Category: Featured Articles

Featured article: A CGSC International Hall of Fame Member and the CIA’s Covert Action in 1954 by John G. Breen The International Hall of Fame at the Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC), Fort Leavenworth, KS, was established in 1973 to recognize prominent, international military officer graduates. Inductees have included those who rose through the […]

Featured article: A Brief History of Scandals: Special Oversight Challenges in National Security Interrogations by Erik Jens A history of (at least) American national security operations and initiatives shows, fairly convincingly, the need for external oversight. Time and again, executive branch agencies have, with the best of motives as they perceived them, violated Americans’ civil rights, compromised foreign relations, or […]

Featured article: Securing the U.S. Food Supply: The Quintessential Interagency Task by Cindy A. Landgren The general public puts little thought into the vast, interconnected infrastructure that constitutes the fabric of life in the U.S. Nevertheless, large segments of that infrastructure are susceptible to failure—potentially even catastrophic failure—through both accidental and intentional means. Sometimes it is hard […]

Featured article: Closing the Barn Door: Interagency Approaches to Reduce Agroterrorism Threats by David F. Grieco Despite billions of dollars spent in the U.S. on national defense, one key area has been historically overlooked. In the twenty-first century, perhaps the greatest national security threat requiring careful interagency coordination is not in a distant land, but in actuality, quite local. It is […]

Featured article: Improving the Intelligence Community’s Contribution to Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction by Timothy W. Fisher There is, of course, no such thing as a perfect weapon of mass destruction (WMD) threat assessment. Some of the brightest minds in the intelligence community continuously work WMD issues. The intelligence community, consisting of seventeen organizations from six departments and one independent agency, […]

Featured article: Cape Ray Diplomacy: How a U.S. Merchant Vessel Took Center Stage in Foreign Relations by Chi K. Cheung In August 2013, chemical weapons attacks against civilians in Syria resulted in more than 1,400 deaths, including 426 children. As a result of international pressure, the Assad regime agreed to accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention […]

Featured article: Optimizing a U.S. Communications Strategy through Structure and Design by Sharon Engelmeier The endurance of Syria’s Assad regime, Russia’s defiant maneuvering in eastern Ukraine, and the Islamic State’s encroachment on Iraqi territory stand as staunch reminders to those within U.S. government strategic communication fields that they remain deficient in comparison to their adversaries’ […]

Featured article: Covert Action and Unintended Consequences by John G. Breen In the middle of the CIA’s 1954 covert overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Guatemala, with waning rebel force momentum and facing calls to increase support to the insurgents with unmarked surplus WWII bombers, President Eisenhower turned to his CIA Director and asked what […]

Featured article: What Were You Thinking? Biases and Rational Decision Making by Ted Thomas and Robert J. Rielly In general, we expect people to think and act rationally. Market theories, negotiations, and other human endeavors are based on people reacting and thinking in sane, rational ways. It is based on an assumption that we are […]

Featured article: A Call for Synchronization of Civil Information Management by Michael L. Jones Special operation forces (SOF) and interagency partners face unique challenges when conducting civil information management (CIM) within the joint interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) environments. Information management requires a streamlined technologic system that reduces redundant technological platforms for civil information sharing. Currently, […]