Digital Commons Network^™

Joint Force Quarterly 37 (2nd Quarter, April 2005), National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly ARCHIVES

No abstract provided.

Pre-Conflict Management Tools: Winning The Peace, Aaron B. Frank

Defense and Technology Papers

This paper addresses the Pre-Conflict Management Tools (PCMT) Program which was developed to transform how intelligence, policy, and operational decisionmakers interact when confronting highly complex strategic problems. The first half of this paper provides readers a context for why the PCMT program is important for incorportating social science models into the RCC and interagency planning processes. The second half provides an overview of the structure, methods, and technologies of PCMT.

Combating Wmd: Challenges For The Next 10 Years, Center For The Study Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Books and Book Chapters

One need only glance at newspaper headlines each morning to appreciate that the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat environment is dynamic. President George W. Bush has identified WMD in the hands of rogue states and terrorists as the greatest security threat to the United States. The pace of WMD events in recent years has been truly remarkable. Taking stock of what has occurred since the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction was issued nearly 2 years ago, it is clear that combating WMD is a difficult but far from hopeless task. Important progress has been made, though …

Joint Force Quarterly 36 (1st Quarter, January 2005), National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly ARCHIVES

No abstract provided.

Battle-Wise: Gaining Advantage In Networked Warfare, David C. Gompert, Irving Lachow, Justin Perkins

Defense and Technology Papers

This paper summarizes a forthcoming National Defense University book suggesting why and how the U.S. and allied forces should improve the cognitive faculties of military decisionmakers to attain new operational and strategic advantages or to avoid the loss of advantages they now enjoy.

Insurgency: Modern Warfare Evolves Into A Fourth Generation, T.X. Hammes

Strategic Forums

On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat in Iraq. While most Americans rejoiced at this announcement, students of history understood that it simply meant the easy part was over. In the following months, peace did not break out, and the troops did not come home. In fact, Iraqi insurgents have struck back hard. Instead of peace, each day Americans read about the death of another soldier, the detonation of deadly car bombs, the assassination of civilians, and Iraqi unrest.

Shedding Light On The Battlefield: Tactical Applications Of Photonic Technology, Joseph N. Mait, Michael W. Haney, Keith W. Goossen, Mark P. Christensen

Defense and Technology Papers

This paper addresses the growing availiability and dependence on tactical sensor technology on bandwidth for the battlfield and recommends the use of light, or photons, to transmit information. It highlights the advantages of photonics in three applications and discusses the economical and technological advantages for increasing the use of photonics for the U.S. government and military.

Joint Force Quarterly 35 (4th Quarter, October 2004), National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly ARCHIVES

No abstract provided.

Needed—A Nato Stabilization And Reconstruction Force, Hans Binnendijk, Richard L. Kugler

Defense Horizons

At the Istanbul Summit in June 2004 , NATO endorsed the further transformation of military capabilities to make them “more modern, more usable, and more deployable to carry out the full range of Alliance missions.” The Istanbul Communiqué especially called for continuing progress on the NATO Response Force and the Prague Capabilities Commitments.

To accomplish this, NATO needs a new initiative for its defense agenda: creation of better forces and capabilities for stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) operations outside Europe, including the greater Middle East. The real challenge is to reorganize, refocus, and rebalance current assets so that NATO can respond …

Defense Laboratories And Military Capability: Headed For A Bracdown?, Michael L. Marshall

Defense Horizons

For 150 years, military laboratories have made vital contributions to national defense. In recent years, they have been significantly reduced in number by several rounds of base realignment and closure (BRAC). Even so, they remain the primary source of internal technical competence within the Department of Defense (DOD). Their capability in that role will depend on how DOD answers two questions. Is there excess laboratory capacity—too many laboratories relative to forecasts of future force structure? What is their military value—their likely contribution to the future operational needs of warfighters.

As required by law, DOD has publicly announced the criteria it …

Alternative Approaches To Army Transformation, Joseph N. Mait, Richard L. Kugler

Defense Horizons

Army transformation is an attempt to provide future forces with enhanced capabilities in lethality, survivability, and mobility, both strategic and tactical. Alternatives to achieving these goals differ in emphasis on weight and reliance on technology. That is, transformation plans differ if the objective is weight reduction as opposed to weight redistribution. In one approach, platform weight is reduced to meet mobility goals. However, shedding weight has implications for platform survivability and lethality; previous attempts to design a single platform that is simultaneously lethal, mobile, and survivable have not done so satisfactorily. Thus, advances in materials are required to insure the …

Global Networks: Emerging Constraints On Strategy, Bob Fonow

Defense Horizons

If current trends in communications technologies and services persist, the United States will be hard pressed to keep a strategic advantage in network capability. The international telecommunications system is rebalancing into four major centers of influence and innovation. Within ten years, Europe, India, and China will have the same technological and innovative capabilities in telecommunications as the United States. This shift is problematic for U.S. national security, because the global telecommunications infrastructure is becoming an important strategic battlespace—the physical battlefield of information warfare. Understanding the dynamic of regional balancing is critical to shaping U.S. responses

Underscoring this dynamic is a …

Nato Technology: From Gap To Divergence?, Donald C. Daniel

Defense Horizons

A widening technology gap between the United States and other NATO members will challenge the ability of NATO to function as a cohesive, multinational force. Over several decades, great disparities in the funding of defense research and technology by NATO members has produced a widening technological gap that threatens to become a divergence—a condition from which the Alliance may not be able to recover. The technology gap, in turn, is creating a capabilities gap that undercuts the operational effectiveness of NATO forces, including the new NATO Response Force.

With only slight modifications (not additions) to current total defense expenditures, and …

Turbulent Transition In Iraq: Can It Succeed?, Judith S. Yaphe

Strategic Forums

This Strategic Forum policy brief analyzes Iraq’s fragile political transition following the June 2004 transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqi Interim Government. It assesses three interrelated challenges: the risk of civil war, the legitimacy of transitional governance, and the long-term development of political institutions. While sectarian and ethnic tensions among Sunni Arabs, Shi’a Arabs, and Kurds are pronounced, the brief argues that large-scale civil war is not inevitable. Instead, instability is more likely to stem from extremist movements, militia power, and disputes over federalism and control of territory, particularly Kirkuk. The author contends that the …

The Science And Engineering Workforce And National Security, Michael L. Marshall, Timothy Coffey, Fred E. Saalfeld, Rita R. Colwell

Defense Horizons

Trends in the American science and engineering (S&E) workforce and national research and development (R&D) funding patterns and priorities have troubling implications for the economic and national security of our nation. Especially worrisome are:

• A general lack of interest among American-born youth, especially women and minorities, in pursuing education in the physical sciences, mathematics, environmental sciences, and engineering at the undergraduate and graduate levels;
• A rapidly accelerating accumulation of intellectual capital, including an educated S&E workforce, in China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan;
• A long-term decline in the overall Federal investment in R&D as a percentage of gross domestic …

At The Crossroads: Counterproliferation And National Security Strategy, Center For Counterproliferation Research

Books and Book Chapters

The continued proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) represents the most serious threat to U.S. national security and an enormous challenge for the entire international community. In the hands of rogue states, failing states, or substate terrorist groups, these weapons threaten not only U.S. forces, friends, and allies abroad, but also the U.S. homeland. Rogue states armed with WMD threaten the security of regions that are vital to the United States and raise the costs and risks of U.S. military operations intended to protect those interests. Forming international coalitions to defend shared interests is also more difficult in the …

Transforming For Stabilization And Reconstruction Operations, Hans Binnendijk, Stuart E. Johnson

Books

Through superiority, recent military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were exceptionally quick and successful in defeating the enemy. However, the Armed Forces were not adequately prepared to respond to lawlessness, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and attacks on coalition forces from unconventional insurgents. It is imperative to transform how the U.S. military prepares for and executes stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) operations. It is necessary for S&R to be planned before the conflict and executed promptly following the conflict as part of the transformation.

This book examines the various elements of the stabilization and reconstruction capabilities needed by the U.S. military. It …

Securing Afghanistan: Entering A Make-Or-Break Phase?, Robert B. Oakley, T.X. Hammes

Strategic Forums

This paper assesses Afghanistan’s security and political trajectory in early 2004, arguing that the country had entered a decisive “make-or-break” phase in post-Taliban stabilization. The authors analyze the persistence of warlordism, Pashtun resentment, Taliban-led insurgency, narcotics trafficking, and cross-border dynamics involving Pakistan, Iran, India, and Central Asia. They examine the evolving coalition response, including the expansion of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Operation Enduring Freedom’s shift toward population-centered counterinsurgency, development of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and police forces, Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) initiatives, and the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) model. The brief argues that sustained U.S. leadership, …

Partnership For Peace: Charting A Course For A New Era, Jeffrey Simon

Strategic Forums

This Strategic Forum brief examines the future of NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PFP) following Alliance enlargement and shifting post-9/11 security priorities. With many former partners joining NATO, the program faces questions about its continued relevance. The brief argues that PFP remains essential for promoting defense reform, democratic civil-military relations, interoperability, and regional security cooperation among remaining partner states. It recommends restructuring the program to address distinct regional needs, strengthening subregional initiatives, enhancing counterterrorism cooperation, and improving resource allocation. A revitalized Partnership for Peace, better integrated with NATO’s strategic objectives, would support stability in Europe’s periphery and reinforce long-term Euro-Atlantic security.

Xviii Airborne Corps: Spearhead Of Military Transformation, Douglas A. Macgregor

Defense Horizons

War transforms armies. Combat accelerates transformation by moving it out of the realm of academic debate and endless speculation about the future to a pragmatic approach focused on fielding new capabilities within new combat formations as soon as possible. In war, transformation means conserving equipment and operational methods that are still relevant while incorporating new technologies, tactics, and organizations that enable victory. It is nearly impossible to replicate in peacetime training the true conditions of land warfare—ambiguity, uncertainty, and above all terror, killing, and exhaustion. For the Army, the best opportunity to transform involves parallel evolution, a method that moves …

Dual-Track Transformation For Nato, Hans Binnendijk, Richard L. Kugler

Defense Horizons

Recent strains between the United States and some European allies have raised concerns that NATO is becoming irrelevant or even headed toward extinction. A breakup of NATO would severely damage the United States and Europe as well as prospects for global peace. As an urgent priority, NATO must restore its unity and strengthen its capacity for common action in the Greater Middle East. But how can this goal be achieved in today’s climate?

The solution is for NATO to pursue a new dual-track strategy of military and political transformation that could be launched at the Istanbul Summit next spring. The …

Global Warming Could Have A Chilling Effect On The Military, Richard F. Pittenger, Robert B. Gagosian

Defense Horizons

Most debates and studies addressing potential climate change have focused on the buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. But this “slow ramp”1 climate change scenario ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has become much colder, warmer, wetter, or drier—in time spans as short as three to 10 years.

Earth’s climate system appears to have sensitive thresholds, the crossing of which shifts the system into different modes of operation and triggers rapid, non-linear, and not necessarily global changes. This new paradigm of abrupt climate change does not appear …

Technology, Transformation, And New Operational Concepts, Elihu Zimet, Robert E. Armstrong, Donald C. Daniel, Joseph N. Mait

Defense Horizons

Throughout history, technology has been central to warfare, often giving qualitative advantages to numerically inferior forces. Typically, the rate of technology development has been relatively slow and the introduction of new weapons systems even slower, which has allowed evolutionary development of operational concepts. Today’s accelerated pace of technology development no longer allows sequential development of operational concepts. In addition, the current global political environment has placed demands upon the military that range from engaging in major regional conflicts to stabilization, reconstruction and peacekeeping, all creating a continuous need for flexible, adaptive systems and new concepts of operation.

The first purpose …

Nato Decisionmaking: Au Revoir To The Consensus Rule?, Leo G. Michel

Strategic Forums

This Strategic Forum paper examines growing debates within NATO over the viability of the Alliance’s long-standing consensus rule for decisionmaking, particularly in light of enlargement and disagreements surrounding the Iraq War. The author analyzes how the consensus principle has shaped NATO’s political cohesion, operational planning, and crisis response, drawing on case studies including Kosovo, post–September 11 actions, and the February 2003 dispute over defensive planning for Turkey. While acknowledging frustrations with consensus procedures, the paper argues that the rule reflects NATO’s character as an alliance of sovereign states and remains central to its legitimacy and cohesion. It evaluates potential reforms—such …

Joint Force Quarterly 34 (3rd Quarter, July 2003), National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly ARCHIVES

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Mainland: Chinese Telecommunications Expansion, Robert C. Fonow

Defense Horizons

In most countries, expansion of the telecommunications network beyond national borders has followed diplomatic and business expansion. On this basis, an informed practitioner might be expecting the Chinese telecommunications system to spread beyond its borders sometime in the later part of this decade. However, Chinese authorities have been quick to act upon a series of unexpected opportunities for acquiring international telecom- munications assets. This article discusses the international secu- rity implications of Chinese telecommunications expansion.

Since the telecommunications collapse of 2001, Chinese buy- ers have purchased several large telecommunications networks in Asia previously owned by U.S. investors. Among these are: …

Building An Iraqi Defense Force, Joseph Mcmillan

Strategic Forums

This Strategic Forum paper analyzes the challenges of reconstructing Iraq’s armed forces following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The author argues that rebuilding Iraq’s military must prioritize constitutional civilian control, professional military education, ethnic and sectarian inclusivity, and a defensively oriented force posture over rapid modernization or adoption of U.S. military models. Drawing on Iraq’s history of politicized civil-military relations and internal repression, the paper emphasizes the need to reform officer selection, integrate or demobilize militias, and establish parliamentary oversight mechanisms to prevent the armed forces from reemerging as instruments of domestic control or regional aggression. The study recommends …

Transforming Nato Command And Control For Future Missions, Charles L. Barry

Defense Horizons

No military function is more critical to operational success than effective command and control (C2). There also is no more daunting military function to get right when it comes to the employment of complex multinational formations in the fast-paced arena of crisis response. Since the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—unique as an alliance with a permanent standing C2 structure—has ventured into a broader spectrum of missions and across a wider geographical area of operations, posing far greater C2 challenges than the single mission, fixed-territory defense of the past. Threats to NATO interests have increased, demanding military structures …

Transformation And The Defense Industrial Base: A New Model, Robbin F. Laird

Defense Horizons

American force transformation is about building a new expeditionary model with flexible, modular forces that can be managed on a global basis to protect U.S. interests. Breaking the tyranny of geography on military forces is a key aspect to change.

Transformation represents a shift in the demand side of the defense industrial business to provide for these new capabilities. The Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking system-of-systems management to deliver capabilities to the services and for joint military operations. This represents a shift from the past emphasis upon platforms and a primary focus upon service-specific technologies and programs.

As the …

The Air Force: Science, Technology, And Transformation, Donald C. Daniel

Defense Horizons

A unique connectivity exists in the Air Force between science, technology, and transformation. From the defining moment of powered flight in 1903 to the creation of the Air Force as a separate service in 1947 to the present, these three elements have been continuously linked and undoubtedly will remain so.

This paper provides a brief historical perspective of the ties between science, technology, and transformation in the earliest days of the Air Force; gives an overview of current Air Force science and technology; offers a look at five future transformational capabilities—unmanned combat aerial vehicles, small munitions, directed energy weapons, microsatellites, …