Military officials often utilize the PMESII-PT acronym (Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information, Infrastructure, Physical Environment, and Time) as an analytical start point to assess an operational environment. However, the linear...
American policy in Afghanistan has evolved since the initial engagement of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. It has become increasingly clear that strategic focus must include a plan to concentrate upon and continue development of a stable and secure...
In the words of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, "The United States, our allies, and our partners face a spectrum of challenges' We must balance strategic risk across the responses, making the best use of the tools at hand within the U.S....
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formed in 1949, provided security and defense as an organization against the threat perceived through the ideology and military power of the Soviet Union and its expansionist politics. With the...
The US Global War on Terror is actually a Global Counterinsurgency as defined by FM 3-24 and Al Qaida is the global insurgent currently opposing the US. Al Qaida is held up as the global insurgent through the use of their own declarations in...
Throughout history, technology has played a vital role in combat. While improvements in weaponry are typically at the front of the military leader's minds, technology like the internet would not appear to be as significant. However, the internet...
Emory Upton believed that politicians should leave war to professionals. This led to two assumptions that became conventional wisdom: first, an apolitical army represented a more professional force; and second, the problems at the tactical and...
A gap exists between how logistics planners and operational planners see the military environment. This leads to asynchronous planning and flawed solutions. The central theme necessary to merge these two worlds is the common operational picture. By...
This monograph examines the ambiguities of Chinese strategic and military thought and introduces a new concept of Chinese Strategic Art to help analysts understand how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) thinks about and practices strategy. This...
Over the past decade, the United States has focused its military energy on the conduct of Stability Operations. The U.S. Department of Defense raised Stability Operations to the same level of importance as Offensive and Defensive Operations in...
This monograph began as an investigation to determine if either Effects-Based Operations (EBO) or Systemic Operational Design (SOD) should replace the traditional Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). It soon became clear that the approaches do...
The Philippines faces a 39-year old communist insurgency. For years, it tried in vain to solve the problem by kinetic means. Deeply rooted in poverty, resolving this insurgency calls for non-kinetic approaches. This led to the creation of the...
The information sphere is an integral part of the current environment. The center of gravity (CoG) theory currently is matched for conventional, linear, industrial age warfare in the physical domain. The CoG concept is thus not suited to work in...
The objective of this study is to determine if the German "blitzkrieg" and Fall Gelb of 1940 were an expression of operational art. Despite the mythology surrounding Fall Gelb, the campaign does not constitute a major breakthrough in operational...
“German General Staff Officer Education and Current Challenges” examines the institutional education of German General Staff Officers, as experienced by the author, and offers a “Conceptual Competency-Skill-Framework” for professional...
The Army needs more logisticians who are operational artists and know what operational art is and how to use it. Operational art represents the cornerstone of United States Army doctrine. Its concept represents the common thread that focuses...
Effects based operations (EBO) are defined in this thesis as the synergistic employment of all instruments of national power, as interdependent and supporting systems to achieve desired national policy. EBO are a continuous process, applied from...
In the future, the United States of America and the Peoples Republic of China have a number of fundamental issues which could escalate into any of multiple levels of conflict, from diplomatic disagreements to war. The United States military and...
Sorrells, William T., Downing, Glen R., Blakesley, Paul J., Pendall, David W., Walk, Jason K., Wallwork, Richard D.
Systemic Operational Design (SOD) is an application of systems theory to operational art. It is an attempt to rationalize complexity through systemic logic employing a holistic approach that translates strategic direction and policy into...
The Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) is a significant part of the U.S. Army's planning process. The IPB is a methodical process that reduces the enemy and the environment into its component parts at an instant in time and finite...