America is critically reliant upon space exploitation for a wide variety of activities. These range from strictly military capabilities such as intelligence gathering and secure communications to civilian financial transaction timing and remote...
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States' armed forces and its coalition of allies have become deeply entrenched in the counterinsurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan. These struggles are not just counterinsurgencies, but they also...
There is a long historical precedent of great powers utilizing surrogate forces as an economy of force measure in the pursuit of their objectives. The lessons learned during the ideological brush fire conflicts of the Cold War are relevant to the...
This study examines the decision to deploy a space-based kinetic kill vehicle (SBKHV) by examining the validity, feasibility, suitability, and acceptability of such a deployment. Determining validity entails verifying that a need exists for the...
Over the past ten years, addressing what Strategic Communications is has been a challenge for the military community. It is at times referred to as a process, referred to in the context of the strategic level of war, and referred to in the context...
A systems perspective is beginning to permeate doctrine. This perspective calls for an analysis of the key systems of an adversary. PMESII is an acronym that stands for political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information systems....
In the wake of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, T.E. Lawrence's description of counterinsurgency (COIN) analogous to "eating soup with a knife," has new meaning in our contemporary military. It describes our kinetic conventional army (the knife)...
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...
The U.S. has a huge reliance on space. This reliance, combined with a leaner more rapidly deployable military, makes space weapons an appealing prospect. Space weapons technology continues to advance, and as improvements occur, the weaponization of...
America's wars cannot be won simply by applying lethal effects. The U.S. military can defeat any adversary using lethal effects to gain, clear and hold key terrain or cities faster than at any other time in history. However, winning the war...
Civil Information Management Systems (CIMS) are emerging as a resource which allows commanders to build a Common Operational Picture (COP) upon which to base their operational planning and execution. Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) are a type...
The United States and many other countries are engaged in the Global War on Terror using all the elements of their national powers. Much of the diplomatic, economic and perhaps some of the military actions take place behind the scenes and often...
MAJ Marc Austin served with Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment in Al Kifel, Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq during 2003 and 2004, as company commander with 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry in Ba'qubah, Iraq during 2006 and 2007...
The military application of the network centric concept is framed by Network Centric Warfare (NCW) which is an emerging operational concept based on the stated vision of future warfare in Joint Vision 2020. In the Information Age, does Network...
This paper attempts to consolidate and categorize the extensive literature available that relates to US Army military hand guns, and to provide analysis of that information for future studies and decisions. My literature search reveals that the...
The crux of the debate as to whether the United States (US) should immediately field space weapons is not whether another nation will eventually field like weapons of its own. Rather, the primary issue is whether an immediate space weaponization...
Historically, the U.S. Army faces numerous challenges planning for counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. Insurgencies by their very nature occur within the context of a complex operating environment that typically last years if not decades. The...
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 purpose of this monograph is to examine whether the Principles of War, as defined within the U.S. military's Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, can be applied to cyber war. Since 2005, the U.S. military recognized cyber conflict as a new...
The purpose of this monograph is to describe the future road ahead for the US Cyber community in light of the recent technical and strategic developments in the state of cyber warfare. The paper began with a realization that cyber attacks have now...