Journal

This essay is an attempt to assess threats to Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNWs) and its nuclear security vulnerability.

Strategy is one function we perform continuously and tacitly, in part because military justice demonstrates Clausewitz’s timeless caveat about simple things being hard.

The best example of a group worthy of our attention, care and support is the northern Syria all-female self-defense unit, the Women's Protection Units (or Women's Defense Units - YPJ).

If we add the estimate of approximately 25,000 people missing and/or disappeared as reported by the Mexican government the number of people killed or disappeared since 2007 is at least 233,143.

In 2008 over half of the world's population lived in urban areas - at that point more of earth’s residents lived in built-up areas than there were people in the world forty years before.

Editors and foreign policy pundits Joseph Humire and Ilan Berman contend that Iran is leveraging the anti-U.S. sentiment of several leftist countries in the region.

As President Trump inherits the war in Afghanistan, the best piece of advice anyone can give him is that this is about as good as it is going to get.

The grinding work of national security policy in a complex world is made more difficult by fractured politics at home.

A valuable and deeply researched source that provides a rarely-so-comprehensive comparative analysis of civil-military relations across four distinct nations; Canada, Russia, Germany, and the U.S.

President Trump's words and those of most of his team indicate a hodgepodge understanding of America’s role in maintaining an international order the world requires for stability.

In 1800, the US was threatened by the Barbary States of Morocco, Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis. Here are some interesting and little known facts about the First Barbary War.

The SCS is developing at an extraordinarily rate and the events that transpire in the region in the next two to three years will be some of the most significant geopolitical events in the world.

The DNI and the ODNI have legitimate work to be done and a major effort to rewire the Intelligence Community is not now called for.

The death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Rafsanjani on January 8 will dramatically change Iranian politics.  He was one of the handful of the architects of the fundamentalist system in Iran.

The sixth anniversary of The Arab Spring has come and gone, but not many people noticed. One of the main reasons was its utter failure to create either a stable, democratic, or secular Arab world.

The Army will remain the only organization in our nation’s national security arsenal that enables the competent projection of national power to directly influence human activity.

The cause of Iraq’s troubles - the single event without which the hideous mutilation of today would never have occurred - was a 1958 coup d’état.

Western scholars have seemed reluctant to engage with Chechnya as a COIN success. Such hesitancy may be partly due to the extreme unpalatability of Russian tactics.

SWJ discussion with Daniel R. Green and William F. Mullen III, the authors of "Fallujah Redux: The Anbar Awakening and the Struggle with al-Qaeda".

Doran offers a persuasive and riveting revisionist history of President Eisenhower’s foreign policy approach to the Middle East.

Soft power is an expansive concept, and every one of Mr. Trump’s immature tweets stands to lessen U.S. credibility as the example of a moral force.

Part Four of Four of “What’s Wrong with SOCOM?”

The Mabus priorities have been making the naval services more caring, inclusive, and environmentally protective.

Have received some great entries so far - soliciting more for the SWJ-MWG writing contest. Continue on for all the details.

Part III of IV of “What’s Wrong with SOCOM?”

Part II of IV of “What’s Wrong With SOCOM?”

Just under three weeks left - continue on for all the details.

As the threat and effect of psychological warfare becomes more pronounced in cyberspace, policymakers must address this burgeoning security threat.

Part I: JSOC Winning the War Against White SOF and the Problems Massive Bureaucracy Gets You in the Conduct of Irregular Warfare

The new career course model is ultimately detrimental to the Special Forces Regiment. It deprives SF captains of some of the best training the Army has to offer.

Japan’s defeat at Guadalcanal was led by its “closed systems,” the military culture of Gekukojo, and a military strategy dismissive of operational art.

The United States should petition a reclassification of perfidy from the United Nations to ensure the legal protections and force protection of SOF while conducting clandestine operations.

As the Mosul operation grinds forward, it is vitally important for the US and its allies to double down on their commitment to supporting the Iraqi Army and the Counter Terrorism Service.

Operation Whirlwind: A paper simulation of the Soviet assault on Budapest designed by prolific wargame designer Brian Train.

Human factors in military operations must become a central consideration in Joint Force campaign planning and execution.

Scales on War exposes the reader to the ground truths and mortal realities of the politically unfavoured means and the un-pretty practice of dismounted close combat and intimate killing.

Trump's election has already forced the United States’ European allies to contemplate a future where the United States might no longer underwrite Europe’s security.

SOUTHCOM’s diplomatic actions are effective because it can operate at both ends of the spectrum within the realm of coercive diplomacy.

This paper was prepared in early 2010, when it might still have been possible to advance an agenda for a diversified private sector in Iraq.  We missed our opportunity.

This paper assesses maritime drug smuggling by Mexican drug trafficking organizations on the coast of California with an emphasis on the use of panga boats.

Ambassador Jonathan S. Addleton: The Dust of Kandahar: A Diplomat Among Warriors in Afghanistan.  Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

The United States and Russia are already at war. At least, that’s what many in Moscow seem to think - and this war is not fought like past conflicts.

The key thesis of this book is to analyze the theory that it is possible to use irregular warfare as a national military strategy to adopt a ‘professional irregular defense force’.

The potential threat posed by Special Interest Aliens is receiving renewed emphasis, particularly in view of the recent terrorist attacks across Europe and North Africa.

The “info-agile” world is not myth. It is reality, and any institution concerned with advancing truth must deal comprehensively with the manipulative nature of information.

At the end of the Vietnam War the U.S. Army was in disarray. Racial animosities, drug abuse and rebellious attitudes caused CSA Creighton Abrams to reorganize the way the army prepares for war.

This essay focuses on noteworthy contributions that are essential for the operational artist to “better understand the problem or problems at hand.”

Continue on for a short excerpt and a link to this 31 October 2007 SWJ article. It is Small Wars Journal’s most read piece.

While frustrating to some, the United States’ increasing inability to dictate preferred outcomes should come as no surprise.

As past demobilization efforts show, significant segments of non-state armed actors who are supposed to disarm simply move on from ideologically inspired violence to economically driven violence.