Past Publications

The Iraq War: Learning from the Past, Adapting to the Present, and Planning for the Future Dr Thomas R Mockaitis Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Iraq confronts the U.S. military with one of the most complex internal security operations in history. It must occupy, pacify, secure, and rebuild a country of 26 million people with fewer than 150,000 troops organized and trained as a conventional force in predominantly heavy armored divisions. They occupy a land divided into two broad ethnic and three religious groups crisscrossed by hundreds of regional, local, and family loyalties. For the past 3 years, Iraq has been wracked by a Sunni insurgency augmented by foreign mujahedeen terrorists and complicated by general lawlessness. Growing intercommunal violence between Sunni and Shiite militias has taken the country to the brink of civil war."

Understanding Indian Insurgencies: Implications for Counterinsurgency Operations in the Third World Deputy Inspector General Durga Madhab (John) Mitra Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "This monograph analyzes the susceptibility of Third World countries to insurgency and develops a theoretical perspective to illuminate some of the factors contributing to insurgency in these countries. The term insurgency has been used broadly to include all violent struggles against the state by any group or section of population of an area trying to establish its independent political control over that area and its population. A simple linear model for India, having both static as well as dynamic aspects, has been developed to demonstrate how the degree of inaccessibility of an area, the strength of separate social identity of its population, and the amount of external influence on the area determine the propensity of that area for insurgency..."

Russia, the United States, and the Caucasus Dr R Craig Nation Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "The Caucasus region consists of the new independent states of the Southern Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) and the Russian federal region of the Northern Caucasus, including war-torn Chechnya. In the post-Soviet period, it has become one of the most volatile and potentially unstable regions in world politics. Fragile state structures, a series of unresolved or “frozen” secessionist conflicts, and widespread poverty generate popular dissatisfaction and political instability. The region covers a major “fault line” between Christian and Islamic civilizations, and confessional rivalry, together with the rise of Islamic radicalism, have become sources of friction. Despite these inherent challenges, the hydrocarbon reserves of the Caspian basin also have attracted significant great power competitive engagement."

Russia and the European Union: The Sources and Limits of "Special Relationships" Dr Cynthia A Roberts Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "The topic of Russo-European Union (EU) relations is one of the most important security issues in Europe and Russia because this relationship will help determine the security situation throughout Eastern and Central Europe well into the future. The course of this relationship also will influence in large measure the extent to which Russia moves toward realizing its historic European vocation and its proclaimed ambition to become a democracy. On the other side, the relationship will influence significantly the capability of the EU to function effectively as a union of European states, possibly including Russia, and other European members of the Commonwealth of Independent States like Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia.'

Exploring the "Right Size" for China's Military: PLA Missions, Functions, and Organizations Mr Justin B Liang, Dr Sarah K Snyder Colloquium Brief by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, with the National Bureau of Asian Research "On October 6, 2006, more than 60 leading experts on China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) convened at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for a two-day discussion of the drivers of PLA force modernization. The 2006 PLA Conference was co-sponsored by National Bureau of Asian Research and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. Entitled “Exploring the ‘Right Size’ for China’s Military: PLA Missions, Functions, and Organization,” the conference explored continuities and discontinuities in the forces driving PLA force modernization, assessed how current modernization efforts are linked to national requirements, and examined what such development reveals about China’s national defense strategies."

In Defense of Rational Risk Assessment Mr Nathan P Freier Op-Ed by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Risk in Webster’s is “the possibility of suffering harm or loss.”1 Risk accompanies both action and inaction. To strategists, it is accounted for and mitigated, but not always or even commonly avoided. To the national security strategist, risk—to paraphrase the current defense strategy—is the likelihood of failure or prohibitive cost in pursuit of key objectives. In this view, some goals are beyond reach. Others are within reach, but the cost of achieving them puts more important ambitions in some jeopardy. Unfortunately, those familiar with contemporary strategic-level military decisionmaking know that rational consideration of even the prospect of failure is absent. In high-level policy discussions, success is assumed."

Negotiating with Iran and Syria over Iraq Dr W Andrew Terrill Op-Ed by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "The United States has been struggling for decades to establish effective ways to deal with Iran and Syria, with no easy answer coming to the fore. In recent years, the question sometimes was framed as to whether we should seek regime change for these nations or accept the existence of the current regimes and attempt to change their behavior through political pressure and negotiations. Recently, the possibility of coercive regime change seems to have been ruled out under all but the most exceptional circumstances by a key administration official."

Rosoboroneksport: Arms Sales and the Structure of Russian Defense Industry Dr Stephen J Blank Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "This monograph focuses on the relationships between the state and Russia’s defense industrial sector, particularly Rosoboroneksport (ROE), the main state agency for arms sales. ROE is more than a seller of weapons; rather, it has become an industrial behemoth that is monopolizing whole sectors of this industry on behalf of the state. Its activities reflect the fundamental nature of the Russian state’s relationship to the economy, which increasingly is regressing to tsarist or even Soviet models in some respects. In this respect, defense, like energy, is a vital sector of the Russian economy that the state intends to control directly. And the Putin regime has implemented a conscious strategy of increasing state control over more and more branches of industry beyond those two sectors."

The New Totalitarians: Social Identities and Radical islamist Political Grand Strategy Dr Douglas J Macdonald Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "A useful framework for understanding the ideology and grand political strategy of extremist Islamist terrorist groups such as those affiliated with al-Qa’ida is through the use of social identity theories. The radical Islamists are attempting to alter the social identity of the entire Muslim world (the ummah) in a direction of civilizational unity in order to struggle subsequently against other civilizational groups, often defined religiously, but including secular humanists also. Samuel Huntington’s theory of an emerging “clash of civilizations” may or may not have a universal applicability, but it is highly relevant to studying the grand political strategy of certain Islamist extremist groups. Radical Islamist group leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Indonesia’s Emir Abu Bakar Bashir openly advocate such a clash in civilizational social identity terms. Indeed, bin Laden has declared that it already has been begun by the West."