Recent Publications

US-Russia Foreign Policy: Confronting Russia’s Geographic Anxieties
October 16, 2023 — The United States must place Russia’s focus on geographic concerns at the center of future strategy development to build a constructive relationship with Russia and achieve US regional goals. This article analyzes Russia’s geography and historical impact on Russian foreign policy, outlines Moscow’s current foreign policy goals, and highlights underlying concerns for US policymakers and military practitioners... MORE

The Chechen Kadyrovtsy’s Coercive Violence in Ukraine
October 5, 2023 — Chechnya is a region of the Russian Federation, and its native Chechen society is Islamic and tribal, which is very different from Russia's Orthodox and non-tribal society. In the 1990s, Chechnya tried to cede from Russia in the context of the wider Soviet collapse, and Russia waged two wars to try and prevent this. Chechnya won de facto independence in the first war, but Russia would later reinvade and win the second war, where they installed the Kadyrov family as the local collaborator regime to rule this region. ... MORE

A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force
September 29, 2023 — Fifty years ago, the US Army faced a strategic inflection point after a failed counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam. In response to lessons learned from the Yom Kippur War, the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command was created to reorient thinking and doctrine around the conventional Soviet threat. Today’s Army must embrace the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as an opportunity to reorient the force into one as forward-thinking and formidable as the Army that won Operation Desert Storm. This article suggests changes the Army should make to enable success in multidomain large-scale combat operations at today’s strategic inflection point... MORE

A Historical Perspective on Today’s Recruiting Crisis
September 28, 2023 — adetail.news .article-body { max-width: 90% !important; }This podcast analyzes the US Army’s successive recruiting crises, identifying their consistent patterns and the efforts to resolve them, and makes three provocative arguments. First, there is a long-standing institutional tension between recruiting personnel for the combat arms and technical... MORE

Parameters Autumn 2023 Issue Preview
September 12, 2023 — This podcast offers a preview of the latest Parameters demi-issue and full issue. Read the issue here: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss3/7/ ... MORE

Change and Innovation in the Institutional Army from 1860–2020
August 23, 2023 — This episode showcases the understudied institutional Army, the generating force, as a critical prerequisite for overall strategic success. Competition, crisis, and conflict require more than the manned, trained, and equipped units that deploy. This podcast analyzes six case studies of institutional Army reforms over 160 years to examine adaptation in peace and war. The conclusions provide historical insights to inform current practices and fulfill the Army’s articulated 2022 Institutional Strategy... MORE

"Innovation, Flexibility, and Adaptation: Keys to Patton’s Information Dominance"
August 8, 2023 — In 1944, Third US Army created a cohesive and flexible system for managing information and denying it to the enemy that aligned operational concepts with technological capabilities. The organization’s success in the European Theater highlights its effective combined arms integration. An examination of the historical record shows the creative design of the Signal Intelligence and Army Information Services enabled Third Army to deliver information effects consistently and provides a useful model for considering the dynamics at play in fielding new and experimental multidomain effects formations. ... MORE

"The Strategic Importance of Taiwan to the United States and Its Allies"
July 31, 2023 — This podcast presents four factors to consider in evaluating Taiwan’s strategic importance to the United States and its allies and answers a question often raised at forums concerning the Indo-Pacific: “Why should the United States care” about this small island in the Pacific? The response often given is simply US credibility, and while this is an important factor, this podcast reviews a wider array of possible factors to consider when answering that question. The study of these factors should assist US military and policy practitioners in accurately evaluating the related strategic environment... MORE

“Understanding the Adversary: Strategic Empathy and Perspective Taking in National Security”
July 5, 2023 — National security practitioners need to understand the motives, mindsets, and intentions of adversaries to anticipate and respond to their actions effectively. Although some authors have argued empathy helps build an understanding of the adversary, research points to its cognitive component of perspective taking as the more appropriate skill for national security practitioners to have. In this podcast, Dr. Allison Abbe synthesizes previous research on the development and application of perspective taking in analysis and decision making and recommends four ways strategists and practitioners can enhance their ability to gain insight into adversaries... MORE

“Geniuses Dare to Ride Their Luck: Clausewitz's Card Game Analogies”
June 30, 2023 — Scholars have been using the wrong card games to analyze Carl von Clausewitz’s analogies in On War, which has led to errors in understanding his ideas. This podcast identifies the games Clausewitz discusses, allowing for a more accurate interpretation of his original meaning for the study of war. Since Clausewitz’s ideas underpin strategy development within service education systems, it is critical his ideas are fully understood in context. ... MORE

“Responding to Future Pandemics: Biosecurity Implications and Defense Considerations”
June 8, 2023 — In an evolving and expanding biothreat landscape caused by emerging biotechnologies, increases in global infectious disease outbreaks, and geopolitical instability, the Department of Defense now faces challenges that alter its traditional approach to biothreats and prompt the need for modernized, improved preparedness for—and response to—potential biothreat scenarios. These challenges further complicate specific weaknesses revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Department’s inability to sustain the military mission while meeting intragovernmental expectations to assist with civilian public health resources and services... MORE

“Taiwan’s Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China”
June 2, 2023 — The US military, intelligence, and diplomatic communities have overlooked a key vulnerability in their assessment of a potential military conflict between China and Taiwan—Taiwan’s growing reliance on agricultural imports and its food stocks (except for rice) that could endure trade disruptions for only six months. This podcast assesses Taiwan’s agricultural sector and its ability to feed the country’s population if food imports and production are disrupted; identifies the food products that should be prioritized in resupply operations, based on Taiwan’s nutritional needs and domestic food production; and outlines the required logistical assets. These findings underscore the urgency for US military planners to develop long-term logistical solutions for this complex strategic issue. ... MORE