While the most famous leaders of the LeT networks, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, are under house arrest and in jail awaiting trial, respectively, LeT still poses a significant threat. It's a threat that comes not so much from LeT as a single jihadist force but LeT as a concept, a banner under which various groups and individuals can gather, coordinate and successfully conduct ...Read more >

Numerous factors are combining today to create a rapidly changing environment for the Army. Even as war continues, the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Iraq and the impending reduction of forces in Afghanistan over the next several years ...Read more >

A few days after the beginning of the invasion, the Xinhua News Agency issued a communiqu that the PLA would soon achieve the task of marching into Tibet to liberate the Tibetan people, to complete the important mission of unifying the motherland, to prevent imperialism from encroaching on even one inch of our sovereign territory and to protect and build the frontiers ...Read more >

Strategic Studies is a relatively new discipline; it only became a serious academic subject as a sub-field of International Relations scholarship in the 1950s. Beforehand, strategy was the province of primarily military officers, and only a handful of those officers explored the full political-military dimension of strategy as a concept. As such, the "idea" of strategy and strategic thinking confronts the student and strategist alike with many problems, not the least of which is the ...Read more >

The challenge the Army faces today is not one of over-thinking situations; rather, it is the failure to think clearly in situations that require sound judgment at junior levels, and leadership’s hesitation to believe that juniors can or will think clearly. Soldiers and junior leaders who are trained or conditioned to “look” at the situation—i.e., to assess, exercise judgment and make decisions—are more decisive, deliberate and correct in their ...Read more >

The U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues is the latest edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy, which the college has published sporadically under different titles since 2001. As begun with the last publication, this edition of the Guide is in two volumes that correspond roughly to the two core courses that the Department of National Security and Strategy teaches: “Theory of War and Strategy” and “National Security Policy and ...Read more >

The development of strategic plans by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should provide the critical nexus in connecting the National Command Authorities’ strategic direction of the U.S. armed forces with the planning and operations conducted by the combatant commands and the support provided by the Services and defense ...Read more >

At the strategic level, the campaign replaces the engagement, and the theater of operations takes the place of the position. At the next stage, the war as a whole replaces the campaign, and the whole country the theater of ...Read more >

Because strategic performance must involve the ability to decide, to command, and to lead, as well as the capacity to understand, there are practical limits to what is feasible and useful by way of formal education in ...Read more >

The future of nonstate military actors is a central issue for U.S. strategy and defense planning. It is widely believed that such combatants will be increasingly common opponents for the U.S. military, and many now advocate sweeping change in U.S. military posture to prepare for this—the debate over the associated agenda for “low-tech” or irregular warfare transformation is quickly becoming one of the central issues for U.S. defense policy and ...Read more >

Strategic plans should be developed that further define the National Military Strategy and provide supporting strategic concepts. These concepts could provide the basis for the development of joint ...Read more >

Military leaders at many levels have used strategic planning in various ways to position their organizations to respond to the demands of the current situation, while simultaneously focusing on ...Read more >

The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can’t know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn’t got and which if he had it, would save him. . . . for the end of man is to ...Read more >

This monograph examines how the three Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff adapted and used the Joint Strategic Planning System from 1990 to 2000 to provide advice to the Secretary of Defense and to the ...Read more >

Looking out to 2025, many see the potential for a prolonged period of instability as a result of competing economic models, demographics, the rise of new international actors and the resurgence of old ones, climate change, and the scarcity of resources. The range of stability challenges will stretch the capabilities of any military force structure and require innovative thinking on the part of policymakers and military professionals alike concerning the appropriate development and use of the ...Read more >