Changes Are Coming!

"In 1991 the Gulf War showed everyone how not to fight us, but the 2003 invasion of Iraq showed everybody how to fight us."
-- David Kilcullen
“It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.”
-- Joseph Stalin
“For Dave Dilegge and Bill Nagle, founders and editors of Small Wars Journal. They gave the counterguerrilla underground a home, at a time when misguided leaders banned even the word ‘insurgency,’ though busily losing to one. Scholars, warriors, and agitators, Dave and Bill laid the foundation for battlefield success: our generation owes them a debt of gratitude.”
-- David Kilcullen ('Counterinsugency' Dedication)
“With no other security forces on hand, U.S. military was left to confront, almost alone, an Iraqi insurgency and a crime rate that grew worse throughout the year, waged in part by soldiers of the disbanded army and in part by criminals who were released from prison.”
-- John Spratt
"Slow is smooth, smooth is fast."
-- Old MOUT Adage

Small Wars Journal is in the process of some major changes. The Small Wars Foundation is working closely with the new owners of the website at Arizona State University (ASU). We are transitioning to a new staff, a new website, and rebranding that will honor SWJ's important legacy and forge a powerful new discourse on small wars, irregular warfare, and competitive statecraft. Small Wars Journal will continue to publish original works from authentic voices across the spectrum of stakeholders in small wars.

Journal

Time to Move Beyond Cannons

by L. Lance Boothe | Thu, 10/03/2024 - 10:09am | 0 comments

In the US Army, a struggle with math is happening, particularly in the Field Artillery. For a combat arm which demands meeting the five requirements for accurate predicted fire (target location and size, firing unit location, weapon and ammunition information, meteorological data, and computational procedures) as essential to putting steel on target, one would think arithmetic near reverential. Calculus and geometry, simply being able to count to ten, and doing math in increments of 10s, 50s, or 100s applies to just about every one of the “five requirements” in some form or fashion. Yet some artillerymen cannot seem to do the simplest math of all – merely counting munitions and systems.

Fire for Effect in Ukraine

by John Nagl, by Dan Rice | Tue, 10/01/2024 - 12:20pm | 0 comments

The United States has now approved the provision of air-to-ground AGM-154 precision cluster glide bombs to Ukraine. This completes the full family of cluster munitions for artillery, HIMARs rockets and aircraft thirty-two months after the Russian invasion of that country. Cluster munitions incorporate a number of smaller bomblets that scatter upon impact, vastly increasing the destructive power of the weapons. America has been slow to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, doing so sparingly and haltingly. It is now time to deliver all of these different types of cluster munitions in large quantities to destroy the Russian Army in Ukraine. In artillery terms, it is time to FIRE FOR EFFECT and provide the quantities of ammunition Ukraine needs to win the war

Is a Responsible Strategic Threat Assessment Too Much to Ask For?

by Al Dhobaba | Thu, 09/26/2024 - 2:41am | 0 comments

As early as 2008, Army Colonel and West Point history professor Gian Gentile led a chorus of voices that characterized counterinsurgency operations as a dangerous distraction from what might be characterized as “real soldiering”: combined arms maneuver, force-on-force combat, and engagements against what are popularly referred to as “near-peer threats.” By 2015, most of the American defense establishment was onboard! Counterinsurgency was over! Land wars in developing countries were passé! China was a rising power, and America would pivot its attention to the Pacific to contain it! Russia was resurgent, threatening the interests of America and American allies the world over! It was time to reconfigure the service branches to deter or defeat these strategic competitors!

Twin Insurgency, Irregular War, and Oil Theft in Nigeria and Brazil: An Overview

by Zachary Z. Horsington | Mon, 09/23/2024 - 12:11am | 0 comments

This article by SWJ−El Centro Intern Zachary Horsington reviews the concept of twin insurgency and its constituent components of criminal insurgency and plutocratic insurgency in order to illuminate case studies of oil theft in Nigeria and Brazil.

US Soft Intervention in One of The World’s Hardest Conflicts

by El Mahdi Habib-Alla Ali Al Sanos, by Joshua Saidoff | Fri, 09/20/2024 - 2:47pm | 0 comments

The civil war in Sudan has produced mass displacement, famine, tales of systematic rape and ethnic killing. The numbers suggest the scale of suffering: 10 million displaced, 25.6 million facing acute hunger, and casualty counts exceeding 20,000 killed and 33,000 injured. The civil war represents more than a domestic tragedy. It has become a battleground for global and regional powers, each advancing their own agendas at the expense of the Sudanese people. Central to the conflict is a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which stems from the former Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the modern successor of militias responsible for atrocities in Darfur (currently engaging in fighting the Houthis in Yemen).

Theater Army Strategy – U.S. Army Pacific

by Marco J. Lyons | Mon, 09/16/2024 - 10:57pm | 0 comments

On behalf of General Charlie Flynn, Commander of United States Army Pacific, I want to provide you with a digital copy of the United States Army Pacific Theater Army strategy that was approved for public release this week.

SWJ Book Review − De Gruyter Handbook of Drone Warfare

by Robert Bunker | Mon, 09/16/2024 - 3:26pm | 0 comments

Review of the De Gruyter Handbook of Drone Warfare by Future Security Initiative Research Fellow Dr. Robert J. Bunker.

Ukraine Sept 2024: The Kursk Offensive and Beyond

by Martin Stanton | Wed, 09/11/2024 - 10:34am | 0 comments

A few weeks ago, I published my initial thoughts on the (surprising) Ukrainian offensive towards the Russian city of Kursk. To summarize, I viewed it as a positive development that added a new dimension – Ukrainians holding territory that was clearly Russian before Putin’s Feb 2022 invasion of Ukraine – to what had become an increasingly static war. It’s been a month. Let’s look at where everyone is.

Unleashing Private Capital: A Strategic Shift to Boost Allied Defense

by John Nagl, by Dan Rice | Thu, 09/05/2024 - 8:07pm | 0 comments

The U.S. stands at a pivotal moment in its global security strategy. As the world grapples with war in Ukraine and Chinese aggression in the South-China Sea, the need to bolster the defense capabilities of key allies has never been more pressing. Traditional methods of military aid and direct government spending are insufficient to meet the challenges posed by rising powers like China and Russia. A simple yet transformative policy change could unlock significant private investment in overseas defense manufacturing and strengthen the defense industrial base of U.S. allies in critical regions such as Eastern Europe and the Indo-Pacific. By expanding the mandate of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to include defense-related projects, the U.S. can incentivize private capital to flow into areas crucial for global security.

Not Today--and Tomorrow’s Not Good Either: The Mission of the US Army Pacific

by John Nagl | Wed, 09/04/2024 - 4:15pm | 0 comments

The United States Army Pacific, and its higher headquarters the United States Indo-Pacific Command, exist to make sure that the United States is never caught flat-footed again. I was in Oahu a few weeks ago (tough duty) as part of a team from the United States Army War College, where I teach senior officers military strategy, planning, and operations; my students at USARPAC were mostly more junior, captains and majors and senior non-commissioned officers who worked at Fort Shafter and across the Indo-Pacific.