Write well, make us all richer. Including you.

This is an update to our $8000 writing competition, which was first announced here.  This final announcement provides the final amplifying detail for execution.

We are looking for insights on the two topics below from across the diverse community of small wars practitioners and participants.  Please push this call for papers out to the far reaches, using this handy flyer, so the good word reaches the best and brightest and we all have some great reading in early 2010. Winning entries and select others will be published in future special volumes of Small Wars Journal.  For each of the two topics, a $3,000 Grand Prize and two $500 Honorable Mentions will be awarded.  Papers should be 3,000 - 5,000 words in length, submitted by November 30, 2009.

Please note some changes here to the prior announcement, specifically the new deadline of Nov 30 (vs. Nov 10 originally), and some minor wording changes for clarity in the questions. The final wording of the two topics is provided here; if you'd like the happy-to-glad forensics see the original announcement where we marked up the changes.

The topics are:

1. Security vs. [Jobs & Services & etc.] -- horse and cart, or chicken and egg?

The “security is the military’s job” camp at one extreme expects more order than can be obtained by kinetic measures without a scorched earth approach. Alternately, it demands that the armed forces exceed their organizational mandate in early phases and then obediently (and wastefully?) hop back into their military box until things go awry again. Other camps may err by expecting too much from non-military actors in non-permissive environments, understating the risks non-military actors already do or should accept, or tinkering with building massive non-lethal expeditionary capabilities that may be unsustainable.

What does security really mean in a small war, how much is needed when, and how do you make meaningful security gains through the pragmatic application of affordable capabilities? How does security relate as an intermediate objective or an end state? Cite examples of real successes or failures.

2. Postcards From The Edge – the practical application of the Whole of Government approach.

Organizational issues are being discussed from Goldwater-Nichols II to unity of effort and simple handshake-con. Whatever the structure on high, people from different walks of life and different functional expertise need to work together on the ground at the pointy end of the spear to deliver effects that matter. Discuss real experiences (personal, known firsthand, or researched and documented) of real people facing real challenges that offer relevant insights into the conduct of a small war.

Consider any, all, or none of the following:

• Discuss what worked and/or what didn’t, and why.
• How did participants from different agencies, branches, nations, etc. look at problems differently, and how were those views eventually reconciled (or not)?
• Discuss personal challenges.
• Discuss the moral and ethical challenges of small wars.
• Approach as a turnover guide to a successor.
• Inform operational approaches and “grand” tactics, techniques, and procedures.
• Inform human resourcing / manpower / training & education.
• Relevance for national resource strategy.
• Relevance for go-to-war decisions and conflict strategy.

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The gruesome details are:

Submission

• One submission per author per topic. Collaboration under a multi-author byline is fine.
• ANYONE may enter, except for the Officers of Small Wars Foundation, our judges, and their immediate families.
• Submit by email to competition@smallwarsjournal.com, by midnight (GMT) on November 30, 2009.
• Review this submission agreement and submit a signed copy with your entry. Entries are not complete without it.  We strongly prefer that you scan and include as an attachment with your submission.  If you must, submit your article by email and fax your completed agreement to (703) 229-6392.
• Submissions must be unpublished, original works and you are granting us certain rights.  Read the submission agreement thoroughly.
• You should receive an email acknowledgement of your submission within 48 hours.  If not, contact us.

Format

• Submit in MS Word, or in rich text format.
• Put the title on the title page and as a header on all other pages.  Put author name, contact information, and a brief bio on the front page ONLY.  Papers will be blind reviewed and judged.
• Simpler formatting is better.  We are judging your words, not your Office skills. Entries will be completely reformatted for publication.
• Pictures, figures, etc. are welcome and encouraged.  For format, put a placeholder inline where you think they belong, e.g. "Figure 1 here," and include the items with captions in separate pages at the end of the document.  Include high quality versions of any embedded files as an attachment with your submission.

Style & Judging

• Style -- write for readers and practitioners, not academics, but let the Chicago Manual of Style be your guide for any finicky things. Footnotes are appropriate unless they are used to bury word count.  Entries should be free of jargon and readable by your average sophisticated adult.
• Length -- 3,000 words is a guide for a minimum, 5,000 is a hard cap.  We will gladly award grand prize to the Gettysburg Address of Small Wars while recognizing that, unlike Lincoln, you'll need to build a context for your readers.  We will not judge more than 5,000 words of main body text.  Reasonable footnotes, captions, figures, etc. do not count against the word count.
• Judging -- papers will be blind reviewed and judged for clarity of presentation, their insights into the topic, and the significance of their key points to the practice of small wars in general.  We expect to announce and publish winners by February 1, 2010.
• Papers need not be OIF- / OEF-centric. Papers must resonate beyond a single silo, i.e. they must touch on at least some aspect of joint, coalition, interagency, multi-disciplinary, or cross-cultural significance.

Special cases

• We are happy to receive international and / or non-military submissions, and have no idea why so many people keep asking.  Just write in English.
• We will not accept anonymous or pseudonymous submissions for this writing competition, as we must have an identified payee for any prizes that are paid.  We will consider, for extraordinary circumstances, publishing award winning articles as name withheld on author's request.  Contact the Publisher in advance if that is your scheme, and we tell us why that is essential; we can be convinced, but will need convincing.
• If you have a story to tell that doesn't fit these questions, or you do but really want to stay completely anonymous, please consider submitting it to Small Wars Journal anyway, outside of the competition. We are always looking for good material that advances the community of interest.