President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
It would be better if American leaders adopted toward both China and India the same perspective the 19th-century British held toward the upstart Americans. Be patient when China and India act impetuously, as most newly rising powers do. Be clear about where the lines are and enforce them consistently. And finally, practice cooperating wherever we can.
[T]he authors deftly present an even-handed view where the Defense Department has expanded into new missions and encroached on the turf of other agencies, but has not done so alone. They contend the increasing militarization of foreign policy was not an overnight change beginning with the George W. Bush administration after 9/11 and accelerated under President Obama. Instead, they describe a consistent and long term process with Congress, the United States Agency for International Development, the Department of State, and other parts of the Executive, all helping in their own unique institutional ways, to facilitate this shift and pull greater power to the Pentagon.
The U.S. Armed Forces are in for lean times ahead. Budget cuts, continuing operational demands, and ongoing attempts to re-learn the core competencies of conventional warfare will all come together to make resources scarce. Unit-level leader development efforts will have to function with minimal outside resources and assistance; even the minimal assistance higher echelons provided in the past is likely to look luxurious by comparison. At the same time, we should view this period as an opportunity to re-embrace some skills we’ve allowed to atrophy - or at least lay fallow - over the last decade of intense operational activity. The deliberate practice of professional mentoring is one of these skills that, if thoughtfully applied, can pay great dividends for military leaders in the immediate future.
We all knew this would happen. When the U.S. and Iran signed the nuclear deal in 2015, some thought it was just delaying the inevitable. I remember one of my professors at MIT comparing the deal to the Peace of Nicias during the Peloponnesian Wars. I guess he was right, just as with Athens and Sparta, the U.S.- Iran nuclear deal was a false peace.
While the U.S. military has dedicated acres of terrain and entire units of opposing forces to ensure a realistic experience for training units for combat, such emphasis on realism is not provided for operational command post exercises. For a headquarters that may need to conduct humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, forced entry, or any other crisis response, the prospect of a command post exercise is usually accompanied with complaints of weak scenarios, shallow exercises, and an environment which fails to adapt to the training audience or account for blue force decisions. The military has essentially sent its highest levels of command out to the field to fight pop-up targets on timers when they need to be challenged and tested by a living, thinking opponent within an adaptive environment.
It is time to drag out the old historical concepts and put them into a contemporary framework in a readable fashion. History is unbeatable in teaching lessons. The U.S. Army needs to understand the struggle the Prussian/German Army went through to introduce this superior command culture to avoid the old mistakes and repeat the successes. Only then is there a chance in the future that once American officers will face the enemy not with a superior budget, gadgets, fire power, or electronics but with a superior mind and command culture. The language of mission command is like the command culture itself: brief, uncompromising, focused, and ruthless.
Australia is faced with many strategic challenges. On one hand there is the rise of non-state actors, such as Islamist extremists, who aim to overhaul the Westphalian international system. Without the rule book of western nations, they combine conventional and unconventional military tactics ignoring the distinction of soldier and civilian. These non-state actors, enabled by the networked age, combine propaganda, conventional military tactics and guerrilla asymmetry, along with financial and governance structures. Whether it is Hezbollah, the Taleban, or Daesh, they utilise the entire spectrum of warfare and multiple methods to achieve their desired political ends.
Though [Tribe] is brief, in this enjoyable book readers—whether veteran or not—will walk away with a greater appreciation for the challenges facing those weary from war at their homecoming. Those who study war will also uncover profound wisdom, both in the conduct of war and the care of its combatants. If it is incomplete in the defense of its underlying ideology, it does, however, succeed as a warning, a reminder of the cost of war and a challenge to society cultivate the solidarity that brought us “to this extraordinary moment in our history.” If, as Junger implies, solidarity brought us this crossroads in our history, “it may also be the only thing that allows us to survive it.”
To be successful in the long term against the threat of the Islamic State, the United States should focus its power on undermining the organization’s core appeal. The United States must recognize the sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict, which enhances the attraction to the Islamic State as the best Sunni Army in Syria. All U.S. policy decisions must be informed by the need to guarantee the rights and future of Syrian Sunnis, while anticipating increased threats from the growth of jihadi organizations within Syria.
One particular thing hasn’t changed across decades and generations of intelligence operations: the quality of our leaders and their demonstration of three core attributes which kept our community focused on meeting mission and developing personnel to face today’s and tomorrow’s threats. These three core attributes are Teamwork, Tone, and Tenacity.
Ultimately, this film is about many things. Stale and hollow storytelling is not one of them. A War is ripe with the chaos that is war. Watching it, one is struck by courage, tragedy, death, grief, and the circumstantial bureaucracy of war. One has thrust upon them the impact of deployment on family, the demands of brotherhood, and its connections beyond the blurred lines of battle.
The future of the tank is secure. Men first mastered animals to move faster on the battlefield than their foes afoot, and it continues today. Men build machines that are faster, but more importantly to protect them from weapons on the field, and enable them to carry more devastating firepower than they could if on foot. This is the magical combination of mobility, firepower, and protection that all armored vehicles balance in some way, shape, or form.
In the end, getting leadership development and retention correct actually saves lives. Young Americans are placed in the capable hands of junior and senior leaders in almost every part of the U.S. Government on a daily basis. We must meet these development goals. The future will demand that our leaders at every level be mentally agile, sound in judgment, and resilient, building upon their strong foundational character.
