No subject is more essential in the preparation of national security professionals and military leaders than the teaching of strategy, from grand to military strategy. Nor is there one that is more timeless and intellectually demanding. Moreover, the experience of the armed forces in recent wars recommends that the system of military education needs to conduct a serious analysis of the way strategy is taught. The task is even more imperative because the ambiguous conflicts and the complex geopolitical environment of the future are likely to challenge the community of strategists, civilian as...

In August 2008, the armed conflict between Russia and Georgia broke out on the territory of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Russian-planned military campaign lasted 5 days until the parties reached a preliminary ceasefire agreement on August 12. The European Union (EU), led by the French presidency, mediated the ceasefire. After signing the agreement, Russia pulled most of its troops out of uncontested Georgian territories, but established buffer zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On August 26, 2008, Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and...

On November 26, 2008, the Project on National Security Reform submitted its 2-year study of the national security system, Forging a New Shield, to the President, Presidentelect, and Congress. The study found that the national security system was at risk of failure and needed serious reform. Before the Project finalized the report's recommendations, its Vision Working Group tested the findings against a diverse set of scenarios to determine if the recommendations were robust and effective. This testing revealed that each of the five major findings improved the performance of the current...

To win on today's complex and competitive battlefield our military leaders have had to try to shed decades of organizational culture that emphasized control and stability as the solution to solving problem sets. Instead, today's leaders must be adaptive and agile in their analysis and development of innovative solutions to the complex challenges of the 21st century. Today's security environment requires men and women in uniform to think critically and be creative in developing new strategies and solutions. These skills will allow our military leaders to maintain the operational initiative...

Since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006, Mexico has embarked upon the implementation of a culture of law and security that has triggered a war with organized crime. This war has involved all sectors of society and has activated a series of renovations in its armed forces, which to date remain the most trusted institutions in Mexican society. This groundbreaking Letort Paper is an important contribution to an understanding of the structure, culture, motivators, and challenges of the Mexican military in the 21st century. Mr. Inigo Guevara Moyano, a Mexican researcher and...

Since U.S. operations began in Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi armed forces have embarked on a huge transformation. In this groundbreaking monograph, Dr. Florence Gaub focuses on the structural and sociological aspects of rebuilding the Iraqi armed forces, which she observes and comments on through the lens of lessons learned from Lebanon's experience of rebuilding its own armed forces in the late 20th century following civil war. Given Iraq's geopolitical potential, this observation and commentary is especially important. Gaub's objectives in writing this monograph are to learn from past mistakes...

In this study, Mr. Kashmeri argues his thesis that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has evolved from a confident, mission driven Alliance with a clear objective, to an organization that appears to be in disar ray, still looking for a unifying mission 20 years after its reason for creation-the Soviet Union- ceased to exist. Mr. Kashmeri maintains that the action to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1073 against Libya is the latest in a series of demonstrations that highlight the disarray of the Alliance. He states that after weeks of preparation and...

On January 25-26, 2010, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) organized a conference entitled, "Contemporary is-sues in International Security." This was the second in what is hoped will be annual conference bringing together U.S., European, and Russian scholars and experts to discuss such issues in an open forum. The panel presented here was devoted to civil-military relations in Russia. This is, as the papers included here show, a critical topic in understanding the domestic and foreign policy trajectories of the Russian state. The papers provided here do not deny that civilian control...