Strategy and Grand Strategy: What Students and Practitioners Need to Know

(SSI), Strategic Studies Institute

U.S.Army War College

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This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy continues to reflect the structure and approach of the core national security strategy and policy curriculum at the War College. The fifth edition is published in two volumes that correspond roughly to theDepartment of National Security and Strategy's core courses: "Theory of War and Strategy" and "National Security Policy and Strategy." Like previous editions, this one is based on its predecessor but contains both updates and new scholarship. Over a third of the chapters are new or have undergone significant rewrites. Many chapters, some of which appeared for years in this work, have been removed. Nevertheless, the book remains unchanged in intent and purpose. Although this is not primarily a textbook, it does reflect both the method and manner we use to teach strategy formulation to America's future senior leaders.The book is not a comprehensive or exhaustive treatment of either strategic theory or the policy making process. Both volumes are organized to proceed from the general to the specific. Thus, the first volume opens with general thoughts on the nature and theory of war and strategy, proceeds to look at the complex aspect of power, and concludes with specific theoretical issues. Similarly, the second volume begins by examining the policy/strategy process, moves to a look at the strategic environment, and concludes with some specific issues. This edition continues the effort begun in the fourth edition to include several short case studies to illustrate the primary material in the volume.

U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues- Volume I: Theory of War and Strategy

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Conflict for Civilization: The Fallacy of Grievance Based Terrorism

The United States has increasingly relied on targeted killing as an important tactic in its war on terror, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Despite its increased use, targeted killing has proved a divisive practice and generated considerable controversy. Many criticized the lethal targeting of a U.S. citizen in 2011 as violative of U.S. law and a deprivation of due process. Still, international and domestic law appear to support the government’s ability to lethally target U.S. citizens. To date, however, the government has demonstrated little transparency and no public accountability regarding this contentious and sensitive practice. While some degree of secrecy is warranted, the government must be more forthcoming if it wants to maintain the viability of an increasingly important tactic in the war on terror, especially where the targeting of U.S. citizens is involved.

Citizens in the Crosshairs: Ready, Aim, Hold Your Fire?

This book examines the strategic leadership of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in World War II using the framework of the Navy Leadership Competency Model and chapter twelve of the U.S. Army’s Field Manual (FM) 6-22, Army Leadership. The Navy Leadership Competency Model offers five core competencies that apply to every level and position of leadership including accomplishing mission, leading people, leading change, working with people and resource stewardship. FM 6-22 mirrors the NLCM and adds in the important quality of dealing with adverse conditions, uncertainty and ambiguity. Admiral Nimitz was able to excel at all of these strategic leadership qualities to accomplish the incredible feat of leading the U.S. Navy from the devastation of Pearl Harbor to total victory over Japan in the Pacific.

The Strategic Leadership of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

History

Military

The short winter campaign of 1776-1777, including the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, is one of the most important campaigns of the Revolutionary War. This short campaign kept the colonial army and the revolutionary cause alive at a critical time. All combat units are not equal. Washington knew it during this campaign, just as we know it now. As a strategic leader his mission was to capitalize on the strengths of each available unit by assigning it appropriate missions, while at the same time minimizing the risks to the unit. By looking at his employment of the Pennsylvania militia and Associators at Trenton and Princeton, we can see that Washington was developing good techniques for maximizing the effectiveness of the militiamen. In this short campaign George Washington took maximum advantage of the militia’s strengths and used them mainly in supporting attacks, economy of force missions and as security forces designed to provide early warning. When he needed to use militia in more direct attacks or in holding defensive positions, he interspersed them with the regulars to give them an example to follow when battle was engaged. During movements he positioned militia units in the line of march between Continental units to literally “keep them in line.” The regulars were assigned the more difficult missions that required maneuver of larger elements and more restrictive discipline. The techniques used by George Washington in this short campaign to handle the militia served him well throughout the rest of the revolution. As a leader, he overcame his prejudices toward the ruffians of the militia and developed techniques that allowed him to use them to their maximum effectiveness and at the same time protect their weaknesses.

An Examination of George Washington’s Employment of the Pennsylvania Militia at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton (Revolutionary War)

Americas

This book reviews the Clinton administration’s approach to military intervention by examining the Rwandan genocide crisis of 1994 and the Kosovo crisis of 1999. It seeks to answer to the question of why the U.S. intervened militarily to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo but did not intervene to stop genocide in Rwanda. Before looking at the two cases, the book provides background discussion on U.S. national interests and a discussion of the Clinton administration’s National Security Strategy formulation, citing salient points of its published strategies. After providing a background for each crisis, it applies a framework of five interrelated criteria to examine the two crises. The book concludes that four of the five interrelated areas (ideology, convictions, global systems, and policy inertia) shaped the Clinton administration’s reactions to both crises. It also concludes that the mass media had little effect on the administration’s response to either crisis.

Military Intervention During the Clinton Administration: A Critical Comparison (Defense)

The War for American Independence was a complex, unconventional, and violent political struggle for the loyalty and allegiance of the American population writ large. It could not, and would not, be decided by the application of conventional military force alone. This paper uses an abbreviated examination of the Southern Campaign (1780-1782) to explore the principal causes and enduring lessons of British strategic failure in America. Unwilling to destroy the colonies in order to save them, British military strategy became a reluctant prisoner of deeply flawed strategic assumptions, a government that failed to determine a realistic and militarily attainable political objective, and a blatant inability to accurately determine the kind of war upon which the nation was engaged until it was far too late. In the process, the British learned that battlefield brilliance seldom rescues bad strategy, there are, in fact, limits to what military force can achieve, and national leaders who base their plans and policies primarily on hope and a stubborn belief in the sanctity of their concerted views, if wrong, can lead a nation to disaster.

Understanding British Strategic Failure in America: 1780-1783 (American Revolutionary War)

This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy continues to reflect the structure and approach of the core national security strategy and policy curriculum at the War College. The fifth edition is published in two volumes that correspond roughly to the Department of National Security and Strategy's core courses: "Theory of War and Strategy" and "National Security Policy and Strategy." Like previous editions, this one is based on its predecessor but contains both updates and new scholarship. Over a third of the chapters are new or have undergone significant rewrites. Many chapters, some of which appeared for years in this work, have been removed. Nevertheless, the book remains unchanged in intent and purpose. Although this is not primarily a textbook, it does reflect both the method and manner we use to teach strategy formulation to America's future senior leaders.The book is not a comprehensive or exhaustive treatment of either strategic theory or the policy making process. Both volumes are organized to proceed from the general to the specific. Thus, the first volume opens with general thoughts on the nature and theory of war and strategy, proceeds to look at the complex aspect of power, and concludes with specific theoretical issues. Similarly, the second volume begins by examining the policy/strategy process, moves to a look at the strategic environment, and concludes with some specific issues. This edition continues the effort begun in the fourth edition to include several short case studies to illustrate the primary material in the volume.

U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues (Defense)

Almost no one seems to understand the Marxist-Leninist foundations of Hugo Chavez’s political thought. It becomes evident, however, in the general vision of his “Bolivarian Revolution.” The abbreviated concept is to destroy the old foreign-dominated (U.S. dominated) political and economic systems in the Americas, to take power, and to create a socialist, nationalistic, and “popular” (direct) democracy in Venezuela that would sooner or later extend throughout the Western Hemisphere. Despite the fact that the notion of the use of force (compulsion) is never completely separated from the Leninist concept of destroying any bourgeois opposition, Chavez’s revolutionary vision will not be achieved through a conventional military war of maneuver and attrition, or a traditional insurgency. According to Lenin and Chavez, a “new society” will only be created by a gradual, systematic, compulsory application of agitation and propaganda (i.e., agit-prop). That long-term effort is aimed at exporting instability and generating public opinion in favor of a “revolution” and against the bourgeois system. Thus, the contemporary asymmetric revolutionary warfare challenge is rooted in the concept that the North American (U.S.) “Empire” and its bourgeois political friends in Latin America are not doing what is right for the people, and that the socialist Bolivarian philosophy and leadership will.  In these terms, regime legitimacy is key to the conflict, and it is public opinion that is the main target of the revolutionary effort. Chavez’s vision comes at a time when, despite general economic progress, there are deep flaws in the democratic political systems throughout the Western Hemisphere. Relative popular dissatisfaction stems from deep-rooted socioeconomic inequalities; distrust; and lack of confidence in the police, national legislatures, and political parties. There are also rising popular expectations along with a popular consciousness of currently nonexistent rights. Latin America, now—as in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s—appears to be a revolutionary’s dream. Thus, it appears that Hugo Chavez is prepared to help friends, partners, and allies to destabilize, to facilitate the processes of state failure, and to “destroy in order to build” in true revolutionary fashion. Moreover, according to Chavez, it does not matter whether or not he will be able to continue to direct that effort. He states straightforwardly that “. . . independent of my personal destiny, this revolution . . . has gotten its start, and nothing and no one can stop it.” Consequently, this book will address four cogent issues operating within the context of President Chavez’s grand strategic political-psychological destabilization effort. They are:  1) Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Vision;  2) Key Components of the Chavez Strategic-Level Asymmetric (4th Generation War) War Model;  3) The Paramilitary Operational Model for Compelling Radical Change in the Western Hemisphere; and,  4) Implications and Recommendations.

Venezuela as an Exporter of 4th Generation Warfare Instability

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