Ad bellum Pace Parati: prepared in peace for war. This sentiment was much on the mind of Captain Arthur L. Wagner as he contemplated the quality of military education at the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during the 1890s.

The Cheyenne people made up one of the largest tribes in the region during the mid 19th century. Prior to the 18th century, the Cheyenne lived in the Great Lakes region until stronger tribes in that area forced them westward. Over time, the Cheyenne migrated toward the Black Hills and the Platte River valley. Eventually, the massive herds of buffalo roaming the plains lured a branch of the tribe southward across the Platte River into the Arkansas River valley of today's southern Colorado and Kansas. By the mid 1800s, the Cheyenne had totally abandoned their sedentary agricultural traditions...

The Combat Studies Institute (CSI) is pleased to present its latest publication in the Occasional Paper Series, "We Have Not Learned How to Wage War There" The Soviet Approach in Afghanistan,1979-1989, by Mr. Matt Matthews. For this work, Mr. Matthews collected a wide variety of sources on the subject, many of them of primary accounts, and used these materials to provide an overview of the evolution of the Soviet operational approach in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. This Soviet experience offers a number of useful insights for American military professionals who are, as of this writing,...

A staff ride to a major battle eld is an excellent tool for the historical education of members of the Armed Forces. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has been conducting staff rides since the 1900s. Captain Arthur L. Wagner was an instructor at Fort Leavenworth in the 1890s, and he believed an of cer's education had become too far removed from the reality of war. He pondered how to get the experience of combat to of cers who had only experienced peace. His answer was the staff ride, a program in which stu-dents studied a major battle and then went to the actual eld to complete the study. Wagner did...

In this timely Occasional Paper, Dr. Tom Bruscino analyzes a critical issue in the GWOT, and one which has bedeviled counterinsurgents past and present. He examines the role played by sanctuaries as they relate to irregular warfare in two conflicts. An active sanctuary refers to the practice of using territory outside the geographical limits of an irregular war to provide various forms of support to one side, usually the insurgent or guerrilla force. In the first case study, he looks at the United States' efforts to defeat the advantages gained by the Viet Cong (and later the North Vietnamese...