Digital Commons Network^™

Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles And Policy, 2nd Ed., Todd W. Pennington, Emmy Kanarowski

Joint Force Quarterly

The second edition of Space Warfare by John J. Klein offers a timely and comprehensive update to a foundational text in spacepower strategy. Reviewed by Pennington and Kanarowski, this expanded volume deepens Klein’s signature analogies between maritime and space domains while addressing the significant geopolitical, doctrinal, and legal changes that have reshaped military space operations since the book’s original release in 2006. Notable additions include new chapters on space-based offensive and defensive platforms, “Guardian Angels” and “Celestial Demons,” and a thought-provoking call for a future Space National Guard. While some proposals are forward-looking, Klein’s work remains grounded in strategic theory, …

Human, Machine, War: How The Mind-Tech Nexus Will Win Future Wars, Frank Hoffman

Joint Force Quarterly

In his review of Human, Machine, War, Frank Hoffman explores a timely and thought-provoking anthology that examines how the fusion of human cognition and advanced technologies will define success in future warfare. Edited by Nicholas Wright, Michael Miklaucic, and Todd Veazie, the book argues that winning tomorrow’s conflicts hinges not just on technological superiority, but on mastering the interplay between human factors and emerging capabilities like AI, neuroscience, and cognitive enhancement. Featuring insights from leading defense thinkers, including retired Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan and defense neuroscientist James Giordano, the volume delves into the ethical, operational, and strategic dimensions of …

The Long Pivot: The Development Of The Joint Warfighting Concept, Wilson C. Blythe Jr.

Joint Force Quarterly

In the wake of America’s long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military faced an urgent need to pivot from counterinsurgency back to conventional warfighting, especially against peer competitors like China and Russia. This article traces the decade-long struggle to realign Department of Defense priorities, culminating in the development of the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC). Early efforts, such as the Third Offset Strategy, highlighted technological innovation but lacked a unifying vision for how to fight future wars. The Services led their own modernization efforts, while analytical tools like Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA) fell short in shaping a cohesive …

A Conditions-Based Look At A Cyber Force, Shiraz Khan

Joint Force Quarterly

As threats in cyberspace continue to grow, U.S. policymakers are debating whether it's time to create a dedicated Cyber Force. In this Joint Force Quarterly article, Shiraz Khan uses a conditions-based framework, drawing from historical precedents like the formation of the Air Force and Space Force to assess whether the time is right for an independent military cyber service. Applying Dyck and Starke’s model for organizational breakaways, Khan explores the political, operational, and strategic conditions that led past capabilities to evolve into standalone services. Today, cyberspace shows similar signals: rising strategic importance, competing visions across Services, high-profile advocates, and institutional …

Revive: Getting Medical Supplies And Expertise Right In Distributed Maritime Operations, Seth Reini, Jonathan J. Haase

Joint Force Quarterly

As the U.S. Navy prepares for possible large-scale conflict in the Indo-Pacific, ensuring wounded warfighters get the care they need and fast, has become more urgent than ever. In this Joint Force Quarterly article, “Revive” is introduced as a vital addition to the Navy’s contested logistics model. Beyond resupply, rearm, refuel, and repair, “revive” focuses on getting medical supplies to ships and moving injured personnel safely out of harm’s way, even across vast, dangerous seas. The article draws powerful lessons from both recent and historic conflicts, showing that survival and morale depend on agile, ready-to-move medical systems. It makes the …

T-Birrd: Transforming The Future Of Military And Humanitarian Logistics, Jacob R. Bright

Joint Force Quarterly

This article explores the transformative potential of Terrestrial-Based Inserted Rocket Resource Delivery (T-BIRRD) as a cutting-edge logistics solution for both U.S. military operations and humanitarian aid efforts. Leveraging commercial space launch capabilities, T-BIRRD offers unprecedented speed and reach for resource delivery in contested or remote environments. The discussion addresses key legal and policy considerations, including compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), the Law of War (LoW), and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). It also examines the strategic risks of launch misinterpretation, cyber vulnerabilities, and integration challenges within global airspace governance frameworks. The article calls for a comprehensive …

Building Strategic Lethality: Special Operations Models For Joint Force Learning And Leader Development, Spencer B. Meredith Iii

Joint Force Quarterly

This article examines how U.S. Joint Special Operations Forces (SOF), particularly through SAG-U and CJSOTF-10, have rapidly adapted to support Ukraine amid Russia’s full-scale invasion, offering a model for future joint force innovation. SAG-U emerged as a key logistics and coordination hub, integrating NATO and interagency partners to manage complex, high-stakes supply chains. Meanwhile, CJSOTF-10 and its subordinate SOTF-10.1 shifted from traditional training and advising roles to rapid tactical adaptation, virtual assistance, and technological integration to meet evolving battlefield demands. The creation of the Remote Advise and Assist Cell (RAAC) illustrates how remote support and real-time data can bridge operational …

From High Seas To Highlands: Framing U.S. Defense Strategy With Southeast Asia’S Geography, Caitlin P. Irby

Joint Force Quarterly

This article analyzes the strategic importance of Southeast Asia to U.S. foreign policy amid rising competition with China, emphasizing the region's complex geography, diverse political systems, and centrality to global economic growth. It identifies the South China Sea and Strait of Malacca as key flash points where conflict with China could arise and outlines the U.S. military’s need to deter conflict while preparing to win one if necessary. To do so, the United States must build resilient, dispersed basing networks; enhance its ability to maneuver across challenging terrain and maritime environments; and develop robust situational awareness through improved sensors and …

Rightsizing The Pla Air Force: Revisiting An Analytic Framework, Lauren Edson, Phillip C. Saunders

Joint Force Quarterly

This article evaluates the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) from 2007 to 2025 using the Saunders-Quam framework, which identifies four core trade-offs: changes in roles and missions, domestic versus foreign procurement, high-tech versus low-tech systems, and combat versus support aircraft. While the framework remains a useful analytical tool, it underestimated the Chinese Communist Party’s willingness to fund expensive modernization efforts and the rapid advancements in China’s defense industrial base. The article identifies key factors missing from the original framework such as doctrinal shifts, increased emphasis on counterintervention, maritime expansion, and the rise of unmanned systems. It …

Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 118, 3rd Quarter 2025, National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly

This issue of Joint Force Quarterly addresses key strategic, operational, and doctrinal questions shaping the future of the joint force. Articles examine mobilization as a strategic imperative, PLA Air Force modernization, Southeast Asia’s geographic role in U.S. defense strategy, and leader development for strategic lethality. Contributions also explore AI’s role in detecting deepfakes, the civil-military relationship, and innovations in military logistics and cyber force design. A retrospective on the Joint Warfighting Concept and critical reviews of recent defense literature provide context and continuity. Collectively, these pieces offer insight into how the joint force must evolve to meet emerging challenges.

Manual For Independence: How Democratic-Republicans Used The Memory Of The Revolution To Start The War Of 1812, Chloe Pellegrin

LSU Master's Theses

In its earliest form, the memory of the American Revolution was far from pure, riddled with partisan jabs and purposeful currents of present events. This, however, has received little attention even with the rise of memory studies within professional history. Scholars have addressed the popular memory of a variety of other pivotal moments from the Civil War to both World Wars. Revolutionary memory has been studied within the contexts of later eras, but almost never in the era immediately following the end of the war. Other scholars such as Alfred Young, Margot Minardy, and Michael McDonnell have all done work …

Six Steps To A Successful Study Abroad Program: Case Study In Stockholm, Sweden, Bryan R. Burton

csuglobalaction

This article is meant to serve as a guide for developing a short-term (typically 2 to 3 weeks long) faculty-led study abroad program. I will focus solely on my work in Stockholm, Sweden during summer 2023. This article will be particularly helpful to faculty members who are new to developing their own study abroad programs. I have six suggested steps for developing a successful faculty-led program. These six steps include:

1. thinking about what you want for students and your own career;

2. building on-campus partnerships;

3. Recruiting and supporting students as early as possible;

4. making the program itinerary interactive and rewarding for …

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Tumult, Terror, And Tripping: The Roles Of Psychedelics And Radical Politics In The Counterculture, Daniel J. Melbert

The Purdue Historian

From the immense political upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war protests to the advent of the hippie counterculture and its psychedelic aesthetic, the 1960s is commonly conceptualized as a significantly transformative period in American history, socially, culturally, and politically. While this is certainly an accurate observation, the political and cultural shifts that occurred within this period are typically approached as separate, if not disparate, segments within the development of the period. The counterculture is often approached solely within the confines of its art, aesthetics, bohemian lifestyle, and perhaps most ubiquitously, the use of psychedelic drugs. As a result, …

Fire In The Hole: Appalachia’S Elemental Narrative In Harlan County, Usa And King Coal, Somak Mukherjee

Critical Humanities

In Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s documentary King Coal (2023) coal is being referred to as a matter that is “not dirty or clean, but elemental.” The acclaimed film centers on the complex histories and cultures of coal in Central Appalachia, based on the perspective of Sheldon, a coal miner’s daughter, and a West Virginia native. The elemental nature of coal is explored in the film by situating coal less as a resource and more as a mythic foundation for the community's cultural history. This article puts King Coal in conversation with Barbara Kopple's seminal Harlan County, USA (1976) which narrates the …

The Human Catalyst And Extractivist Fiction: A Close Reading Of Siddhartha Sarma’S Year Of The Weeds And Pundalik N Naik’S The Upheaval, Elwin Susan John Dr

Critical Humanities

Literary narratives have been abetting the various global faces of climate crisis, ever since the disciplines of humanities and social sciences have become vocal about the Anthropocene. The discussions have been mostly centered around the discourses of capitalism, imperialism, rights and subalterity. By reading some of these foundational grips on ecological crisis, the present essay analyses literary narratives on mining and extraction in India from the standpoint of a human catalyst; which is defined as an entity that can cause a chain reaction, that may or may not result in the annihilation of the initial catalyst. The essay will begin …

“A Time Of Fire And Cataclysm”: The Centrality Of Cosmic War In Tolkien’S Round World Cosmologies, Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

In the etiological mythology of Middle-earth, heavenly battles routinely invoke astronomical events, signs of Melkor’s marring of the world or mighty weapons in his arsenal of destruction. In this conference paper I specifically focus on battles involving the Sun and Moon, especially in Tolkien's later "Round Earth" cosmologies, where the Sun Maiden is "ravished" by Melkor.

Stepping Up, Keeping On Track, And Pulling Your Own Weight: Collaborative Arts-Based Service-Learning Metaphors, Marcy Meyer

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In this study, the author explores metaphors related to students’ experiences conducting collaborative arts-based ethnographic research in a U.S. nonprofit organization. A metaphor analysis of 25 students’ essays revealed they were most likely to frame their experiences with arts-based service learning as a journey or a sports contest. The author examines the extent to which students’ metaphors legitimize or delegitimize arts-based service learning, as well as the degree of novelty that characterizes these metaphors. She explores the implications of her findings for teaching and promoting arts-based service learning in the academy.

Steve Jobs And Disclaimed Paternity, Stewart Justman

Global Humanities and Religions Faculty Publications

Steve Jobs, the revered techno-visionary and co-founder of Apple, once said that at the age of 22, “I knew I wasn’t ready to run a real company. But Apple was my baby, and I didn’t want to give it up.” The actual baby born when he was 23 was another matter.

2025 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 2024 O'Callahan Society Fall Dinner. Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Schmiegel, United States Marine Corps (Retired) and Holy Cross Class of 1989 was the guest speaker. VADM Nancy S. Lacore, HC ‘90 was 2025 Annual Meeting Speaker. Unit News. Alumni News. Society News.

Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos: Hip-Hop And The Carceral State In The East San Francisco Bay Area, William Maclane Hull

Theses and Dissertations

“Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos: Hip-Hop and the Carceral State in the East San Francisco Bay Area” explores the histories of urban redevelopment and deindustrialization, racialized poverty, police and the carceral system, and hip-hop culture in Oakland and other parts of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area. It explores East Bay politics and urban development in the 1900s, which resulted in the flight of industries and wealthy white residents to the suburbs and the erosion of public services. Black community organizations and funk music alike articulated the damages done by these processes in the 1960s. Subsequently, politicians and …

United States Governmental Assessments Of The Rise Of Communism In And Around The Republic Of South Africa, Stuart Ledbetter

Voces Novae

No abstract provided.

From Pagan Chieftains To Christian Kings: Shaping Medieval Nordic Political Culture, Carissa Chinnery

Voces Novae

No abstract provided.

Pagtatalaban Ng Butò At PúKi Sa Mga Salaysaying Bayan: Isang Kabanwahang Pagsisiyasat Sa Kamalayang Katutubo Ukol Sa Kasarian At Seksuwalidad, Axle Christien Tugano

Malay Journal

Habang pinagkaabalahan sa mga nakaraang dekada ng teoretisasyon at pagdidiskurso sa kaisipan (pysche), pagkatao, pilosopiya, at iba pang sosyo-kultural-siyentipikong pag-aaral ng pagka-Pilipino at pagkataong Pilipino, hindi pa gaanong napalalawig ang antas ng somatikong lipunan o pag-aaral sa “katawang tao” o “katawan ng tao” bilang lunsaran ng politikal at kultural na pagsipat. Bagaman, isa sa dakilang ambag ni Prospero Covar ang eskema ng “pagkataong Pilipino” lakip ang selektibong pagpapalawig sa ilang bahagi ng katawang Pilipino, may iba pang bahagi ng katawan ang kailangan pang mapag-aralan. Tinutuklas ng pag-aaral na ito ang panimulang pagpapakahulugan sa butò at púki na lagpas sa kinasanayang …

Faith On The Frontlines: Exploring The Religiosity Of Ukrainian Soldiers During War, Alexander Karlsson

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Wartime religiosity among Ukrainian Christian soldiers reveals a spectrum of spiritual responses shaped by personal experience, cultural identity, and institutional dynamics. Interview-based evidence indicates that war influences religious engagement in diverse and often contradictory ways. For many, religiosity intensifies during moments of danger, functioning more as a coping mechanism than a transformation of belief. Institutional realignment may also reflect broader socio-political changes, as soldiers gravitate toward religious communities that resonate with their evolving values. For some, the adoption of Norse mythology illustrates the fluidity and adaptability of religious identity in wartime. Simultaneously, confrontations with theodicy may give rise to both …

Religious Faith In The Context Of The Russian-Ukrainian War: Challenges And Risks, Olena Predko, Mykola Ptytsia

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines the role of religious faith in the context of the russian-Ukrainian war, its impact on society, and the challenges and risks faced by religious communities and believers. The study analyzes how the war brings the issue of religious faith-seeking to the forefront, its semantic nuances, and how it transforms religious identity and the level of religiosity among the population. Special attention is given to the use of religious faith in hybrid warfare, the issue of spiritual support for both military personnel and civilians, as well as the risks associated with the politicization of religious life. The article …

Hybrid War: The Influence Of The Russian Orthodox Church On The Ukrainian Media, Oksana Lytvynchuk, Andrii Shevchuk, Zoriana Hrytsyshena

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as a key instrument of hybrid warfare against Ukraine. It analyzes the ROC's primary strategies for influencing Ukraine's information space, particularly through religious rhetoric manipulation and the exploitation of ecclesiastical structures to disseminate pro-Kremlin narratives. The study identifies key mechanisms of the ROC's media influence, including direct control over religious media outlets, active participation of clergy in promoting Russian propaganda narratives, financial backing of pro-Russian media projects, and systematic disinformation campaigns about Ukraine's religious landscape.

Key findings demonstrate the destructive consequences of this hybrid warfare: exacerbation of interfaith tensions leading to societal …

The Bhagavad Gita And The Attitude Of Contemporary Ukrainian Krishna Devotees Towards The Issue Of War And Peace, Vitalii Matvieiev, Olga Dobrodum, Mykola Palinchak, Olena Hudzenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article deals with the main philosophical and ethical provisions of the Bhagavad-Gita, a sacred text, which is a part of the Indian epic Mahabharata. A special place is given to the issues related to life, death, fulfillment of duty, i.e., following one’s dharma, which should result in spiritual perfection and liberation from samsara (the cycle of death and birth). The central element of the Bhagavad-Gita is the discussion of the problems of war and peace, presented through the dialog between Prince Arjuna and the god Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The authors of the article …

The Paradoxical Effect: How Destruction Of Religious Buildings In Ukraine Undermined Russian Propaganda Narratives (2022-2024), Oleksandr Kostiuk, Fedir Vlasenko, Vitalii Turenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This research examines the paradoxical relationship between the destruction of religious buildings in Ukraine during the Russian invasion and the effectiveness of Russian propaganda narratives. Using a mixed-methods approach combining statistical data, sociological surveys, and document analysis, we investigate how the systematic targeting of Ukrainian religious sites by Russian forces has produced effects contrary to those likely intended. The research reveals that instead of undermining Ukrainian national identity, the destruction of churches and other religious buildings has catalyzed profound transformations in Ukraine's religious landscape, accelerated the transition of parishes from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) to the Orthodox Church …

Representing Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Form, And Ideology (2024), By Robert T. Tally, Jr., Andrew Higgins

Journal of Tolkien Research

Nook review, by Andrew Higgins, of Representing Middle-earth: Tolkien, Form, and Ideology (2024), by Robert T. Tally, Jr.

Where The Soul Belongs: The Search For A Meaningful Life Through Han Funerary Art — With A Focus On The Mawangdui T-Shaped Painting And Jinqueshan Han Tomb Silk Painting, Tong Su

Theses - ALL

Perceptions of life and death are deeply embedded in the artistic expressions of a society, shaped by its cultural, philosophical and social environment. This study explores how funerary paintings from the early Han dynasty - the Mawangdui T-shaped painting and the Jinqueshan Han tomb silk painting - reflect evolving views of life and the afterlife under changing social conditions. While both paintings derive from the funerary traditions of Chu culture and Daoist beliefs in immortality, their differences highlight a significant shift: the Mawangdui T-Shaped Painting emphasizes ascent to the heavenly world through nature worship and ancestral connections, while the Jinqueshan …