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

Changes Are Coming!

 

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

Journal

From Insurgency to Illicit Trade: Analyzing FARC Dissidents in the Cocaine Market
by Camilo Pardo-Herrera, by Mahmut Cengiz | Mon, 10/14/2024 - 10:06pm | 0 comments
Colombia holds a crucial role in the global drug trade, serving as a major source of cocaine linked to its historical conflicts and ongoing violence. The nation has been marred by some of history's most notorious drug trafficking organizations, including the Medellín and Cali cartels, which have significantly affected Colombia's stability and safety. Additionally, Colombia has been home to several violent revolutionary groups. For decades, organizations like FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – National Liberation Army) engaged in armed conflict, exacerbating the country’s violence.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRONTLINE CIVILIANS
by Tom Ordeman, Jr. | Wed, 10/09/2024 - 4:24pm | 0 comments
If online comment sections frequented by America's veterans are any indication, a widening "civil-military divide" - the alleged cultural segregation of America's military/veteran and civilian communities - requires attention from all parties. Simultaneously, fraternal organizations dedicated to serving America's veterans face dwindling membership. Both of these challenges could be mitigated if the fraternal organizations took the radical step of offering limited membership to former frontline civilians.
How Ukraine’s Recovery From War Can Inform Kyiv’s Car-driven Chaos
by Russell W. Glenn | Mon, 10/07/2024 - 5:18pm | 0 comments
Urban operations specialist Dr. Russell W. Glenn provides insights into recovery from urban warfare from experience in Ukraine. Here, Dr. Glenn reviews the impact of urban conflict on traffic and parking. These insights draw from the research for Dr. Glenn's new book "Brutal Catalyst: What Ukraine's Cities Tell Us About Recovery From War" (KeyPoint Press, 2024).
Reflections on Buffalo Bill Cody: Lessons for Warfighters and Strategists
by Tom Ordeman, Jr. | Mon, 10/07/2024 - 5:10pm | 0 comments
In 2020, I had occasion to begin reacquainting myself with one of my childhood heroes: Buffalo Bill Cody. As a youngster, my family took occasional trips to the city in Wyoming that bears his name. We visited the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and I read the semi-apocryphal biography penned by Cody's sister. Then, in 2021, I watched as American troops concluded their two-decade-long campaign in Afghanistan. Like many members of my generation, the events that precipitated America's foray into that ancient land proved life-changing for me. When the entire enterprise collapsed, I found myself trying to make sense of it and Bill Cody's story has proved insightful.
SWJ El Centro Book Review – Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises
by Daniel Weisz | Mon, 10/07/2024 - 2:57pm | 0 comments
SWJ−El Centro Associate Daniel Weisz Argomedo Reviews of "Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises" by Jonathan S. Blake and Nils Gilman.
Time to Move Beyond Cannons
by L. Lance Boothe | Thu, 10/03/2024 - 10:09am | 0 comments
In the US Army, a struggle with math is happening, particularly in the Field Artillery. For a combat arm which demands meeting the five requirements for accurate predicted fire (target location and size, firing unit location, weapon and ammunition information, meteorological data, and computational procedures) as essential to putting steel on target, one would think arithmetic near reverential. Calculus and geometry, simply being able to count to ten, and doing math in increments of 10s, 50s, or 100s applies to just about every one of the “five requirements” in some form or fashion. Yet some artillerymen cannot seem to do the simplest math of all – merely counting munitions and systems.
Fire for Effect in Ukraine
by John Nagl, by Dan Rice | Tue, 10/01/2024 - 12:20pm | 0 comments
The United States has now approved the provision of air-to-ground AGM-154 precision cluster glide bombs to Ukraine.  This completes the full family of cluster munitions for artillery, HIMARs rockets and aircraft thirty-two months after the Russian invasion of that country.  Cluster munitions incorporate a number of smaller bomblets that scatter upon impact, vastly increasing the destructive power of the weapons.  America has been slow to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, doing so sparingly and haltingly.  It is now time to deliver all of these different types of cluster munitions in large quantities to destroy the Russian Army in Ukraine.  In artillery terms, it is time to FIRE FOR EFFECT and provide the quantities of ammunition Ukraine needs to win the war
Is a Responsible Strategic Threat Assessment Too Much to Ask For?
by Al Dhobaba | Thu, 09/26/2024 - 2:41am | 0 comments
As early as 2008, Army Colonel and West Point history professor Gian Gentile led a chorus of voices that characterized counterinsurgency operations as a dangerous distraction from what might be characterized as “real soldiering”: combined arms maneuver, force-on-force combat, and engagements against what are popularly referred to as “near-peer threats.” By 2015, most of the American defense establishment was onboard! Counterinsurgency was over! Land wars in developing countries were passé! China was a rising power, and America would pivot its attention to the Pacific to contain it! Russia was resurgent, threatening the interests of America and American allies the world over! It was time to reconfigure the service branches to deter or defeat these strategic competitors!
Twin Insurgency, Irregular War, and Oil Theft in Nigeria and Brazil: An Overview
by Zachary Z. Horsington | Mon, 09/23/2024 - 12:11am | 0 comments
This article by SWJ−El Centro Intern Zachary Horsington reviews the concept of twin insurgency and its constituent components of criminal insurgency and plutocratic insurgency in order to illuminate case studies of oil theft in Nigeria and Brazil.
US Soft Intervention in One of The World’s Hardest Conflicts
by El Mahdi Habib-Alla Ali Al Sanos, by Joshua Saidoff | Fri, 09/20/2024 - 2:47pm | 0 comments
The civil war in Sudan has produced mass displacement, famine, tales of systematic rape and ethnic killing.  The numbers suggest the scale of suffering: 10 million displaced, 25.6 million facing acute hunger, and casualty counts exceeding 20,000 killed and 33,000 injured. The civil war represents more than a domestic tragedy.  It has become a battleground for global and regional powers, each advancing their own agendas at the expense of the Sudanese people.  Central to the conflict is a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which stems from the former Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the modern successor of militias responsible for atrocities in Darfur (currently engaging in fighting the Houthis in Yemen).

Blog Posts

10/15/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Tue, 10/15/2024 - 9:58am | 0 comments

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10/14/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Mon, 10/14/2024 - 9:46am | 0 comments

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10/12-13/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Sun, 10/13/2024 - 12:49pm | 0 comments

10/12/24

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10/11/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Fri, 10/11/2024 - 7:42am | 0 comments

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10/10/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Thu, 10/10/2024 - 10:56am | 0 comments

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National Security News Content:

1. OSS Society puts awards dinner on the radar

10/9/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Wed, 10/09/2024 - 10:26am | 0 comments

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My time around SWJ is coming to an end
by Bill Nagle | Wed, 10/09/2024 - 9:33am | 0 comments
I’ve been part of this lash up, at least on the margins, for just shy of 20 years. I haven’t been doing much here for the last dozen, just a very small role in keeping the lights on. It’s been a long goodbye for me, but now it’s finally almost here. Goodbye.
10/8/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Tue, 10/08/2024 - 9:30am | 0 comments

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10/6/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Sun, 10/06/2024 - 12:50pm | 0 comments

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10/5/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Sat, 10/05/2024 - 11:56am | 0 comments

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10/3/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Thu, 10/03/2024 - 6:39pm | 0 comments

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10/2/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Wed, 10/02/2024 - 9:44am | 0 comments

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National Security News Content:

1. Israeli Response to Iran’s Attack to Set Course of Widening War

10/1/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Tue, 10/01/2024 - 9:25am | 0 comments

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9/30/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Mon, 09/30/2024 - 9:46am | 0 comments

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9/28-29/24 National Security and Korean News and Commentary
by Dave Maxwell | Sun, 09/29/2024 - 8:51am | 0 comments

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National Security News Content:

1. ARSOF schoolhouse unveiled new lane in honor of MG Sydney Shachnow’s legacy