How should militaries think about social media as a factor in military operations? In this study I examine recent Arab Spring scholarship, with a particular focus on the significant impact of social media on events in Egypt in early 2011. Existing...
Causal claims are unavoidable in military affairs. However, causal claims are also insufficient when attempting to understand and intervene in complex environments. Hence, notions of conventional causality must be supplemented with an understanding...
Scholars and military professionals agree on the importance of economic development during stability operations. They also recognize its complexity. Current policy mandates Army participation in economic development, but how does the U.S. Army...
This paper argues that to counter border spillover violence, America must control the border with Mexico and generate the public and political commitment to do so. This study applies a military problem solving methodology to identify how best to...
Cultural awareness is a critical shortfall identified by senior Army leaders. The current training of cultural awareness at the tactical level is limited and geared toward data collection and not application. In order to be an enhancement to...
This thesis argues that the Field Artillery (FA) branch is being marginalized in today's counterinsurgency operations. There are several key factors that have led up to this point, those being, loss of core competency within the branch causing a...
What kind of policy can the United States and the international community pursue that increases the likelihood that stability emerges in failed and failing states? I develop a theory of state-building to guide decision makers. The theory states...
The United States Air Force believes that the current fitness test has placed a demand on airman to stay fit year round. The semi-annual test results are showing there is a positive trend in fitness scores among all ranks and ages, and Air Force...
Military practitioners are often asked to make plans that could have enormous strategic effects without having a good understanding of their operational environment. It is exactly this relationship between the plan, the environment, and the end...
Is there a gender component in toxic leadership? Existing conceptions of toxic leadership fail to account for gender. The real world significance of these conceptions is that female leaders labeled with the pejorative of being toxic leaders suffer...
Learning to leverage new media: the Israeli defense forces in recent conflicts. Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, U.S. Army; Mr. Dennis M. Murphy; and Mr. Anton Menning; The Army must learn to embrace lessons from the explosion of...
Nearly twenty years ago, as a new student in the Army's Command and General Staff Officer's College, Infantry Branch officers introduced to me the relatively newly codified doctrinal term "center of gravity." Throughout the "best year of our lives"...
A moral embutida no manual de campanha FM 3-24: contrainsurgência. Tenente-Coronel Celestino Perez Jr., Exército dos EUA, Ph.D.; A doutrina atual do Exército descreve uma nova era de "conflito persistente" na qual os profissionais das Forças...
El precepto moral latente en el FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency. Teniente Coronel Celestino Pérez, Jr., Ejército de EUA, Doctor de Filosofía; La doctrina del Ejército de hoy en día describe una nueva era de "conflicto persistente" en el cual los...
Contains selected documents that place at the student's disposal the type of intimate detailed and pertinent source material that may otherwise remain buried in archives and files. Attempts to present information on "how" in practical, war-tested...
Several studies have described the relationship between leadership and cohesion, albeit not within a multinational context. Previous researchers have also identified a variety of factors that appear to influence the performance of multinational...
This research discusses how the reluctance to change culture is affecting the internal peace and stability of Nepal. The Nepali culture, despite undergoing some changes, still has discriminatory practices with respect to caste, gender, and...
Does following the rule of law assist security forces in defeating an armed insurgency? If so, what factors assist or prevent security forces from conducting operations in accordance with rule of law principles? Counterinsurgency literature and...
How can the Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF) be improved in order to better understand the operational environment? The application of the ICAF requires good intellectual habits that encompass an appreciation for abductive reasoning...
Is the targeted killing of United States citizens legal? There are two competing models which address the legality of targeted killings: the law-enforcement model and the armed-conflict model. This paper examines arguments for and against each...