Recent Publications

Strategic Insights: Fragile States Cannot Be Fixed With State-Building
July 27, 2015 — Dr. Robert D. LambThe problem with the way the international community thinks about and responds to fragile states is not that we do not understand “fragility,” its causes, and its cures, but that we think of them as “states,” as coherent units of analysis. As a result of this strategic level mistake, efforts to build state capacity to contain... MORE

Strategic Insights: A New Year’s Resolution For Army Leaders
January 26, 2015 — Prof. William G. Braun, IIIAmericans love winners and deplore losers. The U.S. military’s greatest challenge to proving its relevance stems from a general perception that it cannot deliver results when confronted by the nation’s most pressing foreign policy problems. Barry Posen advocates that the United States abandon the post-Cold War strategy of... MORE

Avoiding the Slippery Slope: Conducting Effective Interventions
June 4, 2013 — Author: Dr Thomas R Mockaitis View the Executive SummaryThis Letort Paper covers U.S. military interventions in civil conflicts since the end of the Cold War. It defines intervention as the use of military force to achieve a specific objective (i.e., deliver humanitarian aid, support revolutionaries or insurgents, protect a threatened population,... MORE

Conflict Management and “Whole of Government”: Useful Tools for U.S. National Security Strategy?
April 1, 2012 — Authors: Dr Robert H Dorff, Dr Volker C Franke Today, America faces security challenges that are exceedingly dynamic and complex, in part because of the ever changing mix and number of actors involved and the pace with which the strategic and operational environments change. To meet these new challenges more effectively, the Obama administration... MORE

Cover for Conflict Management and "Whole of Government": Useful Tools for U.S. National Security Strategy?

Security and Governance: Foundations for International Stability
March 1, 2011 — Authors: Mr Dru Lauzon, Mr Andrew Vine Stability operations in fragile states are likely to remain an important focus of the foreign policy of Western countries for the foreseeable future. The central question to consider when launching these operations is whether a particular type of intervention is more effective than others, and to determine... MORE

Harnessing Post-Conflict “Transitions”: A Conceptual Primer
October 1, 2010 — Authors: Mr Nicholas J Armstrong, Ms Jacqueline Chura-Beaver Current research and available tools for transition in post-conflict situations are analyzed. The authors make a significant contribution to the field by providing a broadly applicable definition of transition and a comprehensive assessment of the existing approaches and literature on the... MORE

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A Case Study in Security Sector Reform: Learning from Security Sector Reform/Building in Afghanistan (October 2002-September 2003)
November 1, 2009 — Author: Capt Jason C Howk This paper provides a case study to help explain the SSR concepts that were recently formalized in U.S. Army Field Manual 3.07, "Stability Operations Doctrine." It provides insights into how the military interacts with host-nation governments, the United Nations, the State Department, and national embassies to solve... MORE

Guide to Rebuilding Public Sector Services in Stability Operations: A Role for the Military
October 1, 2009 — Authors: Mr Derick W Brinkerhoff, Mr Richard Hill, Mr Ronald W Johnson, Prof Susan Merrill The guide is designed to provide peacekeepers with a thorough and nuanced understanding on the policy, planning, cultural and ethnic implications, tradeoffs, and options for public services reconstruction. It takes the position ultimately that the host... MORE

Building Partner Capacity/Security Force Assistance: A New Structural Paradigm
February 1, 2009 — Author: COL Scott G Wuestner The Civil Response Corps (CRC) would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing the hiring of civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. The CRC is a product of the efforts of State Department’s Coordinator for Reconstruction... MORE

Stability Operations and State Building: Continuities and Contingencies
October 1, 2008 — Author: COL Greg Kaufmann The Department of Defense published its Directive 3000.05, “Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,” in November 2005, to address this area of state building and stability operations. The process of arriving at this point, however, indicates that no consistent view of the... MORE

Implications of DoD Directive 3000
August 1, 2005 — Author: Dr Douglas V Johnson II Each month a member of the SSI faculty writes an editorial for our monthly newsletter. This is the Op-Ed for the August 2005 newsletter.Read Now MORE

The Test of Terrain: The Impact of Stability Operations Upon the Armed Forces
July 16, 2005 — Author: Dr Douglas V Johnson II On June 16-18, 2005, the Strategic Studies Institute co-hosted a conference on "The Impact of Stability Operations Upon the Armed Forces" in cooperation with the Centre d’Etudes en Sciences Sociales de la Défense, Royal United Services Institute, the Association of the United States Army, the Förderkreis Deutsches... MORE