Our task at hand is to develop new analytical and theoretical tools to help map our new, asymmetric world, and to rethink some of the post-Westphalian assumptions that did not graft so well to the more distant corners of the world where we now find ourselves engaged militarily, where tribal ...Read more >

This paper is divided in two parts. Part 1 critically examines how the Australian Defence Forces four extant future operating conceptsFuture Joint Operating Concept (FJOC), Future Maritime Operating Concept (FMOC), Adaptive Campaigning Future Land Operating Concept (AC-FLOC), and the Future Air and Space Operating Concept (FASOC)incorporate asymmetric war into the ADFs future warfighting and ...Read more >

Chinese leaders have decided long ago that, in the wake of a conflict, their military cannot fight and win a battle against the U.S. military on a force-on-force basis. However, that reality was not going to discourage a country whose strategic culture has produced original thinkers of the caliber and reputation of Sun Tzu and Mao ...Read more >

As we begin to imagine a post-Long War era, a renewed appreciation of the fundamental building blocks of world order is required, with a greater focus on the tribe and other sub-, trans- and non-state entities. Such subcomponents are not entirely unfamiliar to the student of classical realism; it was one of the earliest sub-state ...Read more >

The most threatening form of US and Iranian competition takes place in the military and security arena. Currently, the areas in which this competition receives primary attention are developments in the nuclear and missile arena, and Iranian threats to close the Gulf. US and Iranian tensions over Irans nuclear program have grown steadily over the ...Read more >

Israel today continues to face a complicated threat environment but since the devastating wars of 1967 and 1973, an Arab recognition of the difficulties in meeting Israeli conventional capacity head-on has pushed threats down the conflict ...Read more >

I quote from Graham Allison’s ‘Nuclear Terrorism - the Risks and Consequences of the Ultimate Disaster’ where he writes about Tom Clancy’s 1991 bestseller ‘The Sum Of All Fears’. The novel is about a stolen nuclear weapon planned to be detonated at the Super Bowl in the ...Read more >

In the last few years, notions like asymmetric warfare and, more recently, hybrid warfare have become as common and pervasive as to appear like new orthodoxy in military thought. Contemporary doctrine, official documents, papers, briefings strive to pay tribute or reverence to these new ideas. If no reference is made to them, the author is accused of conservatism, myopia, ignorance, or bad ...Read more >

An overview of the conference objectives, Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) activities, and the Kargil project. Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mathew Thomas welcomed all participants, and talked about Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) and the United Service Institution of India cooperation. Col. S.C. Tyagi gave a brief presentation on the terrain and topography of Kargil and Kashmir more generally. ...Read more >

An overview of the conference objectives, Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) activities, and the Kargil project. Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mathew Thomas welcomed all participants, and talked about Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) and the United Service Institution of India cooperation. Col. S.C. Tyagi gave a brief presentation on the terrain and topography of Kargil and Kashmir more ...Read more >

Current and Future Environments and Adversaries, i.e. Asymmetric and Adaptive ...Read more >

In the latter years of the 18th Century and spilling into the 19th Century, isms of one kind or another swelled European languages. The suffix ism was meant to connote distinctive theories, doctrines, or practices associated with the root word. The word terrorism, first recorded in English in 1795, was constructed to describe the systematic practices used by the governing body in France to frighten, coerce and eradicate the enemies of the French Revolution in 1793 and 1794. The French Reign of ...Read more >

The continuing insurgency in Iraq underscores the capacity of the weak to impose considerable military and political pain on the strong. Whether that pain will compel the United States to abandon its agenda in Iraq remains to be seen. What is not in dispute is that all major failed US uses of force since 1945—in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia—have been against materially weaker enemies. In wars both hot and cold, the United States has fared consistently well against such powerful enemies as ...Read more >

Without going back too far in time, let us examine the major stages of the evolution of war (military conflict) since the end of World War II. Since 1945, several constituents of war have remained basically unchanged. The subjects of war were states and their armed forces, which implied the acknowledgement and establishment of a series of rules related to the conduct of warfare (i.e., being at war as a separate legal state, international law and regulations, rules on the treatment of prisoners ...Read more >

In this monograph, Dr. Steven Metz, who has been writing on counterinsurgency for several decades,draws strategic lessons about counterinsurgency from the Iraq conflict. He contends that the United States is likely to undertake it in coming decades but, based on the performance in Iraq, may not be adequately prepared depending on the grand strategy which the United States adopts.The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph as a contribution to Army and Joint ...Read more >