A confluence of factors led to American engagement in one of Central America's most violent uprisings: the Salvadoran civil war. By the time of President Ronald Reagan's first term as president, the civil war had created social, political and...
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...
With the rise of Al Qaeda and like-minded militant groups, there have been many discussions and misrepresentations of the term Islamic way of warfare. It is important to understand that anything, to be qualified as Islamic, has to have a reference...
The Arab Spring has demonstrated the power and potential of social mobilization and collective action as a form of political warfare in support of unconventional warfare strategies. This power and potential is not isolated to the Arab Spring or to...
The art and science of geopolitics was developed to explain history and international relations by identifying and incorporating the role of geography and climate in the complex adaptive organic system that is human civilization. The application of...
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community saw a dark shadow cast across itself. Though the specific intelligence failures cannot yet be determined, there are some known pieces of information. The success of intelligence...
The termination theories developed since the Korean War that influenced the development of joint doctrine are confusing and contradictory. Joint doctrine therefore did not address the military's role in obtaining US national interests in the...
This monograph addresses the fact that most writing on strategy is descriptive rather than explanatory. Describing strategy in terms of categories such as "grand strategy," or "theater strategy," or by various analogies, does not illuminate what...
This monograph answers the question: Is the term, decisive operations, as defined in the Final Draft of Field Manual (FM) 100-40, Tactics, consistent with Joint and U.S. Army doctrine? This monograph concludes that the definition for decisive...
With the end of the cold war, India-United States security cooperation underwent a significant positive transformation. This thesis traces the historical context, origins, evolution and the current level of security cooperation between India and...
"Toward a Universal Society and the United States Army" is a research thesis examining social and political theories relevant to defining the post-Cold War era operationally. Two prevailing schools of thought are examined; the school of pacific...
This study assesses the validity and general utility of metaphors used in military theory and doctrine to describe the nature and role of information in military operations. The monograph is an extension of the author's earlier work (Physical...
This monograph examines the origins of the concept of conveying the intentions of the commander to subordinates from its initial appearance in Army doctrine in 1905 until the present day. While many believe they understand the genesis of this...
The purpose of this monograph is to answer the research question: does the current process for executing mission analysis give commanders the information they need to develop timely, relevant, and constructive commander’s intent and commander’s...
Military forces conduct information operations against one of the most complex, adaptive systems – the human mind. Linear thought processes, prevalent in the military, correspond to, and understand well, the linear mathematics that measure the...
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...
Since the events of September 11, 2001 the United States military counternetwork operations, theory, and doctrine have failed to account for the form, function, and logic of clandestine cellular networks used by both interstate insurgencies, such...
Based on experiences with long-duration operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States Army recognizes the need for commanders and their staffs to have new tools and ways of thinking to deal with complex problems. The specific approach the...
Is it possible to determine how close an army is to collapse? Are there indictors that give warning that the force is reaching the limits of its endurance? With the U.S. Army in its seventh year of sustained combat in the War on Terror with no end...
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...