Oct. 14, 2021

History of the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

How the senior enlisted advisor to the Chairman (SEAC) position developed mirrors how other such senior enlisted advisor positions began and reflects the evolution of jointness.

Oct. 14, 2021

Green Fields of France: Mortuary Affairs in a Peer Conflict

Commanders must integrate realistic casualty expectations into their formations and institute plans that will minimize the impact of high-casualty conflicts on their ability to accomplish objectives. They can achieve this goal in three key ways. First, to lessen the blow of casualties sustained in a peer conflict, accurate casualty expectations must be part of formations’ training and organizational culture. Second, mortuary affairs cannot be a “hand wave” during training exercises; it must be exercised as a crucial function in maintaining a unit’s operational effectiveness in combat. Finally, planners must specify organic mortuary affairs capabilities within their organization that can be flexed to fulfill a need beyond what modern experience has demonstrated. Recent history has shown the implications of high-casualty events, and it is essential that American forces are prepared mentally and organizationally to win in the face of tragedy.

Oct. 14, 2021

Understanding the Vulnerabilities in China’s New Joint Force

This article analyzes PLA reforms and identifies vulnerabilities in China’s new joint force. The first section analyzes the changes to the Central Military Commission (CMC), the highest level of the PLA, set in the context of China’s model of national decisionmaking and civil-military relations. The second section considers the restructuring of the PLA, focusing particularly on its new Strategic Support Force (SSF) and revised theater-level organization. The third section explores the measures that could disrupt and defeat this new joint force via targeting the vulnerabilities identified in sections one and two.

Oct. 14, 2021

Specialized Analytic and Targeting Study: A Methodology and Approach for Conducting Faster Full-Spectrum Targeting

JP 3-60 provides broad guidance on targeting but fails to connect its effects-based approach to the true rhythm of operations. Doctrine in fighting coalition war is sufficient, but comprehensive doctrine in preparing for war lacks focus. In time- and resource-constrained environments, flexible and even ad hoc approaches are used to examine the target environment and achieve desired objectives. The targeting model needs to evolve, and as such the integration of intelligence that feeds that model must likewise evolve. Establishing and moving to a more agile kill-chain affords the warfighter and war planner an adaptable model that solves challenges inherent in broad spectrum, cross-domain operations.

Oct. 14, 2021

Educating Senior Service College Students on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies

In a constrained 10-month master’s degree program that must meet and excel at the tasks stipulated in the joint professional military education (JPME) program for the Process of Accreditation of Joint Education requirements, an outcomes-based military education has no room for extraneous material. Senior Service college (SSC) curricula are a delicately balanced mix of subjects, discussions, applied thinking and exercises, and student evaluations. The unfortunate reality is that adding important topics or material to the SSC curriculum requires removing equally important material—and often upsets the delicate balance that has built over time.

Oct. 14, 2021

Realizing Energy Independence on U.S. Military Bases

Near-peer competitors such as Russia and China are working to exploit our aging infrastructure to gain advantage in possible future conflict and destabilize day-to-day operations. This article focuses on domestic military bases and the energy vulnerabilities associated with local grids. As energy technologies evolve, now is the time to invest future funding to reduce vulnerability of domestic military bases to attack and ensure energy independence.

Oct. 14, 2021

Degrading China’s Integrated Maritime Campaign

The past decades have witnessed the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a Great Power and its orchestration of an integrated maritime campaign using Irregular warfare—for example, economic coercion, diplomatic intimidation, lawfare, and hacking of information technology systems—to control the South China Sea (SCS). This essay examines this maritime campaign’s IW tactics and describes how the United States can launch an effective countercampaign to reestablish order in the SCS by creating a surveillance network and strengthening regional security institutions.

Oct. 14, 2021

Reading the Tea Leaves: Understanding Chinese Deterrence Signaling

This essay seeks to illuminate Beijing’s deterrence signaling by reviewing key concepts in Western deterrence theory to provide a foundation for discussion. With this foundation laid, the essay then contrasts these concepts with historical PRC deterrence practice to identify nuances and trends. Finally, the essay illustrates China’s unique approach to deterrence signaling, using the ongoing Sino-Indian Ladakh border crisis as a case study.

Oct. 14, 2021

Winners of the 2021 Essay Competition

NDU Press virtually hosted the final round of judging in May–June 2021, during which 27 faculty judges from 18 participating professional military education (PME) institutions selected the best entries in each category.

Oct. 14, 2021

The New Era of Great Power Competition and the Biden Administration: Emerging Patterns and Principles

This article offers a collection of observations about the evolving new era of Great Power competition that extend and expand on the insights about past and contemporary GPC found in Strategic Assessment 2020: Into a New Era of Great Power Competition (NDU Press, 2020). These extended observations include an assessment of the Biden administration’s emerging approach to geostrategic competition among the three contemporary Great Powers, and particularly with China.

Oct. 14, 2021

The Tactical Defense Becomes Dominant Again

It has become widely accepted that the convergence of technological advances is leading to a revolution in military affairs or perhaps even a military revolution. One of the unanswered questions concerning this shift is whether it will lead to continued dominance by the offense or a period of defensive dominance. Investing in the wrong side of the competition is a rich nation’s game that the United States may no longer be able to afford.

Oct. 14, 2021

Project Convergence: Achieving Overmatch by Solving Joint Problems

As the United States confronts Great Power competition (GPC), incremental improvements to individual Service capabilities will not produce a military able to decisively win on the battlefield. The enhanced range, precision, and survivability of our weapons systems are just one part of achieving overmatch. Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, robotics, and autonomy improve our weapons systems’ effectiveness by boosting the decisionmaking pace of our commanders and reducing the options for our adversaries. Success on the battlefield depends on whether we leverage these new technologies to create simultaneous dilemmas across multiple domains.

Oct. 14, 2021

Executive Summary

As each day passes in the pandemic, we seem to have to embrace a world that continues to bring additional concerns that soak up any emotional bandwidth we have left. Dealing with the personal impact of COVID-19, natural disasters, domestic and international economic troubles, and the chilling moments of January 6th at the Capitol and its political fallout may seem more than we should have to bear.

July 1, 2021

Net Assessment and Military Strategy: Retrospective and Prospective Essays

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.

July 1, 2021

An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First-Century Order

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.

July 1, 2021

Gods of War: History’s Greatest Military Rivals

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

July 1, 2021

Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence of Social Science on National Security

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.

July 1, 2021

Joint Doctrine Update

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

July 1, 2021

Force Integration in Resistance Operations: Dutch Jedburghs and U.S. Alamo Scouts

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.

July 1, 2021

Cyber Threats and Vulnerabilities to Conventional and Strategic Deterrence

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.

July 1, 2021

Thrust and Agility from Trust and Antifragility: A Combatant’s Guide to Expeditionary Medical Leadership

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.

July 1, 2021

Avoiding Great Power Phony Wars

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.

July 1, 2021

A Lesson from an Ancient: Facilitating Retreat and Desertion Among Insurgencies

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

July 1, 2021

Hydrocarbons and Hegemony

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.

July 1, 2021

Military Power Reimagined: The Rise and Future of Shaping

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.

July 1, 2021

Improving the Battle Rhythm to Operate at the Speed of Relevance

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.

July 1, 2021

Fighting as Intended: The Case for Austere Communications

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.

July 1, 2021

Executive Summary

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.

March 31, 2021

Joint Doctrine Update

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

March 31, 2021

Strategic Humanism: Lessons on Leadership from the Ancient Greeks

At some point between the legendary Greek siege of Troy and the infamous defeat of Athens at Syracuse, the philosopher Heraclitus rather astutely discerned that Êthos anthrôpôi daimôn (Character is fate).

March 31, 2021

U.S. Joint Doctrine Development and Influence on NATO

In order to be adaptable and better support allies, the U.S. joint doctrine community must refine its policies and streamline its procedures to address these and other challenges and overcome status quo tendencies. To reinforce both Alliance purpose and unity, the United States agrees to abide by certain NATO policies and procedures and participates in the allied joint doctrine development process. The following groupings provide an overview of U.S. and NATO systems and processes as well as potential efficiencies.

March 31, 2021

Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East

Few authors are more qualified to write on U.S.-sponsored regime change in the Middle East than Philip Gordon, who worked as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama for the Middle East (2013–2015) and as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2009–2013). His book, Losing the Long Game, is elegant, thoroughly researched, and comprehensible; it belongs on the syllabus of every war college and policymaker’s desk.

March 31, 2021

Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime

In the 1970s, the late Sir Michael Howard cautioned military leaders that they would inevitably fail in predicting the conduct of the next war. What really mattered, he opined, was not getting it right, but not being “too badly wrong” and having the individual and institutional wherewithal to adapt to the new or revealed conditions of conflict in time to avoid defeat and ultimately prevail.

March 31, 2021

Accelerating Adaptation on the Western Front and Today

In wars, militaries rarely start out perfectly suited for the challenges they will encounter. Their organization, tactics, and weapons are not optimally matched to their environment or their enemies. The ability to adapt more quickly than an adversary gives a force a significant advantage. The growing role software plays in military technology could augment the speed of adaptation, but to capture such advantages, the joint force must invest in its digital workforce and infrastructure.

March 31, 2021

Embracing Asymmetry: Assessing Iranian National Security Strategy, 1983–1987

The success of Iran’s asymmetric warfare in advancing its objectives in Iraq in the 2000s likely reinforced the wrong lessons about the coercive power of asymmetric warfare and colored the country’s analysis of the Iran-Iraq War. Given the lasting impact the war has had on Iran’s military actions, examining the country’s experience during the conflict offers a unique window into Iranian decisionmaking today.

March 31, 2021

Sustaining Relevance: Repositioning Strategic Logistics Innovation in the Military

Military organizations tend to think about their overarching strategy in two ways: how their organization will remain relevant and which future operations they must be able to conduct. In the information era, military organizations struggle with the “design capabilities that will offer . . . credible strategic options and then the ability to win, through fighting smarter.” Building on the revolution in military affairs programs, a new era of digital innovations in the commercial realm underpins the U.S. National Defense Strategy and Third Offset Strategy to explore the use of new technologies for the military. While new operational concepts such as hyper war and kill webs are emerging, attention to the strategic element of innovation seems difficult to realize regarding military logistics. Strategic innovation concerns processes of proactive and systematic thinking about gaps that an organization can fulfill by developing new game plans.

March 31, 2021

The Future Joint Medical Force Through the Lens of Operational Art: A Case for Clinical Interchangeability

The joint health enterprise (JHE)—commonly referred to as the military health system (MHS)—has been key in driving recent combat casualty rates to the lowest in the Nation’s history. However, with the advent of a new, uncertain future security environment, the JHE faces potentially overwhelming obstacles that threaten a reversal. It therefore must contemplate national strategic redirection through novel and innovative means.

March 31, 2021

Flawed Jointness in the War Against the So-Called Islamic State: How a Different Planning Approach Might Have Worked Better

Not long after the first round of anemic air strikes against the so-called Islamic State (IS) on August 8, 2014, it became clear to most that the initial effort ordered by President Barack Obama and undertaken by U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) lacked an overarching strategy based on a well-founded understanding of the enemy and on a weighing of the full spectrum of available response options. Instead, USCENTCOM’s leaders fell back on their familiar past experiences and assessed IS as simply a resurrection of the recently defeated Iraqi insurgency rather than as the very different and ambitiously aggressive state-in-the-making that it actually was. As a result, they opted to engage the jihadist movement with an inappropriate counterinsurgency (COIN) approach that misprioritized rebuilding the Iraqi army as its predominant concern rather than pursuing a more promising strategy aimed at not only addressing Iraq’s most immediate security needs but also attacking the enemy’s most vulnerable center of gravity in Syria from the first day onward.

March 31, 2021

Conquering the Ethical Temptations of Command: Lessons from the Field Grades

Ethical lapses committed by senior business leaders are reported almost daily. Unfortunately, similar reports about military leaders also frequently appear; browse almost any contemporary military publication, and there is usually an article discussing an ethical failure by a high-ranking Servicemember. Although Department of Defense figures attest that the actual number of these failings is statistically small, they garner disproportionate attention. The critical nature of the U.S. military mission makes it incumbent on leaders to possess not only great technical competency in their jobs but also great character and integrity. Because of this demand, the U.S. military has high formal standards for ethical leadership behavior.

March 31, 2021

Educating Our Leaders in the Art and Science of Stakeholder Management

This article seeks to bridge a perceived knowledge gap with leaders and their executive communication skills by introducing them to a more disciplined, formal approach of identifying, prioritizing, and engaging stakeholders. This article suggests new and creative ways to conduct stakeholder management (identification, prioritization, and engagement)—techniques borrowed from practices employed in the private and commercial sectors.

March 31, 2021

Gray Is the New Black: A Framework to Counter Gray Zone Conflicts

Gray zone conflicts are difficult to address through traditional combat power. In today’s complex and competitive international environment, some states may appear to pursue the status quo, particularly in areas of benefit to them, while also seeking to amend other circumstances in their favor. To deter these aims, joint doctrine must address gray zone conflicts and incorporate strategies for countering these approaches into planning for steady-state activities and all phases of theater campaign planning. To do anything less is to relinquish the advantage.

March 30, 2021

Design Thinking

Iraq, Afghanistan, and, to an extent, Syria are all recent examples of situations where U.S. military involvement “solved” some elements of perceived problems but consequently created other issues. Following the invasion of Iraq in 2006, when the initial assessments seemed wrong and the situation was deteriorating simultaneously in Afghanistan, the Army began investigating alternative approaches to conceptual planning. Design methodology, now validated in joint doctrine, is the result of that inquiry. Using the methodology will not guarantee a successful outcome and is not a panacea for solving pandemics or complex problems. It does, however, provide a general framework, supported by an underlying logic, for discussing problems and developing approaches.

March 30, 2021

Deter in Competition, Deescalate in Crisis, and Defeat in Conflict

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), both located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are two distinct commands, bound together and united in a common purpose—charged with the resolute mission of defending North America. NORAD defends the United States and Canada against threats in the air domain and provides aerospace and maritime warning. Founded in 2002 in the wake of 9/11, USNORTHCOM defends the United States against threats across all domains, conducts cooperative defense activities with our allies and partners in North America, and, when required, supports Federal, state, and local agencies with unique military capabilities to conduct defense support of civil authorities.

March 30, 2021

Executive Summary

In 1993, General Powell encouraged members of the joint force to “Read JFQ. Study it. Mark it up—underline and write in the margins. Get mad. Then contribute your own views.” What do you think? How do you read JFQ? How can we make it better suited to the world you find yourself in? We are soon posting up a way for you to provide us more feedback. Watch this space. In the meantime, read on!

March 19, 2021

“GeoEconomics and the Emerging World Order: The Power of the U.S. Dollar”: Interview with the Honorable Jacob J. Lew

Let me start with the positive—being the world’s reserve currency gives us enormous capacity to support our own fiscal and trade objectives in a way that strengthens our economy and our country. One of the reasons that the United States has the ability to borrow as much as it needs to at a moment like this—during a pandemic, when other countries might not have such easy access—is that when you have the world’s reserve currency, there is depth and liquidity in the markets for your securities unavailable to other currencies.

Feb. 17, 2021

From the Chiefs of the Joint Staff

The American people have trusted the Armed Forces of the United States to protect them and our Constitution for almost 250 years. As we have done throughout our history, the U.S. military will obey lawful orders from civilian leadership, support civil authorities to protect lives and property, ensure public safety in accordance with the law, and remain fully committed to protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Feb. 17, 2021

Military Health System Preparedness in Humanitarian Action

The Department of Defense (DOD) will continue to have a more prominent and active role in support of disaster relief operations due to the increasing frequency and severity of disasters worldwide.The need for defense support to civil authority (DSCA) in domestic disasters is occurring in increasingly complex circumstances, along with analogous humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities overseas.

Feb. 17, 2021

Behind Enemy Plans: A Process-Tracing Analysis of Germany’s Operational Approach to a Western Invasion

Sixty-four years after Moltke’s observation, two mid-level German commanders, faced with the herculean task of changing the course of history on an early June 1944 morning, failed in their duties. In using structured and qualitative analysis to examine German strategy and operations in the events leading up to and on D-Day, the loss can be traced to Admiral Theodor Krancke, commander of Naval Group West, and Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, commander of Luftwaffe Third Air Fleet. Infighting, conflicting authorities, and lack of warfighting capabilities clearly hampered German command and control of operations on the Normandy coast. The Germans did have a plan, however, and Krancke and Sperrle proved to be the weak links: Both failed to execute when facing an Allied invasion on the Western Front.

Feb. 17, 2021

Multidomain Ready: How Integrated Air and Missile Defense Is Leading the Way

The U.S. military’s dominance in the traditional domains of land, sea, and air has been a key advantage that has greatly helped ground forces succeed in recent conflicts. However, strategic competitors have begun to challenge U.S. dominance in these domains with advanced surface-to-air missiles, antiship cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs), antisatellite weapons, mobile sea mines, drones, electronic warfare, and cyber/electronic warfare. Along with these new technologies, new tactics, such as the use of Russian paramilitaries in Ukraine1 and of Chinese fishing boats to enforce territorial claims in the South China Sea,2 have further challenged U.S. military dominance.

Feb. 17, 2021

A New Look at Operational Art: How We View War Dictates How We Fight It

The War of 1812, the Banana Wars, World War I, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan all saw brilliant battlefield victories with limited strategic success. These failures are not a product of the American intellect, spirit, ingenuity, or will. They are a failure of the American view of war and a failure of our model for operational art. The current method by which the United States views the interplay of the levels of war is insufficient to translate tactical victories into strategic and political successes, requiring a new way of viewing operational art and warfare.