When a person enters the Army, that Soldier brings their upbringing with them. We try and indoctrinate and matriculate them into a larger family, but there will always be those earlier influences that will affect decisions. As Soldiers it is...
When America was attacked on 11 September 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom in Kandahar, Afghanistan (OEF-A) was formed to fight the war on global terrorism. To support the fight, my deployment to OEF-A with the 82nd Airborne Division Task Force...
When American combat forces were first deployed to Korea in 1950 the battlefield results were generally tactical defeats. The troops that were initially deployed came from occupation duty in Japan and were not prepared for combat operations. In...
When are a nation’s security forces deemed self-reliant? Security force assistance (SFA) is one process of building or rebuilding a nation’s security forces. If the ultimate goal of SFA is producing a self-reliant force capable of responding to...
When discussing guerrillas, people think of phantom elements characterized by their sudden and unexpected ambushes, insured victory in any engagement, uncanny skill in hiding, and successful resistance against any and all attacks. However,...
When President Bush was first campaigning for the presidency, he said, " our all volunteer army will remain an all-volunteer army ... We will not have a draft ... The only politicians that supported a draft are democrats, and the best way to avoid...
When the Republic of Indonesia declared itself independent from the Netherlands on 17 August 1945, the Dutch leaders did not accept this and tried to restore colonial authority. This led to a four-year conflict between the Netherlands and the...
When the United States Army found itself at a crux between the end of major combat operations and the beginning of stability and reconstruction operations (S&RO) in March 2003, executing coercive and cooperative actions simultaneously beget new...
While Afghan women are difficult for coalition forces to access in their counterinsurgency efforts, they play a central role in their families and are the primary care-givers for, and have significant influence over, their children. U.S. Army...
While all warfare is an expression of politics, none is more pervasively so than irregular conflict. The irregular side, most probably employing a mixture of guerilla tactics and terrorism, will seek favorable political effect from several courses...
While both air and ground based fire support have proven themselves to be an invaluable and overwhelmingly lethal force in conventional combat, they have struggled to deal with the extreme complexity, density, and constraints of the Urban...
While in the past two decades, the region of West Africa has experienced various armed conflicts, a new security threat that has emerged is the growing threat of violence by radical Islamist groups. This phenomenon has assumed prominence in the...
While it is generally accepted that military intelligence plays a key role in low intensity conflict (LIC), there is not a broad understanding as to how intelligence and electronic warfare (IEW) systems are organized and employed nor how IEW...
While it is no secret that Islamic terrorists utilize the internet, the assertion that the internet is a virtual safe haven more important than any geographical safe haven is rarely made. As a result of the expansion of the Internet capabilities...
While it might currently be challenging to imagine Russia as a NATO member, a change to the future strategic context could make it equally difficult to imagine Russia outside of NATO. The historical analysis of NATO enlargement during the past...
While the history of the Mongolian military dates back several thousand years, the contribution of the Mongolian Armed Forces to international peace support operations has gained significant momentum only in recent years. Since the first deployment...
While the outcome of the Iraq war seems to have validated the U.S. Army's counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24, the war in Afghanistan seems to indicate there are fundamental problems associated with its historical principles and concepts. Dr....
While the Persian Gulf War confirmed the political and strategic utility of using ballistic missiles as a terror weapon, the effect of ballistic missiles on tactical operations has received much less attention. Despite growing evidence of...