Over the past 5 years, the War on Terrorism has produced many unforeseen results for the U.S. Army, something not unexpected by those who study war as we do here at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). One event, however, was truly unexpected-the participation in 2006 by several Army flag officers in the "Revolt of the Generals." It was unexpected because the professional ethic of the Army in the modern era has held that, in civilmilitary relations, the military is the servant of its Constitutionally-mandated civilian leaders, both those in the Executive branch and in the Congress. Thus, as Samuel Huntington noted over 5 decades ago, "loyalty and obedience" are the cardinal military virtues. This precept has remained embedded in the Army's professional ethos to this day, especially for the strategic leaders of the Army Profession. An act of public dissent is to be exceptionally rare, undertaken only after the most careful analysis and determination of its absolute necessity.
What is "grand strategy," and why is it seemingly so important and so difficult? This monograph explores the concept of grand strategy as it has developed over the past several decades. It explains why the concept is so ubiquitous in discussions of present-day foreign policy, examines why American officials often find the formulation of a successful grand strategy to be such an exacting task, and explores the ways in which having a grand strategy can be both useful and problematic. It illustrates these points via an analysis of two key periods in modern American grand strategy--the Truman years at the outset of the Cold War, and the Nixon-Kissinger years in the late 1960s and 1970s--and provides several suggestions for how U.S. officials might approach the challenges of grand strategy in the 21st century.
Although different U.S. Presidential administrations often face differing national security challenges, one element common to all American Presidents is the desire for policy options when it comes to managing those challenges. Options provide room for maneuver strategically, operationally, and politically. In this monograph, the U.S. Army War College's Dr. John R. Deni argues that some persistent biases and some more recent trends in defense strategy, planning, and budgeting are likely to have the effect of reducing the options available to current and future senior U.S. leaders.
As with the post-Cold War downsizing during the Clinton administration in the late 1990s, one critical challenge for the U.S. Army centers on the qualitative, institutional character of the Army after the reductions-will it manifest the essential characteristics and behavior of a military profession with soldiers and civilians who see themselves sacrificially called to vocation and its service to country within a motivating professional culture that sustains a meritocratic ethic, or will the Army's character be more like any other government occupation in which its members view themselves as filing a job, motivated mostly by the extrinsic factors of pay, location, and work hours? In mid-2010, the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff directed the Commanding General, Training and Doctrine Command, then General Martin Dempsey, to undertake a broad campaign of learning, involving the entire Department. The intent was to think through just it means for the Army to be a profession...
It is hard to overstate the importance of energy. Energy literally drives the global economy. Societies rely on it for everything from advanced medical equipment to heating, cooling, and irrigation. Whether it derives from advanced nuclear reactors in developed nations or simple woodstoves in the developing world, energy is recognized as vital to human welfare. It influences our economic, political, and social policies. Possessing or not possessing sufficient energy is a key determinant of a state's political and economic power. Competition for energy has been, is, and will be a source of conflict. And the choices we make when it comes to energy will have a profound bearing on a wide range of security concerns, from nuclear proliferation to climate change.The joint Triangle Institute for Security Studies (TISS)/North Carolina State University (NCSU)/Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) conference on the “Energy and Security Nexus,” which was held on March 3-4, 2011, addressed many of these issues. To place the remarks made at this conference within a clearer context, a few terms and concepts need to be discussed. To provide a further framework for the reader, these definitions will be followed by a brief threat assessment, a cost-benefit analysis of different energy technologies seen from a security perspective, and an overview of the chief findings of the conference.
Any significant homeland response event requires Americans to work together. This is a complex challenge. The authors assert that the principal obstacle to effective homeland response is a recurring failure to achieve unity of effort across a diverse and often chaotic mix of participating federal, state, and local government and nongovernmental organizations. Despite a decade of planning since the terror attacks of September 2001, unity of effort still eludes us-particularly in the largest and most dangerous of crises. The authors examine how the military's joint doctrine system affected joint military operational capabilities, concluding that a similar national homeland response doctrinal system is needed to create and sustain unity of effort. Doctrine performs a vital unifying function in complex operations, standardizing ways and means.
The following three papers comprise one of the panels form a conference on U.S.-Russia relations that SSI co-sponsored with the Carnegie Council at Pocantico, NY, from June 1-3, 2011, Carnegie Council's Program on "U.S. Global Engagement: A Two-Year Retrospective." The papers offer three contrasting looks at one of the major issues in today's arms control agenda, namely the future of the Conventional forces in Europe Treaty (CFE). The three papers are by leading experts in the field from the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia and provide a revealing glimpse into the very different assessments that are being made by those three governments and the difficult issues involved in attempting to regenerate the process that led to the original treaty in 1990. They also implicitly contribute to a better understanding of the intractabilities facing the major players in any effort to advance not only arms control but also European stability.
It is obvious that U.S.-Russian relations and East- West relations more broadly have recently deteriorated. Yet analyses of why this is the case have often been confined to American policy. The author of this monograph, Dr. Stephen Blank, seeks to analyze some of the key strategic issues at stake in this relationship and trace that decline to Russian factors which have been overlooked or neglected. At the same time, he has devoted considerable time to recording some of the shortcomings of U.S. policy and recommending a way out of the growing impasse confronting both sides. This analysis, originally presented at the annual Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) strategy conference of 2007, was part of a panel that engaged the strategic challenges confronting the United States from Russia. As such, it was part of the conference's larger theme of analyzing regional strategic challenges to U.S. interests and policy across the globe.
This monograph is another in the series of studies on aspects of Russian defense and foreign policy being published by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). These monographs derive from a conference that was jointly sponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute; the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington; the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Pacific Northwest Center for Global Studies; and the Institute for Global and Regional Security Studies. This conference, titled "The U.S. and Russia: Regional Security Issues and Interests," was held in Washington, DC, on April 24-26, 2006, and examined many different regional dimensions of this bilateral relationship.
This report is the product of the U.S. Army War College's (USAWC) inaugural Integrated Research Project (IRP) on "U.S.-China Competition: Asia-Pacific Land Force Implications." It addresses a Chief of Staff, Army priority research topic and was sponsored by the U.S. Army Pacific and the Headquarters, Department of the Army, Directorate of Strategy and Policy (HQDA G-35). The report resulted from a whole-of-War-College effort. Core curriculum and regional elective studies augmented student research and facilitated analysis. The Center for Strategic Leadership hosted an implementation workshop to solicit subject matter expertise on recommendations and implementation plans. Faculty from across the USAWC supported the analytical debate, mentored student participants, and reviewed the written contributions. Additionally, the USAWC team engaged in extensive dialogue with senior military leaders, both in theater and at Carlisle Barracks, to explore issues and develop recommendations.
Civil-military relations is a critical topic in understanding the domestic and foreign policy trajectories of the Russian state. The papers here do not deny that civilian control exists. But they both highlight how highly undemocratic, and even dangerous, is the absence of those democratic controls over the military and the police forces in Russia which, taken together, comprise multiple militaries. These papers present differing U.S. and European assessments of the problems connected with civilian and democratic controls over the possessors of force in the Russian state.
Most of the ideas underpinning the foundation of American defense policy and military strategy today were once new and untested concepts at the edge of strategic thought. Critical thinkers had to analyze and refine those ideas so the defense community could apply them in strategy and force development. This is an ongoing process: new ideas emerge, are tested, and adopted, revised, or discarded. To aid the process of identifying and examining new ideas and concepts, the Strategic Studies Institute publishes a special series called "Advancing Strategic Thought." This series offers a forum for putting forth original and innovative concepts and perspectives concerning national security policy and military strategy. Yet, it also challenges accepted notions which might have become part of the foundation of American defense policy a bit too quickly. All of this is done, again, in the interest of advancing strategic thought.
This monograph explores the utility of forward presence in Europe, placing the recent decisions -- and, in particular, the arguments against forward presence -- in the context of a decades-long tradition on the part of many political leaders, scholars, and others to mistakenly tie the forward-basing of U.S. forces to more equal defense burden sharing across the entire North Atlantic alliance. In assessing whether and how forward presence still matters in terms of protecting U.S. interests and achieving U.S. objectives, the author bridges the gap between academics and practitioners by grounding his analysis in political science theory while illuminating how forward-basing yields direct, tangible benefits in terms of military operational interoperability. Moreover, this monograph forms a critical datapoint in the ongoing dialogue regarding the future of American landpower, particular in this age of austerity.
Strategic Studies Institute U. S. Army War College
Published Date
ISBN 10
1584875488
ISBN 13
9781584875482
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