This monograph investigates Khalid Bin Waleed's seventh century (AD 633-634) campaign against the Sassanid Persian Empire in Mesopotamia to trace the evidence that substantiates application of modern characteristics of operational art. The question...
History provides many examples of tension between operational and tactical commanders. Not all of these conflicts can be dismissed as matters of personality or competency. An alternative explanation is that the distinct perspectives of those...
Throughout its history the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has exhibited brilliant tactical performance. The War of Independence, the Sinai Campaign, the Six Day War, and even the 1973 War placed Israel on a martial pedestal with few peers. On closer...
Operational design is an intellectual exercise that draws on the creative vision, experience, intuition, and judgment of commanders to provide a framework for development of detailed operation plans. Recently, a number of authors have questioned...
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the grip of
superpower strictures loosened resulting in an increase in complexity and dynamism that marks today's security environment. The rapidly changing and uncertain...
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...
The Armed Forces of the Netherlands are currently in a reorganization process in order to improve the balance between tasks and capabilities. Specific materiel is being disposed of and organizations are downsized to achieve this balance. The...
This monograph analyzed whether Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck used operational art to defeat British forces in the East African campaign of World War I. British forces were superior in quantity of men and equipment, but slow moving and...
This monograph analyzes classical warfare and modern warfare to determine whether there is a theoretical shift occurring that is blending the tenets of both of these theories of war. Exploitation of the inherent strengths of each of these theories...
Within the literature on Systemic Operational Design, discourse is generally treated as a mechanical communicative process. The monograph presents alternative ways to consider discourse, the implications of this for theory of Systemic Operational...
This monograph addresses how humans think and make sense of the world, and whether the current logic used by the U.S. military is still useful for understanding and influencing a world where complexity continues to increase. Drawing from elements...
The recognition of the failure at the strategic and operational levels of war during the Global War on Terror, specifically in Iraq, has resulted in a quest for intellectual solutions to complex operational and strategic problems. To date this has...
This monograph proposes that current Army doctrine provides an adequate tool to achieve the desired results proposed in the concepts of operational Design. Because Army doctrine prescribes approaches that solve problems, it is important to...
This monograph examines whether the addition of design to U.S. Army doctrine, along with other changes, can clarify the concept of the learning organization and make it more achievable by operational units at the battalion and brigade levels. While...
Since its establishment as a state Israel's geo-political circumstance demands that the small nation state adapt to an ever changing threat environment. Israeli defense policy traditionally consisted of deterrence through a dominant military...
Since the end of the Cold War, the worldview is that the United States is presently the only superpower. The expectation, within the Department of Defense (DOD) and the world's other military institutions, is that this status will exist for the...
The Army After Next (AAN) wargames surface a ubiquitous and recurring issue. AAN dominance in open terrain prompts the enemy to seek the protection of complex urban terrain. This response effectively nullifies the AAN Battle Force advantages gained...
The purpose of this monograph is to determine whether or not Army air and missile defense planning and employment--air and missile defense design--has an operational art cognitive foundation. It combines the theory of operational art with a case...
The Interim Strike Force Headquarters organizational concept has emerged as the experimental platform upon which the U.S. Army will examine how to reorganize the Army in the near term to meet the conflicting demands of National Security Strategy,...
As the Army prepares the new FM 100-5 this monograph analyzes chapter two of the current draft, the theory of operational art. The latest draft FM 100-5 has failed to create a common understanding, and therefore cannot serve as doctrine. There are...