Recent Publications

Strategic Insights: Challenges in Using Scenario Planning for Defense Strategy
January 30, 2018 — Dr. Michael FitzsimmonsLawrence Freedman and Colin Gray are two of the most famous contemporary scholars of military strategy. Within the past few years, each published a book addressing different aspects of the same practical problem of strategy: defense planning.1 Considered to be strategy’s mundane cousin, defense planning revolves around how a... MORE

Cover for Strategic Insights: Challenges in Using Scenario Planning for Defense Strategy

Strategic Insights: Un-"Steady" State Operations: Redefining the Approach to Phase Zero in a Complex World
June 20, 2016 — LTC Thomas R. Matelski In recent months, there has been much discussion in the U.S. Department of Defense and its subordinate components over the conduct of steady state operations, or as defined in the Joint Operation Planning Process (JOPP), Phase Zero (Phase 0) operations.1 While important to military planning, the current construct for Phase 0... MORE

Cover for Strategic Insights: Un-"Steady" State Operations: Redefining the Approach to Phase Zero in a Complex World

U.S. Military Operations in Iraq: Planning, Combat and Occupation
April 1, 2006 — Authors: Mr Shane Lauth, Ms Kate Phillips, Ms Erin Schenck, Dr W Andrew Terrill A colloquium on "U.S. Military Operations in Iraq: Planning, Combat, and Occupation" was held November 2, 2005, and was co-sponsored by SSI and Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Three years beyond the start of that transition, the debate... MORE

Planning For and Applying Military Force: An Examination of Terms
March 1, 2006 — Author: LTG Paul K Van Riper The author briefly examines current and in some cases still evolving definitions in joint doctrine--especially as regards strategy, center of gravity, decisive point, and commander's intent. He discusses the heritage of those concepts and terms, most of which derived from the writings of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, and... MORE

Shaping the World through Engagement: Assessing the Department of Defense’s Theater Engagement Planning Process
April 1, 2000 — Authors: COL Thomas Jordan, Prof Douglas C Lovelace Jr, Dr Thomas-Durell Young The Department of Defense (DoD) has launched an ambitious planning initiative that could have a major impact upon how resources are allocated among the military departments and the combatant commands. The National Command Authorities have directed the geographic... MORE

Joint U.S. Army-Navy War Planning on the Eve of the First World War
February 16, 1998 — Author: COL Adolf Carlson All the histories of the First World War devote considerable attention to the impact of war plans and war planners—how in the foreign relations among the great powers war plans became factors in their own right. Many of these plans revealed volumes about the attitudes of the officers who wrote them, from the offensive a... MORE