The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) publications enjoy full academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classified information, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresent official U.S. ...Read more >

The challenge of “waging a global campaign against al-Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates” remains the central objective of U.S. counterterrorism policy.1 Keeping this central goal narrowly defined has its merits, focusing all elements of national power on a singular aim without subordinating other elements of our national security. Indeed, as the 2010 National Security Strategy made clear, “Terrorism is one of many threats that are more consequential in a global ...Read more >

A core responsibility of the U.S. Government is to protect the American people – in the words of the framers of our Constitution, to “provide for the common defense.” For more than 230 years, the U.S. Armed Forces have served as a bulwark of liberty, opportunity, and prosperity at home. Beyond our shores, America shoulders additional responsibilities on behalf of the world. For those struggling for a better life, there is and must be no stronger advocate than the United ...Read more >

The most fundamental task in devising a grand strategy is to determine a nation’s national interests. Once they are identified, they drive a nation’s foreign policy and military strategy; they determine the basic direction that it takes, the types and amounts of resources that it needs, and the manner in which the state must employ them to succeed. Because of the critical role that national interests play, they must be carefully justified, not merely ...Read more >

After the attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), the war against Afghanistan’s Taliban “government,” and the fall of Baghdad, the Secretary of Defense chartered a comprehensive review of the “transformational” defense strategy outlined in the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR ...Read more >

This overview of theater strategy and theater security cooperation is a primer on one of the most important tools the U.S. military uses to engage other countries, deter unwanted actions, and defend U.S. and friendly nation interests. To be effective, theater strategy and theater security cooperation must be derived from and consistently linked to national and multinational strategic guidance and policy, and formulated to meet the requirements found in each ...Read more >

India independence in 1947, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru embarked on a foreign policy that was based on principles of socialism and remaining noncommittal to the emerging struggle between the Soviet Union and the countries forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the post-World War II ...Read more >

There was a time when the world had no need for operational art, a time when sovereigns led their armies in the field and where the yoking of war to politics was their personal undertaking. It was the sovereign who chose whether or not to fight, where to fight, how long to fight, and it was they who were constantly balancing opportunities and threats, risks and returns, costs and ...Read more >

This edition of the U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy reflects to some extent recent changes in the structure of the core curriculum at the War College. The college broke its traditional core course, “War, National Policy and Strategy,” into two courses: “Theory of War and Strategy” and “National Security Policy and Strategy.” The result for this book is the expansion of the block on strategic theory and the introduction of a block on specific strategic ...Read more >

The dom inant trend within uni versities and think tanks is to ward ever-narrowing spe cializa - tion: a higher pre mium is placed on func tioning deeply within a sin gle field than broadly across several. And yet with out some aware ness of the whole—with out some sense of how means converge to ac complish or to frus trate ends—there can be no strat egy. And with out strat egy there is only ...Read more >

Global operations since 2001 highlight certain characteristics of the US military’s emerging operating environment. Future operations will likely take place “amongst the people” in a wide range of unpredictable environments. 1 Managing these conflicts will require extensive collaboration between military and civilian agencies representing a range of governments, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental ...Read more >

This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy differs from its predecessor published in 2001, The U. S. Army War College Guide to Strategy, in several respects. First, as the altered title suggests, the focus of the volume has expanded to include examination of the national security policymaking environment and process in addition to the earlier emphasis on ...Read more >

When my colleagues Paul Kennedy, Charlie Hill, and I first began talking about setting up a grand strategy course at Yale in the late 1990s, at least half the people to whom we tried to explain this thought we were talking about “grant” strategy: how do you get the next federal or foundation ...Read more >

This paper seeks to answer if rising India will repeat the pattern of all rising great powers since the Napoleonic times by attempting regional ...Read more >