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April 1, 2015

On Operational Leadership

Success of any military organization depends on the experience and good judgment of its leaders. Ideally, all commanders should have a high level of professional education and training in addition to some critically important character traits. Moreover, the higher the level of command, the more important it is that commanders and staff meet these requirements. Wars are not won or lost at the tactical level but at the operational and strategic levels. Hence, it is critically important that operational commanders are selected based solely on their proven or potential warfighting abilities and not their political connections or management skills. Operational commanders are not managers but should be first and foremost warfighters.

April 1, 2015

Union Success in the Civil War and Lessons for Strategic Leaders

On April 10, 1865, Robert E. Lee wrote a letter to the soldiers of his army that began, “After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been forced to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.” At this moment, the Civil War essentially ended in victory for the Union, and the process of reuniting the United States of America began. Lee’s immediate view of the circumstances, that the Confederate armies had done everything possible but were overmatched by Northern numbers, provided a means by which his veterans could feel that they had served honorably, but it was challenged almost immediately by other Confederate military and political leaders who blamed instead such factors as incompetent government, social divisions, and political squabbling for their defeat. The Confederacy, many felt, would not have embarked on a war it could not win. Indeed, its success in repelling invasions over the first 2 years of the war led many to believe that the war had almost been won.

April 1, 2015

Book Review: World Order

Henry Kissinger, the scholar, statesman, and philosopher, writes a fascinating, insightful, and thought-provoking history of the concept of the state, statecraft, grand strategy, and international cooperation in the pursuit of order and stability among nations. Although no true universal arrangement among states has ever existed, he asserts the order that does exist is at risk because of developing forces beyond the control of states themselves. So we must ask whether collective state order can be achieved while maintaining individual state freedom in an increasingly intricate and turbulent global environment.

April 1, 2015

Russia and the Relationship Between Law and Power

Winston Churchill stated, “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” James Terry patiently peels away each of those layers to hypothesize an unrelenting consistency and prevailing logic to Russian behavior as it seeks power, for myriad reasons, over those who dwell within and without its self-defined boundaries. The release of this compact yet intricate work by Dr. Terry, addressing the long and convoluted history of Russia and its recurrent international “habits,” could not be timelier in multiple contexts.

April 1, 2015

The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur and Franklin Roosevelt first met in 1916 when both were involved in planning prewar mobilization for the Woodrow Wilson administration. Two years later, MacArthur was commanding the Rainbow Division in France where he earned seven Silver Stars for courage and bravery in leading his troops in battle against the Germans, while Roosevelt was serving as President Wilson’s assistant Secretary of the Navy. When Roosevelt became President in 1933, MacArthur was the Army’s chief of staff (having been appointed by President Herbert Hoover). Roosevelt, mainly for political reasons, extended MacArthur’s term as Army chief of staff, but the two repeatedly clashed over budget matters. During World War II, Roosevelt as commander in chief selected MacArthur to lead the U.S. war effort in the Southwest Pacific.

April 1, 2015

The Way Ahead for Joint Operations and Planning Doctrine

Two of joint doctrine’s keystone1 joint publications (JPs) have entered the window for revision—JP 3-0, Joint Operations, and JP 5-0, Joint Operation Planning. Both publications received comprehensive assessments in 2014, which generated a wide variety of recommended changes from combatant commands (CCMD), the Services, National Guard Bureau, Defense agencies, and the Joint Staff. This article describes the more significant of these.

April 1, 2015

Joint Doctrine Update

DOWNLOAD PDFJoint Publications (JPs) Under Revision (to be signed within 6 months)JP 1-0, Joint Personnel SupportJP 1-04, Legal Support to Military OperationsJP 3-05.1, Unconventional WarfareJP 3-13.3, Operations SecurityJP 3-15, Barriers, Obstacles, and Mine WarfareJP 3-50, Personnel RecoveryJP 3-61, Public AffairsJP 3-68, Noncombatant Evacuation

April 1, 2015

Five Examples of Big Data Analytics and the Future of ISR

.center-image{ margin: 0px auto; padding: 5px; border: thin solid #999999; width:100%; }DOWNLOAD PDFWhen we talk about U.S. Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in 2023, we often depict it graphically as beginning with a global array of sensors that produces a variety of data absorbed in a cloud, from which

April 1, 2015

Global Knowledge Networking: Smart Strategies for Promoting Innovative Learning and Leader Development

Smart security builds on actionable knowledge. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Wales Summit in September 2014 highlighted the need to build on partnerships to prepare and operate together better. Building on the successes of past partnership initiatives and capabilities, this paper proposes new ways to embrace and extend techniques and relationships originally developed under successful Secretary of Defense (SECDEF)-level memoranda of understanding (MOUs) within NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. The Global Knowledge Networking (GKN) initiative supports smart decisionmaking by educating and training tomorrow’s agile, resilient, and effective leaders. GKN is a network of people, ideas, and processes to make knowledge actionable and is focused on improving on U.S. and coalition interoperability through improvements in existing training and education capabilities. It has begun to convene strategic dialogues around key challenges and collectively owned opportunities. Its initial framing is globally relevant and focused on the Arabian Gulf region through a proposed test bed for collaboration with the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This will allow new tools for interoperability to be explored and created together as enablers of joint capability. Drawing on the experiences of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, it will promote an innovative systems approach that could help cultivate and sustain more effective security partnerships around the globe.

April 1, 2015

Responding to Russia after the NATO Summit: Unmanned Aerial Systems Overmatch in the Black Sea

The Ukraine conflict poses unique and asymmetric challenges to the international community. Since the earliest days of the Crimean crisis, Russian support of “separatists” within Ukraine has ranged from plainclothes thugs to more traditional uniformed troops, munitions, and other forms of aid. Some of the individuals involved may have had links to the Russian military or its intelligence community. While much of the aid comes through the porous border between Russia and Ukraine, Russia also leverages the opportunity to use Black Sea smugglers as a way to supply ongoing rebellions or to initiate new revolts. Two Black Sea–bordering regions, Odessa and Transnistria, are home to active pro-Russian movements that could potentially evolve into a pro-Russian state. Worries of Russia supplying separatists via illicit movements on the Black Sea and generally advancing its Novorossyia claims should be matched to a general concern over Black Sea smuggling rings, which traffic humans, weapons, and nuclear materials into Europe via Odessa’s port.