Years of U.S. Army involvement in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have underscored the complexity of contemporary operating environments. This complexity within the current operating environment requires U.S. Army leaders not to make simple...
The end of the Cold War has dramatically changed the strategic environment within which the United States Army must operate. The threat of an attack by the Soviet Union into Western Europe no longer exists. The change in strategic environment has...
The Global War on Terror (GWOT) requires that the military modify its methodology for conducting global operations. The military is transitioning from primarily lethal-focused offensive and defensive operations to full-spectrum operations that also...
This monograph seeks to determine if the U.S. Army adequately prepares company grade officers to interact successfully with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) during humanitarian assistance and peace operations. It briefly analyzes the current...
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...
Joint Doctrine, explicitly, and Army Doctrine, implicitly, recommend that military commanders and staffs exercise systems thinking in operational planning and execution. However, current Military Doctrine fails to fully explicate and apply a...
Successful civil-military relations pose an enduring dilemma for the professional officer. When civil-military relations fail, the negative implications are far reaching. Professional officers who understand their role within the structure...
The U.S. Army spends millions of dollars to develop and implement simulations for training. Simulations allow the Army to train commanders and staffs in a wide range of tasks. Simulations have evolved into complex software and hardware programs...
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 monograph describes a possible technique to allow military planners to identify key objectives that may be affected in gaining control of a city without destroying it. This technique involves viewing a city as a complex "system of systems"...
The emergence of social media platforms as a means of communication and information sharing marks a fundamental change to how societies interact. This new form of media played a formative role in the organization of mass uprisings and...
The employment of tactical PSYOP teams (TPT) directly affects the outcome of operations. In the past 10 years, the U.S. Army failed to fully employ TPTs in operations a significant percentage of the time. The operational cost of not employing...
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...
The greatest threat to stability in Africa is the increase in transnational terrorist groups and criminals that occupy the ungoverned spaces. African nations suffer from the inability of the African governments to secure their borders and protect...
The United States Army can improve the quality of the officer corps by enhancing the understanding of how field-grade commanders are developed. The Army has produced some of the finest leaders in history. The leaders produced have been possible due...
Focusing efforts toward building security force capability without increasing state capacity is an ineffective strategy to achieve government victory in civil war. The purpose of this monograph is to advance and test the hypothesis that...
This monograph analyzes doctrine relating to the creation of Commander's Critical Information Requirements (CCIR) and its role in providing direction to units in combat. It compares doctrine to theory to assess it's doctrine's applicability in the...
The first official use of the term “transformation” is often attributed to the document Joint Vision 2010 published in 1996. Logistics, an integral component to this transformation, is adjusting as well. As a part of logistics transformation,...
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...
The end of the 20th Century presented the United States Army a new technological and geopolitical environment. The Army has recognized this change and is adapting to operate in this new environment. The army has developed a number of new...