Jan. 18, 2023

America Must Engage in the Fight for Strategic Cognitive Terrain

Combining cutting-edge communications with psychosocial science to employ psychological capitulation strategies has changed the character of modern war. Adversaries combine half-truths with psychodynamic behavioral constructs to compete for strategic cognitive terrain. The U.S. military currently lacks the authorizations and capabilities required to protect societies against gray propaganda. Peter Singer and Emerson Brooking quoted an unattributed U.S. Army officer as saying, “Today we go in with the assumption that we’ll lose the battle of the narrative.” The United States can no longer accept loss in the information fight.

Jan. 16, 2023

Assessing the Trajectory of Biological Research and Development in the Russian Federation

In this troubling environment, it is important to understand the range of advanced biological research and current biotechnology investments by the Russian Federation in legitimate areas of biological research and biotechnology development in order to inform an assessment of the sophistication of Russia’s alleged biological weapons program.

Oct. 25, 2022

Air Mobility Command: The Meaningful Maneuver for Joint Force Victory

In April 2021, General Jacqueline Van Ovost penned a white paper where she outlined Air Mobility Command’s deliberate shift in mindset and tactical approach to staying ready to compete with the high-end adversaries of tomorrow. Fifteen months later, AMC has found itself as the linchpin for several high-profile global operations. These often-unnoticed daily operations, continue to spotlight the unique strategic advantage that AMC offers the joint force. Future conflicts will likely be demanding, ambiguous, contested, and violent. To secure victory for America, the joint force will require the placement of forces to achieve the strategic advantage in conflict, also known as maneuver. AMC will be the meaningful maneuver for the joint force, and we will deliver victory.

Sept. 30, 2022

Defining and Achieving Success in Ukraine

This article examines the ongoing war in Ukraine and explores options that lead to ending the conflict in some way that would constitute success or “victory.” Decisive victory in a purely military sense is an unlikely prospect. A frozen conflict, a larger and longer version of Donbas across the entire Ukrainian frontier, is increasingly likely despite the efforts by the West to induce Russia to back down. The prospects of a grinding stalemate are evident and extending the fighting creates spillover consequences for other U.S. strategic priorities. A war of endurance may play to U.S./European economic advantages but could evolve in a way that harms longer-term interests.

Sept. 1, 2022

Rightsizing Chinese Military Lessons from Ukraine

Russia’s failures in the early phases of the 2022 Ukraine conflict, and Ukraine’s successes, have raised questions about the implications for China’s People’s Liberation Army.

Aug. 9, 2022

Lawfare in Ukraine: Weaponizing International Investment Law and the Law of Armed Conflict Against Russia’s Invasion

This paper explores Ukraine’s innovative use of international investment law to hold Russia financially liable for damages arising out of its 2014 invasion and occupation of Crimea, and how this use of “lawfare” strategy can be further leveraged considering Russia’s renewed military invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

July 27, 2022

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers

Sandworm reads like a fiction crime thriller but raises the alarm about a looming nonfiction threat: unrestricted cyber war. Andy Greenberg, the author and a senior writer for Wired, cautions readers that the world is in the midst of a global cyber arms race. He forewarns that civilian critical infrastructure remains highly vulnerable to cyber attacks by aggressive state and nonstate actors. He identifies malicious cyber attacks, as part of a new tit-for-tat, with escalation mirroring that of the Cold War, with increasingly sophisticated cyber attack methods and capabilities constituting a new, modern arms race. He concludes with an ominous message: that the next cyber doomsday is not a matter of if but when.

April 14, 2022

All Quiet on the Eastern Front: NATO Civil-Military Deterrence of Russian Hybrid Warfare

Building on NATO’s work, thinking, and publications on countering hybrid/gray zone warfare, the analysis presented here provides a framework on the Soviet and contemporary Russian methods within the current operational environment. It then proposes specific actions that NATO must adopt to impose costs on or deny benefits to Russia for employing these tactics, while also encouraging Russian restraint against future hybrid warfare.

Dec. 29, 2021

Building Institutional Capacity in the Ukrainian Armed Forces: Sustainment Planning for U.S.-Provided Equipment

Over a 3-year period (2017–2019), a combined team from U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) and the Institute for Security Governance (ISG) worked closely with their Ukrainian counterparts to establish a simple but effective sustainment planning process, which provides comprehensive upkeep for U.S.-provided equipment. The 2019 DOD Sustainment Train, Advise, and Assist of Foreign Forces Award not only recognizes the important contribution made by ISG and USEUCOM to the UAF but also acknowledges that institutional capacity-building is a critical and effective security cooperation tool that DOD can employ to improve the capabilities of our strategic partners while meeting our own national security objectives.

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.