Small Wars General Reference / Background

Small Wars Manual - Reprint of the original 1940 USMC Small Wars Manual.  Small wars are operations undertaken under executive authority, wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or external affairs of another state whose government is unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the foreign policy of our Nation.

An Introduction to the Tactics and Technique of Small Wars - Major Harold Utley, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, May 1931.  It is obvious that this subject is of prime importance to officers of the Marine Corps, and Naval officers since they may, either as commanders of squadrons and ships supporting such operations or as staff officers of such commanders, find it necessary to pass judgment upon plans for this type of operations, should likewise have more than a hazy knowledge of what has occurred in the past; and finally, it is believed that officers of the Army cannot afford to wholly disregard this subject even though it is fundamentally a function of the Marine Corps, although it is true that the landing of a single armed soldier on foreign soil constitutes an act of war, whereas sailors and marines can operate all over the same country and suffer a considerable number of casualties while the nation concerned and our own are still at peace.  This very fact-that no state of war exists-coupled with that mentioned before-that only a portion of the inhabitants are hostile-frequently gives to the operations a character differing radically from that where a formal state of war exists, they complicate the situation immeasurably.  Although each situation presents its own peculiar problems, they all have certain characteristics in common, and these can be studied and prepared for. The frequency with which they have occurred emphasizes the importance of making careful studies, of selecting most appropriate organization and equipment, and of undergoing adequate training, in order that we may be properly prepared when we encounter them.

Quadrennial Defense Review Report - U.S. Department of Defense, February 2006. The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war.  Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, our Nation has fought a global war against violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice, and who seek to destroy our free way of life. Our enemies seek weapons of mass destruction and, if they are successful, will likely attempt to use them in their conflict with free people everywhere. Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our Nation and its interests around the globe for years to come. This 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review is submitted in the fifth year of this long war.

U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy, 2nd Edition - Edited by Colonel J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., US Army (Ret). This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy reflects to some extent recent changes in the structure of the core curriculum at the War College. The college broke its traditional core course, “War, National Policy and Strategy,” into two courses: “Theory of War and Strategy” and “National Security Policy and Strategy.” The result for this book is the expansion of the block on strategic theory and the introduction of a block on specific strategic issues. Because little time has past since the publication of the most recent version of this book, this edition is largely an expansion of its predecessor rather than a major rewriting. Several chapters are new and others have undergone significant rewrites or updates, but about two-thirds of the book remains unchanged. Although this is not primarily a textbook, it does reflect both the method and manner we use to teach strategy formulation to America’s future senior leaders. The book is also not a comprehensive or exhaustive treatment of either strategy or the policymaking process. The Guide is organized in broad groups of chapters addressing general subject areas. We begin with a look at some specific issues about the general security environment—largely international. The section on strategic thought and formulation includes chapters on broad issues of strategy formulation as well as some basic strategic theory. The third section is about the elements of national power. A section on the national security policymaking process in the United States precedes the final section that deals with selected strategic issues.

Alliances and American National Security - Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. US Army Strategic Studies Institute study, November 2006.  One of the greatest challenges facing the United States today is the translation of its overwhelming might into effective influence. Traditionally, the United States has leveraged its power through bilateral and multilateral alliances. However, the end of the Cold War and the events of September 11, 2001, have led some policymakers and analysts to question the value of alliances in American foreign and defense policy. This monograph advocates that allies are more important than ever to the achievement of U.S. national security goals.

Strategic Challenges for Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terrorism - Dr. Williamson Murray. US Army Strategic Studies Institute study, September 2006.  In March 2006, President George W. Bush signed a new National Security Strategy that he refers to as a “wartime national security strategy” and states that to follow the path the United States has chosen, we must “maintain and expand our national strength.” One way to do this is to study and propose solutions to the complex challenges the United States faces in the 21st century. At the U.S. Army War College, the students have embraced this challenge and spend a year developing their intellectual strength in areas that extend well beyond the familiar operational and tactical realm to which they are accustomed. This collection of essays written by students enrolled in the U.S. Army War College Advanced Strategic Art Program (ASAP) reflects the development of their strategic thought applied to a wide range of contemporary issues based in theory, doctrine, strategy and history.

The Middle East Crisis: Six "Long Wars" and Counting - Anthony Cordesman. Center for Strategic and International Studies report, August 2006. The Middle East is never a peaceful place, but even by regional standards, the US faces major problems in virtually every area. Even if one ignores the problems raised by enduring issues like energy, development, demographics, and normal politics and diplomacy, the US and its allies are now directly or indirectly involved in six “long wars:” The war in Iraq, the struggle with Iranian proliferation and "adventures", the war in Afghanistan and the problem of Pakistan, the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, the Israeli-Lebanese struggle, and the broader war on terrorism.  It is easy lose sight of one or more of these conflicts under the pressure of dealing with the others. It is equally easy to lose sight of the connections between them and the fact they really are “long wars.” Almost regardless of the level of violence involved, all of these conflicts now promise to involve religious, ideological, political, and perceptual struggles that will play out over at least a decade.

Confronting the Unconventional: Innovation and Transformation in Military Affairs - David Tucker.  US Army Strategic Studies Institute, LeTort Papers, November 2006.  Are there limits to military transformation? Or, if it seems obvious that there must be limits to transformation, what are they exactly, why do they arise, and how can we identify them so that we may better accomplish the transformation that the U.S. military is capable of? If limits to military change and transformation exist, what are the broader implications for national policy and strategy? The author offers some answers to these questions by analyzing the efforts of the French, British, and Americans to deal with irregular threats after World War II.

The Implications of Preemptive and Preventive War Doctrines: A Reconsideration – Dr. Colin Gray. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, July 2007. Preemption and prevention are different concepts. To preempt is to attempt to strike first against an enemy who is in the process of preparing, or is actually launching, an attack against you. Preemption is not controversial. The decision for war has been taken out of your hands. Prevention, however, is a decision to wage war, or conduct a strike, so as to prevent a far more dangerous context maturing in the future. To decide on preventive war is to elect to prevent a particular, very threatening strategic future from coming to pass. Despite much legal argument, there is no legal difficulty with either concept. The UN Charter, with its recognition of the inherent right of sovereign states to self-defense, as generally interpreted around the world does not require a victim or target state to suffer the first blow. To strike preventively in self-defense is legal, though it will usually be controversial. Preventive war is simply war, distinguishable only by its timing, and possibly its motivation.

Dealing With Uncertainty: The Future Requires Flexibility - Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, USMC (Ret.). Marine Corps Gazette article, November 2005. Martin van Creveld entitled his look at future war, "Through a Glass, Darkly." In this short title he captured the essential problem of looking into the future; it is never clear. Yet, looking is a requirement. Our Corps continues to exist through its demonstrated ability to meet the challenges of the day. From amphibious warfare to vertical assault to maritime prepositioning to mechanized warfare, the leaders of the Corps have consistently peered into the murky future well enough to ensure that our forces were ready when called. Despite Van Creveld's caution, we must continue to do so. There are three major points to keep in mind when thinking about future war. First, war evolves from the political, economic, social, and technical structures of the time. It is not an evolution based purely on technology. In fact, despite America's great love for technology, it is not even driven primarily by technology. Rather, warfare reflects the society from which it springs. Whether it was Genghis Khan's incredibly mobile light cavalry or the exceptional advance of U.S. forces to Baghdad in 2003, the forces of a nation reflect the political, economic, social, and technical structure of the nation for which they are fighting. Second, whatever your predictions about the future, they will probably be wrong. History is full of examples of military forces surprised and defeated by an enemy's adaptation to the changes in society. Only in retrospect does the innovation seem obvious. Whether the armored knight sitting in his castle trying to figure out the Swiss phalanx or today's Marine trying to sort out the conflicting information on future enemies, the practitioner peering into the future sees mostly murk. Third, there are at least two sides, and often more, staring into that murk-you and potential enemies. They do not see things any more clearly than you do, but they are determined to find a way to beat you. Thus the future will not evolve based only on your actions but on the actions of all sides of the conflict.

On Restraints in War - Lieutenant Colonel Lance McDaniel, USMC.  Marine Corps Gazette article, November 2006.  War has a way of teaching us hard lessons, some of which we learned in previous conflicts but, for various reasons, forgot and are having to relearn now in Iraq. One of the important lessons we are learning today is that in counterinsurgency operations, the manner in which we use force matters greatly and may play a role in determining whether we will be successful in achieving our campaign purpose. Military professionals must have serious discussions on the use of force and a more fundamental understanding of an American approach to the application of force.  Conceptually, total war can be viewed as conflict without any restraint or limit whatsoever and with the full force and energies of the belligerents applied toward annihilating their adversaries. As wars like this are more theoretical than real, particularly since the dawn of the nuclear age, all current wars can be considered to have at least some limitations. This observation is true for so-called conventional wars. It is even truer for small wars, such as counterinsurgency operations, that tend to be limited by their very nature. My purpose here is to discuss the role that deliberate restraint in the use of force has for combatants engaged in counterinsurgency operations and what the moral and practical implications are for this limitation. My desire is to consider the theoretical foundations of restraint, the rationale for restraint in combat, and what this really means to the military men and women who are the primary purveyors of force. I am an artillery officer, and it may come as a surprise to some that an artillery officer would be concerned with a deliberation on the use of force. Perhaps, some might contend, our lawyers should be the people in our organization most concerned with this issue. The reality is, however, that lawyers do not pull lanyards—gunners do, and so the issue of how force is applied is a discussion for all of us, including our lawyers, but especially operators who will ultimately have to make tough on-the-spot decisions relative to the use of force.

The American Way of War: Cultural Barriers to Successful Counterinsurgency - Jeffrey Record. Cato Institute policy analysis, September 2006.  The U.S. defeat in Vietnam, embarrassing setbacks in Lebanon and Somalia, and continuing political and military difficulties in Afghanistan and especially Iraq underscore the limits of America's hard-won conventional military supremacy. That supremacy has not delivered decisive success against nonstate enemies practicing protracted irregular warfare; on the contrary, America's conventional supremacy and approach to war—especially its paramount reliance on firepower and technology—are often counterproductive.  The problem is rooted in American political and military culture. Americans are frustrated with limited wars, particularly counterinsurgent wars, which are highly political in nature. And Americans are averse to risking American lives when vital national interests are not at stake. Expecting that America's conventional military superiority can deliver quick, cheap, and decisive success, Americans are surprised and politically demoralized when confronted by Vietnam- and Iraq-like quagmires.  The Pentagon's aversion (the Marine Corps excepted) to counterinsurgency is deeply rooted in the American way of warfare. Since the early 1940s, the Army has trained, equipped, and organized for large-scale conventional operations against like adversaries, and it has traditionally employed conventional military operations even against irregular enemies.  Barring profound change in America's political and military culture, the United States runs a significant risk of failure when it enters small wars of choice, and great power intervention in small wars is almost always a matter of choice. Most such wars, moreover, do not engage core U.S. security interests other than placing the limits of American military power on embarrassing display. Indeed, the very act of intervention in small wars risks gratuitous damage to America's military reputation.  The United States should abstain from intervention in such wars, except in those rare cases when military intervention is essential to protecting or advancing U.S. national security.

Outfitting a Big-War Military with Small-War Capabilities - Colonel Michael Melillo, US Marine Corps. Parameters article, Autumn 2006.  It is a never-ending challenge for defense planners to develop the strategy and policies required to ensure American security when threatened by an enemy. Unfortunately, it took the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks and the challenges posed by an adaptive enemy for the United States to realize it was not prepared to fight war on terms other than its own choosing. Looking back now, four years into the Global War on Terrorism, one can plainly see the US military was blinded by its preference for conventional war and failed to recognize the threat posed by irregular enemies. The military culture has long been convinced that technological overmatch was the prescription for security—a continuation of the traditional American way of war. However, the character of warfare is changing.   Interstate wars, while not obsolete, are now less prevalent than direct threats from irregular forces. The US military’s conventional dominance has forced its enemies to seek other methods to challenge American hegemony. While conventional might is still necessary in an uncertain world, the American invasion and subsequent operations in Iraq have exposed the US military’s limitations and instigated changes that will make it more prepared to meet the growing irregular threat. Only by creating a force that is just as adept at conducting small wars against irregular enemies as it is at conducting big wars against conventional foes will the United States be able to ensure security in the 21st century.

Progressive Reconstruction: A Methodology for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations - Major Karl Rohr, US Marine Corps. Naval Postgraduate School Thesis, June 2006.  The intent of the author is to establish a methodology for future forcible interventions in the affairs of failed, failing or rogue and terrorist sponsoring states in order to stabilize and democratize these nations in accordance with stated United States goals. The argument follows closely current and developing United States military doctrine on stabilization, reconstruction and counterinsurgency operations. Further the author reviews several past interventions from 1844 to the present. Conducting a survey of colonial, imperialist as well as pre and post WWII, Cold War, post Cold War and post September 11^th interventions to determine the techniques and procedures that proved most successful, the author proposes a program of intervention and reconstruction called Progressive Reconstruction that incorporates many of the successful activities of these past and present doctrines. The cornerstone of the methodology is the combination of rapid decisive combat and stabilization operations leading into a series of governmental transitions from foreign direct and indirect to indigenous independent rule.  The purpose of this thesis is to assess the prospects of a “Progressive Reconstruction” methodology for state building during and after military intervention in failed, failing or rogue states. Progressive Reconstruction requires cooperative civil-military intervention and coordinated pre-intervention planning. It relies upon superior military force for rapid decisive operations, stabilization and sufficient resources for reconstruction in order to generate a stable peace. This is not peacekeeping, or even peace enforcement,; it is military - political intervention into the sovereign affairs of a targeted state. It is an extreme measure taken in response to catastrophic events or in pre-emption of catastrophic circumstances. In this regard, the argument as to why an intervention was initiated is not relevant to this discussion. What is relevant is that these operations are on going, and the United States will continue to play a significant role in them as long as it maintains its global leadership position.  Therefore, the US must develop a strong and flexible doctrine for interventions and state building that both complements and supplements other national strategies for expeditionary operations.

Beware of Boldness - Dr. Conrad Crane. Parameters article, Summer 2006. At a counterterrorism conference in September 2004, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers stated that the key question senior officials needed to ask about their conduct of the Global War on Terrorism was, “Are we being as bold and innovative as we need to be?”¹ Army Field Manual 7.0, Training the Force, states that the goals of operational deployments and major training opportunities are to enhance unit readiness and “produce bold, innovative leaders.”² These adjectives have now become accepted as key components of the lexicon of defense transformation. But before the words become etched in stone, the Army and the other services should seriously think about what these terms mean for leaders, and their historical role in the American military experience. The colloquial caution, “Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it,” is worth pondering.

Winning the Peace: The Requirement for Full-Spectrum Operations - Major General General Peter Chiarelli (USA) and Major Patrick Michaelis (USA). Military Review article, July-August 2005. For the last 3 decades serving as an Army officer, the traditional military training model prepared me to win our Nation’s wars on the plains of Europe, or the deserts of the Middle East. I envisioned large, sweeping formations; coordinating and synchronizing the battlefield functions to create that “point of penetration;” and rapidly exploiting the initiative of that penetration to achieve a decisive maneuver against the armies that threatened the sovereignty of my country. But in Baghdad, that envisioned 3-decade-old concept of reality was replaced by a far greater sense of purpose and cause. Synchronization and coordination of the battlespace was not to win the war, but to win the peace. Penetration did not occur merely through synchronization of the battlefield functions, but that and more: local infrastructure improvement; training of security forces, understanding and educating the fundamentals of democracy; creating long-lasting jobs that would carry beyond short-term infrastructure improvement; and, an information operations (IO) campaign that supported the cultural realities of the area of operations. The proverbial “point of penetration” for the 1st Cavalry Division and the coalition occurred on 30 January 2005. Millions of eligible Iraqi citizens, from across the sectarian divides, triumphed over a fractured insurgency and terrorist threat in a show of defiance never before seen across the Middle East. The purple index finger, proudly displayed, became a symbol of defiance and hope. The Iraqi people proved to the world their willingness to try democracy in whatever unique form evolves. Task Force Baghdad’s campaign to “win the peace” in Iraq has forced us, as an instrument of national power, to change the very nature of what it means to fight.2 Although trained in the controlled application of combat power, we quickly became fluent in the controlled application of national power. We witnessed in Baghdad that it was no longer adequate as a military force to accept classic military modes of thought. Our own mentality of a phased approach to operations boxed our potential into neat piles the insurgent and terrorist initially exploited.

The Small Wars Manual and Marine Corps Military Operations Other Than War Doctrine - Major Allen Ford, USMC.  U.S. Army Command and General Staff College thesis, 2003.  The following supporting questions require examination: (1) Why did the original SWM erode from serving as USMC MOOTW authoritative doctrine to that of general reference and historical material? (2) What does the SWM offer Twenty-first Century Marine Corps MOOTW doctrine? (3) What does the SWM Volume II intend to offer Twenty-first Century Marine Corps MOOTW doctrine? The thesis concludes, among other things, that indeed the SWM series deserves significant consideration for serving as Navy and Marine Corps authoritative MOOTW doctrine with the Small Wars Manual retaining its Marine Corps Reference Publication designation and its follow-on volume serving as a Navy and Marine Corps authoritative doctrinal.

Why Study Small Wars? - Colonel TX Hammes, USMC.  Small Wars Journal article, April 2005.  With the massive advances in technology and the incredible success of U.S. conventional forces in the last decade, one might ask why you should be interested in small wars. There are a huge number of interesting and vital subjects out there.  Why should I spend my limited time studying small wars that have been around for millennium?  Even some leading historians are arguing that there is nothing new here.  For cripes sake, Alexander the Great fought insurgents!   Warfare is changing.  Why should I look back thousands of  years to figure out what I will face tomorrow.  You need to study Small Wars for the same reason our enemies do – they work.

What do You do For an Encore? - Colonel Christopher Conlin, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, October 2004. The following article will outline how we in 1^st Battalion, 7^th Marines addressed the daunting issue of what are often called “Transition Operations” in Baghdad.  Of course, no one operates in isolation, and this article should hopefully address the great support we received from our higher and adjacent commands.  But it will also identify some thoughts on how we can better affect these operations when presented with similar circumstances.   Additionally, this will be the first of a series of articles that also address the challenge of what are being called “Stability Operations” as we further refined our tactics in the Southern city of Najaf.  These articles will provide a little history, a bit of perspective, some strong opinions, and some suggestions on what to do if you find yourself similarly challenged.

Small Wars and Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Lessons from Iraq - Major M. W. Shervington, British Army. Cranfield University thesis, July 2005. On 1 May 2003, President George W. Bush stood aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, in front of a banner stating ‘Mission Accomplished’, and declared that ‘major combat operations have ended. In the battle for Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.’ The President’s declaration has proved to be a false dawn. Despite a breathtaking conventional military campaign that removed Saddam Hussein’s regime in 43 days, the US-led Coalition has since been embroiled in countering an increasingly violent, diverse and unpredictable insurgency. This dissertation provides some historical perspective to the development of insurgency and counter-insurgency. It traces the background to the creation of the modern state of Iraq. It examines the post-conflict insurgency in Iraq. It considers those decisions made by the Coalition that most contributed to its emergence and growth. It analyses those lessons that should contribute to future British counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine. The paper addresses four themes. First, the US military alone in Iraq is conducting a COIN campaign against an insurgency that is unprecedented in history. Secondly, key lessons for British COIN doctrine must be learnt from the American politico-military experience; the British Army must therefore be receptive and open-minded. Thirdly, Iraq has witnessed a continued failure by American and British policy-makers to learn the lessons from history. Lastly, COIN operations in Iraq have to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people as they have to do with the perceptions of the wider Muslim world and the American and British electorates. It is a battle of perceptions in a war over ideas.

Planning Lessons From Afghanistan and Iraq - Colonel Joseph Collins (USA Ret.). Joint Force Quarterly article, Issue # 41, 2nd Quarter 2006.  For planners and bureaucrats, Afghanistan and Iraq appear to present a puzzle. In Afghanistan, on one hand, we had little time for planning; we did lots of innovative things on the cheap; our relatively small, international force has taken few casualties; we have had great local and international support; and we are, by most accounts, on the way to a good outcome.  On the other hand, in Iraq, we had over a year to plan; our national policy has been expensive and often unimaginative; a relatively large, primarily American force has taken over 18,000 casualties, most of them in the so-called postconflict phase; we have had severe problems with local and international support; and the outcome, although looking up, is still in doubt.  A wag might conclude from the above that Americans should avoid planning at all costs. It brings bad luck, stifles creativity, and interferes with our penchant for achieving success through our normal standard operating procedure: the application of great amounts of material resources guided by brilliant improvisation and dumb luck.  While the wag’s conclusion is flawed, problems in planning indeed contributed to serious shortcomings connected with Operation Iraqi Freedom. With 3 years of hindsight, it was clear that these shortcomings included ineffective planning and preparation for stability operations, inadequate forces to occupy and secure a country the size of California, poor military reaction to rioting, d looting in the immediate postconflict environment, slow civil and military reaction to a growing insurgency, and problematical funding and contracting mechanisms that slowed reconstruction failure to make effective use of former Iraqi military forces.

Déjà Vu All Over Again? - Lieutenant Colonel Charles Armstrong, USMC (Ret). Marine Corps Gazette article, October 2004. On 16 July 2003, Central Command’s new leader, GEN John Abizaid, told the press, “Saddam Hussein loyalists . . . are conducting what I would describe as a classical, guerrilla-type campaign against us.” A few days later a news report from Afghanistan referred to a battle between U.S. troops and Taliban insurgents. A month later U.S. Marines landed in Liberia to start a peacekeeping mission of undetermined length. Is this déjà vu, or are things really different this time? I predict counterinsurgency experts are about to be in greater demand.

Can the “War on Terror” Be Won? - Anthony Cormack. Small Wars Journal article, July 2005. The ‘War on Terror’ can and must be won. However, in order to do so the West – and, as keystone to the West’s defences, the United States most of all – must undertake a fundamental and wide ranging re-assessment of the conflict in light of Clausewitz’s timeless advice. Once the nature of the conflict is discerned, the means and ways to achieve victory will become more readily grasped. When seen in this light, it becomes self-evident that the ‘war on terror’ is not a war on terror – there can be no such thing - but a war against a distinct terrorist group, al Qaeda, and its affiliates, which is conducting a global insurgency campaign against the West. Although this Global Salafist Insurgency exhibits various distinctive characteristics, time-tested principles of counterinsurgency will provide the bedrock upon which a successful campaign can be formulated.

Recognizing and Understanding Revolutionary Change in Warfare: The Sovereignty of Context - Dr. Colin Gray. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, February 2006.  The author provides a critical audit of the great RMA debate and of some actual RMA behavior and warns against a transformation that is highly potent only in a narrow range of strategic cases. He warns that the military effectiveness of a process of revolutionary change in a "way of war" can only be judged by the test of battle, and possibly not even then, if the terms of combat are very heavily weighted in favor of the United States. On balance, the concept of revolutionary change is found to be quite useful, provided it is employed and applied with some reservations and in a manner that allows for flexibility and adaptability. The contexts of warfare, especially the political, determine how effective a transforming military establishment will be.

Neo-Strategicon: Modernized Principles of War for the 21st Century - Brigadier General Charles Dunlap, Jr., USAF. March - Military Review article, March - April 2006. Do universal truths about war exist? When does the immutable become, well, mutable? Rethinking warfighting fundamentals like the principles of war raises such questions. Sadly, what is enduring about war is its relentless, tragic horror. Other aspects of the human dimension also remain unchanged. The apprehension and determi­nation a young Marine feels on the battlefield today are the same as the young Athenian felt on the Plain of Marathon in 490 B.C. Yet it is equally true that social, economic, political, and technological fac­tors evolve war’s practice if not its essence.  The traditional principles of war describe, as one document puts it, “those aspects of warfare that are universally true and relevant.” Today they typically include unity of command, objective, offensive, mass, maneuver, economy of force, security, sur­prise, and simplicity.2 Over the ages the list has varied somewhat because what is common in one era might be rare or absent altogether in another. The necessity for recalibrations from time to time simply reflects the humanness (if not humanity) of war.

Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big Strategy - Dr. Harry Yarger. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, February 2006.  The word “strategy” pervades American conversation and our news media and is most often used as a general term for a plan, a concept, a course of action, or a “vision” of the direction in which to proceed at the personal, organizational, and governmental—local, state, or federal—levels. Such casual use of the term to describe nothing more than “what we would like to do next” is inappropriate and belies the complexity of true strategy and strategic thinking. This “little book” talks about big strategy, strategy at the highest levels of the nation-state. It is applicable to grand strategy, national security strategy, national military strategy, and regional or theater strategy. The monograph does not propose a strategy for the United States; rather, it provides a framework for considering strategy at any of the levels mentioned above. It is an examination of theory, exploring those aspects of strategy that appear to have universal application. The theory also may have application to the strategy of nonstate actors, institutions, and businesses, but the explicit purpose and perspective offered herein focus on the nation-state.

Law of Occupation and Democracy - Lieutenant Commander James Kraska, USN. Small Wars Journal article, July 2005. Lost amid the international politics that defined the Iraq war, the preceding diplomatic maneuvering in the United Nations (UN) and the lingering legal debate over jus ad bellum, is the maturation and globalization of an Anglo-American doctrine of democratic occupation. A century in construction, the principle that occupying powers have a duty to introduce democracy into an occupied non-democratic state was once quite unsettled; today it has achieved the status of a new global norm. In Part II, this manuscript briefly traces the law of occupation regarding activities that may be taken by the occupying power to impose regime change in non-democratic occupied states. Part III relates some of the milestones in Anglo-American occupation of foreign territories, particularly in regard to early American occupation experiences. These practices coalesced into a doctrine of democratic occupation that has achieved global acceptance; the emergence of this norm is discussed in Part IV. The Anglo-American experience transposes the rather conservative state of the law of occupation with the emergence of the new expectations of democratic governance. The fact that state practice has departed from the traditionalist Hague law has been identified previously. The contribution of this piece is to suggest that the source of the new norm of democratic occupation unfolded from British and American state practice. With the UN’s Chapter VII actions in Somalia and Haiti in the early-1990s, the doctrine of democratic occupation reached global recognition and approval.

The Rule of Law and Expeditionary Operations - Major Karl Rohr, USMC. Small Wars Journal article, July 2005. The purpose of this essay is to examine the legal requirements for establishing the Rule of Law (ROL) during United States Marine Corps expeditionary operations. The focus is on the role of the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) as an enabling force, establishing a stable security situation for follow-on force deployment. The discussion will center on stability and support actions that could be taken during the first 3 to 9 months in the immediate and temporary rear area created by Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare (EMW) operations. Specifically, how can the MAGTF operate as an occupation force or as a civil affairs administration to implement a temporary military government?

Rescuing the Law of War: A Way Forward in an Era of Global Terrorism - Michael Hoffman. Parameters article, Summer 2005. Terrorists are gaining an astonishing legal edge over US and other armed forces deployed against them. The present trend promises to burden future generations, as well as our own, with an ad hoc, damaging legal framework sure to thwart counterterrorist operations and even furnish inducements for those tempted to join the terrorist ranks. The long-term import of recent trends can’t be overstated. The United States is surely—and not so slowly—bestowing legal status and privileges on members of terrorist organizations that have no precedent in the 3,500-year recorded history of warfare. Terrorists are acquiring legal recognition and support of a kind unavailable to members of US and other national armed forces, and for that matter unavailable to insurgents during civil conflict as well. (There are early intimations that the United States may end up unilaterally bestowing similar status and privileges on the members of opposing state forces as well as terrorist organizations.) The notion that opposing forces will ever make these unique legal privileges reciprocally available to the US armed forces simply doesn’t warrant serious consideration.

The Global War on Terrorism and the U.S. Constitution - Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Bailey, USMCR. Marine Corps Gazette article, January 2004. In the global war on terrorism (GWOT), the United States must “make use of every tool in [its] arsenal—military power, homeland defense, law enforcement, intelligence,” in order to defeat the terrorist threat. Terrorism is a complex, asymmetric threat that requires a careful orchestration and application of national power. The military, law enforcement, and intelligence must complement each other. In order for this to occur, there must be an appreciation of how each “tool” contributes in this war (capabilities and limitations, constraints and restraints, etc.). Each must understand its principal role, as well its relationship to the others, to include which has the dominant or lead role and which is supporting, and when and why these relationships occur. In the GWOT, relationships will be determined based on missions; i.e., an arrest or an attack. However, there could be situations where one tool assumes a lead role based on an unforeseen event, such as the capture of an American citizen on a foreign battlefield. This necessary understanding of what each tool in the national arsenal brings to this war must be resident at all levels, including the operational and tactical levels. Without this knowledge, a tool in the national arsenal may be misapplied or used in such a way as to negate or diminish the effectiveness of other tools.

Why Great Powers Fight Small Wars Badly - Major Robert Cassidy, USA.  Military Review article, September - October 2000.  Historically, great-power militaries do not innovate well, particularly when the required innovations and adaptations lie outside the scope of conventional war. In other words, great powers do not win small wars because they are great powers: their militaries must maintain a central competence in symmetric warfare to preserve their great-power status vis-à-vis other great powers; and their militaries must be large organizations. These two characteristics combine to create a formidable competence on the plains of Europe or the deserts of Iraq. However, these two traits do not produce institutions and cultures that exhibit a propensity for counterguerrilla warfare.

Avoiding a Napoleonic Ulcer: Bridging the Gap of Cultural Intelligence (Or, Have We Focused on the Wrong Transformation?) - Lieutenant Colonel George W. Smith, Jr., USMC. Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Essay, 2004. The parallels of Napoleon’s challenges in Spain with the challenges of contemporary coalition forces in Iraq are striking. While there is a danger in attempting to take historical parallels too far, some similarities are too close to ignore. Moreover, such similarities may reflect the failure to understand the local populace within campaign planning. That understanding forms the bedrock for any successful post-hostility occupation phase. Thus, cultural intelligence preparation of the battlespace (IPB with a focus on the post-hostilities landscape is perhaps more important than traditional intelligence preparation of the battlespace, which typically has monopolized the intelligence effort. Countless lessons from history resemble Napoleon’s experiences with popular Spanish resistance and provide insight as to what should comprise the proper balance of effort within intelligence preparation for armed intervention.  These lessons demonstrate that an inordinate focus on armies at the expense of a focus on the people has and will continue to make winning the peace more difficult than winning the war. Closing the cultural intelligence gap by striking an IPB balance within campaign planning may reduce surprises for an occupying force that historically have impeded the accomplishment of the campaign’s stated political or grand strategic objectives.

Recognizing and Understanding Revolutionary Change in Warfare: The Sovereignty of Context - Dr. Colin Gray. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, February 2006. The author provides a critical audit of the great RMA debate and of some actual RMA behavior and warns against a transformation that is highly potent only in a narrow range of strategic cases. He warns that the military effectiveness of a process of revolutionary change in a "way of war" can only be judged by the test of battle, and possibly not even then, if the terms of combat are very heavily weighted in favor of the United States. On balance, the concept of revolutionary change is found to be quite useful, provided it is employed and applied with some reservations and in a manner that allows for flexibility and adaptability. The contexts of warfare, especially the political, determine how effective a transforming military establishment will be.

Transformation for What? - Dr. John White. US Army Strategic Studies Institute LeTort Paper, December 2005. One of the most significant of global security reassessments is currently underway, driven by Operations IRAQI FREEDOM and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, continuing technological developments, budget constraints, and the debate associated with the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review. To provide senior defense leaders with ideas on security transformation, the Strategic Studies Institute has joined with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to bring together top experts on an annual basis. For the third meeting in this series—held in November 2004—the National Defense University joined as a partner. The informed and free flowing debate at this conference generated a range of frank assessments and creative ideas about the status of security transformation. This report summarizes the debates and findings of the November session.

The High Cost of Primacy - Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Freier, USA. US Army Strategic Studies Institute Monthly Op-Ed, October 2005. It is critical that the elected representatives, policymakers, opinion leaders, and population of the United States recognize that the maintenance of our global position comes at a price. We must now acknowledge an historic certainty; a truism ignored in the decade that preceded the War on Terror and the pacification of Iraq. Dominant global power engenders persistent resistance and exposes the United States to enormous costs and burdens. This observation is value neutral. That some actively oppose us and we incur costs as a result should come as no surprise. We must realistically account for both in the formation of grand strategy. Those competitors who sense either their position or existence threatened by American primacy will not roll over. Rather, they will push back with the range of instruments at their disposal. Though we will continue to enjoy the benefits of close international partnerships, competitor states will engage in nettlesome but manageable political, economic, and military balancing. Transnational and subnational opponents sensing an existential challenge and less constrained by the norms of international politics will increasingly resort to irregular and catastrophic assault on the United States and its interests. These challengers will employ clever combinations of incendiary rhetoric and violence in an attempt to erode American resolve and separate the United States from its partners. They seek to drive the cost of American primacy and close alliance with it to increasingly uncomfortable and ultimately unacceptable levels.

The British Army and Counterinsurgency: The Salience of Military Culture - Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, USA. Military Review article, May - June 2005. Historically British Army culture has influenced its approach to counterinsurgency. The British Army’s experiences in small wars and counterinsurgencies during the 19th and 20th centuries remain topical and salient. The U.S. military and its coalition partners, including Britain, are prosecuting counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere. An analysis of British military cultural predilections in the context of counterinsurgency is therefore germane because the U.S. Army is transforming while in contact, and a big part of Transformation is about military cultural change. If U.S. military culture has traditionally exhibited a preference for a big, conventional-war\ paradigm, and if this preference has impeded its capacity to adapt to small wars and counterinsurgencies, then there might be something to gain or learn from examining the cultural characteristics of another army with a greater propensity for counterinsurgency. In short, military culture comprises the beliefs and attitudes within a military organization that shape its collective preferences toward the use of force. These attitudes can impede or foster innovation and adaptation. Military culture sometimes exhibits preferences for either small wars or big wars.

Back to the Street without Joy: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam and Other Small Wars - Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, USA.  Parameters article, Summer 2004.  In 1961, Bernard Fall, a scholar and practitioner of war, published a book entitled The Street Without Joy. The book provided a lucid account of why the French Expeditionary Corps failed to defeat the Viet Minh during the Indo-china War, and the book’s title derived from the French soldiers’ sardonic moniker for Highway 1 on the coast of Indochina—“Ambush Alley,” or the “Street without Joy.” In 1967, while patrolling with US Marines on the “Street without Joy” in Vietnam, Bernard Fall was killed by an improvised explosive mine during a Viet Cong ambush. In 2003, after the fall of Baghdad and following the conventional phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, US and Coalition forces operating in the Sunni Triangle began fighting a counter-guerrilla type war in which much of the enemy insurgent activity occurred along Highway 1, another street exhibiting little joy. Learning from the experience of other US counterinsurgencies is preferable to the alternative.

Violent Systems: Defeating Terrorists, Insurgents, and Other Non-State Adversaries - Troy Thomas and William Casebeer. US Air Force Institute for National Security Studies occasional paper, March 2004.  Inter-state war no longer dominates the landscape of modern conflict. Rather, collective violence and challenges to the international system come increasingly from violent non-state actors (VNSA). With few exceptions, VNSA play a prominent, often destabilizing role in nearly every humanitarian and political crisis faced by the international community. The broad spectrum of objectives and asymmetric methods of these contemporary Barbary Pirates fractures our traditional conceptions of deterrence and warfighting. We contend that deterrence remains a viable strategy for meeting their challenge if adapted to an understanding of VNSA as dynamic biological systems. The prolonged utility of deterrence hinges on insight into VNSA life cycles and a broader conception of the psychology inherent to organizational decision-making.  Bundled as “broad biological deterrence” (BBD), we developdeterrent strategies that tackle the VNSA threat throughout its life cycle.

Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Lessons of Recent Conflicts in the Middle East - Anthony Cordesman. Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 2004. The very nature of warfare is changing in a region where nations have previously tended to focus on building the largest possible conventional forces and obtaining the most advanced major weapons. On the one hand, the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA), modern technology, professional forces, and jointness are transforming the nature of the conventional capabilities of the US, and inevitably many of its European and regional allies. On the other hand, hostile, and potentially hostile, states are adapting in their own way, as are extremist, radical, and terrorist movements. For all of the advantages the RMA offered in defeating Iraq’s conventional forces and deposing Saddam Hussein, Iraqi insurgents have since found ways to counter many of the advantages of the US and its allies. Similar trends have emerged in Afghanistan, and in the fighting between the US and the Taliban and Al Qaida. Both sides learn and adapt. War remains a duel where both sides must constantly adapt, and one that is becoming steadily more asymmetric with time.

Paradigm Lost: The Changing Character of Small Wars - Lieutenant Colonel M. R. Dabros, Canadian Army.  Canadian Forces College paper.  This paper looks at small wars as they have occurred since the Cold War’s end from the perspective of how they have changed in character from the pattern of small wars that dominated the Cold War period. It does this by first defining small wars and then describing the dominant small war paradigm as a baseline for analysis. It considers some of the agents of change that have existed in the global security environment since 1990 and uses these to account for the changing character of small wars.

War Isn't a Rational Business - Colonel TX Hammes, USMC.  Proceedings article, July 1998.  The Revolution in Military Affairs has changed the fundamental nature of war. While there have been dramatic changes in HOW we fight, the fundamental nature of war has not changed. It is not a business. In fact, history, current events and even science (in the form of chaos theory) support Clausewitz’s concept of war as a battle between the wills of opposing commanders that is vastly complicated both by “fog” and “friction.” Clausewitz knew war was not business-like when he wrote “…war is an act of force, the emotions cannot fail to be involved.”i He knew that war is emotional and often is NOT guided by rational business-like decisions. How could a “business” possibly be rational when it is based on the concept of trading lives for ideas? How many lives is independence worth? Religious beliefs? Ethnic identity?

The Social Science of Carl von Clausewitz - Dr. Janeen Klinger. Parameters article, Spring 2006.  Carl von Clausewitz’s great, unfinished book On War is well-known as being prone to misinterpretation and distortion. At the risk of adding to the veritable cottage industry of distortion, this article attempts to add conceptual clarity by demonstrating that Clausewitz was formulating a social science approach before that terminology and discipline had emerged.¹ Linking Clausewitzian analysis to contemporary social science is appropriate because both aim for greater precision in fields that appear to defy a “scientific” approach. Before proceeding with that task, however, it is appropriate to review some of the common misunderstandings concerning Clausewitz, explaining some of the reasons for them. The discussion then will show that by casting Clausewitz’s framework as a social science, we can resolve many apparent contradictions in his ideas.

Fourth-Generation Warfare and Other Myths - Dr. Antulio Echevarria II. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, November 2005. In an era of broad and perhaps profound change, new theories and concepts are to be welcomed rather than shunned. However, before they are fully embraced, they need to be tested rigorously, for the cost of implementing a false theory and developing operational and strategic concepts around it can be greater than remaining wedded to an older, but sounder one. The theory of Fourth Generation War (4GW) is a perfect example. Were we to embrace this theory, a loose collection of ideas that does not hold up to close scrutiny, the price we might pay in a future conflict could be high indeed. In this monograph, Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II provides a critique of the theory of 4GW, examining its faulty assumptions and the problems in its logic. He argues that the proponents of 4GW undermine their own credibility by subscribing to this bankrupt theory. If their aim is truly to create positive change, then they—and we—would be better off jettisoning the theory and retaining the traditional concept of insurgency, while modifying it to include the greater mobility and access afforded by globalization.

The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation  - Lieutenant Colonel T. X. Hammes, USMC. Link to Marine Corps Gazette article, September 1994.  Fourth generation of war has, in fact, evolved in conjunction with the political, economic, and societal changes that are modifying our world. Further, like its predecessors, the fourth generation of war did not arrive on the scene as a fully developed instrument but evolved (and is continuing to evolve) at widely scattered locations. Finally, like its predecessors, fourth generation tactics will not be used in isolation but mixed with those of earlier generations.

Understanding Fourth Generation War - William Lind. Military Review article, September - October 2004. Rather than commenting on the specifics of the war with Iraq, I thought it might be a good time to lay out a framework for understanding that and other conflicts. I call this framework the Four Generations of Modern War.

Fourth Generation Warfare Is Here! - Harold Gould and Franklin Spinney. 2001. These facts bring the changing nature of war right into the living room. By declaring war  on the Al Qaeda network of terror — a non-state globalization phenomenon — America and the nation-state system formally recognized they were in a new era.  Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) changes everything. It pits nations against non-national organizations and networks that includes not only fundamentalist extremists but ethnic groups, mafias, and narco-traffickers, etc., as well. Its evolutionary roots may lie in guerrilla warfare, the Leninist theory of insurrection, and old fashioned terrorism, but it is rendered more pervasive and effective by the technologies, mobilities and miniaturized instrumentalities spawned by the age of computers and mass communication.

Generations, Waves, and Epochs - Dr. Robert Bunker. Article adapted from lecture, 1995. The publication of the article written by Col Owen E. Jensen, USAF, entitled “Information Warfare: Principles of Third-Wave War” in the Winter 1994 issue of Airpower Journal represents a significant event. Tofflerian concepts, which have gained so much credence with the Army, are now be-ginning to openly influence Air Force dialogue on in-formation-based future war. In that article, Colonel Jensen states that “the Tofflers provide probably the clearest and most accurate explanation of how this new type of warfare evolved.”  Before the Air Force openly embraces the Tofflerian trinity of agrarian, industrial, and informational war forms, some well-informed reflection should first take place.

Reshaping the Expeditionary Army to Win Decisively: The Case for Greater Stabilization Capacity in the Modular Force - Colonel Bryan Watson, USA. US Army Strategic Studies Institute Carlisle Paper, August 2005. Today, the U.S. Army is decisively engaged in both fighting an unfamiliar type of war and transforming itself to meet the challenges of future warfare. But what are those challenges? What capabilities does U.S. strategy demand of its military instrument? Where are the major capability gaps and how should they inform Army Transformation to ensure the future expeditionary Army has the right campaign qualities? The author argues that the major capability gap in today’s force--and vital for future campaigns--is the ability to conduct stabilization. He explores the changes in U.S. strategy that are the impetus behind the need for greater capacity to conduct post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction. Then he analyzes the emerging role of the Army in post-conflict operations in the context of modern combat to more fully understand the specific requirements of stabilization. He then develops an operational concept--progressive stabilization--that complements the Army’s concept of rapid decisive operations, while improving its ability to contribute to long-term conflict resolution. He outlines three key force attributes an expeditionary force structure must have to provide the requisite mix of combat and stabilization capabilities. Finally, he builds on those attributes to suggest three areas where Army leaders must make near-term adjustments in the Modular Force to ensure the nation has a truly expeditionary force with the campaign capacity for both rapid decisive operations and stabilization.

Transformation During War - M. E. Krause. Joint Force Quarterly editorial, 2005. America and its allies face a threat as great as any in the Nation’s history. The danger posed by extremists, particularly terrorists armed with weapons of mass effects, spans borders and threatens the stability and economic prosperity of free states across the globe. This fourth year after the 9/11 attacks against citizens, civilians, and allies finds America still in recovery and engaged in a war on terror and a global economy slowly stabilizing. Although individual memories may be short, the return to normalcy is not complete. We are recalibrating to find a new definition of normal.  The world has changed: we live with color-coded alerts, anthrax scares, and not-so-friendly skies. Lest we become accustomed to this state of affairs, we must remember that the war is not over and liberty remains threatened. With enough commitment, resolve, and cooperation, those who embrace fear over freedom can again be overcome. But we will not win by guns and guts alone. Indeed, all freedom-loving nations, using their combined instruments of national power, will be required to establish and maintain a lasting peace. Unfortunately, those are a lot of moving parts to synchronize, so the challenge is vast.

Invasion of the Transformers - Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Ret.). Proceedings article, October 2003. "Transformation" is the latest and greatest buzzword in U.S. military affairs. It may already have displaced the loathsome "robust"—though you no doubt will hear plenty of talk in coming years about "robust transformation." We should seriously question whether all this transformation talk isn't just another Pentagon/Department of Defense parlor trick. Every few years, our military expends enormous effort and tax dollars to put a new shine on its apple. Transformation has had many predecessors, the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) being just one of them. Will it accomplish anything that RMA didn't, or have we, once again, simply changed "happy" to "glad"?

Asymmetric Warfare- Exposing America's Weaknesses - Major Bradley Kinneer, USAF. Air University research paper, 2003.  We need to ask hard questions and be ready to make hard changes so we can maintain the very freedoms we hold so dear. How did these terrorists cause so much death and destruction within our borders? What made these buildings the targets of choice? In addition, could we have prevented it? The answer to the fist two are simple, they watched how we live in this land of the free and discovered our weaknesses. By exploring these areas, just like a terrorist would, we can expose major flaws in the way America conducts business and correct them before they are exploited by our enemies.

Firepower in Limited Wars - Colonel Robert H. Scales Jr., USA.  Link to National Defense University book, 1990.  How modern firepower has been used in limited war--and how it can best be used--is addressed by Robert H. Scales, Jr., Colonel, US Army, in this study. Colonel Scales examines four conflicts subsequent to World War II: the French Indochina War, the US involvement in Vietnam, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and Britain's Falklands War. Scales points out that such wars generally were not struggles for territory, but wars of attrition: firepower was applied primarily to kill as many of the enemy as possible and make his continuation of the fight too costly. These wars showed the limits of firepower's effectiveness on a battlefield without fronts or permanent enemy positions, where a hard-pressed enemy could merely disperse to regroup and fight again at a time and place of his choosing.

Today's Small Wars - Major Adam Strickland, USMCR.  Ongoing Small Wars reference list, 2005.

Small Wars: 1600 - Present - Major Adam Strickland, USMCR.  Reference list, 2005.

Other Expeditionary Operations - USMC Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities concept, June 2003.  Other Expeditionary Operations is the operational concept that is intended to assist in visualizing how the Marine Corps will conduct military operations other than war (MOOTW). It is one of three pillars under the Marine Corps capstone concept Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare. While the two other operational concepts, Operational Maneuver from the Sea and Sustained Operations Ashore, focus on operational maneuver and long-term combined arms combat operations above and on the ground, this concept describes the strategic environment in which Marine Air-Ground Task Forces will operate, the breadth and increasing complexity of the missions and tasks they will perform, and the capabilities they will require when performing military operations other than war.

Thinking About Small Wars - Richard Szafranski. Parameters article, September 1990.  To focus thinking on armed interventions and small wars in a way unencumbered by current formal doctrinal debates.

Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security - Edited by Ambassador Robert Oakley, Michael Dziedzic and Eliot Goldberg.  Link to National Defense University book.  Peace operations have gained international attention in recent years, and many excellent studies have appeared on the role of the military in separating warring factions, enforcing cease-fires, and providing humanitarian relief.  Another dimension of peacekeeping has become readily apparent, however: the need to strengthen or rebuild indigenous public security institutions. Without a functioning police force, judiciary, and penal system, any troubled state is further hindered in its attempts to overcome internal crisis.

Relearning Counterinsurgency Warfare - Robert Tomes. Link to Parameters article, Spring 2004.  Thirtyyears after the signing of the January 1973 Paris peace agreement ending the Vietnam War, the United States finds itself leading a broad coalition of military forces engaged in peacemaking, nation-building, and now counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq. A turning point appeared in mid-October 2003 when US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s memo on the future of Iraqi operations surfaced. His musings about whether US forces were ready for protracted guerrilla warfare sparked widespread debate about US planning for counterinsurgency operations.  Little attention has been paid to the theory and practice of counter-insurgency warfare in mainstream strategic studies journals.

Lessons Unlearned - Ignoring the Past Major Adam Strickland, USMCR. Small Wars Journal article, 2005.  As a Marine who has served in Iraq and now conducts Small Wars research for the USMC, I am repeatedly asked about documents or studies outlining lessons learned.  While there are literally hundreds of documents to be reviewed, I am not convinced they are titled correctly.  Like many Marines; Colonel T.X. Hammes to name one; I am of the opinion that most of these works are more correctly titled “lessons observed” or “lessons to be learned,” for surely we have not done a good job at learning from either these studies or from our past experiences as a military or nation.

The Necessity of Learning Lessons - Adam Siegel. Marine Corps Gazette article, 2002.  Years ago, a British Army general explained to me that the United Kingdom (U.K.) has a “lessons identified” rather than “lessons learned” program. “We identify lessons, only to forget them, and then to identify them at another time . . . often at too great a price.” He concluded, “. . . and we are striving to change this.” The United States must learn-and adopt-this approach. We must rapidly identify and strive to assimilate lessons, both positive and negative, from every aspect of this conflict. These lessons learned cannot await the end of the conflict nor can they be isolated to the U.S. military. This must be an adaptive process with cross organizational sharing of information, observations, and lessons to develop innovative approaches to the challenge the Nation faces.

The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency - Bernard Fall. Naval War College Review article, Winter 1998.  Reprint from the April 1965 issue.  If we look at the 20th Century alone we are now in Viet-Nam faced with the forty-eighth 'small war.' Let me just cite a few: Algeria, Angola, Arabia, Burma, Cameroons, China, Colombia, Cuba, East Germany, France, Haiti, Hungary, Indochina, Indonesia, Kashmir, Laos, Morocco, Mongolia, Nagaland [an Indian state on the Burmese border], Palestine, Yemen, Poland, South Africa, South Tyrol, Tibet, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, West Irian [Indonesia, on New Guinea], etc. This, in itself, is quite fantastic.

Counterinsurgency: Strategy and the Phoenix of American Capability - Steven Metz. US Army Strategic Studies Institute paper, February 1995.  In this study, Steven Metz argues that the way the Department of Defense and U.S. military spend the time when counterinsurgency support is not an important part of American national security strategy determines how quickly and easily they react when policymakers commit the nation to such activity.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: American Military Dilemmas and Doctrinal Proposals - Colonel Dennis Drew, USAF.  Air Research Institute Cadre paper, March 1998.  This paper addresses the difficult problems presented to the US military establishment by so-called low-intensity conflict. The authors objective is to develop counterinsurgency doctrinal concepts. The author provides a foundation for the concepts by analyzing insurgent warfare with particular emphasis on the fundamental differences between insurgencies an conventional European-style warfare. From this analysis, the author develops and describes both the fundamental and operational dilemmas the United States faces when attempting to engage in counterinsurgency. Finally, the author draws upon the entire study to present the four basic elements, and their corollaries, of a counterinsurgency doctrine and resulting force structure implications.

Campaign Design for Winning the War... and the Peace - Pierre Lessard. Parameters article, Summer 2005. It had started so well. The most battle-worthy, best-trained, best-equipped, and best-led army in the world had made a stunning advance in enemy country. It had defeated the enemy army and captured its national capital. By all rules of classical warfare, this should have been the end of it. But the enemy continued to resist. Soon, scattered elements were hitting back hard and the long lines of communication were threatened. Hostile neighboring countries began to see the opportunities... The echoes of Napoleon’s campaign of 1812 in Russia still resonate today: they are at the core of our understanding of war, and the relationship between policy, strategy, and operational art. Statesmen and generals have sought to explain this relationship ever since Socrates urged one of his students to go learn the art of war from a famous visiting general, only to hear him report, upon his return, that he had learned “tactics and nothing else.” Recent history has merely reminded us of the paradox of the campaign of 1812 in Russia. Indeed, the numerous critiques, opinions, and analyses of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq center around one critical question, best posed by Frederick Kagan: “Why has the United States been so successful in recent wars and encountered so much difficulty in securing its political aims after the shooting stopped?” The answer, for some, is political, while others believe it lies with the US “method of warfare,”⁵ or with “a persistent bifurcation in American strategic thinking

Counterinsurgency and Operational Art: Is the Joint Campaign Planning Model Adequate? - Major Thomas Miller, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2003.  The United States has conducted or supported more than a dozen counterinsurgencies in the 20th century. The emerging strategic environment indicates that the US will be involved with counterinsurgencies in the future and there appears to exist operational shortfalls in the knowledge, planning, and execution of counterinsurgency. To manage the increasing complexity of the counterinsurgency environment, a coherent planning model based in operational art is needed in order to achieve ultimate success. The joint campaign planning model may provide an appropriate means to bridge these shortfalls.

Bringing ‘Jointness’ to the Tactical Level: Where Does the Marine Corps Fit In? - Major Steven Danyluk, USMCR. Marine Corps Gazette article, November 2004. Recent events have demonstrated that joint operations within the U.S. military have come a long way in the 20 years since Operation URGENT FURY in Grenada. The broad acceptance of the joint concept by senior leadership was fundamental in the planning and success of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. To the surprise of some, going “blue” has not resulted in overwhelming layers of bureaucracy that stifle Service independence. Instead, it has helped bring the strengths and capabilities of the individual Services to bear in a complementary manner that increases efficiency and enhances combat effectiveness. One of the more visible examples of this success is recognizable through the joint force air component commander and the air tasking order. Without an effective means to promulgate daily flight operations, it is unlikely that a complex air campaign, such as that waged in Iraq, could have produced such decisive results. Unfortunately, the joint concept has primarily been embraced only at the upper echelons of the military command structure. The full benefit that might be derived from combining individual Service capabilities has yet to be realized on a more tactical level. However, by transforming the philosophy at the tactical level in a manner similar to that which has occurred at the operational planning level, such benefits will be realized more tangibly on the modern battlefield by the common rifleman.

US Counterterrorism vs The New Terrorism: Leadership And Strategy Are The Keys To Success - Author not given - possibly Major Haynes, USMC. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, 2002.  Terrorism has evolved over the last 15 years to a newer, more lethal, global and streamlined transnational threat in the form of Usama bin Laden and his organization, al Qaeda. Over the same period, the “new” terrorism has been focused on US targets with devastating results. Aspects of the new terrorism – its global reach, organization, popularity, and vision have resisted US counterterrorism efforts over the last decade. A lack of strong US leadership and counterterrorism strategy contributed to the successes of the new terrorism against US targets. It is through strong leadership and a solid counterterrorist strategy – using military response, preemption and disruption, rule of law, diplomacy and sanctions - that will restore fear, isolate, shape perceptions and use innovation against the new terrorism, allowing the US to prevail.

Far More Intellectual than a Bayonet Charge - The Need for Joint Unconventional Warfare Doctrine - Major David Matarazzo, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2004.  This monograph investigates whether the U.S. military should establish joint doctrine for unconventional warfare. Since the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, joint doctrine has become central to everything the U.S. military does. Training, education, programs, procurement, and war planning are all guided by joint doctrine. Since the U.S. has recently conducted unconventional warfare against the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is clear that unconventional warfare is relevant to the U.S. military. Because unconventional warfare is a relevant mission, and joint doctrine is central to military operations, it is therefore relevant and timely to ask if the U.S. military needs joint doctrine for unconventional warfare. 

Liberator or Occupier: Indigenous Allies Make the Difference - Major Duke Shienle, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2004.  Examines the potential roles of indigenous forces in the transition period from decisive combat through post conflict reconstruction. More specifically, should Unconventional Warfare doctrine assess, train and develop suitable resistance forces for a post conflict security role. Minimizing US ground presence in future conflicts asks the question, what missions are indigenous resistance forces suitable for?

The U.S. Army and the New National Security Strategy - Lynn Davis and Jeremy Shapiro, Editors. Link to Rand publication, 2003. Examines the Army's role in the war on terrorism; the Army's homeland security needs; the implications of increased emphasis on Asia; the Army's role in coalition operations; the unfinished business of jointness; the lessons learned from operations and how to prepare for the future; the Army's deployability, logistical, and personnel challenges; and whether the Army can afford its Transformation.

An American Way of War or Way of Battle? - Lieutenant Colonel Antulio Echevarria II, USA.  Serious study of the American approach to waging war began in the early 1970s with the publication of Russell Weigley’s The American Way of War: A History of U.S. Military Strategy and Policy. Examining how war was thought about and practiced by key U.S. military and political figures from George Washington to Robert McNamara, Weigley concluded that, except in the early days of the nation’s existence, the American way of war centered on the desire to achieve a “crushing” military victory—either through a strategy of attrition or one of annihilation—over an adversary. U.S. military men and political leaders typically saw the destruction of an opponent’s armed might and the occupation of his capital as marking the end of war and the beginning of postwar negotiations. Thus, Americans—not unlike many of their European counterparts— considered war an alternative to bargaining, rather than part of an ongoing bargaining process, as in the Clausewitzian view. In other words, the American concept of war rarely extended beyond the winning of battles and campaigns to the gritty work of turning military victory into strategic success. Consequently, the American way of war was—to rephrase Weigley’s argument—more a way of battle than a way of war.

Beyond Vom Kriege: The Character and Conduct of Modern War - R. D. Hooker Jr. Parameters article, Summer 2005. It is the tragedy of history that man cannot free himself from war. Indeed, far more than by the development of art or literature or trade or political institutions, the history of man has been determined by the wars he has fought. Time and again, advanced and cultured societies have been laid low by more primitive and virile enemies with superior military institutions and a stronger will to fight. The end of the Cold War, the rise of globalization, the spread of democracy, and the advent of a new millennium raised hopes that mankind might move beyond the catastrophic wars that shaped the 20th century. Those hopes were dashed by Somalia and Rwanda and Bosnia, by the Sudan and the Congo and Kosovo, by Chechnya and Afghanistan and Iraq. Understanding war, not as we would like it but as it is, remains the central question of international politics. And for the most primal of reasons: War isn’t going anywhere.

The Exit Strategy Myth and the End State Reality - David Bame, US Department of State. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, 2001. While the term “exit strategy” has become synonymous with questions about U.S. military deployments, U.S. officials have failed to apply the more important concept of “end state” as successfully as possible. Military end states, as necessary elements of military planning and conduct, can help refine strategic and diplomatic end states that sometimes become clouded by changes in circumstance.

The Small Wars Manual and Military Operations Other Than War - Major Richard McMonagle, USMC.  U.S. Army Command and General Staff College thesis, 1996. 

Internal Wars: Rethinking Problem and Response - Max Manwaring. US Army Strategic Studies Institute paper, September 2001.  Draw the lessons from recent past to better prepare today's civilian and military leaders.

Everything You Think You Know About the American Way of Fighting War Is Wrong - Max Boot. Link to Foreign Policy Research Institute article, October 2002.  It's a small war, a term of art popular around the 20th century to describe encounters between small numbers of Western soldiers and irregular forces in what is now called the Third World.

Winning the War by Winning the Peace: Strategy for Conflict and Post-Conflict in the 21st Century - Lloyd Matthews.  US Army Strategic Studies Institute conference report, December 2004. 

Winning the War of the Flea: Lessons from Guerrilla Warfare - Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, USA.  Military Review article, September - October 2004.  Counterguerrilla warfare, or the “war against the flea,” is more difficult than operations against enemies who fight according to the conventional paradigm. America’s enemies in the Global War on Terrorism, including those connected to “the base” (al-Qaeda), are fighting the war of the flea in Iraq and Afghanistan. Employing terror to attack the United States at home and abroad, they strive to disrupt coalition efforts by using guerrilla tactics and bombings to protract the war in Iraq and elsewhere and to erode America’s will to persevere.

A Military for the 21st Century: Lessons from the Recent Past - General Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.). Strategic Forum article, July 2001.  The post-Cold War world environment has complicated rather than simplified the missions, strategy, and organization of the Armed Forces. Rapid downsizing after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Allied victory in the Persian Gulf War left a military lacking strategic direction, a thoughtful force structure, and a logical threat upon which to base future force structure.

Clausewitz: “On Afghanistan” - Major Frank Sobchak, USA. Military Review article, July-August 2005. The following article, written in the voice of Carl von Clausewitz and addressing the United States and its military leaders, explores the influence of politics on the early phases of Operation Enduring Freedom. Despite official denials that politics did not influence military decisions during the conflict, this article concludes that the military campaign in Afghanistan vindicates Clausewitz’s thesis that war is dominated by politics.

The Victory Disease - Timothy Karcher. Military Review article. "The Victory Disease does not always lead to battlefield defeat; it simply increases the likelihood of failure. Since preconditions might exist for the United Sates to fall prey to the Victory Disease, the question is whether the U.S. Army can decrease the likelihood of military disasters in future operations.

Military Lessons from Desert One to the Balkans - Ike Skelton. Strategic Forum article, October 2000. The challenge for the next generation is learning the lessons of these past operations and building an even more effective, flexible force.

The Doctrinal Challenge of Winning the Peace Against Rogue States: How Lessons from Post-World War II Germany May Inform Operations Against Saddam Hussein's Iraq - Lieutenant Colonel Wally Walters, USA.  US Army War College strategy research project.  The U.S. must find a way to “win the peace,” to replace rogue regimes with responsible governance after any military conflict ends. Frustrations in the 1990s demonstrate the growing gap that must be overcome between U.S. warfighting and peace operations doctrines. Post-World War II occupation experience provides insights for building a new doctrine that will be military, interagency and international in character.

Managing Operational Transitions: A Key to Maintaining the Initiative - Major David Hardy, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph. Effective operational transitions are crucial for success, but recent interventions indicate that U.S. forces, and the Army in particular, struggle with planning and executing the transition to post-combat operations. By developing and applying a general model for transitions, this study shows that many of the problems associated with post-combat transitions originate from a failure to apply some basic concepts concerning transitions.

The False Divorce: Retying the Knot of War and Peace - US Marine Corps Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities report, May 2004.  Warfighting always has been the primary reason for the military to exist. Because of that, the Department of Defense has given it the highest priority and much of its resources. On the other hand, those many other things the military does, commonly referred to as military operations other than war (MOOTW), and more recently as security or stability and support operations (SASO) or stabilization operations, have been given a lower priority and far fewer resources.

Winning the Nation-building War - Staff Sergeant George Anderson, USANG.  Military Review article, September-October 2004. Construction is more difficult than destruction, and nation-building operations can be long, complex, and expensive. America’s mission in Bosnia has lasted several years, and no U.S. official has yet mentioned terminating operations. U.S. forces also are still in Afghanistan, and U.S. forces in Iraq have suffered more casualties since the end of major military operations than during initial operations.

Rolling Back Radical Islam - Ralph Peters. Link to Parameters article, Autumn 2002.  You cannot win a war if you do not fight, and you cannot win a peace through inattention. In peace and war, the American response to the violent extremism that so damages the Islamic world has been as halting and reactive as it has been reluctant. We simply do not want to get involved more deeply than 'necessary.'  But Muslim extremists are determined to remain involved with us.

National Security Strategy and the GWOT: Choosing the Means - Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Shreves, USA. National War College paper, April 2004. Following the heinous attacks of 9-11 the United States government declared that it was at war with international terrorism and terrorists. For over two and a half years since that day the US has conducted operations in that war, but to what end? Yes, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that overtly supported terrorists groups has been overthrown and the government of Saddam Hussein has been replaced, but do we really know the results of over two years of effort on the greater war to defeat or deter those that launched the 9-11 attacks? If the answer to that that question is “we don’t know,” then perhaps not knowing whether or not two plus years of intense military effort, numerous tactical successes, and countless billions of dollars have brought the United States any closer to winning the war begun on 9-11, indicates a failure of the US to identify the correct means to achieve the desired strategic/political end. B.H. Liddell Hart said, “…nations do not wage war for war’s sake, but in pursuance of policy” and that “the object of war is a better state of peace-even if only from your own point of view.” If that is true, has the current US strategy and its choice of means indeed moved the nation toward a “better state of peace?”

Next Steps in Iraq and Beyond - James Dobbins. Link to Rand document, September 2003. Testimony of James Dobbins before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.

Iraq and Vietnam: Differences, Similarities, and Insights - Dr. Jeffrey Record and Dr. W. Andrew Terrill.  US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, May 2004.  U.S. political and military difficulties in Iraq have prompted comparisons to the American war in Vietnam. How, in fact, do the two wars compare? What are the differences and similarities, and what insights can be gained from examining them? Does the Vietnam War have instructive lessons for those dealing with today’s challenges in Iraq, or is that war simply irrelevant?

Preparing foe War, Stumbling to Peace. Planning for Post Conflict Operations in Iraq. - Major James Howard, British Army.  US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2004.  This monograph discusses planning for the post-conflict phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. More specifically, it examines whether a disparate focus on war-fighting operations during the planning and execution phase of Operation Iraqi Freddom is to blame for the lack of progress towards reconstruction. It examines the factors and influences that led political and military leaders to make certain decisions during the preparatory and combat phases of operations to depose Saddam Hussein. Moreover, it asks whether military leaders could have acted differently in pursuit of the Bush Administration’s strategic objectives for Iraq.

Nation Building Lite (Afghanistan) - Michael Ignatieff. Link to New York Times Magazine article, July 2002.  Imperialism used to be the white man's burden. This gave it a bad reputation. But imperialism doesn't stop being necessary just because it becomes politically incorrect. Nations sometimes fail, and when they do, only outside help -- imperial power -- can get them back on their feet. Nation-building is the kind of imperialism you get in a human rights era, a time when great powers believe simultaneously in the right of small nations to govern themselves and in their own right to rule the world. Nation-building lite is supposed to reconcile these principles: to safeguard American interests in Central Asia at the lowest possible cost and to give Afghanistan back a stable government of its own choosing. These principles of imperial power and self-determination are not easy to reconcile. The empire wants quick results, and that means an early exit. The Afghans want us to protect them, and at the same time help them back on their feet. That means sticking around for a while.

U.S. Army Doctrine and Belligerent Occupation - Major Cristopher Burgess, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2004. This monograph studies the law of occupation, historical case studies on occupation, and the current U.S. doctrine on occupation.

Preparing Leaders for Nation Building - Lieutenant Colonel Patrick J. Donahoe, USA.  Military Review article, May - June 2004. The United States has been waging the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) since shortly after 11 September 2001 and, arguably, has been unofficially at war with terrorists since the end of Operation Desert Storm. U.S. involvements in international conflicts in the past decade demonstrate that the U.S. Army needs leaders who can shift quickly from combat to stability operations and back again with an eye on winning both war and peace in the Islamic Middle East battlespace.

Preventing Terrorism Through Nation-Building: A Viable Way? - Kenneth Comfort. US Army War College strategy research project, 2002.  The term “nation-building” has been used over many years. It became fashionable in the 1960s, during the Vietnam conflict; it is returning to center-stage right now. It always has been a highly complex term used in many different ways, describing certain historical experiences, embodying a set of assumptions about development of Third World societies and influencing the policies of governments that have been driven, among other considerations, by the desire to control and expand their own power. Contradictions of terminology still cloud the discussion about nation-building.

Warfighters and Humanitarians: Integrating Technology to Save Lives - Major Ronald Zilch, USMC. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, 1997.   The Department of Defense (DoD) and civilian relief agencies (non-governmental organizations--NGO) have not effectively integrated communication and data system technologies into their combined humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations.

Decapitation Operations: Criteria for Targeting Enemy Leadership - Lieutenant Commander Victor Hyder, USN. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph. Establishes criteria for targeting enemy leadership during decapitation operations. It analyzes United States operations targeting strategic individuals over the course of the Twentieth Century. This discussion creates a list of recommended standards for the military commander to consider while planning decapitation operations.

Bounding the Global War on Terrorism - Dr. Jeffrey Record. US Army Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monograph, 2003.  Dr. Jeffrey Record examines three features of the war on terrorism as currently defined and conducted: (1) the administration’s postulation of the terrorist threat, (2) the scope and feasibility of U.S. war aims, and (3) the war’s political, fiscal, and military sustainability. He finds that the war on terrorism—as opposed to the campaign against al-Qaeda—lacks strategic clarity, embraces unrealistic objectives, and may not be sustainable over the long haul.

Chaos In The Littorals: Anarchic War And The United States Marine Corps - Major Francis Donovan, USMC.  US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, 2000.  The United States Marine Corps is not preparing for the full spectrum of armed conflict in the 21st century. In particular, the Marine Corps’ concept of future expeditionary operations, Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS), fails to adequately address the threat of armed conflict in the seam between large-scale conventional combat operations and Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW). Yet, as the nation’s premier forward-deployed expeditionary force, the Marine Corps will likely become involved in one of the many ongoing and increasingly lethal unconventional and irregular “small wars” fought by insurgents, bandits, warlords, mercenaries, and criminals in and around the world’s rapidly expanding coastal cities.

Operation Enduring Freedom as an Enabling Campaign in the War on Terrorism - Major John Clement, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2003.  James W. Reed wrote “Should Deterrence Fail: War Termination in Campaign Planning” focusing on campaign planning and design. In the article, Reed describes the relationship between terminal and enabling campaigns. The terminal campaign “seeks war termination as an endstate.” James W. Reed defines an enabling campaign as achieving “some intermediate strategic objectives short of termination.” With this in mind, is Operation Enduring Freedom an effective enabling campaign to create conditions for the defeat of terrorism in the Central Command area of responsibility?

Tribal Alliances: Ways, Means, and ends to Successful Strategy - Richard Taylor. US Army Strategic Studies Institute Carlisle Paper, August 2005. In a military area of operations, particularly in countries in the Middle East that are lacking adequate traditional state based public administrative organizations or institutions, US national military policy must recognize the value that tribes can bring to the spectrum of military operations. The following conclusions and recommendations are offered to further facilitate national military policy success. Four conclusions, linked to the essential elements of analysis and the thesis at large were found to be of value. First, tribes are not explicitly considered in the National Security Strategy or the National Military Strategy of the United States as a tool of military power. Some implicit linkages can be assumed. Second, tribes offer value in all bands of the spectrum of military operations—from pre-crisis access to conventional warfare. Third, when considering tribal alliances as a tool for success, recognize and evaluate thoroughly the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing tribal resources. Finally, throughout history, both past and present, tribes have delivered functional capability (intelligence, security, combat arms, etc.) to successful military operations. In light of the conclusions offered, three recommendations are provided. First, make tribal partnerships an explicit tool of national security policy. The example of the Northern Alliance during Operation Enduring Freedom provides a historical example of success. Second, use tribes across the full spectrum of military operations. The successes tribes have shown in various bands of the spectrum of military operation indicate further potential for tribes as a force multiplier. Finally, use tribes across the continuum of military campaign phases, from Phase I (Deter and Engage) to Phase IV (Transition). Tendencies are to use tribes in one phase of military campaigns.

The Phony War 2002: How the West Through Their Unwisdom, Carelessness, and Good Nature Allowed the Wicked to Rearm - Lieutenant Colonel J. Noel Williams, USMC (Ret.).  USMC Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities paper.  In 1939, after France and England had declared war on Germany, U.S. newspapers described the period of desultory military activity as the Phony War. In England it was known as the Twilight War, and in Germany, Sitzkrieg. We are today, engaged in just such a phony war.

Should Deterrence Fail: War Termination in Campaign Planning - James Reed. Parameters article, Summer 1993.  Among those who occupy themselves with matters of military strategy and operational art, war termination has been a neglected topic both for academic study and, more particularly, for doctrinal development.  The American strategic culture, with its tendency to view war and peace as wholly distinct states, has left little room for consideration of war termination as a bridge between the two. Moreover, our strategic thinking has for good reason given preference to deterrence, while our operational thinking has focused more on concepts of warfighting that would allow us to "win" without resort to nuclear escalation. Recent events, however, suggest that discussion of war termination should perhaps be assigned a higher priority in our thinking about strategic and operational matters.

The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization - Lieutenant Colonel James Lacey, U.S. Army Reserve. Proceddings article, September 2005. More and more of our strategic judgments are being built upon the untested edifice of two books: Bernard Lewis' The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror and Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order . While there have been a few critical reviews of both works, for the most part they have become the basic canon of 21st century strategic thought with very little serious negative commentary. In military publications and briefings these works are now cited repeatedly and uncritically as authoritative support for developing strategic concepts. Both books paint a dismal global picture. Huntington argues that for centuries civilizations have been kept apart by distance and serious geographical obstacles. However, modern technologies are eroding these obstacles and as civilizations begin to interact on a more regular basis they will find each other so repugnant they will be unable to resist trying to slaughter one another. Bernard Lewis is not as pessimistic about the global environment. Rather, he focuses his dire warnings on just the Muslim world, which appears to him on an irreversible road to doom.

Waging Peace: Operations Eclipse I and II - Some Implications for Future Operations - Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth O. McCreedy, USA. US Army War College research project, 2004. This study argues that postwar operations are complex civil-military endeavors that require clear lines of authority and astute, politically attuned leadership. It concludes that waging peace requires an overwhelming force on the ground, especially in its early phases, information dominance, and application of economic and political means from other government agencies. This latter point emerges as perhaps the most significant lesson. The decision to go to war involves a calculus that the application of force will set the conditions that will allow the state to achieve its policy aims. The first step, going to war, must be linked to the last step, ordering the resulting peace to ensure the achievement of policy objectives. This necessarily requires statesmen to wield all instruments of national power in a coordinated campaign on a battlefield where force is not the primary determinant of success. Yet the national security structure as currently configured is inherently inefficient for waging peace. Wholesale changes must be made in the culture of government to inculcate an interagency spirit that transcends departmental parochialism. Interagency training, a common doctrine for planning and management, and removal of barriers to information and communication are essential to build mechanisms for interagency cooperation and truly joint planning and operations. The time is ripe for a revision of the National Security Act of 1947 to create an organizational structure and culture able to seamlessly and simultaneously bring all instruments of power to bear effectively at strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

‘Winning the War’: Planning for Integrated, Synchronized, and Simultaneous Operations - Major Heather Warden, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2004.  This monograph provides the context for a better understanding and appreciation of the difficulties U.S. military planners face in their labors to develop an effective plan to ‘win the war. ‘Winning the war’ is not as simple as defeating an adversary, it also requires operations aimed at restoring the peace and societal reconstruction. The military cannot win a war by itself, yet the plans that it develops are the foundation from which the government pursues its objectives. Thus, it is imperative that military plans integrate and synchronize combat operations and postwar operations to achieve effectively the overall strategic objective.

Current Unconventional Warfare Capability Versus Future War Requirements - Lieutenant Colonel Walter Herd, USA.  US Army War College Strategy Research Project, 2002. This paper deals with current Unconventional Warfare doctrine and capabilities and their role in future war. I discuss the current UW doctrine, thinking and the US capability. I then apply that to several opposing schools of thought about future war. Those schools are broken down by symmetry and technical ability. (high-tech vs low-tech and symmetric vs asymmetric) Essentially, I argue that with some modification, present UW doctrine, thinking and capability will be key for American victory in future conflict.

Unconventional Warfare and the Principles of War - Major E. Deborah Elek, USMC. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, 1994. Military doctrine should specifically address the limitations of the principles of war in unconventional warfare. It should also provide another construct, which may serve as a guideline for the conduct of unconventional warfare.

"Boots on the Ground": Will U.S. Landpower be Decisive in in Future Conflicts? - Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Jarkowsky, USA.  US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2002.  Recent conflicts have demonstrated the enormous capabilities and advantages of aerospace and seapower in waging war. As a result, many strategic scholars and military decision makers believe that there is a new way of warfare, one in which land forces are no longer the decisive element in winning a conflict. The scholars believe future wars are won by precision, long-range strikes that coerce the enemy into surrender or acceptance of U.S. terms. This study will examine these views and the application of military power in recent conflicts. It will also analyze the employment of military power in current, and future conflicts. This study confirms that U.S. landpower will still be decisive in future conflicts and that it has not been displaced by a “new way of warfare.”

Militia: The Dominant Defensive Force in 21st Century 4GW? - Fabius Maximus. D-N-I Net article, October 2005. Projects such as the 4th Generation Warfare Seminar (4GWS) address a question of the highest importance: how can western civilization successfully adapt to an era in which 4GW is the dominant form of war? Unfortunately in such projects there is a natural tendency to propose expanding on our strengths rather than addressing our weaknesses, taking us further down a dead end road.  Several recent articles on the DNI website describe programs to improve the training of US troops, in the hope that we can win by fielding troops in which – to caricature it – each NCO and officer has the skills of Green Berets. Imagine such a force: multilingual troops, all of whose leaders have a sophisticated understanding of foreign cultures, and the ability to not only lead US troops but also navigate within foreign communities – gathering and using intelligence, playing both its elites and common people as an experienced angler does trout.

What Not to Learn from Afghanistan - William Hawkins. Parameters article, Summer 2002. The principal lesson of modern war is the need to operate in combined arms teams to win decisive victories that yield beneficial political change. There are no “silver bullets” that can win wars by themselves, even if fitted with satellite guidance. Nor is war just about blowing things up. War is “politics by other means” with the aim to determine how territory and people are governed, and to what ends rulers direct their resources. This cannot be done from 15,000 feet in the air.  Yet there are those who would argue, on the basis of the air campaigns in the Balkans and Afghanistan, that the United States should restructure its armed forces to rely almost entirely on bombers, with some special forces and perhaps some other light troops (preferably foreign) as auxiliaries. This line of argument has been around since Billy Mitchell claimed in his 1925 book Winged Defense, “It is probable that future wars again will be conducted by a special class, the air force, as it was by the armored knights in the Middle Ages. Again, the whole population will not have to be called in the event of a national emergency, but only enough of it to man the machines that are the most potent in national defense.

Think Global, Fight Local - Robert Kaplan. Wall Street Journal article, December 2003. Two years ago this month, fewer than 100 men of the Army's 5th Special Forces Group, based out of Fort Campbell, Ky. -- almost all of them non-commissioned officers -- essentially took down the Taliban regime on their own. Along with a handful of Air Force Special Ops embeds, they succeeded where the British and the Soviets before them in Afghanistan had failed, because they had been given no specific instructions. The bureaucratic layers between the U.S. forces and the secretary of defense were severed. They were told merely to link up with the "indigs" (indigenous Northern Alliance and friendly Pushtun elements) and make it happen...  Instead of powering-down to a flattened hierarchy of small, autonomous units dispersed over a wide area -- what the 1940 Marine "Small Wars Manual" recommends for fighting a guerrilla insurgency -- we have barricaded ourselves into a mammoth, Cold War-style base at Bagram that drains resources from the fire bases. It is ironic that just as the Pentagon is proposing a more light and lethal worldwide basing posture (with many smaller footprints rather than a few large ones in Korea and Europe), in Afghanistan, whose mountains and tribes make it the most unconventional of battlefields, we have reverted to such an antiquated arrangement.

"Cultivating Intuitive Decisionmaking" - General Charles Krulak, USMC.  Link to Marine Corps Gazette article, May 1999.  Marines involved in these amorphous conflicts will be confronted by the entire spectrum of tactical challenges in the span of a few hours and, potentially, within the space of three contiguous city blocks. Thus, we refer to this phenomenon as the "three block war." Success or failure will rest, increasingly, with the individual Marine on the ground -- and with his or her ability to make the right decision, at the right time, while under extreme duress. Without direct supervision, young Marines will be required to make rapid, well-reasoned, independent decisions while facing a bewildering array of challenges and threats. These decisions will be subject to the harsh scrutiny of both the media and the court of public opinion.

The Strategic Corporal and the Emerging Battlefield - The Nexus Between the USMC's Three Block War Concept and Network Centric Warfare - James Szepesy. Tufts University Master's Thesis, March 2005. The modern international security environment has undergone significant changes since the end of the Cold War. The nature of the battlefield has changed from rural to urban. New technology promises tremendous capabilities, and there are new actors on the scene. These changes have had an impact on the approaches used by U.S. security instruments to implement U.S. policy. The U.S. Marine Corps identified the changing battlefield in the later half of the 1990s and articulated its vision of future warfare as the Three Block War. Concurrent to Marine Corps’ development of the Three Block War was an explosive growth in information technology developments. The end of the Cold War, budgetary pressures, changing face of war, and technological advancements at the start of the 21st Century generated tremendous pressure upon the US military establishment to adapt. Emerging from these pressures was a desire to operationalize the information technology advancements realized at the end of the 20th Century in what is being called Network Centric Warfare. These two vectors, refining the Three Block War model and Network Centric Warfare, have come to be important elements to the strategies and tactics used to fight in Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom as well as components to the consequent debate about the appropriate structure and composition of the U.S. military for the 21st Century.

Strategic Scouts for Strategic Corporals - Major Ron Sargent, U.S. Army. Military Review article, March-April, 2005. When U.S. Army conventional forces deploy in roles requiring extensive personal contact with indigenous people, there is often little nuance or subtlety about it. The Army seeks to dominate every facet of conflict-as it should. During operations, we profess noble, righteous intentions based on our values and beliefs and assume that if indigenous people do not immediately support our efforts, they will in time. History demonstrates, however, that fallacies abound in this assumption. While planners might correctly assess negative local attitudes and opinions about operations, they have not been effective in weighing the strategic effects these factors have, nor have they suitably considered how initial local support can erode over time. We should consider why this happens and the role culture can play in such erosion. People in different cultures have values and beliefs unlike our own and do not see our principles as universal. We can see evidence of this in U.S. Army experiences in Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

So You Want to Be an Adviser - Brigadier General Daniel Bolger, US Army. Military Review article, March - April 2006. BG Bolger, one of the Army’s top advisers in Iraq, offers a vivid description of what it is like to train Iraqi security forces. A combat adviser influences his ally by force of personal example. You coach, you teach, and you accompany in action. Liaison with friendly forces becomes a big role, and you ensure independent ground-truth reporting to both your counterpart and your own chain. Finally, an adviser provides the connection and expertise to bring to bear fires, service support, and other combat multipliers. accolades go to the leader you support. That, at least, is the idea. The people advising today’s Forces have learned to fight what T.R. Fehrenbach so rightly and ruefully called “this kind of war.” the opening rounds of this enduring, twilight struggle, our wily enemies wear civilian clothes and strike with bombs and gunfire without regard to innocents in the crossfire. The battles feature short, sharp exchanges of Kalashnikov slugs and M-4 carbine bullets, the fiery death blossom of a car bomb, the quick, muffled smack of a wooden door going down and a blindfolded figure stumbling out at gunpoint. Dirty little firefights spin up without warning and die out in minutes. But the campaign in will last years, and will not be cheap in money or blood. Since the present advisory effort began to accompany forces into action, we have lost 8 killed. In today’s major theaters, most of the fighting is done by Afghans and Iraqis. They have signed on, but they could use our help. So you want to be an adviser? If so, read on.

Small Unit Leadership in Future Security and Stability Operations - Colonel Michael Bohn, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, November 2004. As the United States enters a new era of military interventions, it needs to look at transforming its military to meet the challenges of the global war on terrorism (GWOT). As we become involved in more operations to depose evil dictators and free people from oppressive regimes, our forces will become more involved in fighting radical groups of ideological fighters vice nation states. There will be a need to place more emphasis upon SASO, while not losing the ability to conduct major offensive operations. Military units, working directly with diplomatic agencies and nongovernmental organizations, will be required to possess the ability to be fierce enemies as well as compassionate friends in order to help countries win a lasting and productive peace. The very nature of SASO—operating in areas where extreme turmoil exists among a population whose culture, language, values, and mores are much different than our own—makes the tactical and operational situation confusing and ever-changing. Only professionally trained leaders of high moral character can possess the confidence and ability to operate in such a volatile arena. Any mistakes or misunderstandings will have an enormous impact on the overall outcome of the mission due to the highly politicized environment under which most of these operations will take place.

Something Old, Something New: Guerrillas, Terrorists and Intelligence Analysis - Lieutenant Colonel Lester Grau, USA (Ret.). Military Review article, July - August 2004.  The United States and its coalition allies are currently engaged in counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. While these are clearly different countries and insurgencies, they have some common features.

Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking - Dr. Thomas Adams. Link to Parameters article, Winter 2001-02.  In short, the military systems (including weapons) now on the horizon will be too fast, too small, too numerous, and will create an environment too complex for humans to direct. Furthermore, the proliferation of information-based systems will produce a data overload that will make it difficult or impossible for humans to directly intervene in decisionmaking. This is not a consideration for the remote science-fiction future. Weapons and other military systems already under development will function at increasingly higher levels of complexity and responsibility--and increasingly without meaningful human intervention.

Strategic Planning by the Chairmen, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1990 TO 2005 - Colonel Richard Meinhart, US Air Force (Ret.). US Army Strategic Studies Institute Letort Paper, April 2006. Throughout literature, we have learned from the ways that others have used systems and processes to respond to challenges.  This Letort Paper by Dr. Richard Meinhart builds upon his doctoral dissertation, Strategic Planning Through An Organizational Lens, that examined what higher education leaders could learn from the Chairmen Joint Chiefs of Staff’s strategic planning in the 1990s and updates that examination through 2005 to reflect Chairman Myers’ use. This update is particularly relevant because the challenges that our leaders faced in the first half of the 2000s with the Global War on Terror were different than those of the 1990s. In response to these new challenges, this strategic planning system continued to evolve as it retained stability in plans and resource products and accommodated changes in vision, strategies and assessments.  How leaders use strategic planning to position their organizations to respond to the complexities of their environment has multiple perspectives whether a person has a background in business, education, government, or the military. While this paper has historical relevancy, its main value is from a leader’s perspective. As such, it identifies key concepts relevant for today’s leaders to consider when using strategic planning that focuses on vision, strategic planning process and product characteristics, magnitude of change, and organizational culture.

Small-Scale Contingencies - 1998 Strategic Assessment. Although small-scale contingencies (SSCs) are not precisely defined in the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), they encompass a wide range of combined and joint military operations beyond peacetime engagement and short of major theater war (MTW). The primary rationale for SSC plans is to protect American citizens and interests, support political initiatives, facilitate diplomacy, promote fundamental ideals, or disrupt specified illegal activities.

Campaign Planning for Operations Other Than War - Colonel Gary Anderson, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, February 1996.  Operations other than war (OOTW) is not a popular term, but it seems to be the best we can do in the area of putting a label on what the Marine Corps used to call small wars.  This article will argue that while deliberate planning in OOTW is more difficult than in Major Regional Conflicts, it can be done and should be done if the Marine Corps is to continue to be the tip of the spear in OOTW response.

Imposing Peace: Total vs. Limited Wars, and the Need to Put Boots on the Ground - William Hawkins. Parameters article, Summer 2000. What distinguishes total war from limited war? Is it the scope of violence, directed not only against armies in the field but also against civilian populations? Is it the mobilization of an entire society with conscription and a war economy, a "nation in arms" which some would say justifies the expansion of violence to the entire society because a clear line cannot be drawn between those who are involved in the war effort and those who are not? Or is it the objective of the war which defines it, with a total war aimed at the destruction of the enemy regime and its possible conquest whereas a limited war seeks only to resolve a conflict that does not endanger the survival of either belligerent?

The Global War on Terror: Mistaking Ideology as the Center of Gravity - Lieutenant Colonel Cheryl Smart, USA. US Army Center for Strategic Leadership Issue Paper, June 2005. The Cold War was portrayed as an epic clash of two ideologies – Western Democracy versus Communism. Section IV of the defining cold war document, National Security Council 68 (NSC 68), was entitled “The Underlying Conflict in the Realm of Ideas and Values between the U.S. Purpose and the Kremlin Design,” and it argued that the basic conflict was between ideas – “the idea of freedom under a government of laws, and the idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the Kremlin.” The adversary resided in the Soviet Union and violence in other regions in the world – including terrorist violence – was exported from or used by this center of Communism. Today, the warof ideas is Western Democracy versus Salafi Islam. Al Qaeda is the main enemy, with our main effort targeted to a particular geographic region – the Middle East, where undemocratic, repressive regimes represent the center of the opposing ideology. This is oversimplified, but there is some merit in such a mental picture. The attacks of September 11, 2001 constitute al-Qaeda’s crowning achievement. They also made it clear that we had fundamentally misunderstood the type of globalized threat we now faced. It concentrated U.S. resolve into an overwhelming response that included the most extreme sort of sanction of two designated state sponsors – invasion and regime change. Fifteen of the 37 designated top al-Qaeda operatives have been killed or captured and almost 3,000 al-Qaeda operatives have been detained by about 90 countries. International financial cooperation has frozen about $77 million of suspected al-Qaeda financial assets worldwide. Al-Qaeda as an international business organization with a central organizing function has ceased to exist. Although its two top operatives, bin Laden and al Zawahiri remain at large, their leadership is no longer relevant to the activities of the global terrorist network. In response to the worldwide effort that dismantled al-Qaeda’s central leadership global terrorism has mutated once again into a system of franchise operations.

Preventive War and Its Alternatives: The Lessons of History - Dr. Dan Reiter. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, April 2006. The 2002 National Security Strategy suggested preventive attacks, diplomacy, deterrence, and other policies as means of curtailing threats presented by the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons to terrorists and rogue states. The author analyzes which mix of these policies might best and most cost effectively address the NBC threat, with special focus on preventive attacks. The past performances of preventive attacks, diplomacy, deterrence, and other policies as means of curtailing the NBC threat are analyzed. The central findings are that preventive attacks are generally unsuccessful at delaying the spread of NBC weapons; that deterrence, especially nuclear deterrence, is highly successful at preventing the use of NBC weapons by states; and that diplomacy has had moderate and perhaps unappreciated success at curtailing the spread of NBC weapons. The author also discusses how funds spent on preventive wars, which are much more expensive than diplomacy or deterrence, might be better spent to combat threats from terrorism and proliferation, on initiatives such as fissile material recovery, ballistic missile defense, and port security.

Campaign Design for Winning the War... And the Peace - Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Lessard, Canadian Army. Canadian Forces College paper, 2004.  The current Western interpretation of campaign design must reunite with its strategic roots of ends and means in its quest to seek ways of winning both the war and the peace in the post 9/11 era. To that end, a new model of campaign design must acknowledge the inherent incoherence of strategy and impose a focus on evolving strategic objectives, rather than maintaining the current obsession with the Centre of Gravity. This implies that routine re-evaluation of the ends must be incorporated into a Commander’s daily activities. If necessary, that evaluation must also instigate a full review of the entire campaign design, from first principles.

Child Soldiers: Warriors of Despair - A Book Review and Commentary on Children at War - John Sullivan. Small Wars Journal article, July 2005. Modern warfare is changing.  No longer the sole domain of state forces, contemporary conflict increasingly involves a range of non-state actors: terrorists, jihadi bands, gangs, criminals and warlords.  These actors fight among themselves and against states for profit, plunder and turf.  Failed states and “lawless zones” provide their base but they increasingly threaten stable regions.  These groups contribute to the barbarization of warfare, frequently operating outside the norms of war and the rule of law, abandoning the long-held prohibitions against terrorism, attacks on non-combatants, torture, reprisal, and slavery, and the use of child soldiers.

Caution: Children at War - Dr. Peter Warren Singer. Link to Parameters article, Winter 2001-02. As we enter the 21st century, a new phenomenon of warfare has emerged, one quite different from the technical revolution in military affairs (RMA). While not a formal doctrine, it similarly represents a body of fundamental principles, deliberate instrumental choices, and transferred teachings.  In this case, it prescribes the methods and circumstances of employing children in battle.

Child Soldiers: Implications for U.S. Forces - US Marine Corps Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities seminar report, November 2002. The purpose of the seminar was to help raise awareness of the Child Soldier Phenomenon throughout the Marine Corps to better prepare Marines for when they encounter child soldiers in the future. This report is intended to enhance professional development, facilitate thought and discussion, and impact doctrine, training, and operations as appropriate throughout the Marine Corps.

ROE vs. RUF - The Center for Law and Military Operations (CLAMO) and Headquarters Marine Corps, Judge Advocate Division, International and Operational Law Branch (HQMC JA (JAO)). Marine Corps Gazette article, March 2006.  One significant result of the JTF–6 investigation and the current ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM operations has been a heightened recognition of the differences between “rules of engagement” (ROE) for combat or overseas military “operations” and what has become known as “RUF,” or “rules for the use of force,” for domestic support to civil authority missions and “nonoperational” force protection. While ROE and RUF both set guidelines on use of force for self-defense and mission accomplishment, they differ in their underlying concerns. As discussed in a prior article (“Rules of Engagement: What Are They and Where Do They Come From,” MCG, Apr02, p. 59), ROE are guidelines for the use of force reflecting a blending of political, legal, and military concerns. RUF serve the same purpose, but the political, legal, and military concerns typically are very different.  One could argue that these varying concerns merely create a distinction without a difference. Whether RUF or ROE, we still are referring to what type of force Marines can use, under which circumstances, and when. The differences in underlying concerns, however, can create a set of entirely different rules that should translate to entirely different mindsets for the Marines employing them.

Rules of Engagement as a Force Multiplier - Major William Hittinger, USMC. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, 2000.  Are rules of engagement a force multiplier when developed in consonance with coherent policies and achievable mission statements?  The case studies presented demonstrate the significance of cooperation and coordination between the Statesman and the General. Vietnam and Beirut illustrate how much worse failure can become when both are not synchronized. Conversely, Desert Storm and Uphold Democracy illustrate that great success can be achieved when both are synchronized.

Rules of Engagement in Military Operations Other Than War: From Beirut to Bosnia - Major Herman Broadstone, USMC. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, 1996.  With the end of the Cold War and a break up of world order Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) have been on the increase. In these operations it is often difficult to define an enemy and an exact mission. There is also a strong desire to limit the use of military force to prevent an escalation of the situation beyond a politically acceptable means. The measure used to control this are the rules of engagement (ROE). They define guidelines for the commander and forces committed concerning when the use of force is authorized and to what extent. Of primacy within the ROE is the right to self-defense which can never be denied regardless of the situation. The uncertainty of the mission and a changing political environment often cause the mission to change or creep. As this happens the ROE must be changed to match the mission. This has failed to happen on many occasions. The ROE must be in concert with the mission.

Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security - Edited by David Alberts and Thomas Czerwinski. Link to National Defense University book.  The emergence of Complexity theory on the national security scene should come as no surprise. In fact, it is rather late arriving compared to such fields as corporate management, economics and markets, and ecology, among others. This can be attributed to a belated recognition of its potential by both National Security practitioners and Complexity theorists.

After Two Wars: Reflections on the American Strategic Revolution in Central Asia - Stephen Blank. US Army Strategic Studies Institute report, July 2005. In the course of its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has deployed forces to hitherto undreamt of destinations in Central Asia and the Caucasus. These deployments reflect more than the exigencies of specific contingencies, but rather are the latest stage in a revolution in strategic affairs that has intersected with the coinciding revolution in military affairs. Thanks to the linked developments in these two processes, the Transcaspian area has now become an area of strategic importance to the United States for many reasons, and not just energy.

Military Geography for Professionals and the Public - John Collins. Link to National Defense University book.  This book will arguably become the most comprehensive treatment of military geography in print. The author presents a sweeping, sophisticated interpretation of the term "geography," covering not just the lay of the land, but the human beings who live on the land, change it, and are shaped by it. He relates virtually every aspect 0-f the physical world we live in to every imaginable endeavor in the military realm, from reading a tactical map to conducting a major campaign in some far-flung corner of the Earth. He considers military operations in every geographical environment, while taking into account ever-changing strategies, tactics, and technologies on all levels. He enriches his text with many practical examples that span recorded history. Finally, he writes in plain, direct language to reach the widest possible audience.

The Evolution of a Revolt - T. E. Lawrence. Army Quarterly and Defence Journal, 1920. In the emergency it occurred to me that perhaps the virtue of irregulars lay in depth, not in face, and that it had been the threat of attack by them upon the Turkish northern flank which had made the enemy hesitate for so long. The actual Turkish flank ran from their front line to Medina, a distance of some fifty miles: but, if we moved towards the Hejaz railway behind Medina, we might stretch our threat (and, accordingly, their flank) as far, potentially, as Damascus, eight hundred miles away to the north. Such a move would force the Turks to the defensive, and we might regain the initiative. Anyhow, it seemed our only chance, and so, in January, 1917, we took all Feisal's tribesmen, turned our backs on Mecca, Rabegh and the Turks, and marched away north two hundred miles to Wejh, thanks to the help of the British Red Sea Fleet, which fed and watered us along the coast, and gave us gun-power and a landing party at our objective. This eccentric movement acted like a charm. Clausewitz had said that rearguards modulate the enemy's action like a pendulum, not by what they do, but tby their mere existence. We did nothing concrete, but our march recalled the Turks (who were almost into Rabegh) all the way back to Medina, and there they halved their force. One half took up the entrenched position about the city, which they held until after the Armistice. The other half was distributed along the railway to defend it against our threat. For the rest of the war the Turks stood on the defensive against us, and we won advantage over advantage till, when peace came, we had taken thirty-five thousand prisoners, killed and wounded and worn out about as many, and occupied a hundred thousand square miles of the enemy's territory, at little loss to ourselves.

T. E. Lawrence and the Mind of an Insurgent - James Schneider. Army magazine article, July 2005. In 1946 French Gen. Raoul Salan conducted several interviews with Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese general who planned and directed the military operations against the French that culminated in their defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Salan was part of a post-World War II negotiating mission established to finalize the return of French authority to Vietnam. Later he would command the French Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam from May 20, 1951, until May 1953, conducting the last successful military action against Ho Chi Minh. In an action designated Operation Lorraine, Salan’s forces swept through the Red River Valley and the jungles of North Vietnam on October 11, 1952. The following year he turned over his command to Gen. Henri-Eugene Navarre, the ill-fated commander at Dien Bien Phu. During the 1946 interviews, Salan was struck by the influence of one man upon the thinking of Giap; that man was Thomas Edward Lawrence. Giap told Salan: “My fighting gospel is T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I am never without it.