This paper examines the many similarities and a few differences of insurgent activities between the Philippine and Vietnam wars, how the American forces adapted in both conflicts and the consequences for insurgent cause.
Human Trafficking is modern slavery. Its size, global scope, and potential to threaten national security warrants appropriate Department of Defense attention. However, the existing U.S. government institutions tasked to respond to Human Trafficking...
This monograph shows how understanding three conceptual tradeoffs of complex versus complicated, complexity at large-scale versus fine-scale, and exploration of potential problems versus exploitation of known solutions can help the military...
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...
Complexity theory has attracted considerable interest from operational artists in recent times. However, because it is still an emerging field, there are few -- if any -- historical case studies that show how complexity applies to military...
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...
Given the United States intervention in and intent to withdraw from both Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of whether the conduct of a military withdrawal matters to the renewal of conflict is both timely and relevant. Guided by the National...
This monograph will explore the origins of the Islamic fundamentalist movement in South Asia that can be traced back to the Islamization program during the Zia ul Haq regime in Pakistan. Since 1947, Pakistan's early political administrations were...
Over the course of the last 100 years, historic trends show there has been a clear and steady move towards the use of unmanned systems limited only by the technologies available to make the systems effective compared to manned systems. There is the...
The United States Army has a long history of advising foreign security forces with its general purpose force, despite a perception that its special force is the primary force with which it undertakes advisory efforts. Ad hoc selection and...
The current operating environment faced by the United States military presents many challenges based on the global nature of United States strategic interests. Pursuant to these interests is a need to operate in, and effectively communicate with, a...
In 2009, conflict, violence and the fear of governmental persecution caused over forty-three million people worldwide, equivalent to the population of Canada, to leave their homes and seek safety elsewhere. Twenty-seven million displaced within...
The U.S. Navy is building Virginia class submarines, and recently completed the conversion of four Ohio class submarines from Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBN's) to Guided Missile Submarines (SSGN's). The Virginia class is the first...
Does the Department of Defense's strategic mobility program meet the needs of operational commanders? More importantly, what challenges do operational commanders face because of the inability to project certain capabilities? This monograph argues...
Terms such as "operational art" and "operational level" are prevalent in US military space doctrine. However, no research exists that analyzes the applicability of operational art in the space domain. The use of operational terms in US military...
The purpose of this monograph is to explore the operational impacts of differentiating between an insurgency and a civil war. At first glance, the distinction between the two is just a matter of scale, but there are other differences as well....
This monograph explores economics, operations research, and systems theory to develop a sustainable approach to building governance and security capacity within the Afghanistan and Pakistan operational environment. This bottom-up approach to...
There is a common view within the United States Army that Information Operations is a military doctrine designed to win a "battle of ideas" within human populations. This monograph refutes this understanding of Information Operations by tracing the...
The subject of cyberterrorism has become a topic of increasing importance to both the U.S. government and military. Offensive cyber capabilities provide a means to mitigate risk to U.S. systems that depend on the Internet to conduct business. In...
A common perspective among U.S. interagency partners today is that any step towards more effective and coordinated responses to contemporary security challenges requires an improved and shared understanding of the nature of the conflict and the...