns, making The Genesis Machine a timely volume.

Feb. 16, 2024

Applying Three Decisionmaking Models to the Lakota Sioux Wars

Examining the factors leading to the decisions made by Crazy Horse, Custer, and Reno through the lenses of expected utility, cybernetic, and poliheuristic decision strategies enables objectivity in analysis and hindsight. It also offers an example of how to study three different leaders, each of whom resolved uncertainty with their decisions, even if such decisions proved disastrous. Modern leaders can utilize these same tools to make sense of complexity and to apply a framework to analyze an opponent’s past decisions, compare the findings to the present situation, and then predict future courses of action.

Feb. 16, 2024

Converting a Political- to a Military-Strategic Objective

Political objectives are usually achieved by using one’s military power. Converting political objectives into achievable military-strategic objectives is the primary responsibility of military-strategic leadership. This process is largely an art rather than a science. There are many potential pitfalls because much depends on the knowledge, understanding, experience, and judgment of military-strategic leaders. Most often, mistakes made are only recognized after setbacks or defeats suffered during the hostilities. Despite its critical importance, there is no consensus on the steps and methods in converting political- into military-strategic objectives. There is scant writing on the subject in either doctrinal documents or professional journals.

Feb. 16, 2024

The “Survival Chain”: Medical Support to Military Operations on the Future Battlefield

The Department of Defense Joint Trauma System (JTS) was created to provide optimal care to the wounded on a battlefield. The current National Defense Strategy anticipates future threats of large-scale combat operations (LSCO) against peer adversaries that may limit overall freedom of maneuver for medical evacuation, increase survivability risk of medical units, and limit timeliness and robustness of critical medical logistics. Thus, the JTS must continue to evolve and embrace the concept of Medical Performance Optimization (MPO) to adapt to this new operational reality.

Feb. 16, 2024

From “Made in China” to “Created in China”: Intellectual Property Rights in the People’s Republic of China

Friction between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on technology captures the headlines regularly. While there continue to be intellectual property rights (IPR) violations in China, China analysts need to be more mindful of China’s rising influence in generating intellectual property. The reality is that China’s growing influence in patent applications and innovation is the real threat.

Feb. 15, 2024

Don’t Get Lost in the Numbers: An Analytic Framework for Nuclear Force Requirements Debates

This article proposes an approach to nuclear force sizing debates based on a framework built on four analytic dimensions: overarching risk management approaches; deterrence and assurance objectives; strategic force employment guidance; and operational constraints. The answers to key questions across these dimensions provide a structure to inform debates about the appropriate size and characteristics of U.S. nuclear forces. Only after clarifying U.S. objectives across these dimensions and focusing on key considerations therein should policymakers enter nuclear force sizing debates. The resulting analysis does not advocate for any policy position or hypothesize the “correct” number of nuclear forces. Instead, the purpose of the framework is to focus nuclear force sizing debates on more fundamental assumptions regarding the role of nuclear weapons in achieving U.S. national security objectives.

Feb. 15, 2024

Preventing the Nuclear Jungle: Extended Deterrence, Assurance, and Nonproliferation

Today, most people do not remember a time when the United States was not allied with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Australia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. As these alliances span over seven decades, it is easy to take for granted that the relationships will continue as they always have into the future. The changing security landscape and the emergence of the two-peer nuclear environment will challenge extended deterrence in ways not yet well understood. This requires reexamining deterrence strategies and potentially acquiring new capabilities to effectively assure allies and close the growing “assurance gap.”

Feb. 15, 2024

New Strategic Deterrence Frameworks for Modern-Day Challenges

Decades of fighting militarily inferior adversaries with little to no concern of strategic escalation have atrophied the intellectual frameworks required to deter and, if necessary, fight today’s potential adversaries. Paths to nuclear use, strategies that simultaneously account for prevailing conventionally while deterring strategic attacks, and concepts to restore deterrence should an adversary choose strategic escalation are among the most important considerations the United States must contend with in an era of intensifying Great Power competition.

Feb. 15, 2024

Wicked Deterrence Challenge: The Changing Strategic Landscape

The National Security Strategy of the United States laid out that the Nation is entering a decisive decade—not only for itself but also for the world. The current era of strategic competition is characterized by the reemergence of a geopolitical contest between powerful states over the shape of the future global order.

Feb. 15, 2024

An Interview with Anthony J. Cotton

Our threats are not isolated to one command or nation. These global challenges require a concerted effort to strengthen not only deterrence but also partnerships with our allies and partners. For the first time, the United States faces two major nuclear powers that could operate at any level or domain of conflict to meet their national objectives. We are now in a multipolar world with potential adversaries that could threaten the United States, our allies, and our partners with nuclear weapons and nonnuclear capabilities that could have devastating impacts.

Feb. 15, 2024

Accelerating Cyber Leader Development: A Call to Action for Service War Colleges

Cyber leaders find their organizations under constant cyber attack from millions of daily intrusions disrupting everything from our electoral system to our social media feeds. Today, cyberspace provides both technological opportunity and vulnerability. The frightening reality is that the Nation is adrift in a dangerous cyberspace domain, a warfighting domain that stores, processes, and analyzes data under the uncertain eye of ill-prepared senior cyber leaders. This article is squarely focused on a recommendation to deliberately develop senior cyber leaders within the Department of Defense (DOD) to win in this dangerous battlespace.

Feb. 15, 2024

A New Form of Accountability in JPME: The Shift to Outcomes-Based Military Education

The programs responsible for teaching joint professional military education (JPME) Phases I and II are undergoing a significant transformation in demonstrating their mission fulfillment. Governed by the Officer Professional Military Education Policy (OPMEP), particularly OPMEP-F, implemented on May 15, 2020, these institutions are moving towards outcomes-based military education (OBME).

Feb. 15, 2024

Microgrids for the 21st Century: The Case for a Defense Energy Architecture

The Department of Defense (DOD) needs a new approach to electrical grid infrastructure to maintain security and access to operational energy.

Feb. 15, 2024

Position, Navigation, and Timing Weaponization in the Maritime Domain: Orientation in the Era of Great Systems Conflict

The jamming and spoofing of Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Automatic Identification System (AIS) information has escalated in the last half-dozen years from simple demonstrations of capability to truly dangerous situations where misperceptions could ignite a major conflict.

Feb. 15, 2024

When Does Gray Zone Confrontation End? A Conceptual Analysis

The gray zone remains one of the most fashionable strategic concepts of the past few years in the United States, it encapsulates a particular subset of international relations, in the process affecting the ideational distinction between war and peace. While the gray zone concept may have negligible strategic-analytical merit, its high social utility persists and should be recognized.

Feb. 15, 2024

Executive Summary

And as you work through some of the pressing issues facing the joint force, we are here to help your ideas get a complete and full airing out. The only way we can change is to help each other to see the need to do so and then suggest a proper path to that new future. We need you to help be a good wingman and show us how to succeed. 

Dec. 14, 2023

Solarium at 70: Project Solarium’s Influence on Eisenhower Historiography and National Security Strategy

Project Solarium was a national security exercise that took place in 1953 during the first months of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidency, taking its name from the White House solarium, where Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, conceived it. According to many scholars, Project Solarium highly influenced Eisenhower’s strategy, and it has come to be regarded as an outstanding example of strategic planning and foresight—indeed as a standard for other American Presidential administrations.

Oct. 30, 2023

Joint Force Quarterly 111 (4th Quarter, 2023)

Your voice in how best to move the joint force forward can only help achieve both the mission of this journal and the goals of the new Joint Warfighting Concept. Every successful leader at every level knows the wisdom of how to bring diverse talents together to achieve the mission. The Chairman and JFQ are looking for your ideas on how to achieve success together as we deal with the world today and in the future.

Oct. 30, 2023

Friction Points in the Sino-Russian Arctic Partnership

This article is an overview of Sino-Russian friction and points of vulnerability in their Arctic relationship. In this article, we highlight three main areas of friction—navigation, resource exploitation, and infrastructure—that we see as exploitable gaps in the relationship. Western observers and commentators should not be neutral in observing this relationship; rather, we might benefit from shining a light on these issues that Beijing and Moscow have so assiduously sought to sidestep.

Oct. 30, 2023

Risky Business: Using the Joint Force’s Framework for Managing Risk

This article provides the analytical basis for the Joint Risk Analysis Methodology (JRAM), the framework for appraising and managing risk. It explains how risk informs national security decisionmaking. The JRAM is useful and flexible, within limits, to facilitate commanders’ decisionmaking regardless of level. Beyond education, the purpose is to illustrate key risk considerations, including impacts of mitigation measures to other regions and across time in a multipolar environment.

Oct. 30, 2023

Training With Industry: Integrating the Commercial Defense Industrial Base

This article examines Training With Industry (TWI)’s impact on the joint force, and it assesses and reviews the perspective of the World War II–era historical TWI program and contrasts it with today’s version. Recommendations are made to incorporate TWI training objectives into the Joint Learning Continuum, ensure individual TWI lessons are captured in the Joint Lessons Learned Program, and modernize the TWI program as a fellowship to address strategic level gaps.

Oct. 30, 2023

Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology

Miller delivers an insightful discussion of several conflicts associated with the rise of semiconductors and provides a detailed history of the industry, the tycoons who shaped it, and the strategic importance of Taiwan’s role in the current geopolitical environment. He omits the typical arguments that revolve around the defense of democracy and liberalist ideology, instead offering a coherent realist rationale for the defense of Taiwan. Miller’s compelling thesis is that the semiconductor industry shapes international politics, the world economy, and the global balance of power. Even though it is unstated, Miller uses the framework of strategic competition between the United States and China to address the criticality of high-end semiconductors.

Oct. 30, 2023

The American War in Afghanistan: A History

Carter Malkasian provides a magisterial and balanced account of the American intervention in Afghanistan from 2001 until the early months of 2021. His writing, analysis, and credibility are buttressed by his multiple deployments to the country at both the provincial and district levels as well as by his fluency in Pashto. Since the topic can be approached from a myriad of perspectives, Malkasian’s book is likely the first in a long series of historical examinations over the next several decades. His book can serve as the flagship for those who follow, given its comprehensiveness and lucidity.

Oct. 30, 2023

The Drone Age: How Drone Technology Will Change War and Peace

Timely, relevant, and provocative, Michael J. Boyle’s The Drone Age makes the point better than any other on the subject: the sky is full of drones, and policymakers, especially those in defense agencies, need to come to terms with this technology.

Oct. 30, 2023

Winners of the 2023 Essay Competitions

NDU Press hosted the final round of judging on May 11–12, 2023, during which 29 faculty judges from 17 participating professional military education (PME) institutions selected the best entries in each category. There were 95 submissions in this year’s three categories. First Place winners in each of the three categories appear in the following pages.

Oct. 30, 2023

A Symphony of Capabilities: How the Joint Warfighting Concept Guides Service Force Design and Development

The United States today faces complex global challenges, including long-term strategic competition with major powers such as China and Russia. Rapidly evolving technologies are changing the character of warfare, and we are only just beginning to understand the implications of these changes. History shows that in times like this, nations that best capitalize on these changes create the greatest advantages in battle. Adapting to this evolving landscape requires the joint force to integrate capabilities and synchronize effects fluidly across domains.

Oct. 30, 2023

Sharpening Our Competitive Edge: Honing Our Warfighting Capabilities Through the Joint Warfighting Concept

The Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) challenges the joint force to rethink competition, deterrence, and conflict. This necessitates a shift in how we utilize our current capabilities and a leap toward new ones. To truly sharpen our competitive edge, we must outpace our adversaries in adaptability and innovation. While the Pentagon has made strides in recent years, there is more to be done.

Oct. 30, 2023

Embracing Change: A Sense of Urgency

At the dawn of an ever-evolving geopolitical era, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the world’s most powerful political and military alliance, faces a new reality. This article examines the issues facing NATO and suggests ways to modernize and adapt the Alliance to meet current and future security challenges.

Oct. 30, 2023

Weaponizing Wheat: How Strategic Competition With Russia Could Threaten American Food Security

In the history of warfare, belligerents have often targeted food supplies to force opponents into submission. In America’s wars over the last century, threats to domestic food security have been minimal. We are now in an era of increased globalization, where food supply chains span the oceans. America faces the renewed rise of strategic competition as China and Russia seek to replace U.S. power across the globe. Given these new realities, timely evaluation of potential vulnerabilities to American food production is necessary.

Oct. 30, 2023

Space Denial: A Deterrence Strategy

Space assets are strategic and crucial to U.S. national security in maintaining military superiority across the land, maritime, air, and cyber domains. U.S. adversaries recognize this advantage and intend to challenge American interests in space. As the leading space powers continue to enhance their direct-ascent capabilities, the United States must adopt a deterrence strategy through building robust constellations, optimizing satellite placement, and integrating U.S. Government–owned sensors on allies, strategic partners, and commercial satellites.

Oct. 30, 2023

An Interview with Michael E. Langley

It is an honor to convey the USAFRICOM message in this publication; Joint Force Quarterly is an important forum for strategic discussion. Africa is both key strategic and geopolitical terrain due to its physical geography, wealth of resources, and fast-growing populations. These attributes make Africa an increasingly contested environment as strategic competitors, violent extremist organizations [VEOs], and transnational criminal organizations collectively seek to exploit African nations for their gain.

Oct. 30, 2023

Guardian of the Seams: U.S. Africa Command at the Intersection of Diplomacy, Development, and Defense

By its constitution, programs, and ethos, U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) is committed to the idea that knowledge should unify rather than fragment actions, concepts, and relationships. The commander of USAFRICOM, General Michael E. Langley, USMC, charged us in this article and the two that follow to explore the concept of seams and challenged us to identify and address the disparities that potentially undermine the effectiveness of U.S. engagements with African partner forces—whether these differences are interagency relationships, resources, rules and authorities, priorities, objectives, data, or something yet unidentified.

Oct. 30, 2023

Defense Diplomacy: Professionalizing the Purple to Gold Pipeline

The joint force prioritizes joint experience as a requirement for senior military leaders through joint qualification accreditation but currently has no formal requirement or incentive for interagency experience, the importance of which has been repeatedly discussed and advocated for in professional journals over the last two decades. The introduction of an interagency qualification requirement for career advancement would expand acculturation across development, diplomacy, and defense agencies.

Oct. 30, 2023

Beating Drumbeat: Lessons Learned in Unified Action from the German U-Boat Offensive Against the United States, January–July 1942

In the first 7 months after the United States entered World War II, a handful of German U-boats almost brought the Allied war effort to a standstill in a shockingly effective campaign against merchant shipping. Examining this case study from a joint perspective provides timeless lessons for contemporary planners.