Digital Commons Network^™

The New Fire: War, Peace, And Democracy In The Age Of Ai, John P. Ringquist

Joint Force Quarterly

Ιn November 2023, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer of the Department of Defense (DOD), Craig Martell, stated, “Technologies evolve. Things are going to change next week, next year, next decade. And what wins today might not win tomorrow.” This sense of rapid technological change and disruption echoes what Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie have written in The New Fire. The authors are deeply steeped in the world of cyber and AI. Buchanan is the former Director of the CyberAI Project at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), currently Special Advisor for AI at …

Five Truths For Foreign Area Officers, Michael L. Burgoyne, Albert “Jim” J. Marckwardt

Joint Force Quarterly

Colonel John Collins served in the U.S. Army through three wars and went on to be a revered military strategist and scholar. He founded the Warlord Loop, an organization of defense and security thinkers that remains active today. In 1987, Collins captured five “truths” regarding special operations forces. In so doing, Collins helped define the principles and attributes of special operations forces, which had been misunderstood by the larger conventional military. Foreign area officer (FAO) is another often misunderstood specialty in the military that would also benefit greatly from an exploration of its own truths. This is especially important given …

The World Is Not About Us: Information And Power In The Current Strategic Environment, Will Reno, Jesse R. Humpal

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe Taj Mahal Guest House made a unique offer: Give us data, get beer.1 The Jalalabad, Afghanistan, café offered beer to anyone who brought video files, voice recordings, documents, and data dumps. The Taj shut down after Jalalabad became too hostile to outsiders, but not before its proprietors amassed extensive fine-grained data on local political and economic matters and supported projects that set up communications networks for local people. At least as important was the Taj’s role in facilitating informal personal relationships across government (foreign and local), commercial, humanitarian, and ordinary social networks. While not overtly a U.S.-led information operation, …

Cognitive Warfare: The Fight For Gray Matter In The Digital Gray Zone, Michael J. Cheatham, Angelique M. Geyer, Priscella A. Nohle, Jonathan E. Vazquez

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe United States is facing unprecedented challenges in the cognitive domain. While democracies struggle to develop frameworks that promote collective understanding, adversaries are employing gray zone tactics—those that never rise to the level of war—as a form of cognitive warfare against the United States and other democratic societies. François du Cluzel, head of innovative projects at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s Allied Command Transformation Innovation Hub, describes the key distinctions of the emerging cognitive domain:

Cognitive warfare degrades the capacity to know, produce, or thwart knowledge. Cognitive sciences cover all the sciences that concern knowledge and its processes (psychology, …

The Marine Corps The United States Needs, Adam Clemens

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe U.S. Marine Corps is in the process of a bold modernization initiative known as Force Design, and Congress has called for an independent review, assessment, and analysis of this initiative.1 Force Design began during the tenure of the previous commandant, General David H. Berger, and the new commandant, General Eric M. Smith, sworn in last year, endorses it in his official guidance, FRAGO (Fragmentary Order) 01-2024, Maintain Momentum.2 The continuation of Force Design under a new commandant and the congressional attention it is receiving provide opportune circumstances to consider the Marine Corps’ roles and missions.

Engines Of Chaos: Counterlogistics In Competition, 2023-A Class Of The Advanced Logistics Readiness Officer Course

Joint Force Quarterly

U.S. success at the operational level of war has led to a blossoming of competition in domains below the level of open hostility. The 2023 Joint Concept for Competing (JCC) points out that our adversaries seek to “win without fighting” and that the joint force is at risk of “losing without fighting.”2 The JCC attempts to reorient the joint force to better compete below the level of high-intensity conflict.

Jointness As Virtue: Increasing The Value Of Joint Qualification To The Joint Force And Services, Thomas D. Crimmins, Eric S. Fowler, Daryl A. Chamberlain

Joint Force Quarterly

Ιn “Balancing Nonresident Joint Professional Military Education With Military Life,” Commander Doug Morea makes the salient point that the current joint professional military education (JPME) process fails the individual joint warfighter in preparing for the challenges of serving in combatant commands and other joint forces.1 As joint educators, we agree with Commander Morea’s premise and offer that the current JPME model not only fails the individual joint warfighter but is also wholly inadequate for what the joint force requires both today and in an uncertain future. From the start, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense (DOD) Reorganization Act of 1986 enshrined …

Was 50 Years Long Enough? The All-Volunteer Force In An Era Of Large-Scale Combat Operations, Kent W. Park, John A. Nagl

Joint Force Quarterly

Ιn an era of geopolitical competition among major powers, a large-scale war could last longer and result in more casualties than anything the United States has experienced since World War II. It is unclear whether the all-volunteer force (AVF) that the United States has relied on for the past 50 years, with extraordinary and unexpected success, can meet the manpower requirements in quality and quantity and in time to win the large-scale combat operations that the Department of Defense (DOD) is preparing for.

Civilian Harm Mitigation And Response: The Imperative Of An All-Domain Approach, Alexus G. Grynkewich, Thomas R. Burks, Alex B. Coberly, Samantha A. Mcclure

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe Department of Defense (DOD) seeks to reduce civilian harm caused by military operations and to improve its ability to respond when civilian harm occurs. To this end, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved and released the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) on August 25, 2022. CHMR-AP is a watershed initiative in which DOD commits to improving its ability to prevent, mitigate, and respond to civilian harm. No amount of prevention or mitigation will eliminate civilian harm in armed conflict, nor does international law demand that civilian harm be eliminated. Still, providing civilians more protection than international …

Deviance And Innovation: Change In A “Society Of Saints”, Thaddeus V. Drake, Derrick L. Mcclain

Joint Force Quarterly

Μilitary innovation and adaptation studies are a growth industry. Since the publication of Barry Posen’s seminal study The Sources of Military Doctrine in the early 1980s, the field has grown extensively. Despite well-known military thinkers’ recent book-length treatments of the topic, most studies of change in the military retain two key commonalities. First, nearly all assume that innovation or adaptation is inherently good and worth pursuing. Second, they agree that militaries are famously resistant to change and accept this as part of the fundamental nature of the military system. This article acknowledges the first point; indeed, modern military leaders continually …

The Future Of Great Power Competition: Trajectories, Transitions, And Prospects For Catastrophic War, Thomas F. Lynch Iii

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe dominant geostrategic framework of international relations today is that of a Great Power competition (GPC) among three rivalrous, globally dominant states: the United States, Russia, and China. After more than two decades of mainly cooperation and collaboration, they drifted into de facto competition at the end of the 2000s. By the middle of the 2010s, their undeclared but obvious rivalry intensified. Fully acknowledged GPC arrived in late 2017 when the United States published its National Security Strategy and declared a formal end to the 25-year era of U.S.-led globalization and active American democratization initiatives.

Executive Summary, William T. Eliason

Joint Force Quarterly

Αs I have written before in this space, change is a constant. NDU Press and Joint Force Quarterly are not immune to this fact. Recently, we moved to a more modern Web-based platform that will be less expensive to maintain and operate. The work became more complicated than anticipated, causing JFQ 113 to be a bit tardy online and in the mailbox, but our team worked out a way to daylight. Leading the charge was our “unicorn” Internet Publications Editor, Ms. Joanna “Joey” Seich. She took a suggested path from my director here at NDU’s Institute for National Strategic Studies …

Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 114, 3rd Quarter 2024, National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly

Joint Force Quarterly 114 explores the evolving dynamics of great power competition, military innovation, and the future of joint force effectiveness. The issue opens with insights from senior leadership, setting the stage for discussions on the trajectories of global power shifts, civilian harm mitigation, and the viability of the all-volunteer force in modern warfare. Contributions to joint professional military education (JPME) highlight the need to balance career development with military obligations, enhance joint qualification value, and address logistics challenges in contested environments. Commentary pieces examine the strategic direction of the Marine Corps, the future of noncombatant evacuation operations post-Afghanistan, and …

The Memory-Keeping Daughter: Exploring Object Stories And Family Legacies From America's Modern Wars, Susan R. Grayzel

History Faculty Publications

This essay demonstrates how wartime objects can have a special resonance in families as keepers of memory, and it especially explores the role of daughters of military participants in preserving the artifacts of their veteran fathers. Using several case studies from a recent public history project collecting objects and object stories in the American southwest, it argues that a focus on daughters as caretakers of family military history offers a new way to engage with descendants' histories by showing how the work of such women can contribute to our understanding of modern war and its legacies.

David: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly, Erica Lea-Simka

Consensus

No abstract provided.

The Formation Of A Dialect: An Examination Of The History, Characteristics, And Evolutions Of Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish, Lianna Perry Fountain

Dissertations and Theses

Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish (L.A.V.S) or Español Vernacular de Los Àngeles is a non-standard regional dialect of Spanish rooted in the history and culture of Los Angeles Country, California. It is a sub-dialect of Chicano Spanish which has mainly existed in the Southwestern U.S for centuries. It relates to other varieties of U.S Spanish that have been influenced by macro-dialects other than Mexican Spanish. Like other forms of U.S Spanish, L.A.V.S has long been considered an imperfect manner of speaking or poorly formed Spanish instead of a dialect due to language contact with English. However, new dialects and languages are …

Exploitation Of Child Domestic Workers In Ngenger Culture Of Javanese Society In Indonesia, Tri Joko Sri Haryono, Sri Endah Kinasih, Siti Mas’Udah

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study explains a Javanese cultural practice called ngenger—when girls volunteer to be domestic servants in exchange for educational benefits—as a form of exploitation of labor. The purpose of this study is to understand this Javanese tradition from the perspective of Gender Anthropology. This research is a descriptive study using a qualitative method. The location of the study was in Surabaya and the city of Malang, East Java, and was conducted by collecting data in the form of observations and in-depth interviews. The informants for this study were girls who are domestic workers, parents of the child domestic workers, and …

A Position Of Strength: The Reagan Military Buildup And The Conventional Forces, Kevin D. Smith

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Ronald Reagan's military program, commonly known as the buildup, was one of the most high-profile and enduring aspects of his presidency. Often characterized as “the largest peacetime buildup in U.S. history,” the program remains ill-defined in the extant historiography except concerning the strategic nuclear forces and total cost. This study provides a more in-depth examination of the greater fiscal beneficiary, the non-nuclear conventional forces. Fundamental questions are addressed on the rationale, necessity and destination of expenditures in the primary budget areas of Procurement, Research, Personnel, and Operations. Funding is analyzed in terms of linkage to the administration and the armed …

A Phenomenological Study Of Church Revitalization In Coastal North Carolina, Paolo Engle Santos

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Pastors and ministry leaders share the important responsibilities of church growth and revitalization. This research focused on overcoming decline and moving towards a season of strength and multiplication. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore church growth and revitalization within Southern Baptist churches in coastal North Carolina. The theory guiding this study was Rainer's (2020) central thesis about revived churches, which suggests that churches must adapt to cultural shifts and actively engage with the changing world. The study sought to gain insights into the perspectives and mindsets of full-time pastors and ministry leaders regarding numerical expansion, spiritual awakening, …

Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson Jr.: Central Pacific Theater Army Commander For Admiral Chester W. Nimitz 1943–45, James D. Scudieri

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

This monograph analyzes Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson Jr.’s service as de facto theater Army commander to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz from August 1943 to June 1945. It focuses on the theater-strategic level when Richardson led US Army Forces in Central Pacific Area and US Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas. This study highlights the context of Richardson’s operating environment beginning with prewar plans, the realities of early wartime defeats, and the state of joint operating procedures. It assesses Richardson’s accomplishments in exercising Landpower in the Pacific, across the entire range of today’s Army war-fighting and Joint functions and discusses the …

Vol. 13 No. 4, Glen Goodknight

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Vol. 6 No. 1, Glen Goodknight

Mythprint

Mythprint is the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local and written discussion groups.

Why We Need A Long View Of Abolition To End The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Karen Sotiropoulos

History Faculty Publications

Drawing on experiential, literary and historical narratives, this article connects the long history shaping the school-to-prison-pipeline to the contemporary experiences of Black youth in today’s educational system. It maps abolitionism from its origins as a movement to end slavery through the ongoing Black freedom struggles that have challenged state and vigilante violence throughout the eras of Jim Crow and Civil Rights to today’s efforts to dismantle the prison state. By situating the criminalization of African American education from our nation’s founding until the present with particular focus on the post Brown years, the article stresses how policies that funded policing …

Approaches And Tools Of Peace And Conflict Management Between Two Perspectives, Yasmine Z. Radwan

Future Journal of Social Science

This study aims at pointing out the tools of peace and the approaches to conflict management and resolution presented in the Islamic and Western perspectives. It also searches for clarifying the convergent and divergent zones that could help in finding, analyzing and criticizing the basic concepts on which arguments and debates are constructed. This study concluded that the differences between the Islamic and the Western perspective are a human requirement for acquainting and integrating based on a crucial notion, which is identity. Identity is treated in details in many discourses and occupies a large place in the Western literature on …

Communal Lament In Jeremiah, Phoebe C. Chetsas

Theology Graduate Theses

No abstract provided.

2024 O'Callahan Society Newsletter, O'Callahan Society, College Of The Holy Cross

O'Callahan Society Newsletters

This annual newsletter of the O'Callahan Society includes articles about the 2023 Annual Dinner. Admiral James G. Stavridis, United States Navy (Retired) was guest speaker. President of the College of the Holy Cross, Vincent D. Rougeau, made introductory remarks. VADM Peter Daly, US Navy (Ret) was 2024 Annual Meeting Speaker.

Breaking Silence: The Historiography Of The Bear River Massacre, Logan C. Romney

GLI MA in American History Student Works

This paper explores the historiography of the Bear River Massacre, analyzing its progression from historical silence and mischaracterization to recognition and nuanced interpretation. By addressing biases, evolving narratives, and modern efforts to commemorate the tragedy, this paper underscores the importance of preserving this complex and overlooked chapter of American history.

Representations Of Violence Against Native American Women, Christine York

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

It is the aim of this study to provide detailed attention to the representation of violence against Native American women throughout American films and literature. Native American women have been persecuted against since the times of colonization; however, there has been a recent uptake in this crime. This crime has been seen throughout many forms of art, but has not often been a focal point to these artforms. In order to argue that the violence these women experience needs to be central to the texts they are seen in, a comparison between three different texts is imperative. These texts are …

“Systems Are Changeable”: Reading Moments Through Movements Available, Lei X. Ouyang

Music Faculty Works

This article considers how recent moments of racism and violence in the United States, ethnomusicology, and the Society for Ethnomusicology are linked to larger movements. I examine the work of Asian American and Asian Canadian artists and activists to engage with conversations about violence, racialization, and solidarity. I bring these conversations in concert with recent discussions of racism in music studies to connect moments to movements and examine models for change through processes of decolonization. I call upon readers to embrace discomfort, listening, and reflection to engage with work that is relational and intergenerational and that demonstrates hope, care, and …

“Finally Somebody Wants To Hear Us”: Soviet Women And Political Violence In Svetlana Alexievich’S Narratives, Liubov Kartashova

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the emotional and social impact of significant Soviet historical events, including World War II, the Soviet-Afghan War, and the Chornobyl disaster, on collective memory. Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate, employs a polyphonic narrative technique to challenge official histories of these events and foreground the voices of ordinary people, particularly women. Focusing on her works – The Unwomanly Face of War, Zinky Boys, and Chernobyl Prayer – the study delves into the gendered experiences and narratives of women involved in these events. Integrating feminist scholarship on international relations and security, this research analyzes women’s roles in …