America's recent experience in Afghanistan and Iraq proved that it is easier to get into war than it is to get out of it. These two conflicts bleed America, in terms of not only blood, but also its financial treasures. In an attempt to avoid these...
Before World War II, the U.S. had only negligible involvement in Asia. However, the defeat of the Japanese, the need to provide assistance to former European colonies and the perceived need to prevent the spread of Communism, left the U.S. as the...
Interagency transformation has the potential to radically increase the strategic and operational capacities of the U.S. Government's interagency system. This transformation will require changes to the structure and processes employed by the...
This monograph began as an investigation to determine if either Effects-Based Operations (EBO) or Systemic Operational Design (SOD) should replace the traditional Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). It soon became clear that the approaches do...
In 1997, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) directed the five geographic combatant Commander in Chiefs (CINC) to formally link their regional operational engagement objectives with the national strategic objectives by developing...
The trends of the operational environment either provide a cause for an insurgency or a means for an insurgency, thus shifting the focus of the scout platoon away from major combat and towards insurgency. This shift to insurgency causes the scout...
The United States Army is changing and so must the chaplaincy. At the heart of the ongoing Army transformation is a critical thinking (CT) approach to problem solving and decision-making. Given the many complex choices Army leaders face on a daily...
The drug war has failed to achieve conditions that reduce the influence of illicit drugs abroad or at home. The National Drug Control Strategy is the U.S. President’s policy document that outlines the administration’s plan to reduce the...
This thesis uses case studies to explore lessons learned from historic military withdrawals. Case studies included the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia. Although literature...
The air and missile threat posed by hostile states and terrorist organizations to the continental United States is a reality. Violent extremist organizations such as al-Qa'ida, as well as rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, are actively...
In the late 1970s, a group of reform minded Chinese, led by Deng Xiaoping, enacted a series of economic reforms that catapulted China into the global spotlight. The key to sustaining the dynamic growth is access to petroleum resources. The central...
The U.S. Army has experienced a disproportionate decline in Black recruitment. Blacks, who once represented 23 percent of annual recruits, now only represent less than 14 percent. What factors have caused the disproportionate decline in Black...
Irregular warfare is emerging as a dominant form of warfare for the future. Yet irregular warfare, at its root, contains many of the characteristics found on today's battlefront in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). At the...
The security of the U.S.-Mexican border is an issue of considerable interest for both countries. The North American Free Trade Agreement has created a web of symbiotic links between the two countries. Unfortunately, this has also presented...
What capabilities are required for the Unit of Employment, X (UEx) to plan joint operational level campaigns and operations? The proposed UEx staff structure in the Unit of Employment Operations, White Paper Version 3.5 does not appear to be...
Using a methodology consisting of identifying the policy and associated strategy for the initial Afghanistan war period compared to the policy and associated strategy for the current Afghanistan war, the study identifies strategic composition...
The civil-military structure in which our military and its civilian authorities currently operate has grown and matured since the formation of the Army in 1775. George Washington went to great lengths to establish civilian control of the military...
This thesis explores the applicability of current US counterinsurgency doctrine in Joint Publication 3-24, Field Manual 3-24 and Field Manual 3-24.2 to the Lebanese Hizballah and Taliban insurgencies. In particular, this thesis examines the Cold...
Drug trafficking has been a menace in most Latin American countries for many decades. We know enough about how the phenomenon works as an economic and social problem and how it affects the continent, but in the last decade, with the attention of...
This paper explores some of the vulnerabilities that are present within terrorist organizations that the United States can exploit in order to deter, dismantle, dissuade, and defeat terrorist organizations. In addition, the paper will explore the...