 Russia's Perpetual Quest for Military Modernization By Emil Avdaliani, February 25, 2019 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: One of the cyclical patterns of Russian history is the country’s perpetual quest for military modernization. This quest was pursued by the Romanovs and the Soviets and continues in modern-day Russia. Military spending is always prioritized over essential economic and social reforms, hampering the country’s competitiveness on the world stage and paving the way for its weakening and eventual disintegration. Continue to full article -> Russian Battlefield Awareness and Information Dominance:
Improved Capabilities and Future Challenges By Jeff Edmonds & Samuel Bendett, Strategy Bridge: As the United States gears up for a new arms race and great power competition with Russia and China, the key to success will be be innovation. But after decades of wars and military intervention that have yielded little progress, tech companies are reluctant to work with Washington or the Pentagon."  Developing Senior Officers Who Soldiers Want to Follow By Chuck Allen & Craig Bullis, War Room: "The significant impact of Army General Officers across the force, combined with a long-term assessment of their effectiveness by seasoned and successful subordinates, suggests the need for enhanced senior leader selection and development processes." Post-CHAOS Homework on Civil-Military Relations by Loren DeJonge Schulman A Modest Proposal for Improving Assessment in Professional Military Education by Celestino Perez, Jr. Army Talent Management Reform: The Culture Problem by Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras The Elusion of Critique: On Developing Critical Approaches in Defence Discourse By Matt Lewis, Defence-In-Depth: "As we continue our transition into an effective learning organisation, we have come to place some primacy on the concept of critical thought and discourse." Why We Should Stop Teaching Clausewitz By Jamie Schwandt, Task & Purpose: “I am not insisting that Clausewitz does not provide valuable lessons. But by focusing on Clausewitz we miss important discussion that should be brought to military education." The Marine Corps is ‘paranoid,’ the Navy does not play with others.
(Military Times) Those were some of the conclusions reached in a new think-tank study by the Rand Corp. looking at competitiveness between the services and how their culture succeeds or fails in beating out the other services for resources. STATE OF THE PENTAGON REPORT 2019 & THE PROBLEM OF 'THINKING' FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS2/15/2019  State of Defense 2019: Special Report From Defense One: “Our annual service-by-service look at the U.S. military finds the shift to great-power competition dogged by some old problems and some very new ones." A Life Well Lived: The Warlord's Legacy by John Nagl The Warlord on Careers in National Security: Seven Forks in the Road by John Collins A Life Well Lived: The Warlord’s Legacy
By John Nagl, War on the Rocksl: “In early 2004, I was serving as the operations officer of a tank battalion task force in Al Anbar, Iraq. I was mentioned in a New York Times article, and soon after received an email from a man who identified himself as “WARLORD.” John Collins was a retired Army colonel who had served in uniform from World War II through the Vietnam War, then enjoyed another full career as a national security writer and lecturer at the Congressional Research Service."  Green Berets: Rebuilding the Guerrilla Leader Identity By David Walton & Joseph Long, Small Wars Journal: “Direct Action and Unconventional Warfare - one is in the movies, and the other is in the history books. Perhaps oversimplified, the differences between these two mission sets are at the heart of the Green Beret's identity crisis." The Tactical Application of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) By Private E, The Cove: “In contemporary warfare, actors carry out significant actions in the information domain. ISIL in Iraq and Syria used social media to recruit, target, finance and even orchestrate attacks with deadly effect. In the Ukrainian conflict, Russian operatives took advantage of operational security breaches to exploit and target Ukrainian military personnel." In Pursuit of a General Theory of Proxy Warfare
By Amos C. Fox, AUSA: “In recent years, the U.S. Army has routinely found itself in wars being waged through intermediaries, or proxy forces. At the same time, the Army does not speak frankly about these proxy wars but instead speaks indirectly about the character of these environments and its relationship with its partnered force."  RUSSIA: Despite Putin’s Swagger, Russia Struggles to Modernize Navy By Andrew Osborn, Reuters: "Despite Putin’s Swagger, Russia Struggles to Modernize Navy President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy's combat capabilities a priority." Limits and Challenges to Moscow’s Military Airpower Ambitions By Roger N. McDermott, Eurasia Daily Monitor: “In recent years, Moscow has placed growing emphasis on procuring modern and advanced platforms to increase the combat capability of its Air Force, subsumed within the Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS).” Gabriel Coll and Andrew Philip Hunter write: The U.S. military’s vertical lift fleet of helicopters and tiltrotors is aging. With the exception of V-22 Osprey, no completely new aircraft designs have been introduced since the 1980s. Even the V-22 made its first test flight back in the 1980s. And the U.S. Army, which has the largest helicopter fleet and traditionally takes the lead on vertical lift innovation, has not made substantial investments in Research & Development since the cancellation of RAH-66 Comanche. – Center for Strategic and International Studies Shine a Light – Navy Acquisition By Kevin Eyer, RealClearDefense: “Much of what is discussed in Navy circles centers upon two broad topics: war-fighting and the material tools necessary to support a fight, now or in the future. However, an examination as to how the Navy goes about the actual procurement of the systems intended to support the military’s needs is seldom undertaken.” Investing in Vertical Lift Modernization By Gabriel Coll & Andrew Hunter, CSIS: “The U.S. military's vertical lift fleet of helicopters and tiltrotors is aging. With the exception of V-22 Osprey, no completely new aircraft designs have been introduced since the 1980s.” The Navy's Bold New Education Plan
By Ben Werner, USNI News: “The Navy is pushing a series of education reforms to better train enlisted sailors and officers to face the increasing military capability posed by near-peer competitors and to fight complex, high-end wars." Air Force Changing How Special Ops Fighters Train By Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics: "A Rand report from May 2018 found that the attrition rate during the initial Special Warfare assessment and selection course hovers at roughly 75 percent." |
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