Past Publications

Strategic Insights: The Russian Intervention and the Internal Dynamics of Syria W. Andrew Terrill Article by US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "The Syrian civil war began in March 2011 and has claimed nearly 250,000 lives so far. After over 4 years of internal fighting, the Kremlin has decided to expand its role in this conflict by moving combat aircraft and some ground troops to Syria to support the Bashar al-Assad government. These actions seem like a clear prelude to a direct Russian combat role, although the scope of such an effort is not yet clear. It has started with a limited number of air strikes against the opposition forces fighting Assad..."

The Rise of iWar: Identity, Information, and the Individualization of Modern Warfare COL Glenn J Voelz Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "During a decade of global counterterrorism operations and two extended counterinsurgency campaigns, the United States was confronted with a new kind of adversary. Without uniforms, flags, and formations, the task of identifying and targeting these combatants represented an unprecedented operational challenge for which Cold War era doctrinal methods were largely unsuited. This dilemma became the catalyst for a decade of doctrinal, technical, and organizational change premised on the central idea that nonstate actors and individual combatants were a salient national security concern and, therefore, legitimate military targets. This strategic reprioritization evolved into a new model of state warfare centered on the operational tasks of identifying, screening, and targeting individual combatants and defeating their networks."

The Real Rebalancing: American Diplomacy and the Tragedy of President Obama’s Foreign Policy Dr John R Deni Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "American security policy rests on a three-legged stool consisting of defense, diplomacy, and development. As President Barack Obama implied in his May 2014 speech at West Point, New York, the United States is in the midst of a resurgence of diplomacy and development, as it seeks to leverage diplomatic influence, foreign aid, and multilateral institutions to solve the most vexing international security challenges. However, the dramatic rebalance toward diplomacy and development over the last several years has largely failed. Rhetoric, official strategies, and actual policies have all aimed at rebalancing the three legs of the foreign policy stool. However, several factors point to a continued militarization of U.S. foreign policy, including funding levels, legal authorities, and the growing body of evidence that civilian agencies of the U.S. Government lack the resources, skills, and capabilities to achieve foreign policy objectives. Continued reliance by senior decisionmakers at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue on the U.S. military in the development, planning, and implementation of U.S. foreign policy has significant implications. Foremost among them is the fact that the military itself must prepare for a future not terribly unlike the very recent past."

Breaking the Bathsheba Syndrome: Building a Performance Evaluation System that Promotes Mission Command COL Curtis D Taylor Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "In 2014, the National Defense Authorization Act directed the Department of Defense to reconsider the way the Army evaluates and selects leaders. This call for reform came after repeated surveys from the Center for Army Leadership suggested widespread dissatisfaction with the current approach. The U.S. Army today is seeking to inculcate a philosophy of mission command across the force based on a culture of mutual trust, clear intent, and decentralized initiative. It is, therefore, reasonable to ask if our current performance evaluation system contributes or detracts from such a culture."

Arab Threat Perceptions and the Future of the U.S. Military Presence in the Middle East Dr W Andrew Terrill Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "The threat perceptions of many Arab states aligned with the United States have changed significantly as a result of such dramatic events as the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, the emergence and then fading of the Arab Spring, the rise of Iranian power and Tehran’s nuclear agreement with key world powers, the Egyptian revolution and counterrevolution, and the development of civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. A particularly worrisome development and expansion has been the dramatic rise of the “Islamic State” (IS) organization which has seized considerable tracts of territory in Iraq and Syria and inspired terrorists throughout the region. Elsewhere in the region, the 2013 election of the pragmatic and statesmanlike Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is viewed by some Arab states as a potential opportunity but also a danger since the new Iranian government has a potentially shrewder and more effective president and cabinet than seen during the Ahmadinejad years. There have also been some notable differences that have developed between the United States and its Arab allies over how to address these issues and most especially Iranian regional ambitions."

Unlocking India’s Strategic Potential in Central Asia Mr Roman Muzalevsky Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "India’s impressive economic growth over the last 2 1/2 decades has brought India’s role and interests to the forefront of global politics and statecraft. Importantly, it has put India into a comparative perspective with China, another aspiring Asian great power poised to stiffen competition for resources and influence worldwide. Both are resource-hungry and rapidly emerging powers seeking a new place and role in the global and regional orders. Both are also strategic rivals and consider their immediate neighborhood of Central Asia of growing strategic importance to their grand strategies. "

Strategic Insights: Economic Power: Time to Double Down John F. Troxell Article by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "A recent editorial in The New York Times asked the question, “Who threatens America most?” It proceeded to compare recent pronouncements by incoming senior military leaders, the President, the FBI director, and finally the Director of National Intelligence. The major candidates included the usual nation states (Russia, North Korea, and China), a few nonstate terrorist organizations (ISIS and al-Qaeda), and a couple of unattributed capabilities (weapons of mass destruction and cyberattacks). The editorial concluded with the lament: 'If officials cannot agree on what the most pressing threats are, how can they develop the right strategies and properly allocate resources?' "

Strategic Insights: The Will To Fight M. Chris Mason Article by US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "Events on world battlefields over the past two years should give the U.S. Army pause to reconsider the entire Foreign Internal Defense (FID) mission. The seemingly unarguable axiom that "good training makes good soldiers" has been proven to be not always true. Good training does not always make good soldiers. If the definition of a good soldier is "a member of the armed forces who stands and fights for his or her country," then a good deal of money has been spent in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere without measurable and sustainable success. More than a third of all Afghan defense forces trained with U.S. taxpayer money desert in Afghanistan each year, and in Iraq they simply disappear."

The Limits of Offshore Balancing Dr Hal Brands Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "Should the United States undertake a fundamental strategic retrenchment? Should it roll back, and perhaps do away with, the system of overseas security commitments and military deployments that have anchored its international posture since World War II? Many academic and strategic studies observers have answered “yes” to these questions in recent years. They assert that America’s long-standing, postwar grand strategy has become both dispensable and self-defeating—dispensable because that grand strategy is no longer needed to sustain an advantageous global environment, and self-defeating because it wastes finite means while eliciting adverse behavior from allies and adversaries alike. The proper response to this situation, they believe, is to adopt a minimalist approach referred to as “offshore balancing.” Briefly stated, offshore balancing envisions a dramatic reduction in America’s overseas military deployments and alliance commitments, and a shift toward greater restraint and modesty in U.S. policy writ large. It is premised on the idea that this type of retrenchment will actually produce better security outcomes at a better price— that when it comes to grand strategy, less will actually be more."