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Who is SSI?

The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College publishes national security and strategic research and analysis which serves to influence policy debate and bridge the gap between Military and Academia.

Military Change & Transformation - Recent

New References from the Military Education Research Library Network

Military Change and Transformation

(1/23/08) The Transformation MiPAL has been updated with a press conference by the Secretary of the Army and a Government Accountability Office report, both on the plan to increase the Army's size. Please see the Recently Added Documents section for the latest on this topic - the newest updates are in bold. (View it at NDU)

Military Change and Transformation

(12/18/07) The Transformation MiPAL has been updated with a Government Accountability Office report on the Army's modular force and expansion activities, and an article from the Heritage Foundation on Army modernization and the Future Combat Systems. Please see the Recently Added Documents section for the latest on this topic - the newest updates are in bold. (View it at NDU)

Military Change and Transformation

Added December 23, 2011

Organizational Change in the Russian Airborne Forces: The Lessons of the Georgian Conflict

Authored by Dr. Rod Thornton.
Russia’s best troops are to be found in the Airborne Forces. These were the only Russian troops to emerge with their reputation intact after the conflict with Georgia in 2008. They can represent a formidable foe. This monograph examines the current state of the Airborne Forces and why they might be seen as "formidable."
Added December 16, 2011

Real Leadership and the U.S. Army: Overcoming a Failure of Imagination to Conduct Adaptive Work

Authored by Colonel John B. Richardson, IV.
This is a case study of a cavalry squadron struggling with operational adaptability. Through this struggle, the study provides a means for analyzing the complexity of organizational leadership in the contemporary security environment. The case study provides an example where hard fought lessons learned resulted in a more holistic approach to leadership, because the leader transcended that of simply being an authority figure, and instead, become a real leader who provided a safe and creative learning environment where the organization was able to tackle and solve complex problems.
Added October 31, 2011

Arms Control and Proliferation Challenges to the Reset Policy

Authored by Dr. Stephen J. Blank.
What are the prospects for further progress in the reset policy with Russia regarding arms control and nuclear proliferation by North Korea and Iran? This monograph attempts to postulate where we are, and possibly where we should be going, or will be going, with respect to these issues.
Added September 22, 2011

Puncturing the Counterinsurgency Myth: Britain and Irregular Warfare in the Past, Present, and Future

Authored by Dr. Andrew Mumford.
Far from being the counterinsurgency exemplars that history has benevolently cast them, this monograph posits 10 myths of British counterinsurgency that debunk key elements of British performance in irregular warfare from Malaya to Iraq.
Added July 08, 2011

The New Aztecs: Ritual and Restraint in Contemporary Western Military Operations

Authored by Dr. Zhivan Alach.
The Western way of war has come full circle. After centuries, indeed millennia, of evolution toward increased totality and brutality, it has turned back once again to the ritualistic and restrained methods of primitive warfare.
Added June 15, 2011

Military Modernization and the Russian Ground Forces

Authored by Dr. Rod Thornton.
Russia’s political leaders are currently pushing a state- and society-wide process of modernization. How will the deeply conservative Russian military accept and implement those proposed changes?
Added May 09, 2011

Cyber Infrastructure Protection

Edited by Dr. Tarek N. Saadawi, COL Louis H. Jordan, Jr.
This book answers several essential questions: What is cyberpower; how do we deal with emerging threats in cyberspace; what are the lessons that have already been learned; and where are the current cyberspace vulnerabilities?
Added April 25, 2011

Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq, 2003-09: A Case of Operational Surprise and Institutional Response

Authored by Brigadier Andrew Smith.
Institutional defense establishments guide the development of national military capabilities. Recent experience suggests that the orthodox approaches that they have evolved to perform this function in nominal peacetime are insufficiently responsive for contemporary threats and challenges.
Added February 25, 2011

Reforming Military Command Arrangements: The Case of the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force

Authored by Henrik Bliddal.
Our national security system turns our overall capabilities into active assets, protects us against the threats of an anarchic international system, and makes it possible to exploit its opportunities. Today, however, the system is arguably in dire need of reform.
Added December 21, 2010

A Risk-Based Approach to Strategic Balance

Authored by Colonel John A. Mauk.
This paper explores a risk-based approach to a strategically balanced force that assesses alternative postures and the viability of competing force concepts in mitigating national risk in a resource-constrained environment. This assessment also examines alternate definitions of balance and the continued relevance of U.S. conventional capabilities and nuclear deterrence.
Added August 27, 2010

David Galula: His Life and Intellectual Context

Authored by Ms. Ann Marlowe.
David Galula’s ideas are reflected in U.S. Army Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, and in nearly every speech that American commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq give, but until now, almost no biographical information was available about him. Arguably the greatest writer on counterinsurgency, Galula led a fascinating, although all too brief, life that gave him a bird’s eye view of most of the great conflicts of the second half of the 20th century.
Added August 24, 2010

U.S. Military Forces and Police Assistance in Stability Operations: The Least-Worst Option to Fill the U.S. Capacity Gap

Authored by Colonel (Ret.) Dennis E Keller.
Stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be challenged by the lack of effective local police forces to secure the civilian population from insurgent infiltration and criminal violence. Given U.S. government legal and organizational shortfalls to train and advise foreign police forces, coupled with an operational environment characterized by local police corruption and abusiveness, this monograph proposes a way ahead for effective community based policing despite these adverse circumstances.
Added August 13, 2010

Defense Energy Resilience: Lessons from Ecology

Authored by Dr. Scott Thomas, Mr. David Kerner.
National Security relies heavily on the ready availability of energy resources in the types, quantities, and locations the military demands. While U.S. energy needs are currently met, the shrinking gap between global supply and demand draws the world closer to a tipping point at which human behavior is less predictable, competition overwhelms social and geopolitical normalizing forces, and conflict becomes more likely and more pronounced. Given concerns about future resource availability, DoD would be well served by devising and implementing a sustainable, resilient energy strategy that addresses current projections and adapts to evolving conditions.
Added July 20, 2010

Got Vision? Unity of Vision in Policy and Strategy: What It Is and Why We Need It

Authored by Dr. Anna Simons.
Having the right "who" to devise strategy is critical to success in counterinsurgency or any asymmetric, cross-cultural encounter. This monograph contends that if we do not get the "who" right, none of the "whats," in terms of what we do, matters.
Added June 03, 2010

Human Intelligence: All Humans, All Minds, All the Time

Authored by Mr. Robert D. Steele.
The author explores the centrality of Human Intelligence in meeting the needs of the U.S. Army, as well as the Department of Defense, and the whole of government, for relevant information and tailored intelligence essential to creating a national security strategy; for defining whole of government policies that work in harmony; for acquisition of the right capabilities at the right price in time to be useful; and for operations, both local and global.
Added April 19, 2010

Short of General War: Perspectives on the Use of Military Power in the 21st Century

Edited by Dr. Harry R Yarger.
In this anthology, students in the U.S. Army War College Class of 2008 critically examine the emerging 21st century security environment and offer diverse and innovative thoughts on how military power should be applied in situations short of general war.
Added November 16, 2009

YouTube War: Fighting in a World of Cameras in Every Cell Phone and Photoshop on Every Computer

Authored by Dr. Cori E. Dauber.
Terrorist attacks are media events designed to draw the attention of the press since, without a larger audience, a terrorist attack will have accomplished very little. Shaping the attitudes and perceptions of the public can undermine the public will to fight. This is done by shaping media coverage.
Added November 03, 2009

India's Strategic Defense Transformation: Expanding Global Relationships

Authored by Lieutenant Colonel Brian K. Hedrick.
India’s defense establishment is undergoing an unprecedented transformation as it seeks to (1) modernize its military, (2) obtain “strategic partnerships” with the United States and other nations, and (3) expand its influence in the Indian Ocean and beyond.
Added November 03, 2009

Army Football and Full Spectrum Operations

Authored by Dr. Stephen Gerras.
Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the November 2009 newsletter.
Added October 28, 2009

Schools for Strategy: Teaching Strategy for 21st Century Conflict

Authored by Dr. Colin S. Gray.
Education in strategy is feasible and important. Few would-be strategists are beyond improvement by some formal education. However, for such education to be well-directed, it needs to rest upon sound assumptions concerning the eternal nature yet ever shifting character, meaning, and function of strategy, and the range of behaviors required for effective strategic performance.
Added September 16, 2009

Baghdad ER--Revisited

Authored by Colonel Erin P Edgar.
The China Dragons of the 28th Combat Support Hospital deployed in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM from September 2006 until November 2007. Their service epitomizes the strides that have been made in military combat medicine.
Added September 16, 2009

Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy

Authored by Brigadier Justin Kelly, Dr. Michael James Brennan.
This authors argue that the idea of an operational level of war charged with the planning and conduct of campaigns misconceives the relationship between wars, campaigns, and operations, and is both historically mistaken and wrong in theory. They conclude that its incorporation into U.S. doctrine has had the regrettable impact of separating the conduct of campaigns from the conduct of wars and consequently marginalized the role of politics in the direction of war. In essence, they argue that the idea of the campaign has come to overwhelm that of strategy.
Added August 11, 2009

Toward a Risk Management Defense Strategy

Authored by Mr. Nathan P. Freier.
The author outlines eight principles for a risk management defense strategy. He argues that these principles provide “measures of merit” for evaluating the new administration’s defense choices.
Added August 06, 2009

Taking Up the Security Challenge of Climate Change

Authored by Rymn J. Parsons.
The security implications of climate change, including man-made global warming, will be most pronounced in places where the effects of climate change are greatest. Two things are vitally important: stemming the tide of climate change and adapting to its far-reaching consequences.
Added June 25, 2009

2009 Key Strategic Issues List

Edited by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II.
The purpose of the Key Strategic Issues List is to provide military and civilian researchers a ready reference for issues of special interest to the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense.
Added June 18, 2009

Strategic Implications of Emerging Technologies

Authored by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II.
This year’s USAWC’s Strategic Studies Institute 20th Annual Strategy Conference was held on April 14-16, 2009, at Carlisle Barracks. It focused on “Strategic Implications of Emerging Technologies,” and was intended to look beyond the noted importance of advances in the field of cyber and information technologies to raise awareness of other technology areas which thus far have received less visibility. The conference explored biogenetics, biometrics, nanotechnologies, robotics, artificial intelligence, alternative energies, electromagnetic weaponry, nuclear power, and global warming.
Added May 22, 2009

State and Nonstate Associated Gangs: Credible "Midwives of New Social Orders"

Authored by Dr. Max G. Manwaring.
The author addresses the subject of the multifaceted nature and predominant role of gangs operating as state and nonstate proxies in the modern unbalanced global security environment. In every phase of the process of compelling radical political change, agitator-gangs and popular militias play significant roles in helping their political patrons prepare to take control of a targeted political-social entity. As a result, gangs (bandas criminales or whatever they may be called) are important components of a highly complex political-psychological-military act—contemporary irregular asymmetrical political war.
Added October 29, 2008

Slowing Military Change

Authored by Dr. Zhivan Alach.
The author revises, reexamines, and reevaluates the contemporary military environment. He finds that the environment is a period of relative military stasis, of slow technological development, and of little novelty in broader issues. If anything, it is a return to an older period, of the time before the Cold War, before the fear of nuclear war dominated all other thinking in the field.
Added July 16, 2008

Key Strategic Issues List, July 2008

Edited by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II.
The Key Strategic Issues List gives researchers, whether military professionals or civilian scholars, a ready reference of those issues of particular interest to the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense. Its focus is strategic, rather than operational or tactical. Every year, the KSIL helps guide research efforts to the mutual benefit of the defense community and individual researchers.
Added January 10, 2008

COIN of the Realm: U.S. Counterinsurgency Strategy

Authored by Dr. Steven Metz, Ralph Wipfli.
Given the wide-ranging and deep impact of counterinsurgency, the participants in the "Future Defense Dilemmas" seminar conducted by The Brookings Institution and the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, explored two key questions: (1) Is the United States pursuing and executing the right strategy? And (2) Does the military’s focus on counterinsurgency detract from other defense and security needs?
Added December 05, 2007

Force and Restraint in Strategic Deterrence: A Game-Theorist's Perspective

Authored by Dr. Roger B. Myerson.
This monograph is a short nontechnical introduction to the use of game theory in the study of international relations, focusing is on the problem of deterrence against potential adversaries and aggressors. The author uses game models to provide a simple context where we can see more clearly the essential logic of strategic deterrence.
Added November 06, 2007

Transformation Under Fire: A Historical Case Study with Modern Parallels

Authored by Major Raymond A. Kimball.
The author argues that Soviet military transformation efforts during the Russian Civil War fell prey to “temporary” compromises and a misidentification of their enemy. He sees similar and ominous trends at work in current American Transformation efforts.
Added October 09, 2007

A Concept at the Crossroads: Rethinking the Center of Gravity

Authored by Lieutenant Colonel Rudolph M. Janiczek.
The author concludes that, in an effort to operationalize Clausewitz's signature concept, the U.S. military probably limited its utility. The Center of Gravity is best applied as an abstract, rather than as a practical, concept.
Added August 21, 2007

Negotiation in the New Strategic Environment: Lessons from Iraq

Authored by Mr. David M Tressler.
With thousands of negotiations being conducted by U.S. soldiers in Iraq—from junior to senior leaders—the aggregate effect of successful or failed negotiations has an impact on the ability of the U.S. military to accomplish its mission there as well as meet American strategic goals. The author argues that the military’s strategic success in the future may increasingly depend on an expanded range of training that includes negotiation skills and practice. By analyzing the negotiating experience of U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers in Iraq, he offers recommendations to improve negotiating effectiveness and predeployment negotiation training.
Added August 16, 2007

An Introduction to Theater Strategy and Regional Security

Authored by Lieutenant Colonel Clarence J. Bouchat (USAF, Ret.).
Theater strategy and theater security cooperation (TSC) are two of the most important tools available in attaining national security. This paper explains what theater strategy is, its basis, how it is formulated, and how it is executed with emphasis on theater security cooperation.
Added July 24, 2007

The Implications of Preemptive and Preventive War Doctrines: A Reconsideration

Authored by Dr. Colin S. Gray.
The Bush administration has declared a doctrine of preemption, when what it really means is a doctrine of prevention. Despite heavy criticism from home and especially abroad, there is a need for the United States to be willing and able, very occasionally, to take preventive action in order to forestall future dangers.
Added July 18, 2007

2007 Key Strategic Issues List (KSIL)

Edited by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II.
The Key Strategic Issues List gives researchers, whether military professionals or civilian scholars, a ready reference of those issues of particular interest to the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense. Its focus is strategic, rather than operational or tactical. Every year, the KSIL helps guide research efforts to the mutual benefit of the defense community and individual researchers.
Added May 07, 2007

Manning the Force

Authored by Dr. Douglas V. Johnson, II.
Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the May 2007 newsletter.
Added April 10, 2007

Biodefense Research Supporting the DoD: A New Strategic Vision

Authored by Colonel Coleen K. Martinez.
The author examines why, despite devoting decades of research to developing countermeasures against biological agents, the Department of Defense has few products in its arsenal. She concludes that the military requires significant change in program structure and management to begin fielding protective drugs and vaccines for the warfighter efficiently.
Added March 15, 2007

Globalization and Its Implications for the Defense Industrial Base

Authored by Dr. Terrence R. Guay.
One of the most important implications of globalization is its effect on the economic competitiveness of countries and particular industries. Both governments and defense companies bear the responsibility for devising prudent policies and strategies that capture the opportunities presented by globalization, while mitigating the risks.
Added January 10, 2007

Challenging Transformation's Clichés

Authored by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II.
Critical thinkers analyze and refine ideas underpinning the foundation of American defense policy and military strategy today so the defense community can apply them in strategy and force development. This is an ongoing process: new ideas emerge, are tested, and adopted, revised, or discarded.
Added January 04, 2007

Naval Transformation, Ground Forces, and the Expeditionary Impulse: The Sea-Basing Debate

Authored by Professor Geoffrey Till.
While naval forces often are out of sight and out of mind to land forces engaged in expeditionary operations, their contribution is vital and becoming much more so. But they face major challenges, which if not resolved may mean the end of what has been called the "expeditionary era."
Added November 21, 2006

Defense Transformation: To What, For What?

Authored by Colonel Kevin Reynolds.
Beyond enhancing the lethality of U.S. forces on the conventional battlefield, where is defense transformation headed?
Added November 03, 2006

Transformation's Uncontested Truths

Authored by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II.
Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the November 2006 newsletter.
Added October 18, 2006

Confronting the Unconventional: Innovation and Transformation in Military Affairs

Authored by David Tucker.
Limitations on the ability of the U.S. military to innovate and transform to deal with irregular warfare pose policy and strategy dilemmas. The best way to deal with these dilemmas is to establish a new kind of interagency organization devoted to irregular warfare and an irregular warfare organization within DoD.
Added September 06, 2006

"What If?" -- A Most Impertinent Question Indeed

Authored by Mr. Nathan P. Freier.
Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the September 2006 newsletter.
Added August 18, 2006

How to Make Army Force Generation Work for the Army's Reserve Components

Authored by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E Whitlock.
This paper describes ARFORGEN, discusses some of its critical assumptions related to reserve component (RC) units, and explains what changes are required at the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of the Army (DA), and the individual RC levels so that the Army can integrate its RC units fully into ARFORGEN. The paper details needed changes at both the institutional and operational level at DA and DoD.
Added August 02, 2006

Doctrine that Works

Authored by Dr. Douglas V. Johnson, II.
Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the August 2006 newsletter.
Added July 17, 2006

2006 Key Strategic Issues List (KSIL)

Edited by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II.
In today’s dynamic strategic environment, political changes can become challenges very quickly. Any list of key strategic issues must, therefore, include the broadest array of regional and functional concerns. This is a catalogue of significant issues, arranged as potential research topics, of concern to U.S. policymakers. As such, the KSIL is a ready source of topics that members of the defense community and academia can use to focus their research efforts.
Added March 01, 2006

Planning For and Applying Military Force: An Examination of Terms

Authored by Lieutenant General (USMC Ret) Paul K Van Riper.
Joint doctrine is currently undergoing some potentially major revisions. The author asks the doctrine community to take a step back from the process of change and take a hard look at the differences between the original concepts and the proposed revisions.