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As we go to press with this issue, Bashar al-Asad, one of the longtime dictators in the Middle East, has fled to Russia, and the Syrian people have risen to make that happen. In a similar way to the experiences of the Germans who lived under communist rule for decades until the fall of the Berlin Wall 35 years ago, Syrians are both rejoicing and awakening to the full impact of an authoritarian regime now passing into the dustbin of history. A civil war was a part of their story brought on by several reasons but was inflamed in no small part by a ruling family that believed they were the ones who knew best for their country. They could not have been more wrong. The Asad family did not rise through a democratic process, nor did they rule by one, and in the end the people decided their own fate. Fear of arrest, detention, torture, and death seems to be Asad’s only policy that made his rule last.
I hope that you are thinking about the world as it is and what you think it might become, how that could be achieved, and how our national interests, strategy, and actions might be aligned to bring that world about. Voting is one way of having input into that system of national decisionmaking. For those who are eligible to participate in the national political process by voting, I encourage you to do so.
But what should the U.S. joint force—and its political leadership—take from this latest example of rule by force and its fall? When Libya was liberated from Muammar Qadhafi, one of my students who had been working on the campaign strategy told me that his team, during its initial planning for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-led international campaign, had not considered the possibility of a catastrophic success and its aftermath. How much of a role did the use of military and other instruments of U.S. power play in this latest substantial change in the world, and how is this event connected to ongoing and earlier conflicts in the region? What actions, if any, should the United States and its partners consider taking to assist Syria to transition to a better state? And what posture should U.S. Central Command and the other combatant commands take as the Middle East continues to evolve? The fall of this six-decade dictatorial rule is already having a profound effect on the Syrian people, and the relationships Syria’s next leaders forge with nearby states are sure to affect the geopolitical calculus of Iran, the major supporter of terrorist groups in the region.
In Forum, we take on topics from risk to nuclear weapons to data in operational planning. If you think developing a national policy for the use of military force is important, you must read Frank Hoffman’s latest work on the relationship of risk in U.S. national security strategy formulation. Writing down a strategy is relatively easy compared to the near alchemy needed to assess risk, which is why that process is often bypassed to get action soonest in a crisis. Speaking of risk, did you know Russia has 10 times more “smaller” or nonstrategic nuclear weapons than the United States does, many within striking range of NATO Allies and Ukraine? If you weren’t sure about considering risk under pressure, maybe James Gifford’s insights on these weapons will be useful. Then, for the operational planners among us, Jeremiah Hurley and Morgan Greene discuss how such work should begin with a data-oriented mindset.
JPME Today returns with three excellent articles from our schoolhouses. As we find ourselves once again more in a prepare-for-war mindset, Mary Bell, Edgar Hollandsworth, Thomas Snukis, Jeffrey Turner, Luke Bellocchi, Nicholas Anthony, Steve Tribble, Chris Botterbusch, and Justin Harper explain how the success of joint warfighting in the future will depend on the excellence of joint campaign planners. Returning to a favorite theme in these pages, Brent Lawniczak adds his views on how our forces can best reach the minds of those we want to influence via military operations. Showing that the Chairman’s call for better joint warfighting is being heard, Christopher Marcell, Gaylon McAlpine, Reagan Schaupp, and Joseph Varuolo offer their principles for how professional military education can best support those efforts.
Two interesting Commentary articles could bend your mind a bit. Placing second in last year’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategic Essay Competition, Strategic Research Paper category, Patrick Smith of the U.S. Naval War College suggests we consider the potential for Ireland to join NATO to bolster its western flank. While everyone seems to be getting anxious about artificial intelligence (AI), Koichiro Takagi suggests the Chinese People’s Liberation Army may be convincing itself that AI is the solution to all its weaknesses. What could go wrong with that strategy?
In Features, we have four different but valuable offerings this time. Newport’s operational planning sage, Milan Vego, helps us discern how national leadership can develop its best political objectives in war. As we continue to work out what command and control should be in the next large-scale combat operation the joint force undertakes, Matthew Neuenswander provides us with a detailed update on today’s evolving Tactical Air Control System/Army Air- Ground System. After our recent wars and the pandemic, many will be interested in what Debra Buckland-Coffey, Robert Gerbracht, Kengo Nishida, and William Gureck have to say about how to determine the best way to optimize U.S. distributed maritime operations with wargaming. After the pandemic, we all are very interested in what Gregory Tomlin will tell us about the supply chains that directly impact our national security.
To complete this issue, our Recall article by Casey Baker takes us back over two millennia to show us how close study of the First Punic War provides modern planners, policymakers, and strategists with essential lessons on the nature of strategic competition and joint warfare between competing powers over the long term. Along with three book reviews, in Joint Doctrine, Theodoros Kostis offers an intense look at where stealth fits into today’s military doctrine.
In closing, on behalf of the NDU Press team, I want to wish a fulfilling retirement from Federal service to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman, USMC (Ret.), who has been one of my NDU battle buddies for over a decade. Dr. Hoffman is a thinking Marine at heart but always sees the way to make the rest of us understand this complex world we travel through in a clearer way. If Napoleon had had Frank at his side, things might have turned out quite differently.
In a free society like ours, opinions are plentiful and different, but in my experience, publishing serious work that considers more than the world’s surface concerns will have lasting staying power in the minds of those who lead now and those who will rise to leadership in the future. Americans should do all we can to avoid being so unwilling to listen to each other that we come to prefer leaders who only listen to themselves. As always, we are looking to you to do the creative and critical thinking needed to help us understand where the joint force is and where it should go, putting your best argument down on paper and sending it to us. JFQ
—William T. Eliason, Editor in Chief
Click here to read JFQ 116 →