Born out of a necessity to accomplish my unit’s mission and living by the words “Lead by Example”, I experienced the fight against terrorism from both a First Sergeant and Door-gunners view. For a year I bounced between First Sergeant duties...
History provides durable blueprints: “what to do,” and sometimes, more importantly,
“what not to do.” In the end, each lesson can be summed in one word: preparation. As long as
warfare exists, its principles, leadership, strategy, and...
A long-time veteran of the civil affairs (CA) community - including overseas deployments with the Army's only active duty CA unit, the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) - Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Haack shares a wealth of insights in this...
Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Baginski, a reservist with the 98th Division (Institutional Training), served in Iraq as the military transition team (MiTT) leader for the Iraqi 1st Motor Transportation Regiment from September 2004 to September 2005....
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...
The construct for predictive analysis is based on the unfounded assumption that technologies and sound analysis will dissipate uncertainty in war. U.S. military doctrine shows an expectation for prediction from the intelligence process; it assumes...
This monograph questions the utility of military deception (MILDEC) given its decidedly different dynamics inside counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. It examines relevant theoretical touchstones and doctrinal frameworks to determine whether the...
This monograph is an analysis and evaluation of Major General Nathanael Greene’s implementation of compound warfare in the Southern Department from December 1780 until the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781. Major General Greene was...
The evolution of the Strategic Concept, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) blueprint for its approach to the global security environment, has undergone substantial change during the last ten years. These changes reflect the vastly...
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the militant Islamist threat within the United States, to determine whether the current United States National Counter-Terrorism Structure can prevent the next significant terror attack in the homeland,...
In the complex modern environment, the importance of doctrine to a single national service is obvious. It is the glue that binds the military together in the face of an ever widening spectrum of conflict, ever more influential technology and an...
This monograph analyzes the Arctic region as a system by examining the strengths and weaknesses of its political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information sub-systems. This investigation reveals the key nodes (critical people and...
Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine emphasizes the importance of unity of effort between all agencies involved in a COIN fight. The same doctrine, and history, stresses that unity of effort is best achieved through consolidating all efforts under a...
The terrorist groups in Colombia have applied Mao’s theory of protracted people’s war, seeking to use all available means of struggle to achieve their revolutionary goals by counteracting government policy. One way that Fuerzas Armadas...
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...
This monograph addresses the fact that most writing on strategy is descriptive rather than explanatory. Describing strategy in terms of categories such as "grand strategy," or "theater strategy," or by various analogies, does not illuminate what...
On 25 May 2001, the U.S. Army Training and Leader Development Panel (ATLDP) released a report on the results of extensive research concerning the future direction of training and leader development. As part of the findings, conclusions and...
Using military force against an enemy to punish, avenge a wrong, as retribution is a timeless cause of armed conflict. There are many examples throughout history of successful punitive operations. Analyzing historical punitive expeditions for the...
This monograph examined the relationship between junior and senior U.S. Army officers. In 2000, Thomas, E. Ricks, a reporter for the Washington Post, wrote an article contending that there was a rift between the junior and senior leaders in the...
This monograph focuses on a construction unit in the United States Army, the Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Heavy). The Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Heavy) is the main organization, providing the U.S. Army the bulk of its heavy construction...