Strategic Issues

Information Operations and Winning the Peace: Wielding the Information Element of Power in the Global War on Terrorism Dennis M Murphy Issue Paper by the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership "Perhaps more than ever before Information Operations (IO) is (or at least should be) the main effort tactically, operationally, and strategically in the current phase of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). This national effort is in fact about winning the “war of ideas.” However, it’s important to understand that this way of fighting is new to the United States and new to the world for that matter. Counterinsurgencies (COIN) have been fought in the past but the U.S. has never fought a counterinsurgency in an information environment so favorable to the enemy. This information environment favors the enemy’s strengths and exploits our vulnerabilities (truth, bureaucratic layers and clearances, real time press reporting, etc.). Thus, both of these factors (IO as the main effort in COIN and the current information environment) present new and unique dilemmas that must be examined and overcome."

The Struggle Against Extremist Ideology: Addressing the Conditions That Foster Terrorism Dr Kent H Butts, COL Jeffrey C Reynolds Study by the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership "Since the end of the Cold War, the primary threat to United States’ national security interests has been regional instability. In the absence of superpower influence and guidance, long suppressed religious, ethnic, socioeconomic, and territorial issues began to surface and threatened the continued governance and stability of regional states. At the same time, economic and military support from the superpowers was greatly reduced, as was the capacity of regional states to build and maintain legitimacy in the eyes of their people."

Revisions in Need of Revising: What Went Wrong in the Iraq War Dr David C Hendrickson, Dr Robert W Tucker Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "David C. Hendrickson and Robert W. Tucker examine the contentious debate over the Iraq war and occupation, focusing on the critique that the Bush administration squandered an historic opportunity to reconstruct the Iraqi state because of various critical blunders in planning. Though they conclude that critics have made a number of telling points against the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war, they argue that the most serious problems facing Iraq and its American occupiers—criminal anarchy and lawlessness, a raging insurgency, and a society divided into rival and antagonistic groups—were virtually inevitable consequences that flowed from the act of war itself."

Coup D'Oeil: Strategic Intuition in Army Planning Dr William Duggan Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In our military professions, formal analytical methods co-exist with intuitive decisionmaking by leaders in action. For the most part, there is no harm done. But many officers can recount times when they knew they should have “gone with their gut,” but followed instead the results of their analytical methods. The gap between these two forms of decisionmaking perhaps has grown wider in recent times, especially in Iraq, where adaptive leadership seems to have overshadowed formal methods of planning. Departing from formal methods increasingly seems to be the mark of an effective commander, as we learn from Dr. Leonard Wong’s recent Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) report, Developing Adaptive Leaders: The Crucible Experience of Operation Iraqi Freedom (July 2004)."

The Fourth Annual USAWC Reserve Component Workshop: The Role of the National Guard in Critical Infrastructure Protection COL Richard W Dillon, Prof James O Kievit, Prof Bert B Tussing Issue Paper by the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership "The Department of Defense (DoD) Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support asserts that one of the most essential and promising areas of employment for the National Guard in defense of the homeland is Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP). The strategy’s authors believe that the comprehensive assessment of critical infrastructure sites (both DoD and non-DoD), and the protection of those sites as required, are both areas in which the Guard could serve vital functions. Concurrently, the strategy reminds us that the modern threat against our country will call for an “unprecedented degree of shared situational awareness” between the interagency, state, local, tribal and private entities – a requirement that could be greatly facilitated by the traditional relationship between the Guard and the communities it serves."

Peace and Stability Education Workshop M J Cross, Tammy S Schultz Issue Paper by the US Army War College, Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, Center for Strategic Leadership "The U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) conducted a Peace and Stability Education Workshop 13-15 September 2005 at the Center for Strategic Leadership, Collins Hall, Carlisle Barracks, PA. Educators and key leaders from the military services, the Joint Staff, the United Nations, international and non-government organizations (IO/NGOs), interagency offices, and centers of higher education met to explore possible strategies to improve education for senior leaders engaged in peacekeeping, stability and reconstruction operations (PS&RO)."

The Collins Center Update Volume 7, Issue 4: July - September 2005 Professor Bert Tussing, Colonel Ken Smith, Professor B.F. Griffard, COL Eugene L. Thompson, Colonel Richard Dillon Collins Center Update by the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership

Implications of DoD Directive 3000 Dr Douglas V Johnson II Op-Ed by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 3000: Department of Defense Capabilities for Stability Operations (DRAFT) has now progressed through two or three iterations and appears to be approaching formal publication. The directive could be one of the most important documents of this decade, whether properly or improperly written and interpreted."

The Annual Collins Center Senior Symposium: Aligning the Interagency Process for the War on Terrorism Dr Kent H Butts, Prof Bert B Tussing Issue Paper by the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership "Charges have been levied, from both inside and out of the United States government, that the War on Terrorism is currently encumbered by an interagency process ill-suited for the task. That process, developed for the challenges of the Cold War, is characterized by “stove pipe” operations and resourcing initiatives in an era that demands an efficient integration of efforts for results. Endeavors to address failed/failing states, reconstruction and stabilization, and other diverse efforts focused on the underlying conditions that foster terrorism appear to be disjointed, with no central authority (save the President himself) to direct them..."