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...
This paper examines the US Army approach to peace support operations. It reviews the trends in Army doctrine and analyzes their historical foundations from the Cold War in order to determine the accuracy and relevance of the Army approach for its...
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...
One of the acknowledged strengths of the United States Army is the NCO Corps. It is known as the "backbone" of the Army. Although this is a frequently used term, exactly when did such a notable feature of the US Army come into being? NCOs have been...
The current U.S. Army operating concept prominently includes stability operations built on the core competency of wide area security. Stability operations secure national goals for military action by establishing the conditions for lasting peace...
Advocates of Army Leader Development Strategy (ALDS) and the liberal arts share the same goal: cultivation of "agile, adaptive, and innovative" people. Yet, the Army does not have an implementation plan for cultivating these attributes, and its...
Irregular warfare is emerging as a dominant form of warfare for the future. Yet irregular warfare, at its root, contains many of the characteristics found on today's battlefront in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). At the...
Violence perpetrated by Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) increased dramatically in 2006 and continued to rise dramatically through early 2009. During this same period, Mexican DTO infiltration of U.S. cities skyrocketed. The increase...
The military and the media are two important organizations critical to sustaining a democratic state. This study throws light on the media's perception of themselves as a neutral and powerful voice of the masses that often sees the military and her...
South East Asia (SEA) is a highly diversified region, culturally, ethnically, and religiously. Currently, territorial disputes and domestic instability make SEA a rather volatile region, masked by a seemingly benign facade. Singapore, an island...
This monograph explores the question of whether there is a trend toward global perception of the United States as a rogue state. Research revealed a rogue state is one that is isolated, dedicated to the rule of force, oppresses its people,...
The purpose of this monograph is to investigate the relationship and linkages between insurgencies and the illicit narcotics trade in general; to examine the specific root causes and influences on the drug trade and insurgencies in Colombia and...
Panama began its modern history as a semi-colonial appendage of the United States (US). Since gaining independence in 1903, Panama witnessed both elitist quasi-democratic governments and authoritarian populist governments. The oligarchic system in...
The deployment of a US Ground-based Mid-course ballistic missile Defense (GMD) within what Russia considers its rightful sphere of influence is an unacceptable challenge to Russian national security. Russians, according to Makhmut Gareev, believe...
Irregular wars generate significant internal political debate over appropriate strategy and resource allocation, a function of the relative complexity and ambiguity of irregular wars. This study examines whether operational commanders in the...
The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) remains one of the most publicized, yet least understood, concepts among contemporary defense analysts. Too often, professional academic evaluation of military revolution is force-centric, neglecting the...
Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) pose a new and significant threat to American security. The nation does not presently possess the ability to adequately deal with this threat. Congress has tasked DoD to develop capabilities to deal with this...
The purpose of this paper is to answer the following question: Does the generation of Iranians born after the 1979 revolution wish to continue living under the system established by Ayatollah Khomeini, or do they wish to modernize (or perhaps...
There is a strong institutional push in the Army today emphasizing technology and systematic command processes over human ability as keys to battlefield supremacy. This argument discounts the historically vital role of the ground tactical...
He was known officially as Chiang Chung-cheng, Chinese military and political leader, assumed the leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) after the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925. He commanded the Northern Expedition to unify China against the warlords...