Category: Featured Articles

Featured article: Everyone Else is They: A New Framework for Operational Culture by Megan Kraushaar I t is unlikely that the conflicts the U.S. military and intelligence communities will face in the future will be simple, conventional clashes. Rather, horizontal and vertical integration of the world add layers of complexity and competing alliances and identities that […]

Featured article: Adapting to Change: Strategic Turning Points and the CIA/DoD Relationship by David Oakley In January 2012, the Department of Defense (DoD) published “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21st Century,” outlining U.S. national security priorities for the coming decade. Although the document maintains counterterrorism as a strategic priority, its release shortly after the […]

Featured article: Cyberdefense: Is Outsourcing the Answer? by Kellen Ashford Speaking at an event for the American Enterprise Institute in 2012, retired General Keith Alexander, the former head of U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency, suggested that “cyber crime is the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” The commercial cost of cyber crime […]

Featured article: Forging a Counterhybrid Unit  by Karl Umbrasas The U.S. military is a highly-educated fighting force. Education in the ranks of the American military traverses both officer and enlisted communities. A college education is a baseline requirement for the commissioned officer corps but not for the enlisted community, which comprises the majority of servicemembers […]

Featured article: Civil-Military Balance in Complex Operations  by Kurt E. Müller Interventions in the affairs of a one state by another may be benign, belligerent, political or military. In addition, these interventions may supplement host-nation authority in delivering assistance. Regardless of character and purpose, there is a long-standing preference for employing civilian agencies rather than military forces to […]

Featured article: Blending U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America with Foreign Internal Defense  by Daniel E. Ward The current security situation in the Northern Triangle of Central America (comprised of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) and southern Mexico is progressively deteriorating and not necessarily because of a lack of tools or resources. While more […]

Featured article: Reassessing the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Response Enterprise  by Gary D. Mills We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. —Dwight D. Eisenhower During the last nine months, citizens throughout the world have observed momentous events that have added to a tumultuous global environment. Internationally, the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, […]

Featured article: Building a Foundational Understanding of Interagency Coordination by Patrick Naughton As the American military shifts from a counterinsurgency focus to one oriented on large scale combat operations (LSCO) against a peer-competitor and further develops the MultiDomain Operations (MDO) concept, interagency coordination will remain critical. As the largest ground force, the United States Army […]

Featured article: Musicians of Mars: Attaining Interagency Consensus on Perpetual War in Afghanistan by Robert H. Gregory, Jr. There is still a tendency in each separate unit… to be a one-handed puncher. By that I mean the rifleman wants to shoot, the tanker to charge, the artilleryman to fire…. That is not the way to win battles. If the band […]

Featured article: Strategic Defense Impacts of Climate Change: An Interagency Challenge by Wendell Chris King The United States faces a complex and scary national security environment. We are confronted with numerous threats to peace and security from both inside and outside our borders: North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Chinese aggression in Asia, Russian cyber activity, continued […]