Strategic Issues

Handbook by the School of Strategic Learning, US Army War College The purpose of this document is to assist United States Army War College students during the Military Strategy and Campaigning (MSC) course. It also serves to assist commanders, planners, and other staff officers in combatant commands (CCMD), joint task forces (JTF), and Service component commands. It supplements joint doctrine and contains elements of emerging doctrine as practiced globally by joint force commanders (JFCs). It portrays a way to apply draft doctrine awaiting signature, published doctrine, and emerging concepts, all at the higher levels of joint command, with a primary emphasis at the combatant command level.

By Dr. William J. Barry, PhD and Lieutenant Colonel Aaron “Blair" Wilcox; Issue paper from the U.S. Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership; In the frenzy to adopt newly accessible artificial intelligence (AI) tools for military purposes, little public discussion has addressed the potential pitfalls. Despite the energy invested in developing the ideal generative AI (GenAI) tool for military applications, a trusted capability remains elusive across the US Army and the Joint Force. In May 2025, the US Army War College, the Global Information Dominance Experiment, and the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office partnered to test Donovan, a GenAI system developed by Scale AI, in the first classified war game focused on war plans at the theater-Army level. This experiment demonstrated the industry-partnership model required to build the tools the Army needs to maintain the cognitive edge in landpower.

Antulio J. Echevarria II; Monograph from the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press; This monograph discusses how NATO might better leverage risk to strengthen the alliance’s extended deterrence. Such leverage would prove especially useful because Kyiv is unlikely to be permitted to join NATO and the United States may reduce its presence in Europe. Western analysts have not given Russian deterrence enough credit for the alliance’s deterrence failure on February 24, 2022. The alliance did not act fecklessly, nor did it self-deter. Rather, NATO’s deterrence measures were calibrated more for hybrid/gray-zone attacks of the sort it saw in 2014, not for the large-scale combat operations the alliance witnessed in 2022, which involved a nuclear-armed adversary with stronger interests in Ukraine than NATO had. To be sure, the alliance’s leaders acted responsibly in managing the risk of escalation. But in so doing, they also facilitated Russian deterrence efforts, which succeeded in keeping Washington and Brussels from intervening in the war. The alliance thus demonstrated its need for a strategy that would increase the risks and costs of war for Russia without unduly raising NATO’s. In short, the alliance needs a proxy strategy of “waging war without going to war,” whereby NATO can provide its full political, economic, and military support to Ukraine without running the risk of putting alliance troops in harm’s way.

Publication from the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press; Maintaining strategic advantage demands professional discourse from across the force. The Academic Year 2025–26 Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment provides a framework for those aspiring to tackle the Department of Defense’s most pressing challenges. This year’s authors highlight trending challenges and identify potential tension points across 15 sections organized into four enduring themes. This survey of regional, domestic, and institutional challenges represents the collective expertise of the US Army War College. The narrative is supplemented by a tailored list of 100 command-sponsored questions from 43 different Army and Joint organizations from across the Department of Defense. Combined, the distinct yet complementary narrative and question list offer unique insights into the vital matters impacting defense organizations and provide aspiring researchers with a necessary starting point.

George M. Schwartz, Editor; Conference papers from the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership, US Army War College Press; Using disinformation and social media means, cognitive warfare seeks to shape the attitudes and behaviors of a civilian populace by negatively influencing and disrupting their cognitive processes, thus weakening a society’s political will and degrading national resilience. The authors of these papers provide insights and offer solutions for cognitive defense. Copyright: Chapter 1 – ©2025 Mark R. Landahl; Chapter 3 – ©2025 George M. Schwartz

by COL Byron Cadiz, COL T. Marc Skinner, LTC Robert Mayhue, LTC Lori Perkins, LTC Shun Yu. This report, produced by US Army War College Futures research team Axis Insight 2035, represents eight months of rigorous research from October 2024 to May 2025 to answer Mr. Ian Sullivan, TRADOC G2’s pivotal question: How will China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea react to U.S.-led deterrence efforts by 2035? By 2035, it is almost certain that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea will respond to US deterrence with entanglement, disruptive technology, and persistent coercion. The global landscape is rapidly transforming, characterized by increasing complexity and challenges to U.S. influence. This seismic shift is marked by two key findings, the first encompassed in three threat vectors: 1) an entangled future of situational cooperation and transactional interdependence among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea which amplifies deterrence challenges; 2) disruptive technology by which the U.S. advantages are severely threatened or lost to adversarial emerging technologies; and 3) persistent coercion consisting of the expansion and exploitation of gray zone activities in which aggression below the level of armed conflict bypasses traditional deterrence. Collectively, these developments forecast that U.S. deterrence is at risk of becoming strategically irrelevant without integrated, adaptive responses across all instruments of power.

by COL Joseph Gilbert, COL Matthew Miller, COL Christopher Ronald, LTC Benverren Fortune, LTC Steve Kwon. This report, produced by Team POETIC at the United States Army War College over 28 weeks from October 2024 through May 2025, addresses a critical strategic question posed by the Headquarters, Department of the Army, G2: What will the future of collaboration among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea likely look like over the next 10-15 years? Based on analysis of over 1,077 sources and interviews with subject matter experts, the study concludes that military, economic, and technological collaboration among these four nations is very likely (80-95%) to deepen but remain transactional, asymmetric, and opportunistic rather than forming a formal alliance. China emerges as the dominant force within this bloc, leveraging its economic strength and digital infrastructure exports to create asymmetric dependencies, while Russia, Iran, and North Korea provide complementary military-industrial assets, energy exports, and cyber capabilities. The research reveals that while these nations will likely strengthen cooperation through sanctions-resistant trade practices, dual-use technology sharing, and selective capability exchanges, internal mistrust, divergent priorities, and asymmetric capabilities will limit their global influence to regional theaters rather than creating a unified geopolitical front capable of fundamentally challenging the Western-led international order.

by COL Bradley Tibbetts, LTC Terrell Lawson, LTC William Hall, LTC Kale Sawyer, LTC Colin Gandy. This report, produced by the Irregular Advantage Initiative at the United States Army War College from October 2024 to May 2025, addresses Major General Shawn R. Satterfield's (SOCOM J7) critical question: what opportunities will emerge in the next 15-20 years to allow special operations forces to enable expanded maneuver of the Joint Force in Large-Scale Combat Operations? Through analysis of over 375 sources, the research team identified sixteen technological and operational opportunities organized into three key "Maneuver Accelerators": Unconventional Acquisition (leveraging shadow supply chains, additive manufacturing, and unmanned systems), Distributed Autonomous Organizations (using blockchain-enabled networks for decentralized operations), and Heutagogy with Human-Machine Integration (combining adaptive learning with cognitive enhancements). The report concludes that future SOF operators will transition from primarily physical-prowess-based forces to adaptable, technology-integrated teams capable of operating in contested environments, exploiting adversary dependencies while rapidly cycling between high and low-technology methods to enable Joint Force maneuver in an increasingly transparent and AI-dominated battlefield.

by COL Brian Wong, Col Mark Hannigan, LTC Sarah Easter Strayer, LTC Benjamin Stegmann, LTC Joe Hales. The U.S. military healthcare system faces fundamental transformation over the next 15 years as artificial intelligence, autonomous robotics, and emerging technologies reshape workforce composition and care delivery. This report, produced by Project MedEvX at the United States Army War College from October 2024 to May 2025, addresses U.S. Army Surgeon General LTG Mary K. Izaguirre's strategic question: Given the potential for Large-Scale Combat Operations, what human capital dynamics will likely shape military healthcare through 2040? The research reveals that human-level AI and autonomous systems will join medical rounds, electronic health records will achieve interoperability "without borders," AI-driven genomic mapping will revolutionize talent selection, and healthcare delivery will "decentralize to survive" through distributed autonomous organizations enabled by predictive logistics and remote surgery. This technocentric revolution presents opportunities for enhanced patient outcomes while creating significant challenges in workforce adaptation, cybersecurity, and ethical implementation that require military medicine to fundamentally reimagine its approach to training and human capital management.