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June 11, 2020

No Such Thing as a Perfect Partner: The Challenges of “By, With, and Through”

Taking a peacebuilding approach to working with local militaries and armed groups means using assistance to fragmented security sectors to increase cooperation between various formal and informal elites in a weak state. This approach places less emphasis on developing conventional military power and more emphasis on facilitating and improving relations between the different factions within the security sector and between the security sector and the civilian population. If international providers help local partners perform better at military tasks without ensuring that the forces have local legitimacy and strong accountability, progress is likely to be fleeting and could actually exacerbate civilian harm and the underlying drivers of violent conflict.

June 11, 2020

China’s Private Military and Security Companies: “Chinese Muscle” and the Reasons for U.S. Engagement

On 7 February 2019, General Thomas Waldhauser, then-Commander of United States Africa Command, stated the following during a hearing of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee: “The Chinese bring the money and the Russians bring the muscle.” “Chinese money” is evident in the fact that since 2009, China has been Africa’s largest trading partner.

June 11, 2020

AI Singularity and the Growing Risk of Surprise: Lessons from the IDF’s Strategic and Operational Learning Processes, 2014-2019

For decades, scholars have pondered the likelihood and effect of computers surpassing human intelligence, often referred to as the singularity. For militaries, artificial intelligence (AI) singularity will be a double-edged sword. We should seek to achieve and employ it, while denying our adversaries the opportunity to do so. When AI singularity does emerge, it will likely have profound implications for tactical capabilities, as well as strategic and operational decisionmaking.

June 11, 2020

ROC(K) Solid Preparedness: Resistance Operations Concept in the Shadow of Russia

Resistance is a form of warfare. It can be planned. The Resistance Operations Concept is simply a resistance primer. It contains guidance and advice toward establishing a nationally authorized resistance capability. It advises the establishment of a pre-crisis organization for nations under greater threat, for the purpose of having a unified resistance effort against an occupier, and renders specific organizational guidance.

June 11, 2020

Who Wants to Be a Great Power?

Strategic competition is back in vogue. After years of worrying about ethnic conflict and humanitarian intervention, civil wars and counterinsurgency, there is a renewed focus among policymakers, think-tankers, and academics on traditional strategic concerns and in particular great power confrontation. For many students of international relations this appears as no more than recognizing a feature of the system that never went away.

June 3, 2020

Just Another Paper Tiger? Chinese Perspectives on the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy

In March 2018, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi responded to a question about the Donald Trump administration’s new “free and open Indo-Pacific” strategy by comparing it to “sea foam in the Pacific or Indian Ocean” that might get some attention, “but soon will dissipate.” Wang’s remarks raise an important question for U.S. policymakers: Is Beijing so confident in its own influence, and doubtful of U.S. commitments in the region, that it perceives a green light to continue or expand the kinds of behavior Washington is trying to discourage, such as coercion of China’s territorial rivals and “predatory” lending?

May 6, 2020

The Geo-Economic Dimension of Great Power Competition

This faculty seminar was held on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 and focused on the fundamentals of geo-economics and the drivers or dimensions of geo-economic competition. This seminar features two distinguished subject matter experts on China and geo-economics, and is part of a series that looks at modern great power competition and how to prepare national security leaders for the associated challenges. The discussion was led by Carolyn Bartholomew and William Overholt, and moderated by PRISM Editor Michael Miklaucic.

April 1, 2020

Joint Force Quarterly 97 (2nd Quarter, April 2020)

This issue of JFQ shows the way ahead for the Joint Force. In our Forum and JPME Today sections, we discuss emerging battlespace technologies. In Commentary, authors propose the development of a new global engagement cycle. In our Features section are articles about the need to adapt the Joint Force command and control structure, about dealing with Iran as a rival nation-state, and addressing A2/AD threats in the Indo-Pacific region. In Recall, we see how General Ulysses Grant learned the art of joint operations in the Civil War. Finally, we review Andrew Marble’s biography of former CJCS General John Shalikashvilli.

April 1, 2020

Putting the “FIL” into “DIME”: Growing Joint Understanding of the Instruments of Power

When developing strategy, the US military considers all instruments of power (IOP) in planning activities that require a whole-of-government approach. Recently, newer IOPs such as financial, intelligence and law enforcement have emerged. The National Defense Strategy and a doctrine note on strategy mention the new IOPs, but there is no guidance on how they could be applied in a competitive environment. A better understanding of these new IOPs could mitigate the gap in doctrine and joint planning, say the authors, by defining the terms, identifying key mission partners, and detecting potential applications for each new instrument.

April 1, 2020

Airbase Defense Falls Between the Cracks

Locating US overseas airbases far from the enemy used to be sufficient to protect the airbases. Now that our enemies are better organized and technologically equipped, distance is unlikely to provide refuge from the reach of these increasingly capable adversaries. This paper considers two types of threats to overseas airbases. The first is direct and indirect attacks by special operators, and the second is attacks by theater ballistic and cruise missiles. To improve the protection of airbases against enemy forces, say the authors, the concept of a base security zone should be incorporated in joint doctrine.