Today the U.S. military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post-Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after U.S. troops leave Iraq? Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy examines the ways in which the Gulf War, the WMD standoff, the Iraq War,...
Today the U.S. military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf ...
For more than 2 decades, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) has hosted an annual strategy conference. Each conference was designed to convene some of the world's top experts on a major strategic issue, and to use cutting edge scholarship and analysis to help the U.S. Army and Department of Defense (DoD) leadership understand the issue. The April 2010 Strategy Conference was entitled "Defining War for the 21st Century." The conference included a keynote address by Professor Martin van Creveld, a banquet presentation by Major General (Retired) Robert Scales, and panels on the historical...
For more than 2 decades, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) has hosted an annual strategy conference. Each conference was designed to convene some ...
Counterinsurgency is seemingly not of great concern to the U.S. Army today. This may represent a period of remission rather than the apparent abandonment of the mission. It is possible that the U.S. military may again become engaged in counterinsurgency support in the future. In this study, Steven Metz argues that the way the Department of Defense and U.S. military spend the time when counterinsurgency support is not an important part of American national security strategy determines how quickly and easily they react when policymakers commit the nation to such activity. If analysis and debate...
Counterinsurgency is seemingly not of great concern to the U.S. Army today. This may represent a period of remission rather than the apparent abandonm...
In war, there are always differences between the opponents. At times these are insignificant, passing disparities with no bearing on the outcome. At other times, the differences between opponents are important, placing one in a position of advantage, the other at a disadvantage. This is a very simple observation, but from it flows one of the pressing issues faced by the United States today: strategic asymmetry. Strategic asymmetry is the use of some sort of difference to gain an advantage over an adversary. It is an idea as old as warfare itself, appearing under a number of guises. Among...
In war, there are always differences between the opponents. At times these are insignificant, passing disparities with no bearing on the outcome. At o...
During the past 5 years, American strategy has undergone a sea change, shifting from a focus on the conventional military forces of rogue or rising states to irregular challenges associated with the "long war" against transnational jihadism. Much of the new thinking has resulted from the conflict in Iraq. One result of this has been an attempt to relearn counterinsurgency by the U.S. military. While the involvement of the United States in counterinsurgency has a long history, it had faded in importance in the years following the end of the Cold War. When American forces first confronted it in...
During the past 5 years, American strategy has undergone a sea change, shifting from a focus on the conventional military forces of rogue or rising st...
The great difficulty in forecasting the future strategic environment and the force structure needed in response is the plethora of variables that change the calculus. Only hindsight reveals the failure of a Maginot Line or the brilliant success of a mechanized Blitzkrieg doctrine. In the final analysis, the reader must judge the line of reasoning. In this monograph, Dr. Steven Metz and Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen examine the trends in the strategic environment in their development of the Future War/Future Battlespace. One fact is clear. Traditional warfighting has changed in the post...
The great difficulty in forecasting the future strategic environment and the force structure needed in response is the plethora of variables that chan...
The U.S. military and national security community lost interest in insurgency after the end of the Cold War. Other defense issues such as multinational peacekeeping and transformation seemed more pressing and thus attracted the most attention. But with the onset of the Global War on Terror in 2001 and the ensuing involvement of the U.S. military in counterinsurgency support in Iraq and Afghanistan, insurgency experienced renewed concern in both the defense and intelligence communities. In this monograph, Dr. Steven Metz, who has been writing on insurgency and counterinsurgency for more than 2...
The U.S. military and national security community lost interest in insurgency after the end of the Cold War. Other defense issues such as multinationa...