The authors acknowledge that each engagement is unique and that no single metric could ever fully account for the complexities of war. However, in order to make informed decisions with the goal of improving the lethality of its force, the United States needs to at least attempt to develop a rudimentary lethality metric that could be applied to comparatively analyze the impact of policies, equipment, operations, tactics and training. 

Preventing violent extremism is important, and governments need to shift at least some focus from basic incarceration to deradicalization or disengagement. As countries continue to develop a policy on how, and if, they’ll accept returning citizens who lived and fought with Islamic State or other terrorist organizations, they need to be prepared for what happens after.

Earlier this year, The Strategy Bridge asked university and professional military education students to participate in our third annual student writing contest by sending us their thoughts on strategy. The response was amazing, with more submissions than our small team of volunteers could handle.

All kinds of commercials target human weaknesses, and military ads are no exception. Military commercials, however, are a small part of the bigger marketing and public relations strategy that military recruiting tools implement to attract enlistees and create a positive image of service in society. The examples discussed in this article indicate different approaches of how commercials portray the armed forces.

If France truly wants to remain a global actor, a credible military power, and strategically autonomous, it needs to undertake considerable efforts to improve the current condition of its armed forces. France has made progress in this regard, but still needs to do more.

Seemingly, the group was defeated after the Anbar Awakening and second Gulf War, but the organization waited patiently in the shadows for the right opportunity to strike back and regain relevance. During the interlude following the second Gulf War and the establishment of the caliphate, the group did what it has always done well—survive.

Since Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening-Up policies, China has modernised to a startling extent. However, this growth has been uneven and has caused severe inequality across the country. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is often seen as promoting China’s influence across the world, but this is not its only purpose. This article looks at how the Belt and Road Initiative is being used as one measure to transform some of the poorest regions of China, and how despite this, China is failing to address some of the issues in its most volatile areas.

Numerous individuals have commented on how to improve professional military education…Creativity tends to receive a brief nod in these discussions, but the concept is only mentioned and almost never discussed, with no ideas for fostering it.

The greatest challenges of the common era may very well spur a sense of coordinated effort across all three interconnected elements of the Clausewitzian trinity that will help enhance both preparation and effectiveness of the United States in future conflicts.

As they have since antiquity, geopolitical factors will continue to shape and constrain world affairs in our digital age. Emerging technologies will only up the ante—as underscored by global debates on Huawei’s involvement in the roll-out of 5G, and China-US trade disputes over data localization. Applying a geopolitical lens to events like these will be an essential first step to crafting good strategy to respond.

The public square is an accessible public space that serves as a locus for civic connections, and a landmark or building usually dominates it. The civic uses of the public square include public forum, meeting space, and marketplace. The symbols a community chooses to adorn their public square serve to tell a story about what they honor and who they are. The military officer or non-commissioned officer undergoes a similar decision when they decorate their office.

As the war against the self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq appears to come to a close, the greatest risk of regional conflict comes from Iran. The intervention of Iran’s forces and proxies in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq have emerged as imminent threats to Israel and Saudi Arabia that could escalate into the next major war in the Middle East. Iran may not be deterred by unilateral interventions by Israel or Saudi Arabia, so the U.S. must play a role in averting a catastrophic conflict.

Rather than pulling the cyber domain away from deterrence, current policy has brought cyber elements closer to the U.S.’s broader strategic deterrence strategy. Strategic deterrence now incorporates a well-defined role for cyber that is likely to expand in the future, and strategic deterrence has begun to play a role in cyber deterrence strategy.

Napoleon’s advantage was created by a change in the sociopolitical environment. It could be argued a similar change in the nature of society and politics has been occurring in the West in the period since World War I. The more recent sociopolitical change occurred among the Western industrial nations over the last century and involved a shift towards individualism. It allowed liberal democracy to become the standard form of Western government. It created a New World Order that allowed for organizations like the EU that would have been unheard of in nineteenth-century Europe.

No nation treats its women as well as it treats its men. Yet, research has shown that gender equality and inclusive security correlate with positively with stability and inversely with radicalization. In short: gender equality is global security.