Recent Publications

SSI Live 84 – Can the West get Counterinsurgency Right?
September 8, 2021 — The fall of Afghanistan raises serious questions about whether the United States and the West more broadly are able to successfully implement what military practitioners call Foreign Internal Defense, or supporting a friendly foreign government under attack from an internal insurgency. What explains success or failure in these cases? SSI Live host... MORE

Strategic Insights: The Will To Fight
September 11, 2015 — Dr. M. Chris MasonEvents 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... 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