Strategic Studies Institute

Military Strategy and Policy Studies

Added May 17, 2013

Type: Letort Papers

The Challenge of Drug Trafficking to Democratic Governance and Human Security in West Africa. Authored by David E. Brown.

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International criminal networks—some with links to terrorism—represent an existential threat to democratic governance of already fragile states in West Africa, and are using drugs to buy political power, fray West Africa’s traditional social fabric, and create a public health crisis. Drug trafficking represents the most serious challenge to human security in the region since resource conflicts rocked several West African countries in the early 1990s; international aid to the subregion’s “war on drugs” is only in an initial stage, and progress will be have to be measured in decades, not years.

Added May 13, 2013

Type: Monograph

War and Insurgency in the Western Sahara. Authored by Dr. Geoffrey Jensen.

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Home to the largest functional military barrier in the world, the Western Sahara has a long history of colonial conquest and resistance, guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency, and evolving strategic thought. This monograph explores the past, present, and future of the region, including its relationship to developments in Morocco, Algeria, and elsewhere in North Africa.

Added May 03, 2013

Type: Monograph

Cyber Infrastructure Protection: Vol. II. Edited by Dr. Tarek N. Saadawi, COL Louis H. Jordan, Jr, Dr. Vincent Boudreau.

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This book is a follow-on to our earlier book published in 2011 and represents a detailed look at various aspects of cyber security. The chapters herein provide an integrated framework and a comprehensive view of the various forms of cyber infrastructure protection.

Added April 26, 2013

Type: Monograph

Sharing Power? Prospects for a U.S. Concert-Balance Strategy. Authored by Dr. Patrick Porter.

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Sharing Power examines alternative U.S. grand strategies. It argues that, while retrenchment is prudent, new strategies will also have to cope with dilemmas that can be mitigated but cannot be avoided.

Added April 11, 2013

Type: Monograph

Egypt's New Regime and the Future of the U.S.-Egyptian Strategic Relationship. Authored by Gregory Aftandilian.

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This monograph, completed in August 2012, analyzes the developments in Egypt from January 2011 to August 2012 and addresses the following questions that are pertinent to U.S. policymakers: How does the United States maintain good relations and preserve its strategic partnership with Egypt under Cairo’s new political leadership and the changing political environment in the country? How does it do so while adhering to American values such as supporting democracy even when those coming to power do not share U.S. strategic goals?

Added April 04, 2013

Type: Monograph

Making Strategic Sense of Cyber Power: Why the Sky Is Not Falling. Authored by Dr. Colin S. Gray.

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Cyber is now recognized as an operational domain, but the theory that should explain it strategically is very largely missing. As the military establishment accepted the revolution in military affairs as the big organizing idea of the 1990s, then moved on to transformation in the early-2000s, so the third really big idea of the post-Cold War Era began to secure traction—cyber. However, it is one thing to know how to digitize; it is quite another to understand what digitization means strategically. With respect to cyber power, Dr. Colin Gray poses and seeks to answer the most basic of the strategist’s questions, “So what?”

Added April 01, 2013

Type: Letort Papers

From Chaos to Cohesion: A Regional Approach to Security, Stability, and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Authored by Diane E. Chido.

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African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are increasingly proving their ability and willingness to unite to halt and prevent conflict and to further regional economic and political objectives. USAFRICOM is uniquely positioned to strengthen REC capacity as a first step in a longer-term Pan-African integration process for enhanced continental stability and security.

Added March 20, 2013

Type: Monograph

Governance, Identity, and Counterinsurgency: Evidence from Ramadi and Tal Afar. Authored by Dr. Michael Fitzsimmons.

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Western thinking on counterinsurgency seems to be that success in countering insurgencies depends on a perception of legitimacy among local populations. However, it may be more correct to consider the identity of who governs, rather than on how whoever governs governs.

Added February 05, 2013

Type: Book

Strategic Stability: Contending Interpretations. Edited by Elbridge A. Colby, Michael S. Gerson.

This edited volume offers the most current authoritative contemporary survey of the concept of strategic stability, a central plank in U.S. policy on nuclear weapons and great power relations.

Added January 31, 2013

Type: Letort Papers

Talking Past Each Other? How Views of U.S. Power Vary between U.S. and International Military Personnel. Authored by Colonel Richard H. M. Outzen.

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The gap between the U.S. military’s self-image and its image in the eyes of an international military audience is examined. When considering U.S. power, do response patterns indicate great difference between how U.S. military officers view themselves and how they are viewed by their international peers? If so, is there anything that the United States can do about it, or does a fundamental and pathological anti-Americanism predetermine outcomes?