https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/world/middleeast/last-phase-islamic-state-iraq-syria.html The last phase of the American campaign against the caliphate is relying heavily on warplanes that are focused on an area half the size of Manhattan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/world/europe/russia-america-military-exercise-trump-putin.html “A 10-day exercise in July offered a window into how Army commanders are rehearsing updated tactics and strategies once used to counter Soviet troops.” For more on the Saber Guardian exercise: http://www.eur.army.mil/saberguardian/
Image Credit: DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jette Carr http://thediplomat.com/2017/06/asias-minilateral-moment/ With fear of U.S. abandonment on the rise, Asian states are looking to increase cooperation with each other. By Tongfi Kim June 13, 2017 “The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president created many problems for U.S….
https://www.justsecurity.org/39712/top-legal-experts-syria-strikes/ “[Just Security] asked several of the very top legal minds about their views concerning Thursday night’s airstrikes by the United States in response to the Syrian government’s reported use of chemical weapons. [They] have provided their verbatim responses … and will be adding more.” and for a brief video (albeit…
Editor’s note: This two-part story by Richard Russo from February 8, 2017 is based on the work of the 2014 cohort of fellows of the chief of staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group, which examined future operation environments, particularly large urban areas—megacities. The story is entirely fictional, and does…
https://www.law.upenn.edu/newsevents/calendar.php#event_id/52835/view/event http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/INTRO/400 and see: http://www.apollo-magazine.com/is-the-destruction-of-cultural-property-a-war-crime/ In March 2001, six months before the attacks of 9/11, the Taliban provoked international outrage when it destroyed two Ancient statues of the Buddha carved into a hillside in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s leader at time, considered the…
Using Law to Fight Terror October 27-29, 2016 Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) University of Pennsylvania Law School https://www.law.upenn.edu/institutes/cerl/conferences/usinglawtofightterror/ Recent challenges in international security posed by two terrorist organizations, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have highlighted an urgent domestic and…
The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) defines gray zone challenges as “competitive interactions among and within state and non-state actors that fall between the traditional war and peace duality.” In the words of GEN Joe Votel et. al., “[t]he Gray Zone is characterized by intense political, economic, informational, and…
“MWI’s Andrew Bacevich Criticizes U.S. Military Forays in Middle East. Speaking to cadets and faculty, MWI Adjunct Scholar Andrew Bacevich gives a blistering critique of U.S. military interventionism in the greater Middle East.” For Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2015, please see: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42738.pdf and see Military…
How COIN Theory Explains Organizational Change: An MWI Report. MWI Non-Resident Fellow Douglas Pryer writes in this new report that since the human dynamics underlying all group competitions are similar, all leaders can benefit from applying COIN theory to achieve significant organizational change. http://mwi.usma.edu/4170-2/ See also: Military Legitimacy: Right and…
