How do we measure the on-the-ground costs of taking civilian lives?
Journal
Journal Articles are typically longer works with more more analysis than the news and short commentary in the SWJ Blog.
We accept contributed content from serious voices across the small wars community, then publish it here as quickly as we can, per our Editorial Policy, to help fuel timely, thoughtful, and unvarnished discussion of the diverse and complex issues inherent in small wars.
Every SOF practitioner will be required to understand the basics of cyberspace, computers, and coding because they’ll need those skills to conduct cyber special operations.
This is a world of closely-knit communities. It signals the end of closed border politics, the irrelevance of the politics of containment and the risks of double-standard politics.
Continue on for a TRADOC G-2 / Small Wars Journal "Mad Scientist" call for papers update.
In order to predict future impacts of megacities to the US Army, the global drivers and trends leading to megacity development must be identified.
We can become so preoccupied with how to win over the population we fail to ask when attempting to do so is even appropriate.
On the surface, facilitating mentoring seems very simple, but even establishing a common definition is a significant challenge.
In dispute is how to make attack pilots trained in and flying in an aircraft designed for an attack mission into aerial scouts.
While it contends with the Islamic State and al-Qaida an insurgency intent on challenging the sovereignty of the U.S. government is already here.
The Army must develop a holistic solution to Army-wide cyber resiliency and hardening of electronic systems to address our current cyber capability gap.
The growing planned use of UMS and robotics on the future battlefield affords both great opportunities and challenges to far future medical operations.
Interview with Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
If we aren’t willing to use American infantry against ISIS, perhaps we might consider using robots.
SWJ discussion with Alexander Lanoszka, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College.
Kilcullen has six maxims to manage company-level COIN operations, and for me the most interesting one of the six is “travel light, and harden your combat service support.”
This research examines the cyber battle space, why it poses a significant threat, and how attribution difficulties can create significant issues for deterrence of cyber-attacks.
Lawyers like to say that “bad facts make bad law” – and that could be at play here.
America has been ignoring the overall threat that has been attacking her people since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Like the Battle of the Bulge, the 1972 Easter Offensive has often been referred to as an intelligence failure because it caught the U.S. and S. Vietnam completely by surprise.
Statecraft stands apart as a more elevated undertaking than politics... statecraft is fundamentally a strategic enterprise, while strategy in turn is... an ethical enterprise.
Are American terrorists considered combatants if not in an active combat zone engaging U.S. forces on the ground and should they be accorded additional consideration before being targeted?
This research paper examines four cells of individuals, both rooted in society and of a high socio-economic status, whose members have radicalized within North America.
The true goal of Special Forces physical training should reflect that which was sought by the OSS—complete confidence to handle uncertainty.
Egos and agendas are destroying the prospect for a powerful alliance against ISIS.
People have always given our Nation and our Army the competitive advantage. In the Cyber Domain, the people continue to be the central factor to our success.
I am struggling to think of a single insurgency that was defeated by airpower, primarily defeated by airpower, or even seriously undermined by airpower.
Allah versus the ISO’s fraudulent martyrdom - a fraud that is sinful at many levels.
The politics and theology of Muslims is now the dominant source of global instability; although any separation of the two is moot in most nations with an Islamic majority.
American strategy must consider the potential to prompt a deterioration of the relationship between the United States and India and foster a partnership between China and India.
The persistent use of RC forces is referred to as the Operational Reserve. For the last several years there has been much debate on what the OR is, or is not.
In summation, this is an excellent work derived from a number of years of intimate interviews and field reports conducted by Grillo.
Transnational criminal enterprises are now forging alliances in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their operation with the intention of increasing income, influence, and power.
Contrary to what the subtitle says you will not learn to “think like the enemy” by reading the book Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy by Micah Zenko.
The so-called IS is experiencing some loss of key personnel and territory under US and EU bombardment and Iraqi army advances. But those extremists are adapting to the changing conditions.
Existing US security assurances and other means coupled with modest policy adjustments are sufficient to compel the Kingdom to forego nuclear proliferation ambitions.
A future capability that is explained in this paper is that machines will have the ability to remove humans from the real-time decision-making loop.
Does the shift in the language of concept development from the operational concept to the joint operating concept make the former term obsolete or does it leave out something important?
Should covert intelligence agencies and organizations within an open government and society, like the United States, be treated as anathema to the Body Politic?
Only through coordination and collaboration with trusted, close-knit allies, can the United States expect to maintain and develop its own national security.
The DoD should shift from predominant reliance on high-technology empowered U.S. military dominance towards prioritization of U.S.-Allied dominance.
Man-machine teaming is inexorable and Special Warfare needs a blueprint to transform along with it.
There has been a significant devaluation of the relationship between those responsible for setting and executing strategy and those providing intelligence and assessment supporting strategy.
The U.S., and its peerless military in particular, should begin deploying diverse and scalable elements of national power to promote coalitions to deter Chinese aggression.
While power is the substance of international relations, culture is a significant part of the overall picture that must not be either overlooked or over-emphasized.
Like his May 2015 address, al-Baghdadi again illogically and illicitly reduces the entirety of Islam as a religious faith to a single act--fighting.
As with all commanders, I had given much thought to the key areas of focus that would support us in building combined arms close combat competencies at various levels within the Brigade.
The basis for COIN rules of engagement and background for the conflict between the right to self-defense and the protection of civilians found in international law and the Law of War.
Now that the Pentagon has decided to integrate females into combat arms units the question turns to how to do so in the best manner possible.
The classical principles of counterinsurgency, while still exceptionally appropriate for countering regionally dominant insurgencies, are inadequate for countering modern global insurgency.
The term “terrorist organization” offers little insight and limits our understanding and approach. ISIS is an insurgent organization using terrorism as a tactic.