This is another in the special series of monographs emanating from the February 2001 conference on Plan Colombia co-sponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and The Dante B. Fascell North-South Center of the University of Miami. In this monograph, Joaquin Roy provides a European view of Plan Colombia. Professor Roy, a Spaniard with valuable sources throughout Europe, notes that Europeans apparently do not approve of the seeming U.S. emphasis on providing military equipment and training to Colombia for a counternarcotics effort in what they see as a larger...

Dr. Max Manwaring wrote this monograph in response to the fact that today over half the countries in the global community are faced with one variation or another of asymmetric guerrilla war. Insurgencies, internal wars, and other small-scale contingencies (SSCs) are the most pervasive and likely type of conflict in the post-Cold War era. That the United States will become involved directly or indirectly in some of these conflicts is almost certain. The Balkans, Colombia, Mexico, Somalia, and the Philippines are only a few cases in point. Yet, little or no recognition and application of the...

The crisis in Colombia is the most compelling challenge the United States faces in the Western Hemisphere. The United States is committed to helping Colombia fight its struggle against the violence and corruption engendered by the traffic in narcotics. This report examines the strategic theory within Plan Colombia, the master plan which the government of Colombia developed to strengthen democracy through peace, security, and economic development. In this timely paper, Dr. Gabriel Marcella argues that the United States and the international community must support this beleaguered nation. He...

Since the mid-1990s, the concept of strategic asymmetry has begun to receive serious attention from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, for instance, stated, "U.S. dominance in the conventional military arena may encourage adversaries to use . . . asymmetric means to attack our forces and interests overseas and Americans at home." But while American strategists and defense leaders sense the importance of strategy asymmetry, much analytical work remains to be done before it is fully understood. To help with this process, the Strategic Studies Institute...

U.S. military strategy is undergoing its most serious examination since the end of the Cold War. Led by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, this process is designed to assess every dimension of the strategy, including its most basic assumptions and concepts. For the first time in over a decade, everything about U.S. military strategy is subject to question. One of the most important elements of U.S. military strategy for the past ten years has been the belief that a force able to fight two nearly simultaneous major theater wars (MTW) of the DESERT STORM type would be capable of dealing with...

This compendium is the result of a conference on "Military Operations in an Urban Environment" cosponsored by the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce in conjunction with the Kentucky Commission on Military Affairs, the U.S. Army War College, and the Association of the United States Army. At the time of the conference, the concept of homeland defense was emerging as an increasingly important mission for the U.S. military. Now this mission has catapulted to prominence with the attacks of September 11 and the appointment of a Director of Homeland Defense-a Cabinet-level...

The topic of homeland security includes a broad array of missions and mission areas ranging from national missile defense to military assistance to civil authorities. Recently the topic has attracted a great deal of attention due to the publics heightened awareness of the variety and nature of emerging threats and of the United States vulnerabilities to them. This monograph, written by Lieutenant Colonel Antulio J. Echevarria II, grew out of a tasking by the Army Staff to investigate the Armys role in homeland security from a strategic, rather than a legal or procedural perspective. The...

This is one in the Special Series of monographs stemming from the February 2001 conference on Plan Colombia cosponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and The Dante B. Fascell North-South Center of the University of Miami. In this monograph, Dr. Max G. Manwaring provides a comprehensive analysis of the Colombian crisis situation and makes viable recommendations to deal with it more effectively. In substantive U.S. national security terms, Dr. Manwaring addresses the questions, "Why Colombia, Why Now, and What Is To Be Done?" He explains the importance of that...

In a March 2001 address to the Association of the United States Army, General Eric Shinseki noted, "We are once again an army between the wars, and once again, we are challenged to adjust to break old paradigms. So we are transforming to become strategically responsive and remain dominant across the entire spectrum of military operations." Army transformation has many dimensions with change in technology, operational methods, and organizations. So far, the focus of organizational transformation has been on the redesign of tactical units such as the interim brigade combat teams. But corps-the...

North Korea poses a key challenge to the global community of states. Sometimes viewed as primarily a nuclear or proliferation challenge, Pyongyang actually presents the United States and other countries with multiple problems. As the 2005 National Defense Strategy of the United States notes, these challenges include "traditional, irregular, and catastrophic." While each dimension of these threat capabilities are fairly clear and, with the exception of the third, readily documented, North Korea's intentions are a much more controversial subject upon which specialists reach widely disparate...