This study examines the applicability of the United States Marine Corps' small wars doctrine in current Military Operations Other Than War. Between 1898 and 1934, the Marine Corps was employed extensively in fighting the nation's small wars. These...
On 28 March 2001, the United States Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory's embedded "think tank," the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, announced its intentions for developing a follow-on volume of the Small Wars Manual. This Small...
The Arab Rebellion and British Counter-rebellion campaign of 1936 to 1939 in Palestine exhibited many features of modern insurgency and counter-insurgency. This thesis traces the British military thought and practice for countering rebellion as...
From its beginning in the American Revolution to its current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States (US) Army has had to deal with tribal societies. In order to succeed in tribal societies it is essential that the US Army understand...
Using military force against an enemy to punish, avenge a wrong, as retribution is a timeless cause of armed conflict. There are many examples throughout history of successful punitive operations. Analyzing historical punitive expeditions for the...
The national will of the United States, and other democratic nations, is far more vulnerable today than in the past. Changes in society and technology have allowed enemies to adapt. The character of war has evolved into a more unorthodox type of...
After toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein in a few weeks, the decisive operational maneuver victory was not enough to defeat the enemy’s will to fight. Instead of challenging US forces in a conventional military battle, the enemy has now sought...
The objective of this monograph is to first, discern whether the lessons learned from historical cases can be used today, second, develop possible solutions for the operational problems of our most recent deployment into Haiti by considering the...
The US Air Force, and the U.S. armed forces separate service air arms, have historically wrestled with how to apply air and space power to non-traditional forms of warfare, such as insurgency and counterinsurgency. While the airplane was used as...
Limited war and its emphasis on the deliberate limitation of the objectives sought in a conflict differs sharply with its counterpart total war, which demands unlimited objectives. The distinction between these two forms of war can be traced...
Irregular wars generate significant internal political debate over appropriate strategy and resource allocation, a function of the relative complexity and ambiguity of irregular wars. This study examines whether operational commanders in the...
A debate is raging within the defense community about the pattern of future war
and how best to prepare for it . One idea gaining acceptance is the concept of hybrid war. The term hybrid war as currently understood has multiple meanings and...
A book on the subject of the conduct of small wars where the campaigns do not consist of regular troops. It contains strategy, tactics, and information on all of the minor expeditions in which the British Army was frequently engaged.
This paper challenges the idea that the thinkers who developed the American Theory of Limited War prior to Vietnam were grossly in error. A framework for the elements of the theory is constructed through a discussion of the historical American way...
The ownership of vast quantities of military power and the ability to project that power globally does not ensure the achievement of the 'ends' desired from a war. Since 1945, the United States and her Western allies increasingly fail to realize a...
History illustrates that genocide is a reoccurring phenomenon. A variety of indicators suggest that the potential for the US to deploy military forces to prevent or stop genocide or mass atrocity is increasing. Continued involvement in limited...
Does third party military intervention help or hurt an incumbent government during an insurgency? This study attempts to answer this question by testing prevailing military theories of counterinsurgency in the context of third party intervention...
This monograph sets out to prove that Geoffrey Blainey's theory about a disagreement over relative power between nations explains the causes of the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991. Blainey describes the diplomatic crisis leading to war 'like a crisis...
While the outcome of the Iraq war seems to have validated the U.S. Army's counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24, the war in Afghanistan seems to indicate there are fundamental problems associated with its historical principles and concepts. Dr....
This monograph examines the role of policy in guidance of the British, the Soviet and the U.S.-NATO wars in Afghanistan. Set in the context of Afghanistan’s history and its socio-cultural environment, the study critically analyzes the negative...