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March 1, 2009

DTP-060: Operation Anaconda: Lessons for Joint Operations

This study is not an official history of Anaconda but an analysis of lessons that can be learned from that battle and applied to future joint operations. This study’s intent is not to criticize, but instead to offer observations for joint operations, multinational operations, and expeditionary warfare in austere settings.

Feb. 1, 2009

Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st Century

Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st Century is a major policy report with fresh, independent ideas and analysis on the future roles and missions of the NATO Alliance. It calls for a reinvigorated Atlantic partnership to tackle global challenges and a new structure for NATO that rebalances its “home and away missions,” forges a fuller partnership with the European Union and other institutions, reorients Alliance military capabilities, reforms command arrangements, and changes decision-making, spending, and management practices. It also proposes urgent shifts in NATO strategy in Afghanistan and relations with Russia In fall 2008, four U.S. think tanks – the Atlantic Council of the United States; the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); the Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) at the National Defense University (NDU); and the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) – launched the Washington NATO Project to spark debate before and after NATO’s 60th anniversary summit in April, 2009. The Washington NATO Project seeks to generate new ideas and thinking about the transatlantic community’s role in a changing global security environment.

Feb. 1, 2009

DTP-058: Strengthening Technical Peer Review at the Army S&T Laboratories

The paper recommends that the Army require peer review of the technical quality of its laboratories and proposes a set of norms that must be met. The principal recommendation is that reviews be performed by independent experts who visit the laboratory for two or more days, looking at the technical projects and the strength of the technical staff, equipment, and facilities.

Jan. 1, 2009

From Sputnik to Minerva: Education and American National Security

This paper examines how external challenges have prompted national investments in education to enhance American national security. Rather than focusing primarily on traditional professional military education, this analysis examines how education has been used as a tool of American power. Four major moments of transformation in the international system are surveyed to illustrate a link between strategic educational capacity, defined as the application of attained knowledge and skills, and national power. The study then assesses how education is used as a power asset in the contemporary security environment. Today, an important educational capacity is emerging in the new Minerva program in the Department of Defense and other transformational educational concepts with security applications. Education is gaining an increasing interest among American decisionmakers as a strategic component of American power and an essential asset for successful military operations in the new global security environment.

Jan. 1, 2009

DTP-057: Army Science and Technology Investment In Interoperability

This paper discusses the elements of assessing ‘bang for bucks’ with regard to S&T investment in interoperability. It intends to point to where interoperability investment offers the greatest return and to open our thinking to the possibility that universal interoperability of all systems is not a desirable or attainable goal, especially when allocating investments and accepting reasonable risk.

Dec. 1, 2008

Transforming NATO: An NDU Anthology

Since September 11, 2001, the National Defense University has undertaken a series of studies on the Transformation of NATO for 21st Century missions. These studies focused on needed military capabilities, political transformation, new operational requirements, new missions, and NATO science and technology. Some of these studies made recommendations that were adopted as NATO policy while others may be ahead of their time. The purpose of this volume is to collect these studies under one cover and to stimulate further transformation.

Nov. 1, 2008

Lessons of Abu Ghraib: Understanding and Preventing Prisoner Abuse in Military Operations

The abuse of prisoners by U.S. Soldiers at Abu Ghraib had broad strategic consequences, leading many people around the world to question the legitimacy of U.S. goals and activities in Iraq. This paper draws on extensive unclassified reports from multiple investigations that followed Abu Ghraib, and applies key psychological as well as social-situational perspectives to develop a better grasp of the causative factors. From a psychological standpoint, most young adults are powerfully inclined to behave in accord with the social conventions and pressures around them. Especially in ambiguous circumstances, then, it is important that standards of behavior be clear and explicit throughout all phases of an operation and that leaders at all levels represent and reinforce those standards.

Oct. 1, 2008

DTP-056: Reform of the National Security Science and Technology Enterprise

This paper addresses three major topics requiring new thinking in the National Security Science and Technology Enterprise. The first topic is how overarching priorities can be better determined and implemented to direct the vast national security enterprise toward conducting S&T that will address both traditional and new national security challenges. The second deals with the integration of the Congressional committees that oversee and fund S&T. And the third focuses on the competence, role, and impact of the Government’s national security S&E workforce.

Sept. 1, 2008

DTP-054: Good Bugs, Bad Bugs: A Modern Approach for Detecting Offensive Biological Weapons Research

This report outlines a new framework to monitor countries in terms of their potential to engage in covert biological weapons research. This is an effort to develop an indirect approach to measuring a nation’s capability to conduct offensive weapons research in both civilian and government or military settings.

Sept. 1, 2008

DTP-055: A Methodology for Assessing the Military Benefits of Science and Technology Investments

This paper discusses approaches developed at CTNSP, at the request of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology, for measuring the benefits of today’s science and technology (S&T) investments on the future military.