Recent Publications

Implications for Modern Warfighting Concepts: What the US Army Can Learn from Past Conflicts
March 22, 2024 — These four historic vignettes provide context and lessons learned for the US Army as it returns to peer conflict. Although history does not account for the cyber and space domains, the leaders involved in the highlighted conflicts dealt with the reintroduction of maneuver warfare tied to modern fires from land, sea, and air. Peer-level conflict also compelled governments to work intensely in the information space to steel... MORE

Implications for Modern Warfighting Concepts: What the US Army Can Learn from Past Conflicts | Richard D. Butler

Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts
April 7, 2023 — Military History Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts Edited by Daniel Krebs and Lorien Foote | Reviewed by Dr. Michael E. Lynch, senior historian, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College | A book of useful and thought-provoking essays, Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military History explores 300... MORE

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews: Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military

Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service – Fourth Edition
April 7, 2023 — Diplomacy Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service – Fourth Edition by Harry W. Kopp and John K. Naland | Reviewed by Christopher Sandrolini, Foreign Service Officer and professor, US Army War College | Like the military, American diplomacy predates the federal government. Career Diplomacy describes the US Foreign Service’s history... MORE

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews: Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service – Fourth Edition

Professionalizing the Iraqi Army: US Engagement after the Islamic State
January 28, 2020 — Author: Dr. C. Anthony PfaffSecurity cooperation with Iraq remains a critical component of the US-Iraq relationship. Despite neighboring Iran's ability to limit US political and economic engagement, Iraq still seeks US assistance to develop its military and to combat resurgent terrorist organizations. This monograph provides a historical and... MORE

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Strategic Insights: Better Late Than Never
October 23, 2018 — Author: Dr M Chris MasonSeventeen years ago this November, in a conference room in the Pentagon, I explained that, in whatever form it took, the new Government of Afghanistan would require some sort of provincial or territorial forces under Afghan Army command to augment the regular national army, which the interagency working group was tasked with... MORE

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Old and New Insurgency Forms
March 1, 2016 — Author: Dr Robert J BunkerThis monograph creates a proposed insurgency typology divided into legacy, contemporary, and emergent and potential insurgency forms, and provides strategic implications for U.S. defense policy as they relate to each of these forms. The typology clusters, insurgency forms identified, and their starting dates are as... MORE

Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach?
November 1, 2014 — Author: Mr Henry D Sokolski View the Executive SummaryIn 2009, President Obama spotlighted nuclear terrorism as one of the top threats to international security, launching an international effort to identify, secure, and dispose of global stocks of weapons-usable nuclear materials—namely highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium. Since... MORE

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A History of the U.S. Army Officer Corps, 1900-1990
September 1, 2014 — Author: Dr Arthur T Coumbe View the Executive SummaryThe present volume was written as a supplement to series of monographs authored by Casey Wardynski, David Lyle, and Mike Colarusso of the Army’s Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis and published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College from 2009 to 2010. In those... MORE

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Op-Ed: Global Leadership — Learning From History
July 15, 2014 — Professor John F. Troxell We are in the season of discontent concerning the position of the United States in the world. Following the financial crisis, it was the declinist narrative, and now it appears to be verging on a competency, or weariness, narrative. We recognize our fundamental strengths and lean away from global responsibilities. Pundits... MORE

Op-Ed: Syria and the Great Middle Eastern War
July 8, 2014 — Dr. Larry P. GoodsonThe Syrian Civil War is shaping up to do something disastrous to the Middle East—something that has not occurred in modern history. A regional conflagration is coming; indeed, it may already be here. The meltdown currently underway in Iraq is only the first manifestation of the regional war—or perhaps region-wide violence—that... MORE

Defense Planning for National Security: Navigation Aids for the Mystery Tour
March 1, 2014 — Author: Dr Colin S Gray View the Executive SummaryThe challenge that is defense planning includes: "educated futurology" and the humanities as methodological approaches; futurists and scenarios, trend spotting and defense analysis; the impossibility of science in studying the future; the impossibility of verification by empirical testing of... MORE

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The Promise and Pitfalls of Grand Strategy
August 1, 2012 — Author: Dr Hal Brands What is “grand strategy,” and why is it seemingly so important and so difficult? This monograph explores the concept of grand strategy as it has developed over the past several decades. It explains why the concept is so ubiquitous in discussions of present-day foreign policy, examines why American officials often find the... MORE

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