Despite the long odds, Doolittle’s Raiders slipped through Japan’s defenses on April 18, 1942 to deliver a surprise blow. The raiders bombed several Japanese cities including Kobe and Yokohama, but Tokyo was perhaps the most significant because it was the Emperor’s home and the nation’s capital. In stunning fashion, the raid answered President Roosevelt’s call for retaliation and soothed America’s wounded pride. The Doolittle Raid’s place among the time-honored traditions of courageous military action is secure, but its impact on America’s ultimate victory in the Pacific remains unclear.

The U.S. military suffers from an incumbent, or status quo, mentality; it has become complacent due to its superpower status. For decades, it has had the freedom to operate whenever and wherever it wanted. Adversaries have used that time to study U.S. forces and their methods.

In terms of lessons, Operation El Dorado Canyon is rich, and oft-neglected by modern strategists. The mission’s planning and execution have filled several books; however, it is with the renewed interest in the idea of ad hoc, limited, retaliatory strikes, that this operation becomes particularly instructive.

The importance of a gender perspective in peace and security operations and military affairs has long been established by feminist activists and researchers, and recognized in a number of UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) on women, peace, and security. UNSCR 1325, adopted in 2000, acknowledged for the first time the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls. It has become the internationally recognized legal framework for promoting gender equality and addressing issues affecting women’s peace and security at the local, regional, and international levels.

The Battle of Bataan and the Bataan Death March are some of the more grueling stories from the Pacific War. While justice after war remains a contentious issue, it is important to note that remembrance is central to nation-building and recovery, and instilling a sense of pride in those who served and sacrificed during this part of the Pacific War.

Roaring thunder and rain cascading in sheets shrouded the day’s horrific toll by drowning out the cries of the wounded and dying strewn about the ground and cloistered in hospital tents. The carnage was stunning to all involved, save for the prophet whose “gallant and able” leadership under fire prevented a catastrophe. William Sherman’s redemption was at hand.

Events at Shiloh demonstrated that Ulysses Grant had the intellectual bandwidth to identify opportunities that were not evident to others and he combined this quality with a willingness to tolerate risk that other military professionals found unacceptable.

The United States needs a unifying information strategy. America’s adversaries gain political and military advantages every day the U.S. goes without clear priorities in the current information war. To succeed, American military leaders and political scientists emphasize prioritizing the use of resources. The prioritization of these resources requires a comprehensive strategy.

How militaries address problems is crucial to their success as an organization. Militaries use many different planning tools to solve operational problems. Some of these tools follow a structured methodology. Others are a state-of-mind and a way of thinking that is not confined within boundaries. Instead of just solving a problem, these approaches help to solve the right problem.

Since modern China has always been led by a highly authoritarian regime, is the shift from consensus-based decision making by Party elites to a more personalist style of rule merely a distinction without a difference? Does the consolidation of power under President Xi Jinping matter, particularly to issues of war and peace?

The U.K. government should look closely at the Niger incident report. The U.S. looks set to engage in a frank discussion about what went wrong, and more generally raise a number of concerns about the deployment of U.S. special forces to West Africa. It is indicative of a recognition within the U.S., as among many of the U.K.’s allies, that greater openness is not inherently incompatible with the operational security or utility of special forces. The U.K. government should consider its own options. Its no-comment policy is not risk free and presents a number of dangers to the effectiveness of U.K. military engagement abroad.

Ultimately, the best defense in information warfare is resilience—the ability to critically assess a dynamic information environment where everything is not always what it seems and manage the identified risks to ensure mission success. In a military context, this could include adapting basic and advanced levels of training to include fostering a deeper understanding for how information warfare is changing the nature of conflict, and how every service member’s actions can and will be used against them in a digital age.

Boyd sought not so much to circumvent Clausewitz as to use the Prussian’s concepts as fuel in his own mental refinery. And Boyd’s message to his audience was that the process of mental refinement could not stop, nor be confined to the ideas of any one individual, no matter how insightful they might be. What might Clausewitz have made of such a critique? Judging by his own words, he would likely have been of the same mind.

Social network analysis that accounts for invisible-yet-concrete ties can better frame the social aspect of the operational environment and thus more accurately assess critical requirements and vulnerabilities in center of gravity analysis instead of only focusing on military targets.  

In a sense, a good strategy serves as the focal point that combines all forces to fulfill a specific objective. Without it, the particular forces aim in diverse directions; they can even cancel each other’s efforts. This problem is as old as time, but it seems to become more and more important in postmodern times.

The Strategy Bridge Writing Contest is back for 2018! Are you a student attending a civilian university or a military war/staff colleges? Are you interested in strategy? Then this is a contest for you! For details, visit our website: https://thestrategybridge.org/writing-contest/
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While future insurgencies may be inevitable, they can be marginalized. It is incumbent upon the international coalition to commit to a sustained presence in Iraq and the freed areas of Syria for years to come. This presence must include substantive improvements to security forces, reconstruction of decimated communities, and reconciliation of Sunni populations at the national level. This effort may take up to a decade, if not longer, the United States must leverage members of the coalition to the greatest extent possible, and policy makers must be made aware of the sobering timeline and costs required.