Small Wars Journal
  • “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)
  • “Tunnel systems and irregular urban warfare are essentially advanced methods of cover and concealment. Given that the mission of the infantry is to “locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver,” if the enemy can prevent us from locating him or closing with him, it will be nearly impossible for us to destroy him.”
    -- William Birdzell
  • “The Vietnam War was arguably the most traumatic experience for the United States in the twentieth century. That is indeed a grim distinction in a span that included two world wars, the assassinations of two presidents and the resignation of another, the Great Depression, the Cold War, racial unrest, and the drug and crime waves.”
    -- Donald M. Goldstein
  • "It is always dangerous for soldiers, sailors or airmen to play at politics. They enter a sphere in which values are quite different from those to which they have hitherto been accustomed"
    -- Winston Churchill

Home, Above Feeds, Annoucement

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Now available at Amazon - Blood and Concrete: 21st Century Conflict in Urban Centers and Megacities provides a foundation for understanding urban operations and sustaining urban warfare research. This Small Wars Journal (SWJ) Anthology documents over a decade of writings on urban conflict. In addition to essays originally published at SWJ it adds new content including an introduction by the editors, a preface on “Blood and Concrete” by David Kilcullen, a foreword "Urban Warfare Studies" by John Spencer, a postscript “Cities in the Crossfire: The Rise of Urban Violence” by Margarita Konaev, and an afterword “Urban Operations: Meeting Challenges, Seizing Opportunities, Improving the Approach” by Russell W. Glenn. These essays frame the discussion found in the collection’s remaining 49 chapters. Blood and Concrete continues the legacy of Small Was Journal's coverage of urban operations, conflict and combat. - Dave Dilegge, Robert J. Bunker, John P. Sullivan, and Alma Keshavarz, Editors.

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USS Leyte Gulf - The USS Leyte Gulf sails in the Arabian Sea, 10 December 2019, during its deployment to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. U.S. Navy photo.

"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."

-- Small Wars Manual, 1940

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Journal

Embrace the App Store: Leveraging Smartphones for Army Maintenance
by Andrew Shaughnessy | Thu, 12/12/2019 - 3:49am | 0 comments
Against the backdrop of a generation of Soldiers who grew up tethered to smartphones, the Army remains rigidly analog in many of its systems. While there are numerous potential examples of how smartphone applications could make Army systems more accessible, few seem as immediately viable for disruption as unit maintenance.
Competing to Win in the Information Environment: Complex Warfare with Chinese Characteristics
by Thomas A. Drohan | Thu, 12/12/2019 - 3:02am | 0 comments
Complex warfare is high stakes competition in learning, and the United States is being out-thought and out-fought by China. Why is this so, and what can we do about it?
The Most Sorrowful Traffic: Defeating the Human Trafficking that Feeds Modern Conflict
by Kevin Duffy | Wed, 12/11/2019 - 5:33am | 0 comments
That the practice of human trafficking—with its concomitants of forced labor and sexual exploitation—is alive and well in the contemporary world is a shocking fact, one that strikes at the conscience and stretches credulity (can this really still be happening in the twenty-first century?). That said, cases involving the practice are regularly laid bare for all to see.
Time for a Sequel to the Arab Peace Initiative
by Hesham Youssef | Wed, 12/11/2019 - 5:10am | 0 comments
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has fallen down the list of political priorities in recent years as regional and global powers have been preoccupied with more pressing issues—including tensions with Iran; wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya; unrest in Lebanon, Iraq and Algeria; the rise of intestate competition, including with Russia and China, in the region; and a host of internal issues affecting the countries of the region. The conflict, however, has not gone away.
SWJ Book Review - Limited Thinking on Limited War
by Travis Zahnow | Tue, 12/10/2019 - 10:23am | 0 comments
In "Why American Loses Wars", Professor Donald Stoker, Fulbright Scholar and academic, persuasively argues warfare has changed over the last 75 years and the United States no longer knows how to approach war correctly. As a country, our over reliance on limited war and a failure to adequately conclude with them has left us incapable of winning, forever mired in endless wars.
What Fox News Hasn't Told You about Qatar and Iran
by Irina Tsukerman | Tue, 12/10/2019 - 9:21am | 0 comments
… All of this leads to the reasonable conclusion that not only was Qatar likely informed by Iran about the plan to attack the Aramco sites in September, but likely had coordinated with Iran and helped make it happen smoothly.
Bernard Fall as an Andrew Marshall avant la lettre (Part II)
by Octavian Manea | Mon, 12/09/2019 - 3:34am | 3 comments
SWJ interview (Part II) with Nathaniel L. Moir, Ph.D., an Ernest May Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Moir is completing a book manuscript on Bernard Fall for publication.
Rethinking Bernard Fall’s Legacy. The Persistent Relevance of Revolutionary Warfare (Part I)
by Octavian Manea | Sat, 12/07/2019 - 6:17pm | 0 comments
SWJ interview with Nathaniel L. Moir, Ph.D., an Ernest May Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Moir is completing a book manuscript on Bernard Fall for publication.
USC 2019 Homegrown Violent Extremism Digital Summit Report
by Robert Bunker | Fri, 12/06/2019 - 10:14pm | 0 comments
On 8 November 2019, a USC Homegrown Violent Extremism (HVE) Digital Summit was coordinated by the USC Price Safe Communities Institute (SCI). It was held in Los Angeles, California at the main university campus and streamed live to a national and international audience consisting of policymakers, first responders, academics, community organizers and advocates, and other stakeholders within the broader community of interest.
Iraq’s Protesters Ousted a Prime Minister. Now What?
by Elie Abouaoun, by Sarhang Hamasaeed | Thu, 12/05/2019 - 3:43am | 0 comments
Violence remains a risk as parties resist demands for deeper change, USIP experts say.

Blog Posts

Top Pentagon Leaders Consider Leaving Smaller Number of Troops in Afghanistan
by Associated Press | Wed, 12/11/2019 - 9:32pm | 0 comments
"The Pentagon is considering several options to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, including one that would shift to a narrower counterterrorism mission, the top U.S. military officer told Congress on Wednesday."
Airstrikes Called in as Taliban Attempt to Breach Bagram Air Base
by Military Times | Wed, 12/11/2019 - 7:37pm | 0 comments
"A series of airstrikes were called in following a failed attempt by the Taliban to breach Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, according to a Resolute Support spokesman."
Afghanistan’s Karzai Says American Cash Fed Corruption
by Associated Press | Wed, 12/11/2019 - 6:51am | 0 comments
"Afghanistan’s former president argued Tuesday that Washington helped fuel corruption in his nation by spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two decades without accountability."
Turkey and Russia Judged Bigger Risk Than ISIS for U.S. Troops in Syria
by The New York Times | Wed, 12/11/2019 - 6:31am | 0 comments
"American commanders have requested guidance on dealing with an attack from those armed groups and others from Iran and the Syrian government, but officials say they have received muddled direction."
Douglas Lute, Former Afghan War Czar, On Report About What Americans Knew About War
by National Public Radio | Tue, 12/10/2019 - 9:45am | 0 comments
NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Douglas Lute, former Afghan War czar for the Bush and Obama administrations, about a Washington Post report, which claims the public wasn't told the truth about the war effort.
Senior Enlisted Leaders React to Afghanistan Papers: ‘I’ve Never Been Lied To’
by Military Times | Tue, 12/10/2019 - 8:38am | 0 comments
"The outgoing Pentagon senior enlisted adviser and his incoming replacement weighed in on reporting Monday that military leaders have been misleading the American people about the direction and success of the war in Afghanistan since within months of U.S. troops hitting the ground in October 2001, roundly denying that they ever felt lied to about the mission and touting the progress the country has made in the intervening years."
Russia, Ukraine Leaders Agree on Ceasefire Following Four-Way Talks in Paris
by Voice of America | Tue, 12/10/2019 - 7:52am | 0 comments
"Russian and Ukrainian leaders agreed to implement a ceasefire and a prisoners' swap by years end, following four-way talks in Paris on Monday that also included France and Germany."
Parts In A Life
by Keith Nightingale | Mon, 12/09/2019 - 11:01pm | 0 comments
I found a foto today and it brought back a lot of memories as well as a reflection on life in general and how much life is just an agglomeration of luck and timing. Fortunate and unfortunate are mere millimeters of time and whimsical at best.
What Did the U.S. Get for $2 Trillion in Afghanistan?
by The New York Times | Mon, 12/09/2019 - 10:01pm | 0 comments
"All told, the cost of nearly 18 years of war in Afghanistan will amount to more than $2 trillion. Was the money well spent?"
Putin, Zelenskiy Meet in Bid to Bring Peace to Eastern Ukraine
by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | Mon, 12/09/2019 - 9:24pm | 0 comments
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, are meeting for the first time in Paris for long-awaited talks on resolving the military conflict in eastern Ukraine that has left more than 13,000 people dead since 2014.
U.S. Peace Envoy to Afghanistan Opens First Round of Resurrected Talks with Taliban
by Associated Press | Mon, 12/09/2019 - 11:49am | 0 comments
"U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad on Saturday held the first official talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban since President Donald Trump declared a near-certain peace deal with the insurgents dead in September."
Afghanistan War Metrics Manipulated to Highlight Battlefield Success According to Bombshell WaPo Report
by Military Times | Mon, 12/09/2019 - 10:56am | 1 comment
"... war metrics that have been used to push positive public sentiment and stay the course in a war U.S. officials have acknowledged as unwinnable were manipulated to tout successes and emphasize particular strategies were moving in the right direction, according to a an explosive story from the Washington Post."
Russian, Syrian Regime Forces Step Up Attacks on Rebel Stronghold Idlib
by Voice of America | Mon, 12/09/2019 - 2:48am | 0 comments
A recent military escalation by Russian and Syrian government forces in the rebel-held northwestern Syrian province of Idlib is likely to continue in the coming weeks, experts say.
Why France is Focused on Fighting Jihadists in Mali
by The British Broadcasting Corporation | Sun, 12/08/2019 - 11:08am | 0 comments
"As jihadist violence escalates in Mali, analyst Paul Melly considers if France can persuade the rest of Europe to join the deadly fight."
North Korean Threat Requires New U.S. Pressure Campaign Targeting Pyongyang
by SWJ Editors | Sat, 12/07/2019 - 9:12pm | 0 comments
“Maximum pressure 2.0” campaign employing all tools of national power “likely represents the only way to denuclearize North Korea without resorting to war,” new think tank report finds. It includes recommendations related to diplomacy, military posture, cyber operations, sanctions, and information and influence activities.