Journal

This paper examines potential covert operation scenarios against the DPRK by dissecting retired Army Special Forces Colonel David S. Maxwell’s latest essay.

It’s time to rethink our notions of security. And it appears that the Department of Defense is leaning in that direction.

Because of their technical features and low profile design characteristics, narco submarines allow drug traffickers to reduce the risk of detection and seizure.

The pervasive presence of CCTV in cities underpins much of contemporary security, policing and defence, against anti-social behaviour, crime and terrorism.

The Veteran internally recalls, reflects and remembers the very personal and unique aspects of that time served There.

Remember the burdens every generation of veterans have borne to remain vigilant in an uncertain world. Originally posted by SWJ on 10 November 2012.

Continue on for a link to this 2011 Journal article, one of our most visited at almost 213,000 reads.

Is President Obama breaking his frequently iterated promise of no troops on the ground, or is it just a crucial tactical adjustment?

The Department of Defense should remember that the concept of “evolve or die” applies to the Services.

Training must take into consideration the planning process and the effects on operations by the presence of MANPADS in an area of operations.

The communist Afghan Army was established with traditions and a structure that dated back to the 1800s. It also inherited a healthy society, and a government with functioning institutions.

This is a retrospective analysis of my anecdotal observations in Vietnam’s Third Military Region 1971-75. *Updated with map.

Within two years of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s death, his regionally inspired “Bolivarian Revolution” is currently facing the largest threat to its survival.

Strategic, operational, and tactical actions the US should take in each dimension of the information environment to counter the ISIL's asymmetric, and apparently dominant, information campaign.

All of the gender “experiments” that the services have been undergoing for some time now have been a sideshow.

RAF’s full potential for solving today’s complex threats to security cannot be fully realized with existing training models and force structure.

Few have looked at jihadi groups in the context of classical military strategy but perhaps surprisingly the jihadis themselves view their ideas through exactly that lens.

The gap between civilian and military spheres is institutionally marginal and culturally absent. Civil-military relations are defined by a system based on pluralism and centralized localism.

The inability of the military to consistently and uniformly articulate readiness makes our political leaders less able to make the decisions necessary to secure our national interests.

As the Army seeks to adjust for the future it must carefully examine its aviation component based on not only cost, but also capabilities.

To what extent did British forces adhere to the use of the minimal force to restore order, a principle which is perceived by some as a pivotal point of the British COIN approach.

The world is in turmoil; the geostrategic security environment is rapidly changing, with new, and adaptive threats facing the NATO Alliance.

Col Robert Dixon continues a theme popular among many military theorists which advocates for immediate change to longstanding principles of military doctrine and science.

After two years, the United States has little evidence that efforts to degrade and subsequently destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is working. 

Rapid technological advancement over the last three decades has resulted in extraordinary discoveries and advancements in the biotechnology field.

China seems to have abandoned its cautiously courteous policies in Afghanistan in favor of a more hands on approach.

There are likely few strategic concepts that instigate arguments more than Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity - Schwerpunkt - the point where all force must be directed.

"Reorganize the current US presence into a smaller force, augmented with remote sensing equipment."

ISIS is displaying a level of tactical skill foreign to most terrorist groups, but familiar to any conventional military officer.

In this paper, we will introduce another region in the world in which there are networks that are competing for influence, Kano, Nigeria.

Five years after the establishment of Cyber Command the U.S. is confronted with another advance in technology that requires a re-evaluation of the concepts of maneuver in a cyberized world.

What are hybrid threats and why have they received so much attention lately?

Few things have been more emblematic of the military and, indeed, political aspects of the Obama War Powers legacy than drones.

The possibility of Mexican drug cartels establishing close ties to Islamic terrorist groups and the transformation of criminal organizations into terrorist groups, and vice versa.

We should be careful not to confuse sympathy for the victims of the Kunduz hospital incident with an assumption that the attack was in violation of international law.

I argue that there is direct relationship between liberty and democracy. In order to have democracy, a state must value individual liberty and subscribe to liberal values.

Most stakeholders fail to appreciate that Afghanistan is fighting a parallel, and far less visible, battle that is likely to have a profound effect on the fate of the country.

A great man is not necessarily good or popular. Vladimir Putin may be such a man. The American president is not.

This paper examines threat insights as they pertain to each of the Long-Range Investment Requirements Analysis investment categories.

To mitigate potential consequences on children, military families need to understand and proactively address potential traumatic effects separation can have on dependents.

The author attempts to summarize the important facets of the entanglement between U.S. strategy and emerging technologies.

Written and directed by Matthew Heineman, “Cartel Land”, also available in Spanish as “Tierra de carteles,” is a timely and graphic documentary.

Tactics, techniques and procedures for the successful application of Decision Point Tactics while conducting Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield in a decisive action training environment.

When everything is strategic, nothing is strategic.

Single-point solutions developed by government experts have failed to account for dynamic and volatile global conditions highly resistant to predetermined resolution.

Each nation brings unique capabilities to the team and learning how to maximize the effectiveness of these capabilities requires consistent training among the different militaries.

The US strategy of selecting reliable proxies against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria based on their ideological leanings is proving to be disastrous.

The ISIS’ caliphate and the security challenges it portends. These problems have been poorly addressed by the Administration’s low cost/minimum risk containment policy.

SWJ interview with William McCants on The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State (St. Martin’s Press, September 2015).

The creation of operational level of war between strategy and tactics in U.S. doctrine resulted from a misunderstanding of the operational art and its relationship to both strategy and tactics.