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The Digital Battlefield: Extremists On Social Media, Daniel P. Shanks

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The rise of social media has transformed the battleground for extremist groups like ISIS and the Taliban, enabling them to reach global audiences with unprecedented ease. This dissertation investigates the social media strategies employed by the Taliban and ISIS. These social media strategies are used to further their strategic objectives in propaganda, recruitment, and operational coordination. Through a comprehensive analysis, the study explores how these extremist groups adapt their digital tactics in response to evolving military and political landscapes. Utilizing case studies from key military engagements and applying theoretical frameworks of rational actor theory, social identity theory, and finite and …

Book Review: The Melting Point: High Command And War In The 21st Century, Thomas W. Spahr

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Reviewed by Dr. Thomas W. Spahr, De Serio Chair of Strategic Intelligence and associate professor, US Army War College

Dr. Thomas Spahr presents a compelling review of General Kenneth McKenzie’s The Melting Point, providing an overview of the book’s three main points and its unique scope compared to other generals’ memoirs. Spahr praises McKenzie’s writing on Afghanistan, in particular, calling it “the best [description] I have read of the strategic events that led to that dramatic end.” Spahr presents a compelling case for why the book “should be required reading at senior levels of professional military education.”

Book Review: The New Makers Of Modern Strategy: From The Ancient World To The Digital Age, John C. Erickson, John A. Nagl

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Editor: Hal Brands

Reviewed by John C. Erickson, senior engineer, Axiom Technologies, and John A. Nagl, professor of war-fighting studies, US Army War College

John Erickson and John Nagl provide a useful overview of the latest (third) edition of Princeton University Press’s anthologies on modern strategy, directing readers to the most salient chapters of the book and giving insight into why “this third edition is the most interesting yet” and “are of immeasurable importance for students, practitioners, and scholars alike.” Erickson and Nagl write that “[the] essays provide excellent starting points for research on almost any topic relevant to practitioners, …

Review Essay: Exploring Strategy In India, Vinay Kaura

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Authors: Rajesh Basrur and Feroz Hassan Khan

Reviewed by Dr. Vinay Kaura, assistant professor, Department of International Affairs and Security Studies, and deputy director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Rajasthan, India

Dr. Vinay Kaura reviews two similarly named books that Kaura writes will be “an indispensable reference for South Asian security for years to come.” He praises Rajesh Basrur’s Subcontinental Drift for “incorporating domestic factors to explain Indian’s foreign policy” and provides a helpful overview of Basrur’s three case studies and “policy drift.” Kaura also overviews Feroz Hassan Khan’s book, …

Bargaining For Justice: Ukraine, Gaza, And The Ethics Of Conflict Termination, C. Anthony Pfaff

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

©2024 C. Anthony Pfaff

As wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue with little end in sight, the sense of urgency to determine how they should end is increasing, given how the wars could end. A just war aims to establish a better state of peace, but a better state of peace may not always be achievable, and even when it is achievable, it may not be good enough. When that is the case, actors must determine on what terms to settle, given what they think they can achieve based on relative capabilities and cost tolerances. The resulting “maximin” solution, a …

The Role Of America’S European Allies In The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022–24, John R. Deni, Lisa A. Aronsson

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

©2024 John R. Deni

What more can US allies in Europe do to assist Ukraine militarily? More broadly, what can the United States expect from its closest allies in Europe in strategic competition with Russia and China? In this monograph, John R. Deni and Lisa A. Aronsson assess whether US allies and partners in Europe can continue providing military assistance to Ukraine or expand assistance, while preserving their own national security and fulfilling their NATO commitments. They also explore what the Russia-Ukraine War reveals about the role of European allies in future iterations of strategic competition. Their findings indicate European …

Analisis Potensi Ancaman Siber Pada Bidang Ekonomi Di Indonesia, Isro' Kurniawan Rahakbauw

Jurnal Kajian Stratejik Ketahanan Nasional

This article discusses the analysis of potential cyber warfare threats in the economic sector in Indonesia. The increasing dependence on information technology and widespread connectivity opens wide doors for potential cyber attacks on the country's economic sector. Through an analytical approach, this article explores various potential cyber threats that Indonesia may face, involving attacks on financial infrastructure, electronic commerce, as well as business data and information. In this context, the article also evaluates the readiness and effectiveness of cybersecurity measures implemented by the government and the private sector. Findings from this analysis provide valuable insights to identify and address potential …

Toward Adaptive And Modular Joint Multi-Domain Operational Planning, Kyle S. Wilkinson

Theses and Dissertations

This research develops a multiparametric optimization framework for modeling joint multi-domain operational planning under uncertainty. We address the application of our framework to model the doctrine of adaptive planning. We apply set-based design, which is a program management practice of maintaining maximal design options through time as a response to epistemic uncertainty. We couple this with a multiparametric optimization method yielding both sets of solutions and sensitivity profiles. We use the sensitivity profiles to quantify risk associated with changes during adaptive planning. This research also models features of military operational planning via the mathematics of category theory. We formalize intuitive …

Parameters Autumn 2024, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Welcome to the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. The Autumn issue consists of a special piece from the US Army War College Commandant and Provost on their strategic vision for the college, three In Focus special commentaries, three forums (Cooperative Partnerships, Professional Development, and Historical Studies), two regular forums (A Major’s Perspective and the Civil-Military Relations Corner), and a review essay focused on strategy in India.

Eisenhower As Supreme Allied Commander: A Reappraisal, Richard D. Hooker Jr.

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article argues that the historical assessment of Dwight D. Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II lacks objectivity and balance. It identifies several strategic errors and missteps attributable to Eisenhower, which resulted in severe casualties and prolonged the war in Europe. The conclusions can help US military practitioners and policymakers assess the background and qualities required for successful theater command during wartime and senior commanders’ performances.

From The Acting Editor In Chief, C. Anthony Pfaff

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Welcome to the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. The Autumn issue consists of a special piece from the US Army War College Commandant and Provost on their strategic vision for the college, three In Focus special commentaries, three forums (Cooperative Partnerships, Professional Development, and Historical Studies), two regular forums (A Major’s Perspective and the Civil-Military Relations Corner), and a review essay focused on strategy in India.

Exploring Strategy In India, Vinay Kaura

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This review essay discusses Rajesh Basrur's Subcontinental Drift: Domestic Politics and India’s Foreign Policy and Feroz Hassan Khan's Subcontinent Adrift: Strategic Futures of South Asia and explores Indian strategy, especially concerning domestic issues and the relationship between Pakistan and India. The review concludes by noting that the two books agree on the oversized role of the Pakistani military in India’s national politics, where most security and foreign policy decisions are directed toward Pakistan.

Book Reviews, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Military, Political, Cultural, And Societal Implications Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran’S Passive Defense Strategy, Aaron R. Pilkington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Why did the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) adopt a passive defense strategy? This dissertation is the first to trace the institutional development of the IRI’s passive defense strategy and its two Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-led executive bodies: the Permanent Committee for Passive Defense (PCPD) and the National Passive Defense Organization (NPDO). Passive defense can be defined simply as defense without weapons, which includes all precautionary actions other than using weapons to minimize the effects of enemy hostile operations that increase deterrence, reduce vulnerability, sustain essential activities, promote national stability, and facilitate crisis management in the face of enemy …

Satellites In The Russia-Ukraine War, Ron Gurantz

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

Satellites and counterspace systems have shown themselves to be important parts of modern warfare in the Russia-Ukraine War but have also been subject to various restrictions to prevent escalation. This monograph examines the role of satellites and counterspace systems in the Russia-Ukraine War’s high-technology warfare and the effects of satellite proliferation and commercialization on the conduct of the war. It also analyzes the restrictions under which space-based capabilities have been operating and the implications of these limits for future conflicts—a subject that has received little attention. Relying on an exhaustive study of open-source material and the application of limited-war theory …

Strategic Governance To “Silence The Guns” In Africa: Urban Sub-Saharan African Perceptions On War's Root Causes., Peter Tresor Miyalou, Chun Yan Hu

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

Despite the African Union’s campaign to silence the guns in Africa by 2020 (STGIA 2020), many African countries are suffering from wars and political instability, the primary causes of underdevelopment in Africa. This paper examines the roots causes of wars in Africa and provide a strategic governance to silence the guns beyond 2020. To accomplish this, we gathered data from 169 questionnaire responses administered across 25 African countries, to capture African people’s perceptions on the root causes of wars and whether employing strategic governance would help silence the guns in these countries. The results showed that political power struggle (47.9%), …

Fantastic Trolls And Where To Find Them: Problem Framing In The Defense Against The Informational Dark Arts, Jayson M. Warren

All Dissertations

In the wake of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the notion of state-sponsored trolls engaging in information operations on social media has captured the attention of society. Yet eight years after this policymaking focusing event, sustainable solutions prove elusive and there is still much that is not known about the underlying phenomenon. This dissertation is part explanatory and part exploratory in its attempts to answer the overarching research question: What is the Relationship Between How the Problem of State-Sponsored Trolls on Social Media is Framed & the Way U.S. Federal Policy Attempts to Solve It? Using …

Cyber Threats, Cyber Risks, And Cybersecurity Responses: Modeling Whole-Of-Nation Strategy Implementation For American Organizations And Citizens, Vincent Leon Guerrero

All Dissertations

Amid a landscape of cyber attacks on America occurring below the threshold of armed conflict, strategic national policy efforts recommend a whole-of-nation approach where individuals and public and private organizations increase their defensive posture in cyberspace. Motivation to address the risk of a cyber event includes a continuum of cyber threats that can range from low-level disruptive events to cybercrime and cyber espionage to the possibility of a potentially catastrophic attack on critical infrastructure. In this dissertation, I conduct a survey experiment of various cyber threat conditions and cyber policies to model cybersecurity responses, risk perceptions to a possible cyber …

Integrate To Win From Competition Through Conflict: Create A Joint Force Information Warfare Component Commander, Tam N. Pham, Walter A. Berbrick

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhroughout the history of warfare, militaries have sought advantages by conducting information warfare (IW) to affect the perception and behavior of adversaries. Advances in IW capabilities are increasing the reach, speed, and effectiveness by which individuals, organizations, and systems can collect, process, disseminate, or act on information—and deny adversaries the same. The United States is not the only power to recognize the importance of IW in achieving national objectives. Russia and China have made great strides in improving and employing their IW capabilities to offset U.S. joint (and allied combined) forces in competition and conflict. Russia’s and China’s ability to …

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.