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First page of Strategic Forum 313, "Drone Delivery of Bioweapons: Responsibilities for Force Readiness" by Dr. James Giordano and Dr. Diane DiEuliis

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The U.S. National Drone Association recently sponsored the inaugural international U.S. Military Drone Crucible Championship to provide a venue for American and allied military drone training, advanced piloting, operational utility, and countermeasure capability.¹ The relevance—and importance—of such incentives and initiatives is clear in light of iterative development, availability, and utilization of drone technology in military operations and potential manifestations of envisioned large-scale drone employment in kinetic and nonkinetic engagements.² Such developments become ever more relevant and critical, as iterative advancements in the biosciences (for example, synthetic biology, gene editing, nanoscale biomaterials) have potential to be used as novel weapons that could employ drone technology for more facile, effective, and efficient delivery to particular types of targets.³

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Cover of A Framework for Countering Organized Crime

Cover of A Framework for Countering Organized Crime.

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Executive Summary

States continue to struggle in their efforts to counter organized crime. Despite states having scored successes at the operational level, organized crime has proven too adaptable and too resilient to be seriously affected. Instead, ground has been lost politically, societally, and even territorially to armed gangs, cartels, and other illicit structures. The result is a steady erosion of the rule of law, of norms of sovereignty, of governance, and of human security.

This monograph is based on the urgent need for a more effective response to organized crime. Its key contributions are twofold. First, it applies an “irregular warfare” lens to the problem of organized crime. This lens helps situate the divergent criminal activity within its crucial political context. It frames “threat actors” not as isolated problems but as symptoms of a socioeconomic-political system that must be understood and addressed. Treating legitimacy as the strategic center of gravity, irregular warfare focuses attention on the political drivers of illicit behavior, the contested narratives among the actors involved, and the need for a broader response than typically employed.

Second, we propose an analytical framework, designed for irregular warfare challenges, to aid practitioners in their assessment of, and their response to, organized crime. This approach—the Framework for Analysis and Action—builds on an instructional method long used within the College of International Security Affairs at the U.S. National Defense University in Washington, DC, to prepare practitioners for insurgency, terrorism, and state-based subversion. It has proven utility, both in the classroom and in the field. Here, it is adapted specifically for organized crime, to guide the analysis and planning of those who are charged with responding to this challenge.

The Framework for Analysis and Action offers a sequence of prompts, informed by two decades of recent analytical experience with irregular warfare. It consists of two parts: the Strategic Estimate of the Situation (which maps the problem; explores its drivers, frames, and strategies; and critiques the current response) and the Course of Action (which uses the Strategic Estimate to design an appropriate strategy, with a theory of success, and an assessment of assumptions, legal authority, metrics, phasing, and risk mitigation). Based on a critical review of current practice, we contend that existing processes for analysis and action are currently weak—to the detriment of strategic effectiveness. Though an analytical framework is no panacea for the current crisis of strategy, it is an indispensable starting point for all that must follow.

To assist application of our framework to the problem of organized crime, this monograph walks through each section of the adapted approach. Throughout, reference is made to cases of organized crime to demonstrate the insight thus gained. An abbreviated “user’s guide” for the framework is included in Appendix A to facilitate its rapid employment.

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Air Force intelligence analysts from 9th Intelligence Squadron analyze geographical data at Beale Air Force Base, California, February 19, 2025 (U.S. Air Force/Frederick A. Brown)

In a 2015 Joint Force Quarterly article, several analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) proposed a vision for how the Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) would lead analytic transformation into what we now call “strategic competition.” While primarily focused on the need for better big data integration, a key recommendation included a way ahead for training to meet new challenges:

To build the levels of professional trust and skills needed for this degree of sophisticated collaboration, DIA is making strategic investments in training, education, and professional development. We will establish and measure critical analytic skills for the [DIE] through the analyst professional certification program. The program will assess analyst knowledge and performance of critical skills and emphasize continuous analytic proficiency through lifelong learning. These shared skill standards will ensure analysts in the [DIE] are synchronized in their use of analytic tradecraft.¹

Two joint intelligence current operations analysts work on providing updates to mock scheme of maneuver during command post exercise portion of African Lion 2024, Agadir, Morocco, May 23, 2024 (U.S. Army/Ed McBride)

It all sounds great, but what if we are not using the right standards? And why are we not?

The standards are found in the Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 3115.17, Management and Oversight of DOD All-Source Analysis, which provides Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) policy guidance to the DIE for defense analysis and assigns responsibilities for the management and oversight of DOD all-source analysis to an analysis functional manager, now called Defense Intelligence Enterprise Managers (DIEM).² The DODI states up front that the policy is “Consistent with the Principles of Joint Intelligence in Joint Publication [JP] 2-0 [Joint Intelligence] ([DODI] Reference (j)) and the Intelligence Community (IC) Analytic Standards, including Analytic Tradecraft Standards, in Intelligence Community Directive [ICD] 203 ([DODI] Reference (k)) and as appropriate to the level and type of analysis being performed.”³

Under the DIE Analytic Functional Manager responsibilities, it adds that they “[advise] the [Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD I&S)]; the CJCS [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]; and the Director, DIA, on the development and implementation of training, education, and certification programs for Defense Intelligence all source analysts in accordance with Joint and IC standards pursuant to References (j) and (k).”⁴

These two key references—JP 2-0 and ICD 203—provide a balance in what defense analysis delivers and the analytic skills applied to specify timely, relevant, and accurate intelligence to decisionmakers. Yet support to the joint force—the warfighting decisionmakers—has degraded over 20 years, as training has focused more on the skills (Reference k) as opposed to the outputs of defense analysis (Reference j). As a result, many intelligence analysts no longer speak the same language as the joint force, instead adhering exclusively to analytic tradecraft and processes developed independent from joint doctrine warfighter support requirements. It is as if a baseball coach brought a set of training programs to a team that focused on weightlifting, nutrition, mental health, and team building but did not bother to practice hitting and fielding. The team undoubtedly would be stronger, healthier, and maybe even happier, but that does not mean that they could throw strikes, hit homeruns, or win games. The basic rules of the game—the principles of joint intelligence—are deficient in the analytic tradecraft—and because of this, the warfighter is losing.

Hyperbole? Perhaps, but the joint intelligence planning community—which consists of more than 300 intelligence officers at DIA headquarters, the Joint Staff J2, and combatant command (CCMD) J2s—has noted a steady decrease in defense intelligence officer’s ability to understand how the analytic function supports planning and operations. Examples include:

• Product lines that prevent maintenance of running assessments of the operational environment due to production at CCMDs and policymakers being driven by requests for information and tasking. As a result, products are often limited to static formats versus the running estimates that the Joint Concept for Competition and campaigning decisions require.
• Shift at CCMDs from Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIR) development for commander decisions to key intelligence question methodology, which is an intelligence analyst–driven construct. The decoupling of PIRs from decisions results in a disconnect between indicators in the warning framework and indicators in PIRs as a disconnect in vernacular between the analysts and operators on warning.
• Lack of training on adversary situation and decision templates to support enemy course of action (ECOA) development and COA war-gaming and analysis, which further exacerbate the lack in understanding of how decision support templates drive warning and PIRs.
• Friction between analytic lines and the exploratory analyses that are necessary to support planning assumptions and ECOA development. This is in large part driven by a lack of understanding of how intelligence is integrated into planning and operations through the joint planning processes rather than providing intelligence as a separate and definitive product line.
• Lack of training on operational assessments necessary to support global and CCMD campaign assessments and inform the Chairman and commanders on the effectiveness of the military approach.
• Divergence in tradecraft among deterrence assessments, perception analysis, and Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (JIPOE) instruction on analyzing the cognitive domain and information operations.

This article aims to identify and outline structural reasons behind key gaps in intelligence analytic support to the joint force and to recommend changes to how joint military intelligence officers rebalance IC tradecraft and joint force standards.

From 9/11 and IRTPA to ICD 203: Creating Analytic Tradecraft Standards

For most of the thousands of intelligence officers hired after September 11, 2001, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act (IRTPA), signed in December 2004, has governed the organizational construct and provided guidance for IC operations and improved integration (see textbox for 18 IC members). IRTPA was a response to the lack of intelligence-sharing and tradecraft that contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and faulty assertions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

One of the ways the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) implemented the mandates from IRTPA was by developing and publishing ICD 203, first published in 2007 and last updated in 2022. ICD 203 established the IC’s “Analytic Standards that govern production and evaluation of analytic products; articulates the responsibility of intelligence analysts to strive for excellence, integrity, and rigor in their analytic thinking and work practices; and delineates the role of the [ODNI] Analytic Ombuds.”⁵ It further states that the “IC Analytic Standards serve as a common IC foundation for developing education and training in analytic skills. The results of analytic product evaluations will be used to improve materials and programs for education and training in analytic knowledge, skills, abilities, and tradecraft.”⁶

ICD 203 includes five analytic standards and nine tradecraft standards, which drive analytic tradecraft, review, and publication criteria. These include:

• objective
• independent of political consideration
• timely
• based on all available sources of intelligence information
• implements and exhibits analytic tradecraft standards.

ICD 203 and implementation of a DIE-wide training standard to the principles in it have unquestionably improved how analysis is presented to decisionmakers, but it does not capture the standards or tradecraft for what analysis is required by the joint force. To address those gaps, defense intelligence must look toward joint doctrine, Reference J.

Joint Intelligence Principles and the Missing Standards

What is Reference J, Joint Intelligence? Intelligence is one of the seven joint functions identified as central to all joint operations and joint operational planning in both JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, and JP 5-0, Joint Planning. JP 3-0 states:

Understanding the operational environment is fundamental to joint operations. The intelligence function informs joint force commanders about adversary intentions, capabilities, centers of gravity, critical factors, vulnerabilities, and future courses of action. . . . Using the continuous JIPOE analysis process, properly tailored JIPOE products can enhance the operating environment (OE) understanding and enable the Joint Force Commander to act quickly and effectively.⁷

JP 5-0 cites JIPOE 44 times with pages dedicated to outlining for nonintelligence officers the joint intelligence deliverables and products expected throughout all seven steps of the joint planning process, operations, as well as multiple steps of the assessment process.⁸ JP 5-0 also argues for running estimates, and not static product lines, to facilitate the transition to crisis planning: “This is why CCMD JIPOE efforts should be continuous; these efforts maintain the intelligence portions of the CCDR’s strategic estimate. Keeping the strategic estimate up to date greatly facilitates planning in a crisis, as well as the transition of contingency plans to execution in crisis situations.”⁹ JP 2-0 further defines the roles and responsibilities of joint intelligence, which include:

• Support the planning of operations

– describe the OE
– provide estimates of adversary intentions, capabilities, and COAs
– analyze target systems and identify
their vulnerabilities
– identify, define, and nominate objectives

• Support the execution of operations

– monitor the OE
– provide warning
– enable physical and nonphysical engagements against designated targets

• Assess the effectiveness of operations

– perform battle damage assessment
– measure changes to adversary capabilities, system behavior, and the OE.¹⁰

Figure. Four-Step JIPOE Process

The key joint intelligence tasks in the definition (above in italics) from Operations (Joint Staff J3), Strategy, Plans, and Policy (J5), and Intelligence (J2) doctrine are the four steps of JIPOE, which are cited by both JP 3-0 and JP 5-0 as the methodology behind the joint intelligence function (see figure). JP 2-01.3, Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment, is solely dedicated to the process, templates, and step-by-step instructions for defense intelligence analysts. In addition to JP 2-01.3, JP 5-0 devotes five pages to explaining the significance of the JIPOE process to planning and assessments, emphasizing the importance of these intelligence tasks to joint planning and operations. Every joint officer (military and civilian) who is trained in professional military education has studied JP 3-0 and JP 5-0. They expect the expert intelligence analysts on the planning teams to conduct JIPOE and deliver an ECOA.

While doctrine identifies the standards for what joint intelligence produces, the Chairman’s Readiness System and associated CJCS instructions governing it provide the authorities for joint commanders and the Joint Staff to demand they are upheld. In CJCS Instruction 3500.02C, Universal Joint Task List (UJTL) Program, the Chairman states that the UJTL is the “authoritative menu (or library) of all approved joint tasks required for planning, readiness reporting, training, and exercises, lessons learned processing, and requirements.”¹¹ The UJTL provides the standardization for all warfighting functions from the strategic to the tactical levels, from which 1 million Servicemembers in the joint force speak, plan, train to, exercise, and assess the ability to perform joint operations. Intelligence does not get a pass. The warfighter we support expects intelligence analysts to perform these tasks to these standards in these terms. The intelligence tasks in the UJTL mirror the intelligence cycle:

• planning and direction (2.1)
• collection (2.2)
• exploitation (2.3)
• analysis (2.4)
• dissemination (2.5)
• evaluation (2.6).

For the thousands of defense intelligence analysts at DIA and in the CCMDs, the most relevant tasks to drive analytic standards, training, and resources are the strategic national (SN) and strategic theater (ST) tasks:

• SN 2.4, Produce Strategic Intelligence
• SN 2.4.1.1, Identify Issues and/or Threats Priority
• SN 2.4.1.2, Determine Adversary Capabilities
• ST 2.4, Develop Intelligence
• ST 2.4.1, Conduct JIPOE
• ST 2.4.3, Provide Theater Intelligence Products.¹²

Army Major Taihei Hongo, Washington National Guard, attends Operational Intelligence Preparation of the Environment brief during exercise Cobra Gold on Camp Red Horse, Utapao, Rayong Province, Kingdom of Thailand, March 1, 2023 (U.S. Army National Guard/Adeline Witherspoon)

Though the UJTL titles appear generic, the description of each connects directly to the doctrinal definition, citing JP 2-01.3 as the foundational source for each.¹³ Moreover, each analytic task in the UJTL returns to the italicized text in the joint intelligence function that cites the key intelligence outputs of JIPOE, center of gravity (COG), and ECOAs, which are necessary to inform operational and planning decisions. Finally, each Universal Joint Task includes standards for assessment and training. It is wonderfully logical and yet so woefully overlooked.

Most analysts in support of the CCMDs or the Joint Staff do not have formal training in JIPOE or the core responsibilities listed for joint intelligence. Nor does the joint intelligence function consistently report the ability to perform these tasks through the Defense Readiness and Reporting System required by the Chairman’s Readiness System. Instead, the OUSDI&S and the DIEM for analysis employ different frameworks and different standards for analytic readiness assessments. At a minimum, these parallel processes are inefficient. At worst, they impede commanders’ ability to fully assesses risk to their mission.

Recommendations

Change must first start with redesign and reeducation of DIE analytic training to capture the key analytic tasks expected from joint intelligence and then must continue through the structural realignment of how managers of the defense analysis enterprise assess the DIE’s ability to conduct defense analysis at the theater and national levels. Practical change includes:

• Relink IC analytic standards to SN and ST 2.4 series tasks and update the measures and standards to include ICD 203 standards. That way assessments under the DIEM construct and joint force constructs are realigned and support both the CJCS and OUSD I&S.
• Re-baseline analytic training Terminal Learning Objectives (TLOs) (used to identify training objectives at the DIA Joint Military Intelligence Training Center) to the UJTL SN and ST 2.4 series and include training courses or modules on:

– PIR development and relationship to warning and assessments
– JIPOE
– ECOA development, to include situational templates and matrices
– COG analysis
– Operational assessments to include updates on intelligence requirements on monitoring the environment and assessing adversary perceptions as described in the Joint Concept for Competition and Joint Warfighting Concept.

• Align training in intelligence planning, analysis, collection, and targeting courses to understand tasks associated with requirements planning aligned to SN 2.1.2, Determine Strategic Intelligence Requirements. Differentiate between the ICD 203 tradecraft in developing key intelligence questions for policymakers and the process for developing PIR for commanders.
• Develop dual-approved joint tradecraft notes between the analytic career field and intelligence planning functional managers for JIPOE, ECOA development, COG analysis, and operational assessments; expand to dual tradecraft notes between other mission management career fields such as targeting and collection management and analysis enterprise managers to enable common lexicon and training.
• Align analysis training with intelligence planning instruction so that both the analyst and intelligence planning communities train to the same standards. Joint Staff J2’s steps toward reimagining warning will help realign planning decisions to warning problems.
• Evaluate additional joint military intelligence training courses’ TLOs and relationship to UJTs and develop intelligence support to planning and operations modules into analysis, targeting, partner engagement, foreign disclosure, collection, and warning courses to enable cross training. Each of these intelligence functions are members of an intelligence planning team and are expected to contribute to planning and develop appendices to the annex Bs for Campaign and Contingency Plans.
• Realign readiness and risk reporting under DIEMs to the reference assessments within joint and agency Mission Essential Task Lists for SN 2.4 and ST 2.4 series.
• Update deterrence and perceptions tradecraft notes to align with doctrine on operational assessments and potentially joint targeting methodology for assessing battlefield damage in the cognitive domain.
• Develop a joint military intelligence officer course and/or certification program for intelligence officers assigned to CCMD J2s. Add language to define support to joint planning, operations, or combat assessments into performance objective language for analysts at CCMDs. Nonspecific language in performance objectives has not succeeded in helping analysts understand their part in the JIPOE and joint intelligence support.
• Revisit the delineation of 11 career fields, particularly the ones aligned to intelligence operations/intelligence cycle, and identify ways to mandate cross training so that the intelligence cycle is a cycle and not cylinders

We in the DIE can no longer focus exclusively on training intelligence analytic tradecraft at the expense of training analysts to support the joint force. The regression of the joint military intelligence officer away from joint doctrine has been 20 years in the making. It is time to reevaluate intelligence analytic training standards. If IRTPA and the reforms from 2004 to 2008 overcorrected deficiencies in military intelligence support, we do not need to wait another 20 years to rebalance and make clear that when we say we support the warfighter, we know what that means. JFQ

Notes

¹ Catherine Johnston et al., “Transforming Defense Analysis,” Joint Force Quarterly 79 (4th Quarter 2015), https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/621117/transforming-defense-analysis/. Emphasis added.

² Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 3115.17, Management and Oversight of DOD All-Source Analysis (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, September 21, 2020), https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/311517p.pdf.

³ DODI 3115.17, 2.

⁴ DODI 3115.17, 8.

⁵ Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 203 (McLean, VA: ODNI, December 21, 2022), 2.

⁶ ODNI, ICD 203. Emphasis added.

⁷ Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, June 18, 2022), I-13, https://jdeis.js.mil/jdeis/new_pubs/jp3_0.pdf. Emphasis added.

⁸ JP 5-0, Joint Planning (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, December 1, 2020), https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp5_0.pdf.

⁹ JP 5-0, II-27. Emphasis added.

¹⁰ JP 2-0, Joint Intelligence (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, October 22, 2013), https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp2_0.pdf.

¹¹ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3500.02C, Universal Joint Task List Program (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, December 19, 2022), 1, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Library/Instructions/CJCSI%203500.02C.pdf. Emphasis added.

¹² See “Universal Joint Task List,” Joint Chiefs of Staff, last updated May 15, 2025, 76, 78, 80, 617, 619, 623, https://www.jcs.mil/Doctrine/Joint-Training/UJTL/.

¹³ JP 2-01.3, Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, May 21, 2014), https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp2-01-3.pdf.

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As an expert on insurgency in Latin America, my investigations of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) led me to observe an interesting dilemma: The FARC adopted methods that made it militarily strong yet undermined the popular base it was trying to mobilize. Specifically, these methods included the use of wildly inaccurate homemade mortars, unprecedented levels of kidnapping, and drug trafficking. These allowed FARC to build a formidable military machine that was hard to defeat, but it also reduced its political appeal.

Despite popular protests, FARC seemed tone deaf. Internal documents reveal that within the leadership there was considerable debate about these activities alienating the people. Nonetheless, the FARC did not stop. Why? Because the FARC thought that it would reduce its military advantage, thus superseding the negative impact on political mobilization. I struggled to find academic literature to explain this trade-off until I found David Ucko’s The Insurgent’s Dilemma: A Struggle to Prevail. Ucko is currently head of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Net Assessment, which speaks to the heart of the matter. Prior to joining NATO, Ucko was a professor of irregular warfare in the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University, and this work is the product of his years of teaching and researching this topic.

Insurgents, posits Ucko, must grapple with competing imperatives: the need to build popular support, the need to secure resources, and the need to maintain military effectiveness in the face of overwhelming state opposition. The Insurgent’s Dilemma not only treats how this is done but, most important, also how the changing global context has led to new approaches to the nature of insurgency. Traditional insurgency, built on amassing military power sufficient to vanquish the state, has now been driven by changed circumstances politically, technologically, and resource-wise to adapt. FARC, in other words, was caught during change and could not see its way through to such adaptation.

The Mexican Zapatistas provide a useful example of new approaches discussed by Ucko. The first form of adaptation Ucko identifies is ideational insurgency. The Zapatistas initially resembled FARC but during their first uprising found themselves facing obliteration by superior state power. Quick adaptation to what RAND researchers John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt termed netwar caused a cyber-generated and -facilitated international network of support to bring neutralizing power to bear on the Mexican state. Violence became secondary, the Zapatistas survived, and their cause remained robust. FARC would never have thought to make this shift.

The Zapatistas also displayed what Ucko identifies as a second form of adaptation, local insurgency, in which a group contents itself with dominating a local region vice overthrowing a national government. They remained a force in Chiapas, but not all of Mexico, neutralizing government power by enmeshing themselves with the local population. The FARC, in contrast, wanted nothing less than total state power and were forced to the peace table when they proved incapable.

Significantly, the Zapatistas also displayed a third form of insurgent adaptation identified by Ucko, infiltrative insurgency, that is, the penetration of key institutions to manipulate their actions from within. Through propaganda, mass action, and political alliances, the Zapatistas sought to advance their goals against the state by converting its key actors. The contrast with FARC highlights how divorced FARC was from the emerging trends in insurgent action, seeing massed martial power as the only path to insurgent victory. Unable to achieve it, the FARC was defeated.

The central dilemma insurgencies now face is that they must not only mobilize popular support but also fight in a way that allows survival and goal attainment. To summarize Mao Zedong on this dilemma, one cannot mobilize the people enough to win if one does not fight, and one cannot fight to win if one does not mobilize.

A key aspect of any insurgency remains its use of violence, but since states usually have a significant advantage in terms of resources and firepower, insurgents must find a way to leverage asymmetry to “flip” the correlation of forces. This includes altering goals to achieve what is desired while remaining off the state radar screen for as long as necessary. This dilemma exists because of the insurgent’s need to establish legitimacy and support among local populations while simultaneously pursuing military objectives against a far more powerful state. The dilemma becomes clear when insurgents must decide between engaging in violent tactics that may alienate the population or moderating their actions to maintain support even while risking military failure. This tension between violence and legitimacy often defines the trajectory of an insurgency.

Ucko demonstrates that changing circumstances since the end of the Cold War have forced insurgencies to get creative and adapt. This is a point that has been missed by some analysts and ties in with Vietnamese Communist theorist Truong Chinh’s concept of the “combination of all forms of struggle” or “the war of interlocking,” where different forms and modes of struggle will predominate in space and time depending on the relative correlation of forces. An insurgency must continually analyze and adapt. FARC was not oblivious to the issue but could not bring itself to adapt in any way save “more of the same.”

Ucko observes that insurgencies often evolve in cycles. At first, insurgent groups may adopt a highly ideological stance, focusing on spreading their message and recruiting new members. Over time, however, as the group becomes more operationally focused, its strategy may shift toward military goals, such as weakening state infrastructure, while trying to retain its political legitimacy. These transitions are not always smooth, and insurgent groups often struggle with internal conflicts between factions that prioritize different objectives.

The Insurgent’s Dilemma also grapples with the problems that face insurgencies that achieve victory. Analyses normally stop once an insurgency defeats the government. Victory introduces new dilemmas such as post-victory fragmentation. As insurgents transition from a guerrilla movement to a governing entity, they often face internal fragmentation and factionalism. The differences in objectives that once were manageable in the insurgency phase become sharper as the group tries to consolidate control over a new and often fractured political environment.

Maintaining legitimacy is also a significant post-insurgency problem. Insurgents must convert their military victory into political and social stability. This is much more difficult than is often thought, as insurgents usually have limited experience in administering a state and managing complex societal issues. So many revolutionary governments morph into dictatorships as the challenges of governing can be as or more complex than overthrowing the previous government.

If Ucko only analyzed the insurgent side of the equation, this would be a significant book, but he goes beyond and discusses how counterinsurgencies can work, given the insurgent’s dilemmas. Just as the insurgency adapts so must the state adapt to neutralize insurgent adaptations, point-counterpoint. A particular problem of counterinsurgency is that so many states treat it as a purely military problem. While there is a significant military component, it is never solely a military task. This is particularly the case with global contextual shift requiring new insurgent approaches to goal realization.

In counter, then, military pressure, which has always been necessary, now also faces the need to adapt. It has always been known that too much military action can drive the population into the insurgent camp. Like the insurgents, the state may sometimes choose not to engage or moderate its military engagement against the insurgency to maintain the moral high ground and retain the loyalty of the population. This has become more important than ever. FARC erred spectacularly in this regard, as Ucko notes. Claiming to be a people’s war, it was, as Thomas Marks has written, a large foco [focus] searching ineptly for a mass base. Legitimacy, from first to last, remained with the state.

In The Insurgent’s Dilemma, David Ucko offers a thorough analysis of the strategic challenges faced by insurgent groups in both theory and practice. The book’s central thesis is that changing global (and thus national) context has compelled insurgents to balance components of approach in ways so dissimilar to the past as to create new syntheses. FARC is especially useful as a negative example. By examining the multiple dilemmas insurgents face at different stages of their struggle, Ucko provides a nuanced understanding of irregular warfare and insurgency dynamics. Moving beyond traditional coverage of how insurgents must balance their various lines of effort, he illuminates the new challenges faced by such groups in a transformed world. Ucko’s work is a significant contribution to the study of insurgency and counterinsurgency, offering valuable insights for scholars, policymakers, and military practitioners alike. JFQ 

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The second edition of Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles and Policy, John Klein’s landmark work on spacepower, is a substantial expansion and update to the original. The book is a comprehensive primer on spacepower, intentional in its reliance on analogy to other domains (especially the maritime domain) but mindful of the limits of analysis by analogy. Klein emphasizes common characteristics of the maritime and space domains, such as expansive lines of communication, distant hubs of activity, movement of people and commerce, strategic positions, and interaction with activities on land. In the revised, updated, and expanded second edition, he adds depth and nuance to his analogies to maritime strategy and updates the book to reflect many developments in military space operations over the past two decades.

Klein is a senior fellow and strategist at Falcon Research, Inc.; an adjunct professor at The George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute; and a prolific author on space strategy. Space Warfare, originally published in 2006, was first of his several influential books on space power. Well versed in maritime strategy from his years as a naval officer, Klein’s approach to spacepower is often summarized as “Corbett on orbit” for his application to space of Sir Julian Corbett’s views on naval power.

The second edition has been updated throughout to reflect the establishment of U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force, to address recent events in space, and to reference new and revised sources of space policy and doctrine. The second edition also offers much more robust consideration of legal issues applied to space operations in competition and conflict.

The new edition, like the first, is organized into three major parts. Part I introduces the space domain and major principles of military strategy relevant to the topic. A notable new passage is the author’s confession of error in the first edition’s comparative assessment of naval strategists Alfred Thayer Mahan and Corbett. Mahan is often associated with seeking decisive battle, while Corbett is understood to emphasize preserving access to sea lines of communication. Each generalized proposition obscures the depth of their ideas. Klein notes that Mahan’s best-known statements are excerpts from his early writings. Mahan further developed his ideas throughout his lengthy professional career, and Corbett had the benefit of beginning where Mahan left off. Klein urges strategists to see Mahan and Corbett as “two sides of the maritime strategy coin” and ultimately defends his reliance on Corbett as the later and more fulsome culmination of both strategists’ thought.

Also new in part I is a brief but important discussion of Chinese views on “cultural security,” the extent of a population’s acceptance of a distinct cultural identity, political structures, and information norms. Space capabilities such as satellite communications can bypass firewalls and other national information controls deployed in the name of cultural security. Such considerations can be significant for how authoritarian regimes like the Chinese Community Party approach space.

Part II is the heart of Klein’s application of naval strategy to space warfare, and most of Klein’s core analysis from the first edition endures in here. However, some passages have been substantially expanded. One example is chapter 11, “Limited Space Warfare, Asymmetric Advantage, and Coercion” (titled “Space as a Barrier” in the first edition). This new title suggests its relevance to the joint force: space operations have qualities analogous to special operations and irregular warfare, arguably better understood across the joint force following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the first edition’s more counterintuitive approach to “space as a barrier.”

Another newly expanded discussion concerns a “disposal space force,” a nod to Corbett’s “disposal force” for conducting operations “as a method of disturbing our enemy’s plans and strengthening . . . our own positions.” Klein also discusses the concept of a “space force in being,” after Corbett’s admonition to avoid “decisive action by strategical or tactical activity, so as to keep our fleet in being till the situation develops in our favor.” Each of these ideas is developed even more fully in Klein’s Fight for the Final Frontier: Irregular Warfare in Space (Naval Institute Press, 2023). However, their inclusion in Space Warfare adds coherence to the latter’s more expansive approach to spacepower.

Entirely new in the second edition is chapter 13, “Guardian Angels and Celestial Demons.” Klein makes the technical, operational, and doctrinal case for spacecraft optimized for defense and attack. Guardian Angels are “autonomous, cooperative, co-orbital spacecraft operating in proximity to the defended target to provide characterization, awareness, and evaluation of the local region . . . (and) possess(ing) the capabilities necessary to protect and defend the target.” “Celestial Demons” are their offensive opposite number: spacecraft for surveillance, characterization, and interdiction of adversary satellites. Klein again borrows from the naval tradition in analogizing these spacecraft to hukker (“hunter-killer”) antisubmarine task forces.

Also in chapter 13, Klein foresees the eventual need for “constabulary” space forces for rescue, law enforcement, and grey-zone operations, particularly as commercial utilization of lunar resources becomes feasible. He posits a force analogous to the U.S. Coast Guard for space—specifically authorized for law enforcement functions—though concedes the political will for such a reorganization of U.S. space forces is probably decades away.

In part III, Klein concludes his defense of maritime strategic thought as an intellectual baseline for understanding spacepower. He also makes policy recommendations about the U.S. approach to space warfare. New to the second edition is a recommendation to establish a Space National Guard. Klein notes the value of part-time citizen Guardians to space missions, the utility of space for disaster response such as overhead infrared sensing for countering wildfires, and National Guard support to domestic crisis response.

Space Warfare does not address recent legislation establishing a “single component” Space Force, which already provides a legal authority for Space Force Guardians to serve on a full-time or part-time basis. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear why National Guard–specific authorities would be necessary to bring satellites—inherently deployed beyond the political or legal jurisdiction of any state or territorial governor—to bear on domestic problems. Currently, no National Guard space mission units operate systems capable of “monitor(ing) large gatherings of people engaged in civil unrest” (one of the missions Klein suggests for a Space National Guard). His recommendation may envision a future National Guard equipped for such missions. In any event, Klein’s digression on a Space National Guard is a brief detour in his analysis.

Space Warfare is a bright star in the constellation of spacepower literature. Klein’s core ideas, first articulated two decades ago in the first edition, remain relevant and insightful. The second edition builds on that strong foundation, much as Corbett’s ideas built on Mahan’s, and will prove immensely valuable to future generations of space warfighters. JFQ