Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

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.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Searching for Strategy…and Finding it in the Most Likely Place

Searching for Strategy…and Finding it in the Most Likely Place

Strategy is really not that hard. That may seem strange given the mountain of monographs, White Papers, and policy briefs generated over the years debating the direction the ship of state has headed, or as some charged in recent years, if we even had a ship left at all. Yet despite the deluge of discussions, consensus about what good strategy looks like remains elusive, and any reasonable measure of effectiveness of those efforts seems to indicate persistent and pervasive failure. Many fault poor implementation, a failure to go deep enough into “whole of government” with otherwise winning strategies. More damning are the criticisms that underlying strategic assumptions have failed to make sense of complex human values and interests. Still others lay the blame at the decision-makers themselves, or at the very least, their information gatekeepers who lacked strategic vision, narrowed instead by parochial myopia. As frequently as those critiques have come up in the past, what if instead the issue lies at a more fundamental level, and that once clarified, it could provide the guidance needed to make strategy possible in the first place?

#Reviewing Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening Story

#Reviewing Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening Story

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced a litany of innovative ideas and programs: Provincial Reconstruction Teams, Agricultural Development Teams, Cultural Support Teams, and Village Stability Operations, to name just a few. The Anbar Awakening is arguably the most successful of all of the population-centric counterinsurgency movements. It helped spur the marginally successful Afghan Local Police (ALP) program. Despite its success in beating back Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in Anbar and helping spur the Iraq-wide Sons of Iraq (SOI) program, there has been a long debate over the Anbar Awakening narrative.

#Reviewing Combined Operations

#Reviewing Combined Operations

A major power confronts another across a wide expanse of ocean. Neither opponent is able to significantly threaten the other’s mainland without mastering and crossing the waves. But the vast distances involved are daunting even for the opposing navies. One side then executes an east-to-west island hopping campaign, using the possession of islands to control the sea and project force far beyond the capacities of lesser powers.

The Dhofar War and the Myth of ‘Localized’ Conflicts

The Dhofar War and the Myth of ‘Localized’ Conflicts

Between 1963 and 1975 the Sultanate of Oman was the scene of one of the most remarkable, and forgotten conflicts of the Cold War. The British-led Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF) would battle and defeat a formidable Marxist guerrilla movement based in the southern province of Dhofar. The Dhofar War remains one of the few examples of a successful Western-led counterinsurgency in a postwar Middle Eastern country.

Leadership Lessons from General George C. Marshall

Leadership Lessons from General George C. Marshall

Many people today don’t remember George Marshall, but in the middle of the 20th century he was inescapable. A five-star general who later won the Nobel Peace Prize, Marshall was once described by President Harry S. Truman as the greatest soldier in American history. Other world figures agreed, and after World War II, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called Marshall the true organizer of Allied victory.

How the Pentagon Should Deter Cyber Attacks

How the Pentagon Should Deter Cyber Attacks

The most important lesson from Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election may be this: foreign hackers and propagandists are not afraid to launch attacks against the United States in and through cyberspace that they would not dare risk in a real theater of war. So as cyber aggression gets worse and more brazen every year, it’s crucial that the Department of Defense figures out how to deter foreign actors in cyberspace as effectively as in nuclear and conventional warfare. The Pentagon can take five steps to better deter foreign cyber attacks.

Challenging the Lion

Challenging the Lion

The risk of violent conflict is growing in several regions of the world, which threatens U.S. national security interests and may trigger a military response in the near future. While foreign crises can arise in unpredictable ways, in many instances the warning signs are evident. Prior to conflict escalation, the opportunity exists to take preventive action to lessen the risk of events transitioning in an undesirable direction. In today’s global environment, security risks increase in a variety of ways because of coups d’état, security crises, cessations of political dynasties, and less predictable environments. With violent conflict opportunities increasing throughout the international system, state and non-state actors can impact societies in a manner that challenges U.S. national security interests as a global superpower.

#Reviewing Police in Africa

#Reviewing Police in Africa

We are in a heady age for nonsense about African state institutions. Portland State University political scientist Bruce Gilley launched a firestorm recently with his analytically incoherent article “The Case for Colonialism,” arguing colonial institutions produced better outcomes than post-colonial ones have and most who lived under those institutions think so. In my area of research, Mozambique, the World Bank added its own voice to the chorus of nonsense, announcing that it now considers the country to be in a “fragile situation” for the first time. The newfound fragility came as news to Mozambicans, who have seen their country rocked by both renewed civil conflict and massive financial scandal in the past three years but are now in the midst of a seemingly durable ceasefire and a slow but steady economic recovery. Western misconceptions about how African states actually function are as widespread now as they’ve ever been, even as Western engagement in Africa continues to grow.

Healing the Wounds of War: Moral Luck, Moral Uncertainty, and Moral Injury

Healing the Wounds of War: Moral Luck, Moral Uncertainty, and Moral Injury

Even a casual viewer of the recent Burns and Novack film, The Vietnam War, comes away an understanding of the central theme of moral injury and the difficulty of the moral impacts of war on the individuals who fought and the society that sent them. While Jonathan Shay coined the term ‘moral injury’ in his seminal 1994 book Achilles in Vietnam, this issue has more recently become a prominent part of the public discourse. Concerns about PTSD, moral injury, and the return of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan from the ‘Forever War,’ as well as an increasing awareness of the so-called military/civilian culture gap. Tim O’Brien’s reading from The Things They Carried at the end of the film is especially evocative because of the public moment we find ourselves inhabiting.

Adaptive Leadership and the Warfighter

Adaptive Leadership and the Warfighter

Moderns often talk of facing the future. For the ancient Greeks, the future was coming up from behind unseen. In this as in other matters, the perceptions of the ancient Greeks were more realistic and accurate than our own. Whether the near future comes holding a bouquet or a bludgeon, it is going to require adaptation and innovation from all military members in their roles as leaders, warfighters, veterans, and citizens.

Turning the Corner in Afghanistan

Turning the Corner in Afghanistan

In the November/December 2017 issue of Foreign Affairs, Kosh Sadat and Stanley McChrystal defended the ongoing state-building and counterinsurgency project in Afghanistan as both right and necessary. In doing so, however, they revived the fallacies that have long obscured problematic aspects of the US-led campaign in that country. Proponents of the open-ended commitments to Afghanistan have long misrepresented the governance and security issues in Afghanistan as merely technical, albeit complicated, and overstated the ability of American means to remedy such issues. Like others before them, Sadat and McChrystal have addressed neither the complex prerequisites to state building nor the consequences of ongoing American political ambivalence towards the war. Either one of these factors alone could derail US aims. The fact that both are present should give policymakers pause.

Integrating Humans and Machines

Integrating Humans and Machines

The military holds an enduring an interest in robotic capability, and teaming these early robots with humans. From the use of remote controlled boats by the Germans in the First World War, unmanned, tracked Goliath robots filled with explosives used in World War Two, through to contemporary EOD robots and unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, military organizations have long sought to leverage robotic capability. At the highpoint of the Iraq War in 2006, the U.S. military fielded over 8000 robots in theater.

This article is the second of three that examines three aspects of human-machine teaming. In the first, I examined the rationale for human-machine teaming through ‘seven propositions’. This article examines key elements military organizations might adopt in a closer integration of humans and machines. It is proposed there are three areas upon which might be constructed a competitive strategy for future operations. The three areas provide background information, analysis and the possible applications of human-machine teams. 

#Reviewing Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer

#Reviewing Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer

The heart of this biography is the account of Upton’s career as a military reformer. Here, David Fitzpatrick has succeeded. Too often we are ignorant of the origins and take for granted many aspects of military training, education, doctrine, leadership, and organization. By understanding the hard-experience that gave rise to these foundational aspects of the military profession, there is still plenty of opportunity to continue Upton’s work in improving it.

Reflecting on #WarBots

Reflecting on #WarBots

The characters of war is always in motion, and we're witnessing a particularly interesting change as #WarBots and their associated technologies—unmanned, remotely-piloted, autonomous, and semi-autonomous—democratize and proliferate. This complicates battlespaces in the air, on land, and at sea...and the technologies of today are only the harbingers of future automated and artificially intelligent systems.

Lombardi’s War: Formation Play-Calling and the Intellectual Property Ecology

Lombardi’s War: Formation Play-Calling and the Intellectual Property Ecology

The information age, a phrase famously coined by Berkeley Professor Manuel Castells in the 1990s, described a tectonic shift in our culture and economy which we generally take for granted at present. From our current vantage point, replete with ubiquitous pocket-sized personal computing and communications devices, it is hard to imagine a world where we cannot convert our data or social networks into physical resources and access. We keep our data in the cloud and call upon it when we need it, regardless of where we are. We log into AirBnB, and somehow money we have never seen transfers to someone else who will never see the money, and that becomes a room for an evening. The idea of a brick-and-mortar video store, such as the 1990s-staple Blockbuster Video, is hopelessly anachronistic in the era of Netflix.

The Strategic Implications of Non-State #WarBots

The Strategic Implications of Non-State #WarBots

Over the past year, a primitive type of WarBot has become a formidable battlefield weapon: the small unmanned aerial system. The threat materialized in October 2016 when a drone booby-trapped by the Islamic State killed two Kurdish soldiers. Within a few months, the Islamic State was flying tens of aerial bombardment missions each day, displayed the capability to drop grenades down the hatches of tanks, and reportedly flew up to a dozen aircraft at a time. The threat was so severe that the Mosul offensive nearly stalled.

Drones in Counterterrorism: The Primacy of Politics Over Technology

Drones in Counterterrorism: The Primacy of Politics Over Technology

Waging counterterrorism operations is not just about having the right inventory of weaponry and the latest technical tools. Neither is simply marshaling the political will of the American population sufficient for undertaking counterterrorism. Wherever the US government wants to wage sustained campaigns with drones, it needs the buy-in of local actors but the interests of many of the actors fundamentally do not align with those of the US. This inevitably boils down to constant bargaining and deal-making with local actors. Politics, thus, retains the final say on how counterterrorism campaigns unfold.

The Human Factor in the “Unmanned” Systems of the People's Liberation Army

The Human Factor in the “Unmanned” Systems of the People's Liberation Army

What does the PLA’s approach so far to the humans behind their unmanned systems reveal about its potential engagement with the challenges associated with the highly automated and autonomous systems it is currently developing? Despite the myth that such systems tend to replace humans, requiring smaller numbers of combatants with lower levels of expertise, there is clear evidence to date that the human challenges of such systems are considerable, often requiring higher levels of specialized training. In this regard, PLA’s active focus on the development of personnel to operate UAVs could constitute an early case that demonstrates that the PLA will likely confront considerable challenges in the process of learning to use such high-tech systems more effectively.

Red Robots Rising: Behind the Rapid Development of Russian Unmanned Military Systems

Red Robots Rising: Behind the Rapid Development of Russian Unmanned Military Systems

It is clear Russian development of military unmanned systems, in conjunction with ongoing modernization of its armed forces, will result in a qualitatively different and capable force. Should Russia’s ongoing successes in Syria embolden it to act elsewhere  in a similar fashion, then U.S. and Western planners may not be the only ones flying a constellation of unmanned systems or directing swarms of ground vehicles and high-tech weapons. This calls for a re-evaluation of the current defense posture and review of technology development and acquisition cycles, a process that has been ongoing in the United States for some time.