Why has an S2 never won a wargame when playing predicted enemy courses of action against a friendly course of action during the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP)? Why did the V Corps commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) respond to...
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relevance of Adaptive Campaigning to recent Australian Army operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The context for Adaptive Campaigning is set by reviewing Australia's way of warfare and the evolution of...
Since the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion have had tremendous impact on the Western world’s mind-sets for understanding nature as predictable and orderly. Consequently, Western strategic culture has been based on a linear...
This newsletter provides information on the basics of the Afghan culture and how Soldiers should apply this information while living and working
with the Afghans. The key points covered in this newsletter are: 1.) Effects of Afghan culture on...
Recent scholarly work has devoted much attention to analyzing the French counterinsurgency war in Algeria from 1954 to 1962. The United States military has taken many of the lessons and principles offered by authors such as David Galula and Roger...
This monograph reviews the functions, development, and measurement of military discipline in the US Army, and assesses these concepts against the current needs and limitations of the modern battlefield and society. By relying primarily on existing...
The ownership of vast quantities of military power and the ability to project that power globally does not ensure the achievement of the 'ends' desired from a war. Since 1945, the United States and her Western allies increasingly fail to realize a...
The US Army relies on tactical-level leaders, not for their physical warfighting skills, but for their ability to employ cognitive thought during stressful situations. Cognitive tasks include sensing patterns, deciphering complex environments,...
The current French doctrine envisions two overarching operational modes, the coercion mode and violence-mastering mode. The concept of violence mastering has been developed to deal with the post-Cold War environment.
There is no shortage of people who disagree with the current state of world affairs and who are prepared to use violence to change them. Are they mindless fanatics, doomed to fail? Or do they have a clever and covert plan with reasonable chance of...
Broadly applied strategy-driven initiatives in a local environment may have unintended effects on the targeted nation's local economy. In addition to direct influences, a foreign force's service and resource requirements have the potential to...
Recent years have seen the US, UK and other ISAF and Coalition nations enmeshed in protracted, complex and intense campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Resilient and highly adaptable opponents have operated asymmetrically, and amongst the people, to...
The U.S. armed forces face a global information threat which could launch an attack without warning. This surprise attack could damage the U.S. armed forces ability to mobilize, deploy and control forces worldwide. The attack will use the global...
This monograph assesses the adequacy of current United States joint campaign planning doctrine within the context of conventional operations between similar forces within a theater of war. The study focuses on five key doctrinal planning concepts...
This monograph analyzes the Marine Corps' method for campaign design. It seeks to answer the research question: Is the Marine Corps' campaign design process found in FMFM 1-1 adequate? If not, the campaign design process will produce failure; but,...
This study investigates the nature of defense and analyzes defense spending in an economic-rationality framework. It attempts to find justification for defense spending within such a framework. The study examines the nature of international...
Colonel (retired) Oliver G. Haywood suggested in his brilliant 1954 article, "Military Decisions and Game Theory" that game theory techniques were relevant to preparing the military commander's estimate of the situation. He based his article on...
The information sphere is an integral part of the current environment. The center of gravity (CoG) theory currently is matched for conventional, linear, industrial age warfare in the physical domain. The CoG concept is thus not suited to work in...
This thesis investigates the utility of conventional military intervention by Western powers in achieving their short-term foreign policy aims. Through a survey of the literature of political-military coordination, case studies of contingency...
Operation DESERT SHIELD displayed to the world what U.S. and allied forces could do given six months to flow combat power into ports unopposed. Recent studies commissioned by the Joint Staff concluded that the U.S. military will not have that...