Since September 11, 2001, the United States has struggled to define a strategy for waging the Global War on Terrorism. From a military perspective, clearly the Bush administration wished to prosecute the war as a series of offensive campaigns,...
Colombia remains one of the most troubled countries in South America. The continued export of drugs coupled with a significant insurgent threat and increased violence against civilians, signals a crisis capable of disrupting the entire region....
The 1999 National Security Strategy (NSS) defines significantly different roles and priorities for the U.S. military. One of the very obvious roles is the use of the military as intervention forces to secure national interests. As military and...
This monograph addresses the continued relevance of airpower’s master tenet in light of advances in technology. The purpose of this monograph is to examine the doctrinal assumptions used to justify centralized control with decentralized...
Disrupting an insurgent's access to sanctuary and safe-haven is a critical aspect of operational planning for counterinsurgent forces. By denying an insurgent's access to safe-havens early in the conflict, the counterinsurgent will gain a marked...
This thesis contends the debate on whether to embrace a population-centric or enemy-centric counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan detracts focus from building a balanced approach, customized for the human and political landscape in each area of...
Seven years have passed since Soviet Party Chief Brezhnev proposed the need for a system of collective security in Asia. Investigation reveals that Brezhnev's pronouncements on this subject were not propaganda exercises designed to secure...
This study examines the applicability of the United States Marine Corps' small wars doctrine in current Military Operations Other Than War. Between 1898 and 1934, the Marine Corps was employed extensively in fighting the nation's small wars. These...
Wars have become larger in scope and now involve operations in multiple hemispheres, and so defense is no longer limited to nationalities. As such, it is important to defend entire hemispheres in order to maintain national interests.
Since September 11, 2001, it has been easy and tempting to define U.S. national security strategy solely in terms of the terrorist threat. Some observers would fill the vacuum in the threat environment left by the demise of the Soviet Union by...
Africa has recently become strategically important to the US and China, mainly for economic reasons. The US and China, the leading consumers of oil in the world, have devised strategies to secure and expand their interests, especially the quest for...
This study investigates the role of the Unified Command Plan in Subsaharan Africa. The United States' intervention in Somalia increased public awareness of Subsaharan Africa's problems and that region's potential for future deployments of military...
This thesis examines how Nepal has historically resisted external domination and has survived through the politics of accommodation. Emphasis is placed on Nepal's relations with its two giant neighbors, India and China. The study includes an...
This thesis describes an attempt to prove the hypothesis that a threat/opportunity matrix methodology can be used to effectively define targets against which an effort to satisfy long-range informational requirements may be attempted by the use of...
Counterinsurgency is the most common conflict that America engages in. From the Mexican-American War to the Philippine Insurrection and small wars of the early 1900s, the U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD) focused on sanitation, hygiene programs...
Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Nonetheless, it has great geopolitical importance in South America due to its geographical position at the center of the continent and its potential impact on the stability of the entire...
This thesis examines the strategy of the United States Army's Punitive Expedition into Mexico following the raid on Columbus, New Mexico, by Francisco "Pancho" Villa and his followers on 9 March 1916. In analyzing this topic, the thesis focuses on...
There are twenty-seven countries in the world with no military forces, with seven of them having undergone a process of demilitarization. Against the background of trying to justify the continued allocation of scarce resources to a standing...
In response to the increasing number of post-Cold War interventions, the Clinton administration conducted a detailed review of American policy to clarify when, why, and how the United States intervenes abroad. One document from the policy review is...
Self-synchronization is an idea that comes directly from Network-Centric Warfare but its foundations lie in complexity theory and the ideas of self-organization and emergent behavior. In order to understand self-synchronization the basics of...