This issue is critical due to the fact that the current and emerging nature of conflict in the 21st century requires leaders that are multifaceted, agile and adaptive. Army leaders at all levels must be capable of executing decentralized operations for extended periods with no direct oversight and possess the talent and skills to lead across the full spectrum of conflict. ...Read more >

Strategic communication should be operationalized in order to establish an offensive, proactive, approach to the employment of this most essential asset in the counterinsurgency fight. The center of gravity for both the insurgent and counterinsurgent at the operational and tactical level is the ...Read more >

Counterinsurgency is the emerging theory of war in the 21st Century. Given the new nature of war, the Army must adapt its officer entry level education system. In order to achieve the mental agility required of our junior leaders, we need to restructure entry level schooling to fight and win in this unconventional ...Read more >

The United States Army War College (USAWC) provides an educational network for students attending Senior Service College (SSC) commensurate with the networks of any other Army installation. The resident educational network limits discourse to only Common Access Card (CAC) carrying individuals within the Department of Defense. This restricts traditional university academic discourse and prohibits the use of personally owned or military issued mobile devices to access educational content in the ...Read more >

This paper examines two strategies for fighting limited wars and attempts to illustrate how the context of the conflict and the ethos of the United States should fashion an appropriate strategy. The two strategies juxtaposed in this paper are Peace Operations and ...Read more >

This project examines the major counterinsurgency lessons I learned as a squadron commander responsible for a violent Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad during the surge of US troops in 2007-08. Armed with a new strategy based on population security, American commanders spread out across Baghdad and its surrounding belts in a final attempt to bring the many different faces of the Iraq insurgency under ...Read more >

Institutional leaders take innumerable actions in the course of normal operations. These actions are underpinned by complex decision-making processes that often are not clearly articulated. Few acts are more profound for a leader than that of firing, or removing, a subordinate upon whom the leader relies. Militarily, the decision to remove a commander is even more important because the stakes are lives and fates of ...Read more >

The evolution of war and warfare types has transcended all cultures and nations alike. Through this strategic research paper I will shed some light on how a few of these cultures see the enemy (The evil United States) through their lenses. I will address how war has evolved to its current form and the strategic level considerations to combat and defend against an enemy willing to go to any lengths to destroy and terrorize the ...Read more >

The detonation of a single nuclear weapon at a high altitude above the United States, or a major solar geomagnetic storm, would create electromagnetic pulses which have the potential to catastrophically impact the ...Read more >

This strategic research paper presents information senior military leaders need to know about cyberspace to prevent or minimize the effects of any future cyber attacks by a nation state or non state actor against the United States’ critical network ...Read more >

Cyberspace is a relatively new dimension in national security that could eventually rival the land, sea, air and space environments in importance. Since cyberspace is relatively new, existing international law does not directly distinguish between crimes and acts of war for activities in ...Read more >

At strategic, operational and tactical levels there are good and bad examples of the use of strategic communication. Two of the primary reasons for the ineffective application of strategic communication are the lack of a fundamental understanding of strategic communication as a process and the lack of a common definition. This paper will provide a fundamental understanding of strategic communication. It will provide a common definition that will assist practitioners of strategic ...Read more >

This paper will consider the current use of Social Media in the Department of Defense (DoD): review current policies, review current use of this medium by DoD and analyze the impact of a new DoD Directive regarding use of Social Media on military ...Read more >

The strategy, authored by the Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC) on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, is the first attempt at coordinating Strategic Communication efforts across the interagency community. Although a good start, the current strategy is preoccupied with the war on terror, presents a miss match in mission and objectives, fails to recognize key strategic audiences and accepts an adversarial relationship with the ...Read more >