Public Policy Commons^™

On “The Us Army And The Pacific: Challenges And Legacies”, Brian Mcallister Linn

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This commentary responds to David M. Finkelstein’s article, “The US Army and the Pacific: Challenges and Legacies,” published in the Autumn 2020 issue of Parameters (vol. 50, no. 3).

Review Essay, Robert L. Bateman

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Article Index, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Commentary And Reply, Claude A. Lambert

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

The Air Littoral: Another Look, Maximilian K. Bremer, Kelly A. Grieco

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Assessing threats to the air littoral, the airspace between ground forces and high-end fighters and bombers, requires a paradigm change in American military thinking about verticality. This article explores the consequences of domain convergence, specifically for the Army and Air Force’s different concepts of control. It will assist US military and policy practitioners in conceptualizing the air littoral and in thinking more vertically about the air and land domains and the challenges of domain convergence.

Afghanistan: What Now?, Rory Stewart

Perspectives@SMU

The troop surge that cost US$2 trillion and thousands of lives has only made things worse, says former UK Secretary of State for International Development Rory Stewart

Biden Administration U.S. Space Force Policy Literature, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides details on U.S. Space Force policy literature produced by the Biden Administration during its first eight months. Includes announcements that the Biden Administration will continue this new armed services branch begun during the Trump Administration. Features congressional testimony of Biden Administration officials such as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Wilson and Air Force Space Command leader General James Dickinson, the text of Space Force's 2021 Digital Force Vision document, congressionally approved FY 2022 space force budget figures, congressional committee comments and report requirements contained in emerging defense spending legislation, the emergence of collaboration between Space Force and universities such as …

Sex Trafficking And Slavery In Southeast Asia: To Free Captives, James D. Langteau, Timothy D. Dunham

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Millions of people derive income from the sex industry in Thailand. Some claims estimate that the sex industry accounts for 10% of all tourist money spent in Thailand. All sex trafficked people are at high risk of both mistreatment and disease. While not all sex workers are victims of human trafficking, the sex industry is deeply involved in the practice. Sex trafficking is defined as deceiving, coercing or forcing someone to take part in sexual activity. Sex trafficking can take various forms, sometimes by the use of force but often by deception. As those commanded to "go and make disciples," …

Book Reviews, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Assessing Risk At The National Strategic Level: Visualization Tools For Military Planners, Wade A. Germann, Heather S. Gregg

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

The reemergence of great power competition, conflict with near-peer competitor states below the level of armed conflict, and persisting threats from nonstate actors with transnational ambitions and global reach pose challenges for strategists planning, executing, and assessing military operations and strategy. Building on current visualization tools, two proposed models—the National Strategic Risk Abacus and the National Strategic Risk Radar Chart—address these challenges and better depict how the US military may inadvertently contribute to risk at the national strategic level.

The Evolution Of Hybrid Warfare: Implications For Strategy And The Military Profession, Ilmari Käihkö

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

The concept of hybrid war has evolved from operational-level use of military means and methods in war toward strategic-level use of nonmilitary means in a gray zone below the threshold of war. This article considers this evolution and its implications for strategy and the military profession by contrasting past and current use of the hybrid war concept and raising critical questions for policy and military practitioners.

The Battalion Commander Effect, Everett Spain, Gautam Mukunda, Archie Bates

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Statistical evidence suggests Army battalion commanders are significant determinants of the retention of their lieutenants—especially high-potential lieutenants. Further, this so-called Battalion Commander Effect should be included in brigadier general promotion board assessments and used to inform officer professional military education curricula.

Hope Versus Reality: The Efficacy Of Using Us Military Aid To Improve Human Rights In Egypt, Gregory L. Aftandilian

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Using US military aid as a lever to achieve human rights reforms has proven only marginally effective. This article examines the approaches employed by the Obama and Trump administrations to US military aid to Egypt and proposes practical steps that can be taken by policymakers and the military personnel on the ground to advance US human rights values.

Great (Soft) Power Competition: Us And Chinese Efforts In Global Health Engagement, Michael W. Wissemann

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Global health engagement, an underutilized strategy rooted in the strengths of soft power persuasion, can lead to more military-to-military cooperation training, help establish relationships that can be relied on when crises develop, stabilize fragile states, and deny violent extremist organizations space for recruiting and operations. Examining Chinese efforts worldwide to curry favor and influence and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this article shows health as a medium is a very compelling and advantageous whole-of-government approach to national security policy concerns.

Reversing The Readiness Assumption: A Proposal For Fiscal And Military Effectiveness, Jason W. Warren, John A. Bonin

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Looming budget cuts will necessitate adept management to retain a military capable of competing and winning by avoiding the mistakes made in prior drawdowns. This article presents a framework for government and defense leaders to prepare for the coming drawdown and plan for the necessary capacity of tomorrow across the diplomatic, information, military, and economic framework.

Samuel Huntington, Professionalism, And Self-Policing In The Us Army Officer Corps, Brian Mcallister Linn

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Drawing on Samuel P. Huntington’s three phases of self-regulation used to determine if an occupation qualifies as a profession, this article focuses on the third phase of policing and removing those who fail to uphold the standards set forth in the first two phases. It reviews how the US Army implemented this phase following the Civil War through the post–Vietnam War years and the implications for the officer corps.

The People Of The Pla 2.0, Roy Kamphausen Mr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

The 27th annual People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Conference—“The People in the PLA” 2.0—revisited a theme first explored at the 2006 conference but understudied since. This volume examines how the structure, education, training, and recruitment of PLA personnel have changed in the last decade and in the Xi Jinping era.

Structural changes in the PLA have centered around two poles: improving the warfighting readiness of the PLA and strengthening Communist Party of China (CPC) control of the PLA. Reforms to the political work system, the evolution of the Second Artillery into the Rocket Force, and expansion of the PLA’s foreign-based force …

Editor’S Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Editor's Note for Volume 33, Issue 1.

States Of Mind In Conflict: Offerings And Translations From The Psychoanalytic And Psychosocial Fields, Irene Bruna Seu

New England Journal of Public Policy

Drawing on the fields of psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies, this article investigates the states of mind of both the parties in conflict and the mediators. It proposes that, when framed as a relational intersubjective encounter, mediation can have transformative potentials beyond the political goals. The article aims to rebalance the current rationalistic orientation in mediation and argues that valuing and engaging with the affective register in mediation processes and the states of mind of the mediation actors can better equip mediators to understand and deal with the unpredictability, instability, and blockages in mediation processes.

The article discusses the relevance for …

A Crisis Of Needs: Coordinating Mental Health And Psychosocial Support Responses In Syria And Europe, Lira Low

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article offers recommendations for coordinating mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) programs for Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons in the Middle East with those available to Syrian asylum seekers in Europe.

It examines the Netherlands’ progressive policies toward MHPSS programs in conflict crises that can provide examples of good practice in policy and advocacy. It calls on host governments to address their support for the enhanced provision of MHPSS not just in humanitarian responses overseas but also for refugee populations in their own countries. It seeks to identify challenges and obstacles in existing programming and proposes the creation …

Psychological Dimensions Of Peacemaking, Ivan Tyrrell

New England Journal of Public Policy

The essence of conflict resolution and therefore peacemaking is summed up in the phrase “mutual needs satisfaction.” This concept presupposes an understanding not only of physical needs but also the emotional needs of all parties involved. This article describes the emotional needs, calling them “human givens” (because they are innate in us) and the innate resources that help us get those needs met. It also describes the three main ways that can interfere with needs being met. It suggests that this knowledge should be absorbed in the political and diplomatic spheres because our emotional needs motivate our behavior and drive …

Foreword, Gabrielle Rifkind

New England Journal of Public Policy

Foreword for Volume 33, Issue 1.

Informality And The Social Art Of Mediation: How Pure Mediators Create Conditions For Making Peace, Nita Yawanarajah

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores how pure mediators make peace without using political, military, or economic leverage. It argues that informality helps mediators establish and build relationships that make it possible for the disputing parties to receive their assistance, information, and suggestions. The research uses case studies and first-hand interviews to explore beneath the institutional and strategic level of analysis and finds that informality manifests in peacemaking as informal people, language, time, and space. The findings also indicate that informality in peace processes often appeared organically to achieve positive results by default rather than design. The research has implications for the study …

Psychological Reflections On Mahatma Gandhi And The Future Of Satyagraha, Charles B. Strozier

New England Journal of Public Policy

The article examines the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi from a psychological perspective. Special attention is given to the psychoanalytic study of Gandhi by Erik Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, in 1969. The author notes his personal connection with Erikson’s book, which profoundly influenced his thinking (and life). The article alternates between a close psychological reading of Erikson’s book and Gandhi’s My Experiments with Truth. The larger point of the article is to reflect on the future of satyagraha or nonviolence. Gandhi’s own meanings of satyagraha are often difficult for many to accept, given the psychological violence that infected his form …

The Impact Of Trauma On Peace Processes, Eugen Koh

New England Journal of Public Policy

Almost everyone who survives situations of violent conflict will have experienced significant trauma. The impact of such experiences on the processes of conflict resolution and peacebuilding is however, not well appreciated or understood. This article considers how the traumatic experiences of individual leaders and their collective constituents, their people, influence their respective abilities to engage in peace processes. It highlights the problems of shame and avoidance following trauma and describes what happens when an "encapsulated" past traumatic experience is reactivated or "triggered": the individual and collective minds regress to a level that limits their ability to think about complex situations …

Conflict, Complexity, And Cooperation, John, Lord Alderdice

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the thesis that we are at a time of historical inflection and suggests what next steps might look like. The change in the seat of authority from the sixteenth century on with the replacement of political and religious hierarchies by participatory democracy and Enlightenment philosophies based on rationalism has seen a remarkable period of progress in science, technology, education, medicine, governance, trade, economics, and the rule of law. The twenty-first century, however, has ushered in a series of reversals for liberal democracy, the fraying of the international rules-based order that emerged after the two world wars and …

5g Technology, U.S. - China Race, And The Competition For Dominance, Rhodes M. Walker

Honors Theses

For much of the 21^st century, the United States and China have been competing to determine which world superpower will have the upper-hand for decades to come.The creation of 5G networks has raised new questions which are imperative to understanding the outlook for the competition between the United States and China for global dominance. This thesis sought to answer the question: Why would implementing the first 5G networks be the key to global dominance for the next decade or longer? In addressing this question, this thesis discusses the current state of 5G networks in China, the U.S., and Europe …

The Role Of The Kurds In U.S. Foreign Policy, Davis Mccool Iii

Honors Theses

The Kurdish people in the Middle East have played a valuable role in furthering U.S. policy interests in the region. The U.S. has aligned itself with various Kurdish groups in a series of strategic partnerships dating back to the early 1970s, yet has never considered the Kurdish nation an ally. As such, the U.S. has reneged on multiple different pacts with the Kurds and opened the door for state-sponsored conflict against a supposed ally, despite mutual interests between both groups. This thesis aimed to assign a formal role to the Kurds within U.S. foreign policy, and to analyze the function …

Global Perspectives, Cecilia Salvi

Open Educational Resources

A syllabus for an introductory course in global studies.