Journal

Are today’s career officers more cynical than officers of previous eras, and how much more corrosive is their cynicism?  It turns out these are impossible questions to answer.  They are also irrelevant.  No cynic cares whether things were equally or even more screwed up in the past.  Cynics live in the present.  What matters to them is what is problematic now – and today’s post-command and command-select career officers are cynical.

Review of D. Darell Dones, "Terrorist Recruitment of U.S. Gangs: Global Criminal Alliances and Biological Weapons" by Carter F. Smith.

We live in a veritable age of misinformation and false news often totally obscuring the true picture of reality.  Nothing shows this more starkly than the coverage South Korea is getting in the press abroad in the recent few years.  Korea was played up as a model country to emulate in its success in coping with the coronavirus pandemic and that success is often assumed to reflect a robust state of democracy, which brings together the Moon Jae-in government and its people. In certain quarters president Moon Jae-in is adulated not only as a democratic leader but also as a staunch champion of peace with North Korea. The Newsweek recently featured an article on progressive women’s organizations in the United States petitioning the Congress to have the American government declare peace with North Korea, seemingly seconding similar efforts being made by president Moon’s governing circle.  Korea’s image as a prosperous soft power seems to stand at a new high.

Peace is possible in Afghanistan, but it has to be by the terms of the average, rural, Muslim, Afghan tribesman. They represent the majority of the Afghan population. Taliban, U.S., and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) empathy and accommodation of the average Afghan is the only door to peace. Thanks to the U.S. and international involvement in Afghanistan, for right or wrong, Afghanistan has become the poster child of what happens when western-inspired Progressive, Post- Modernist, Critical Theory meets Islamic Tribalism – and it's not working out very well for the average Afghan. Thanks to the Taliban, Afghanistan has also become the poster child of when the execution of 7th Century Islamic jurisprudence meets the modern world – also not working out very well for the average Afghan. Unfortunately, it appears the desires of the average rural farmer population doesn't matter to anyone at the peace table.

This case study is part of a larger body of work researched and produced by the students of the Military Information Support Operations (MISO) Program Design and Assessment Course (MPDAC) at Ft. Bragg, NC.  This body of work examines conflict scenarios with emphasis on determining the Psychological Operations (PSYOP) efforts and activities employed by the various competitive actors in the area of operations.  Each case study follows a basic format of presenting the relevant stakeholders, their goals, and the PSYOP or other influence activities they used to achieve their goals.  Each case study examines the PSYOP efforts under the framework of U.S. doctrine concluding with a brief statement of comparison between the historical vignette and current doctrine to offer opinion where current U.S. doctrine has either strengths or weaknesses.  The comparison, though based primarily on opinion, is opinion offered by U.S. PSYOP NCOs and Officers with first-hand experience under contemporary doctrine.

Cyber warfare is often described as an integral part of future wars. But cyber has proven to have a profound impact on our operational reality today. Some states have adapted to this reality already, while others struggle. As this article shows, Russia has implemented cyber as an integral part of its strategic framework, and demonstrated its effectiveness in the attainment of political objectives on several occasions. We argue that Russia has risen from the technological backwaters of the 90’s to become a great cyber-power – challenging state and military capabilities the West has taken for granted. The West, it seems, is on the defensive.

The role as Foreign Affairs Officers (FAOs) in humanitarian and disaster relief (HA/DR) efforts in a Joint Interagency and Inter-governmental Multi-national (JIIM) environment is assessed in this report on U.S. DoD assistance to Guatemala during Hurricanes Eta and Iota during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing warfare and the herculean advancements of private industry are now impacting the warfighter on the ground. The operationalization of AI will only continue to advance throughout the Joint Force, but a lack of domain expertise incurs risk in the commander’s decision-making cycle. In order to properly integrate AI across the force, commanders require a framework for understanding the risks and challenges of AI integration—use case, data, compute, algorithm development, test/evaluation, and deployment.

Can the U.S. Department of Defense do two things at once: Operate in the gray zone and excel in great power competition?

The rise of digital diplomacy has provided state actors new venues to promote their national interests. Twitter specifically has emerged as a “megaphone and substantive communications medium” for heads of state, governmental institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and scholars. The Russian Federation has exploited the growing importance of social media platforms to diplomacy in order to seek legitimization and normalization of its 2014 annexation of Crimea, which is recognized almost universally as Ukrainian territory. Despite a robust digital campaign, the percentage of Ukrainians that believe Crimea is Russian territory has actually decreased since 2014. Furthermore, Russia’s social media activity has not strengthened its claim to Crimea, but it does provide insight into how the state uses emerging technologies below the threshold of war to meet strategic objectives.

This article introduces the reader to some of the discussions and theories surrounding hybrid war theory and how it can be used to shape generational doctrine. It uses these concepts to help build a Grand Strategy framework for the accomplishment of National Objectives for both the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of State (DoS). It advocates these ideas to be incorporated into joint US military doctrine to help fight and win potential hybrid conflicts in the future.

The citizens of the United States have been the subject of a persistent information warfare campaign for over 100 years. Originally orchestrated covertly by the Soviet Union, this war for the minds of our citizens has gradually degraded domestic unity, trust in government and its institutions, and weakened our democracy. Although the Soviet Union lost their struggle with the West, as evidenced by their 1991 dissolution, the campaigns that they waged in the information domain continue to achieve their original goals today. Fast-forwarding to the 2016 US presidential election, the Russian Federation built upon the work of their Soviet predecessors and transitioned this campaign of ideological subversion into the cyber domain. No longer covert in its execution due to obvious ties between the Internet Research Agency and the Russian government, the spread of disinformation and misinformation sought to increase already present divides within society, degrade trust in government and its institutions, and weaken our democracy through polarization and gridlock. Mitigating these effects is essential to our national security, and can be accomplished through a whole of society strategy enacted through the government, journalists, internet providers and social media outlets, educators, and individual members of society.

The recent focus for the U.S. Marine Corps has been Force Design 2030 and its intent to build a force that can support combatant commanders in deterring and responding to great power competition. The idea of a potential Russian or Chinese fait accompli has gained particular attention - and while it presents one of the most dangerous courses of action to U.S. strategic interests - it is not the most likely. Almost three-quarters of American overseas operations from 1798-2018 were unconventional; and few national security experts are betting on a future without insurgencies. The problem statement for the future force of the Marine Corps should therefore be: “Given current and projected fiscal constraints, how does the USMC man, train, and equip a force that is prepared for both the most dangerous and the most likely threats?” To achieve a more mature, agile, and capable total force, prepared for Irregular Warfare as well as strategic competition, the Marine Corps should establish an Irregular Warfare School that seeks to institutionalize the experience gained during the last two decades, capture emerging lessons from the current operating environment, and teach these concepts to Marine Corps small-unit leaders and tactical planners.

Through a counterinsurgency focus, this paper will provide a multi-lens analysis of the Afghan drug trade and its relationship to the Taliban. The purpose of this research is to assist policymakers in better understanding how illicit trades can alter the character of an insurgency and ultimately generate power for the group that controls the illicit trade. This research will further demonstrate how economic incentives provide the motivation for entry into illicit drug trades while cultural paradigms underwrite the relationship between nefarious actors. Most importantly, this paper will demonstrate that the true power of insurgent-related drug trades comes from the political capital that it provides. The importance of these findings goes to the heart of counterinsurgency theory and the role of the state in protecting its citizens.

Drug cartels and gangs are embracing both familiar and new tactics to exploit the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in challenges to states. These challenges include" disruption, penetration, and adaptation. Additional research and data is needed to gauge the impact of this criminal exploitation and its influence on states.

Review of Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Tony Payan, "Las Cinco Vidas de Genaro García Luna" in English/Reseña de Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera y Tony Payan, "Las Cinco Vidas de Genaro García Luna" en inglés.

Reseña de Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera y Tony Payan, "Las Cinco Vidas de Genaro García Luna" en español/Review of Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Tony Payan, "Las Cinco Vidas de Genaro García Luna" in Spanish.

The 31-page Ranfla Indictment filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York on 16 December 2020 and unsealed on 14 January 2021 is a product of Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV). The indictment follows the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) kingpin strategy of targeting the upper echelon of Mara Salvatrucha’s (MS-13) leadership—the Ranfla Nacional in El Salvador—with the intent of demolishing its command and control (C2) structure. The extradition of the eleven imprisoned Ranfla members from El Salvador to the United States (three are still at large) to stand charges represents a component of the indictment presently being explored. Of strategic concern is the Ranfla’s ability to direct MS-13 clica (clique) activities within the United States.

After seven years of war, the Ukrainian military is now under severe stress. A ceasefire agreement initiated in July between Ukraine and Russian-backed insurgents has been ineffective. Despite the Ukrainian sides' planned withdrawal from certain areas and maintaining the ceasefire, Russian-backed separatists have repeatedly violated the agreement. Also, the Ukrainian military now openly rules out the possibility of offensive operations to retake the Donbas. This has caused an inevitable drop in morale for front-line soldiers who are now put on permanent defense.  Besides, Ukrainian military leadership has recently been mired in controversy with accusations of corruption and mismanagement. This has led to open declarations in the media by field grade officers that demand the removal of the Commander in Chief of the military.

China’s Xinjiang policies have drawn the ire of transnational militant organizations and the topic of Uyghur repression has found rhetorical traction within global jihadist discourse. Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (IS), and others have explicitly threatened China and prominent jihadist figures such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi have criticized Beijing’s treatment of Xinjiang’s Muslim population. While conflict in the region has not traditionally been a priority concern for most non-Uyghur jihadists, Xinjiang issues have become more international and mainstream in recent years. Militants of disparate geographies and of numerous languages have been devoting noticeably greater attention to Xinjiang in their propaganda content. Growing global media coverage and popular awareness of Chinese policy toward the Uyghurs has put additional pressure on jihadist organizations to publicly address the subject.

Was the Capitol Riot America’s equivalent of the Reichstag Fire?  Or were the shots fired there more akin to those of Fort Sumter, presaging a second Civil War?  Making a comparison to other singular micro events in history is often problematic due to the many differences in each case.  But exploring the causes behind the revolt, especially the macro events that shaped the environment in which dissent, anger, and frustration have festered, is far easier.  The insurrection that played out across the offices and hallways of the U.S. Capitol was not just a reflection of the anger and seditious behavior of some  Americans, it was a symptom of the fissures wrought by the information revolution which has been tearing the fabric of global society apart for the last few decades. 

   There has been considerable analysis on the competition between the United States, Russia, and China, and potential military conflict. These pieces tend to examine respective militaries’ firepower, troop numbers, hybrid capabilities, and other conventional measures, however, strategists ought to consider how these militaries are preparing for the consequences of climate change. The environment can shape matters at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels just as much as more traditional measures. Be it Napoleon choosing to retreat out of Russia rather than endure the harsh winter, World War II’s delayed D-Day Invasion and effects on allied airpower during the Battle of the Bulge, or visual challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan from sand and dust storms, which were even known to cause lung disease to servicemen after prolonged exposure.

Several experts of terrorism including Daniel Byman and Hassan Hassan recently reported al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death . The last time he appeared in media was on September 11, when he published a video message about the nineteenth anniversary of the historic attack. If al-Zawahiri’s death is true, it inevitably arises the question about how his death impacts al-Qaeda.

            The U.S. military continues to face terrorist threats from al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) but is increasingly reorienting on great power competition (GPC), heralded by the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS). U.S. Special Operations Forces (USSOF), and the wider military, assert success in counter terrorism but also claim the need to better adapt for GPC, particularly against Russia and China. Although USSOF have successfully learned how to hunt down and kill terrorist leaders, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Osama bin Laden and others, a more comprehensive look at the U.S. fight against irregular-terrorist organizations reveals a bleak global strategic picture.

The National Security and National Defense Strategies prioritize great power competition and conflict.  The United States faces two revisionist powers, China and Russia, and two rogue powers, Iran and North Korea, and the enduring threat of global violent extremism.  These threats are likely to persist for decades to come and it will be up to the U.S. national security apparatus to deter, contain, cope, manage, and where possible, defeat these threats.

Traditionally, IO (Information Operations) doctrine would hold that a such a tweet is a measure of performance (MOP): criteria used to assess friendly actions that are tied to measuring task accomplishment (FM 3-13, pg. 8-4) – in other words, something we did, not an effect we created. Other common examples of MOPs include: the number of leaflets or handbills disseminated, number of broadcasts, the number of photos or videos taken or disseminated – all observable and measurable activities, but none that reflect a change in behavior by the target or target audience. Basically, we did something, but we’re not sure if it mattered.

Unilateral military actions by a state actor in the era of globalization and numerous international institutions receive harsh criticism and subject to strict moral, ethical, and legal review by the international community. The basis for this is that under the United Nations (UN) Charter, Chapter 1, all member states are, in theory, guaranteed “sovereign equality” and the right to “self-determination." When a member state commits forces against or within the borders of another member state, questions concerning the violation of a state’s sovereignty and the legitimacy to act surface, which will be discussed later in this paper.

The War on Terror ushered in a new era of warfare for the United States and the Marine Corps. Gone are the days of Desert Storm-like conflicts when the United States could simply flex its muscle and use its technological advantages to bring an enemy to its knees. This muscle has now turned into the country’s Achilles heel, exposing it to devastating attacks from insurgents, cyber warriors, and the like. These enemies are not caught on a battlefield, but rather attack from the shadows, costing the country dollars and blood it cannot continue to pay. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the widespread adoption of counterinsurgency (COIN) tactics by both Army and Marine Corps units in order to mitigate this weakness.

The United States Army currently has a problem. The face of modern war, and what that portends, are not adequately expressed in concepts and doctrine. The problem is that the US Army’s concepts and doctrine, as part of that of the larger Joint Force, are rife with ideas that are out of step with trends in contemporary armed conflict and projections about future war. To be sure, concept development is currently focused on large-scale combat operations (LSCO) and multi-domain operations (MDO), or joint all-domain operations (JADO), and while lacking an appreciation for applied dominance. All the while, today’s trend line suggests urban warfare, and its reciprocal siege, coupled with great and regional powers competing indirectly through a variety of proxies, are war’s moderating features.

Review of Charles "Sid" Heal, "Concepts of Nonlethal Force." 

The concept of Great Power Competition (GPC) is flawed. The term GPC leads to an apathetic response by those with a responsibility to act and protect western democratic interests such as businessmen, politicians, intelligence, academia, media, national and international government institutions, and the military. China’s government is waging war against the United States (US); not competing.

In the ongoing conflict in Michoacán between the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and local defense forces coordinating amongst themselves and with local cartels, a recent engagement took place in which an autodefensa (self-defense group) improvised armored fighting vehicle (IAFV) was engaged by small arms fires. The engagement, caught on video from the perspective of the mounted infantry and reporters in the armored truck bed of the IAFV, took place in La Bocanda—a CJNG stronghold—in mid-December 2020.

This book review of Nilda M. Garcia's "Mexico’s Drug War and Criminal Networks: The Dark Side of Social Media" by Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera focuses on the exploitation of cyberspace by Mexican criminal networks through three case studies of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas, and the Knights Templar.

The emerging global environment marked by the competing interests of current and emerging great powers has enmeshed American foreign policy and strategic military preparations in understanding the 21st century’s new “converging, trans-regional compound security dilemmas.” This compound security dilemma combines the Joint Special Operations Forces’ (SOF) decades-long imperatives to counter violent extremist organizations (CVEO) and counter weapons of mass destruction (CWMD), all within the global framework of "rising competition with China and Russia, under conditions of eroding US relative military advantage." To confront these challenges, SOF must reimagine ethical decision-making as a foundational aspect of leadership and leader development in the context of the future SOF environment.

At face value, genocide appears to be a fundamentally irrational act, ripping apart the very fabric of society for little demonstrable gain. Indeed, the term conjures images of mindless killing and pathological bloodlust. Hannah Arendt famously asserted that the Nazi extermination camp could not be understood in utilitarian terms, as it reflected an irrational and paranoid worldview that was divorced from any broader strategic calculus. While there are certainly elements of irrationality in genocide, this article argues that genocide is often viewed as rational by those who perpetrate it, though these rationales seem perverse and inscrutable from the outside.

The Special Air Service’s (SAS) longest serving member, Ken Connor, with the assistance of a career author and historian, David Hebditch, examine military coup successes and failures from around the globe in their work; How to Stage a Military Coup: From Planning to Execution.  As the title suggests, the authors claim to provide a step-by-step guide to planning and executing a military coup but miss the mark.  The authors utilize a historical case study method throughout the work with comical interjections, often ill-timed, to present the analysis of over 20 coups. The end result is a book that is historically grounded, supplies a reasonably supported list of indicators of coup likelihood, and entertainment; but fails to offer a true framework for execution. 

The emergence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and a lack of clear and definitive information and guidance by public health organizations and national and regional governments, coupled with heightened collective anxiety, created the perfect storm for the promulgation of disinformation and other manipulative and deceitful content. The Russian government has been one of the most prolific offenders, seeking to generate disruptive effects in targeted countries. This article examines the mechanics of how the Russian government generates disruptive effects through COVID-19 disinformation, as well as discussing implications for NATO and its partners.

An assassin (sicario) shot former Jalisco governor Aristóteles Sandoval in the bathroom of the Distrito/5 bar in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco on Friday, 18 December 2020. He succumbed to his injuries. The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) is suspected; however, other actors and political motivations can’t be ruled out in this direct attack.

Since taking office, President Trump has challenged the global order with his “America First” approach. He has questioned the role of the US and its Allies within NATO, exited the Paris Climate Accord, and entered into a trade battle with China. At the same time, the Trump administration has positioned both Russia and China as strategic rivals to the US and the new rise to great power competition. In the last decade, the US has witnessed aggressive actions by both countries in an effort to carve out new spheres of influence.

War is one of the oldest and most terrible of human endeavors and Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) is war at its conventional zenith. Of course, most would agree that reducing the effects of war to a simple calculus of blood and treasure is crass and callous. Yet these two cursory measurements can shed light upon the sheer devastation war can, and has repeatedly, wrought.

On November 10th, 2020, the Secretary-General of the United Nations reported, "massacres by non-state armed groups in several villages in northern Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province including the reported beheading and kidnapping of women and children" (United Nations). The news of these crimes against humanity broadcasted worldwide via the internet. The ability of information on crimes like these to potentially end up in front of hundreds of thousands if not millions of human beings is a glimpse of a future where humanity can quickly react to and mitigate a slaughter.

This is one of the books every new Special Operations soldier should read when they start their journey into the world of Unconventional Warfare. Gene Sharp could have titled this book the “Doctrine of (Nonviolent) Unconventional Warfare” to Free the Oppressed, or Create Order from Chaos, or even to Persuade, Change, or Influence (the three mottos of the US Army’s Special Operations Branches).

In the early 1990s, interviews with former Soviet pilots and access to Soviet archives revealed that “Soviet pilots covertly participated in air-to-air combat with American pilots during the Korean War for two years.” Subsequently and arguably more surprisingly, declassified U.S. intelligence documents revealed that U.S. officials not only knew of this intervention but actively sought to keep the Soviet intervention secret.

This note looks at developments in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) capabilities. In this initial note, a new naval carrier, new drones, helicopters, and speed boats. This series will look at IRGC strategic, operational, and tactical developments.

The ongoing Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) offensive into Michoacán has been met by the creation of defensive trenches dug across multiple state highways/roads in mid-November 2020.  These anti-improvised armored fighting vehicle (IAFV) trenches were created by Los Viagras, Carteles Unidos, and/or local community self-defense groups (autodefensas) in an apparent co-ordinated effort to obstruct CJNG commando unit—consisting of IAFVs, monstruos (monster trucks), narcotanques (narco-tanks), and soft-skinned vehicles and gun trucks with mounted infantry elements—access to towns under their control.

This article details the advantages the US military can gain by developing an experimental joint airborne division for use in current or future hybrid conflicts while simultaneously countering emerging proxy threats during Great Power Competition. It highlights the current capability gap in our airborne formations between conventional and irregular airborne units and provides a plan to address this issue with the creation of an experimental joint airborne division led by the Army and staffed by additional joint personnel.

The Arab world had hoped to see more democratic regimes when the Arab Spring struck many authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. Arab countries witnessed a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions in the early 2010s. Responding to oppressive regimes and a low standard of living, Tunisians were on the streets to protest government corruption. The unrest spread to Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria. Protesters were successful in overthrowing long-serving authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Egypt.

After months of political debate, the Guardia Nacional (National Guard) proposed by Mexicos new President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was formalized on 27 May 2019.[ ] However, it remains a source of heated controversy. Some critics claim that it was unnecessary since Mexico already had a Policia Federal (Federal Police - PF). Human rights advocates and some security specialists argue that its military traits exacerbate the risk of abusive use of force and the militarization that prevailed during the Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña (2012-2018) Administrations. The purpose of this essay is to examine why a new law enforcement institution was created and designed as a civilian-military institution.

Noel Barber’s The War of the Running Dogs: How Malaya Defeated the Communist Guerillas 1948-60 is a gripping history that reads like a novel. Barber tells the story of courageous British and Malayan men and women who fought the guerillas—as well as the story of the rise and fall of communist guerilla leaders—through personal antidotes and experiences during the Malayan Emergency; details which make it a difficult book to put down. Barber’s account also appeals to the academic reader by providing a combination of historical narrative and a test-case of applied COIN theory.

The United States is preparing for great power competition against near-peer adversaries by preparing for a major war with China and Russia. However, this is a fundamental misreading of the challenges the US actually faces in this multipolar security environment.[Adversaries recognize they cannot compete against the US in conventional warfare. Instead, they are increasingly employing the use of gray zone operations, or those tactics that fall beneath the threshold of armed conflict, to increase their influence and impose costs on the US. The US Department of Defense’s (DOD) US Special Operations Forces (SOF) are an agile force uniquely positioned around the world and capable of using their irregular warfare asymmetric advantages to counter Chinese gray zone activities. As counterterrorism operations in the Middle East are winding down, the DOD should leverage SOF’s successes in irregular warfare to rebalance the mission sets to meet the full range of new and emerging security challenges in support of great power competition.