Archive
Cyber Infrastructure Protection: Vol. II
Cyber Infrastructure Protection: Vol. II
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
Increased reliance on the Internet and other networked systems raise the risks of cyber attacks that could harm our nation’s cyber infrastructure. The cyber infrastructure encompasses a number of sectors including: the nation’s mass transit and other transportation systems; banking and financial systems; factories; energy systems and the electric power grid; and telecommunications, which increasingly rely on a complex array of computer networks, including the public Internet. However, many of these systems and networks were not built and designed with security in mind. Therefore, our cyber infrastructure contains many holes, risks, and vulnerabilities that may enable an attacker to cause damage or disrupt cyber infrastructure operations. Threats to cyber infrastructure safety and security come from hackers, terrorists, criminal groups, and sophisticated organized crime groups; even nation-states and foreign intelligence services conduct cyber warfare. Cyber attackers can introduce new viruses, worms, and bots capable of defeating many of our efforts. Costs to the economy from these threats are huge and increasing. Government, business, and academia must therefore work together to understand the threat and develop various modes of fighting cyber attacks, and to establish and enhance a framework to assess the vulnerability of our cyber infrastructure and provide strategic policy directions for the protection of such an infrastructure. This book addresses such questions as: How serious is the cyber threat? What technical and policy-based approaches are best suited to securing telecommunications networks and information systems infrastructure security? What role will government and the private sector play in homeland defense against cyber attacks on critical civilian infrastructure, financial, and logistical systems? What legal impediments exist concerning efforts to defend the nation against cyber attacks, especially in preventive, preemptive, and retaliatory actions?
See also: Cyber Infrastructure Protection (2011)
From Chaos to Cohesion: A Regional Approach to Security, Stability, and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
From Chaos to Cohesion: A Regional Approach to Security, Stability, and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
Prevention is the key to effective policies in Africa, whether the issue is equitable resource exploitation, ethnic conflict, infectious diseases, or famine. African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have moved beyond their initial purpose of a loose confederation of trading partners to become increasingly effective supranational bodies promoting financial, political, and security stabilization in each of their regions. Looking at each of the RECs, their power centers, and areas of weakness, policymakers can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the sometimes symbiotic and often destructive dynamics within and among African states to seek more effective strategic and regional, not national, approaches. This monograph suggests USAFRICOM is uniquely positioned to help design a path to spearhead a pan-African strategy highly likely to have the net long-term effect of attaining considerable competitive advantage for the U.S. economically, militarily, and politically, with a corresponding increase in stability, security, and economic opportunity for the entire continent.
Army Task Force on Behavioral Health: Corrective Action Plan
Army Task Force on Behavioral Health: Corrective Action Plan (PDF)
Source: U.S. Army (Task Force on Behavioral Health) (via Federal News Radio)
The Army has devoted an extraordinary amount of time, attention, and resources to care for Soldiers returning from deployments, especially those with behavioral health conditions. The Army continues to make great strides in changing the culture that stigmatized those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and to educate and encourage Soldiers and leaders to heal these invisible wounds of war. The Army has revised several policies to ensure Soldiers with PTSD are prop – erly diagnosed, and if appropriate, considered for a medical discharge. Most recently, the Army proactively implemented several initiatives to resolve some of the findings discovered during the ATFBH comprehensive review. These changes are positive steps for our wounded, ill and injured, and this CAP details subsequent actions required to achieve a more efficient and effective disability system for Soldiers with behavioral health conditions.
The Civil War Begins: Opening Clashes, 1861
The Civil War Begins: Opening Clashes, 1861
Source: U.S. Army Military History Center
The Civil War Begins: Opening Clashes, 1861 is the first in a series of campaign brochures commemorating our national sacrifices during the American Civil War. Author Jennifer Murray examines the successes and challenges of both the Union and the Confederate forces during the early days of the Civil War. Notable battles discussed include: Fort Sumter, South Carolina; Bull Run, Virginia; Wilson’s Creek, Missouri; Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; and Port Royal, South Carolina. This brochure includes six maps and three tables.
2013 Army Weapon Systems Handbook
2013 Army Weapon Systems Handbook
Source: U.S. Army (via Federation of American Scientists)
With program descriptions, status and specifications, projected activities, and names and locations of large and small contractors, this book will provide you with a better understanding of our efforts to provide Soldiers with the best, most advanced and sustainable equipment possible. To this end, we are mindful of the public trust imposed by the use of taxpayer resources. We continuously seek to improve our business practices to meet the needs of our Soldiers on an efficient and timely basis.
In providing our Soldiers with world-class capabilities, Army acquisition’s most important asset is our people. Our skilled and dedicated professionals, working in Program Executive Offices and program offices throughout the nation, execute diverse responsibilities to enable the disciplined management of an extensive acquisition portfolio with programs that range from Soldiers systems to precision fires and from air and mission defense to ground combat systems. The responsibility of safeguarding future Army capabilities is a significant honor for the acquisition community and is one that we do not take lightly.
Army Doctrine: Religious Support
Religious Support (PDF)
Source: Headquarters, Department of the Army (via Federation of American Scientists)
This manual contains four chapters. Chapter 1 describes religious support foundations, including the historical precedents for the Army Chaplain Corps as well as its roles, missions, and functions. Chapter 2 delineates the current security environment, including the requirement to provide religious support across the range of military operations. Chapter 3 details the execution of religious support at the different levels of command within our modular Army. Chapter 4 depicts planning for religious support for unified land operations using the operations process.
Hidden Dragon, Crouching Lion: How China’s Advance in Africa is Underestimated and Africa’s Potential Underappreciated
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
The explosive growth of China’s economic interests in Africa—bilateral trade rocketed from $1 billion in 1990 to $150 billion in 2011—may be the most important trend in the continent’s foreign relations since the end of the Cold War. In 2010, China surpassed the United States as Africa’s top trading partner; its quest to build a strategic partnership with Africa on own its terms through tied aid, trade, and development finance is also part of Beijing’s broader aspirations to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent superpower. Africa and other emerging economies have become attractive partners for China not only for natural resources, but as growing markets. Africa’s rapid growth since 2000 has not just occurred because of higher commodity prices, but more importantly due to other factors including improved governance, economic reforms, and an expanding labor force. China’s rapid and successful expansion in Africa is due to multiple factors, including economic diplomacy that is clearly superior to that of the United States. China’s “no strings attached” approach to development, however, risks undoing decades of Western efforts to promote good governance. Consequently, this monograph examines China’s oil diplomacy, equity investments in strategic minerals, and food policy toward Africa. The official U.S. rhetoric is that China’s rise in Africa should not be seen as a zero-sum game, but areas where real U.S.-China cooperation can help Africa remain elusive, mainly because of Beijing’s hyper-mistrust of Washington. The United States could help itself, and Africa, by improving its own economic diplomacy and adequately funding its own soft-power efforts.
New Army Guide to Open-Source Intelligence
Open-Source Intelligence (PDF)
Source: U.S. Army (via Federation of American Scientists)
ATP 2-22.9 establishes a common understanding, foundational concepts, and methods of use for Army opensource intelligence (OSINT). ATP 2-22.9 highlights the characterization of OSINT as an intelligence discipline, its interrelationship with other intelligence disciplines, and its applicability to unified land operations.
This Army techniques publication—
- Provides fundamental principles and terminology for Army units that conduct OSINT exploitation.
- Discusses tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) for Army units that conduct OSINT exploitation.
- Provides a catalyst for renewing and emphasizing Army awareness of the value of publicly available information and open sources.
- Establishes a common understanding of OSINT.
- Develops systematic approaches to plan, prepare, collect, and produce intelligence from publicly available information from open sources.
Disjointed Ways, Disunified Means: Learning from America’s Struggle to Build an Afghan Nation
Disjointed Ways, Disunified Means: Learning from America’s Struggle to Build an Afghan Nation
Remarkably ambitious in its audacity and scope, NATO’s irregular warfare and nation-building mission in Afghanistan has struggled to meet its nonmilitary objectives by most tangible measures. Put directly, the Alliance and its partners have fallen short of achieving the results needed to create a stable, secure, democratic, and self-sustaining Afghan nation, a particularly daunting proposition given Afghanistan’s history and culture, the region’s contemporary circumstances, and the fact that no such country has existed there before. Furthermore, given the central nature of U.S. contributions to this NATO mission, these shortfalls also serve as an indicator of a serious American problem as well. Specifically, inconsistencies and a lack of coherence in the U.S. Government’s strategic planning processes and products, as well as fundamental flaws in the U.S. Government’s structures and systems for coordinating and integrating the efforts of its various agencies, are largely responsible for this adverse and dangerous situation. This book explores these strategic and interagency shortfalls, while proposing potential reforms that would enable the United States to achieve the strategic coherence and genuine unity of effort that will be needed in an era of constrained resources and emerging new threats.
Can Russia Reform? Economic, Political, and Military Perspectives
Can Russia Reform? Economic, Political, and Military Perspectives
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
These three papers represent the first panel of papers from SSI’s annual Russia conference that took place in September 2011. They assess the nature of Russia’s political system, economy, and armed forces and draw conclusions, even sharp and provocative ones, concerning the nature and trajectory of these institutions. The three papers presented here offer attempts to characterize first of all, the nature of the state; second, the prospects for economic reform within that state—perhaps the most pressing domestic issue and one with considerable spillover into defense and security agendas as well—in contemporary Russia; and third, the nature and lasting effects of the defense reform that began in 2008. The papers are forthright and pull no punches, though we certainly do not claim that they provide the last or definitive word on these subjects. The papers go straight to the heart of the most important questions concerning the nature of the state and the possibilities for its economic and military reform. As such, we hope that the papers presented here, and in subsequent volumes, provide insight and understanding to several critical questions pertaining to and/or affecting Russia, a country that deliberately tries to remain opaque to foreign observers despite its many changes. These papers aim to be a resource, to enlighten, to edify readers, and to stimulate the effort to understand and deal with one of the most important actors in international affairs today.
Commander’s Legal Handbook
Commander’s Legal Handbook (PDF)
Source: Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (U.S. Army)
This Guide is designed to assist Commanders with legal situations by helping them to recognize and avoid issues, or to take immediate actions necessary to preserve the situation when legal issues arise.
The Future of the Field Artillery
The Future of the Field Artillery
Source: U.S. Army War College
Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Field Artillery branch, more than any other branch in today’s Army, has been asked to conduct in-lieu-of missions rather than its core fire support mission during conduct of the war. The associated potential deterioration of core competencies could possibly have a major impact in future operations.
This U.S. Army War College student author examines:
— how long it would take to restore Field Artillery core competencies to support Major Combat Operations?;
— how the branch could perhaps be balanced in order to support current operations as well as prepare for future operations?;
— when should the branch be ready to conduct operations in either a hybrid or Major Combat Operation environment?; and
— how much lead time would be needed to ensure success in either operation?He offers recommendations to enhance the Army’s capabilities and capacity to address Field Artillery challenges.
Once Again, the Challenge to the U.S. Army During a Defense Reduction: To Remain a Military Profession
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 the U.S. Army manifest the essential characteristics and behavior of a military profession with Soldiers and civilians who see themselves sacrificially called to a vocation of 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 what it means for the Army to be a profession of arms and for its Soldiers and civilians to be professionals as the Army largely returns stateside after a decade of war and then quickly transitions to the new era of Defense reductions. Several new conceptions of the Army as a military profession have been produced, along with numerous initiatives that are currently being staffed to strengthen the professional character of the Army as it simultaneously recovers from a decade of war and transitions through reductions in force. They form the descriptive content of this monograph.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
Legal Support to the Operational Army
Legal Support to the Operational Army (PDF)
Source: Headquarters, Department of the Army (via Federation of American Scientists)
FM 1-04, Legal Support to the Operational Army, is the Army’s manual for operational legal doctrine. This manual provides authoritative doctrine and practical guidance for commanders, judge advocates, legal administrators, and paralegal Soldiers across the spectrum of conflict. It outlines how The Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAGC) will be organized in accordance with the Army’s modular force design. It also discusses the delivery of legal support to the modular force.
This manual does not address the law of armed conflict, The Hague Conventions, or the Geneva Conventions in detail. For a more comprehensive treatment of those areas, refer to FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare. FM 1-04 applies to the Active Army, the Army National Guard (ARNG)/Army National Guard of the United States (ARNGUS), and U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) unless otherwise stated.
Categorical Confusion? The Strategic Implications of Recognizing Challenges Either as Irregular or Traditional
Strategic theory should educate to enable effective strategic practice, but much of contemporary theory promotes confusion, not clarity, of suitable understanding. A little strategic theory goes a long way, at least it does if it is austere and focused on essentials. Unfortunately, contemporary strategic conceptualization in the U.S. defense community is prolix, over-elaborate, and it confuses rather than clarifies. Recent debate about irregular, as contrasted allegedly with traditional, challenges to U.S. national security have done more harm than good. Conceptualization of and for an operational level of war can imperil the truly vital nexus between strategy and tactics. In much the same way, the invention of purportedly distinctive categories of challenge endangers the relationship between general theory for statecraft, war, and strategy, and strategic and tactical practice for particular historical cases. It is not helpful to sort challenges into supposedly distinctive categories. But, if such categorization proves politically or bureaucratically unavoidable, its potential for harm can be reduced by firm insistence upon the authority of the general theory of strategy.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
Strategic Communication in the New Media Sphere
The U.S. Government continues to seek a comprehensive, effective communication strategy through which it may project and promote American interests, policies, and objectives abroad. Many believe that the government and military have been outcommunicated since 9/11. A primary cause of this alleged deficiency is failure to recognize that strategic communication through traditional media and through the new media are not the same thing. There are fundamental differences between traditional and new media spheres. Hence, using conventional methods for new media strategic communication is decidedly less productive than developing a communication strategy appropriate for the new media universe.Pentagon press secretary briefs media on Secretary of Defense’s scheduleSuccessful strategic communication in the new media sphere cannot remain the exclusive domain of professional strategic communicators insulated from most aspects of mission execution. To compete for attention with the proliferation of messages exchanged in today’s “attention economy,” military and civilian agencies must co-opt the skills of nearly all personnel charged with carrying out disparate aspects of a mission or specific policy, critically those in theater such as Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), District Support Teams (DSTs), and others.
Army 2020: Generating Health & Discipline in the Force Ahead of the Strategic Reset
Army 2020: Generating Health & Discipline in the Force Ahead of the Strategic Reset (PDF)Source: U.S. Army
While still waging the longest war in our Nation’s history, hard fought in two separate theaters, we have begun the challenging task of reintegrating our Soldiers, resetting our equipment, and returning our primary focus to training and preparing for future contingency operations. While much can be learned from our previous post‐conflict eras, current circumstances and conditions are unique and must be addressed within today’s environment. In many ways, the most difficult work lies ahead. The Army calls on you, as professional leaders, to ensure a successful reset of the Force. We must work together in an informed and synchronized effort to address the unique challenges facing today’s Army. This report will provide context, identify challenges and inform and educate you on the current status of the health and discipline of our Soldiers, Families and Veterans. In short, it will serve as a valuable roadmap for leaders, commanders and service providers alike, paving the way to success in the days ahead.
Nearly two years ago, the Army published the Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, Suicide Prevention Report 2010, referred to as the Red Book, which provided the first comprehensive review of the health and discipline of the Force. The following report continues—and in many ways expands—that dialogue, providing a thorough assessment of what we have learned with respect to physical and behavioral health conditions, disciplinary problems, and gaps in Army policy and policy implementation. It provides important information on the challenges confronting our Soldiers and Families, challenges that we must collectively address to reduce the stress on the Force, promote Soldier health and discipline and improve unit readiness. To this end, this report is designed to educate leaders, illuminate critical issues that still must be addressed and provides guidance to leaders who are grappling with these issues on a day‐to‐day basis.
Many of the issues addressed in this report are complex, especially those related to healthcare. One of the most important lessons learned in recent years is that we cannot simply deal with health or discipline in isolation; these issues are interrelated and will require interdisciplinary solutions. For example, a Soldier committing domestic violence may be suffering from undiagnosed post‐traumatic stress. He may also be abusing alcohol in an attempt to self medicate to relieve his symptoms. The reality is there are a significant number of Soldiers with a foot in both camps—health and discipline— who will require appropriate health referrals and disciplinary accountability. This will require us to sharpen our surveillance, detection and response systems to ensure early intervention. The necessary response to health and accountability will require active communication and collaboration among commanders, service providers and our Soldiers and Families.
The Strategic Logic of the Contemporary Security Dilemma
The Strategic Logic of the Contemporary Security Dilemma
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
The reality and severity of the threats associated with contemporary transnational security problems indicate that the U.S. and its national and international partners need a new paradigm for the conduct of unconventional asymmetric conflict, and an accompanying new paradigm for strategic leader development. The strategic-level basis of these new paradigms is found in the fact that the global community is redefining security in terms of nothing less than a reconceptualization of sovereignty. In the past, sovereignty was the acknowledged and/or real control of territory and the people in it. Now, sovereignty is the responsibility of governments to protect peoples’ well-being and prevent great harm to those peoples. Thus, the security dilemma becomes, “Why, when, and how to intervene to protect people and prevent egregious human suffering?” We address some of the strategic-level questions and recommendations that arise out of that debate. We probably generate more questions than answers, but it is time to begin the strategic-level discussion.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
Mexico’s “Narco-Refugees”: The Looming Challenge for U.S. National Security
Mexico’s “Narco-Refugees”: The Looming Challenge for U.S. National Security
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
Since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels, there has been a rise in the number of Mexican nationals seeking political asylum in the United States to escape the ongoing drug cartel violence in their home country. Political asylum cases in general are claimed by those who are targeted for their political beliefs or ethnicity in countries that are repressive or are failing. Mexico is neither. Nonetheless, if the health of the Mexican state declines because criminal violence continues, increases, or spreads, U.S. communities will feel an even greater burden on their systems of public safety and public health from “narco-refugees.” Given the ever increasing cruelty of the cartels, the question is whether and how the U.S. Government should begin to prepare for what could be a new wave of migrants coming from Mexico. Allowing Mexicans to claim asylum could potentially open a flood gate of migrants to the United States during a time when there is a very contentious national debate over U.S. immigration laws pertaining to illegal immigrants. On the other hand, to deny the claims of asylum seekers and return them to Mexico where they might very well be killed, strikes at the heart of American values of justice and humanitarianism. This monograph focuses on the asylum claims of Mexicans who unwillingly leave Mexico rather than those who willingly enter the United States legally or illegally. To successfully navigate through this complex issue will require a greater level of understanding and vigilance at all levels of the U.S. Government.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
China-Latin America Military Engagement: Good Will, Good Business, and Strategic Position
China-Latin America Military Engagement: Good Will, Good Business, and Strategic Position
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
This monograph examines Chinese military engagement with Latin America in five areas: (1) meetings between senior military officials; (2) lower-level military-to-military interactions; (3) military sales; (4) military-relevant commercial interactions; and, (5) Chinese physical presence within Latin America, all of which have military-strategic implications. This monograph finds that the level of PRC military engagement with the region is higher than is generally recognized, and has expanded in important ways in recent years: High-level trips by Latin American defense and security personnel to the PRC and visits by their Chinese counterparts to Latin America have become commonplace. The volume and sophistication of Chinese arms sold to the region has increased. Officer exchange programs, institutional visits, and other lower-level ties have also expanded. Chinese military personnel have begun participating in operations in the region in a modest, yet symbolically important manner. The monograph also argues that in the short term, PRC military engagement with Latin America does not focus on establishing alliances or base access to the United States, but rather, supporting objectives of national development and regime survival, such as building understanding and political leverage among important commercial partners, creating the tools to protect PRC interests in the countries where it does business, and selling Chinese products and moving up the value-added chain in strategically important sectors. It concludes that Chinese military engagement may both contribute to legitimate regional security needs, and foster misunderstanding. It argues that the U.S. should work for greater transparency with the PRC in regard to those activities, as well as to analyze how the Chinese presence will impact the calculation of the region’s actors in the context of specific future scenarios.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
