Adversaries of the United States have recognized the susceptibility of its military to irregular warfare threats and will certainly exploit it in future conflicts.
Journal
Journal Articles are typically longer works with more more analysis than the news and short commentary in the SWJ Blog.
We accept contributed content from serious voices across the small wars community, then publish it here as quickly as we can, per our Editorial Policy, to help fuel timely, thoughtful, and unvarnished discussion of the diverse and complex issues inherent in small wars.
Should the Army prepare to fight other modern militaries like those of Russia and China, or orient on stabilizing war-torn states like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan?
In the year 2044, an artificial intelligence programmed character conducts platoon-level noncombatant evacuation operations simulation in a crumbling chaotic megacity.
The conflict between a need to maintain domestic political support for the government while also modernizing military leadership is not unique to Afghanistan.
This essay explores the themes of UN peacekeeping offensive operations and Unexploded Ordinance, Explosive Remnants of War and Improvised Explosive Devices.
This strategy should be considered alongside others to wage a non-traditional war against a non-traditional enemy.
Cartels are born from greed but they are also byproducts of Mexico’s flawed policies.
There are two competing arguments regarding the gravity of the threat that cyber-attacks pose to the nation’s security.
Army doctrine requires problem identification in all problem solving processes but that doctrine is silent on the format and design of a problem statement.
The biggest changes to the character of war seem to be ahead of us as the 21st century opens what looks like Pandora’s Box.
On doctrine - a fictional conversation that occurs routinely in Professional Military Education classrooms and hallways.
This situation removes public spaces from the commons and places this territory in the hands of corporate or plutocratic elite rather than under state control.
The author makes several distinctions on how reading for the purposes of military self-development differs from reading practices in academia.
Failure in training is vital in unconventional and conventional warfare environments. Battalion and higher staff must fail in training and then correct their mistakes.
Continue on for the SWJ / MWG Writing Contest top three entries.
With increasing scrutiny on Qatar to ease their foreign policy initiatives, more allegations are digging into Qatar’s already controversial track record.
Continue on for the U.S. Army TRADOC Mad Scientist Sci-Fi Stories - Executive Summary and a link to the full document.
"The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Future Warfare" - Continue on for the full TRADOC G-2 assessment / estimate.
As intelligence professionals, we must provide timely intelligence support to maneuver commanders if we are to remain relevant.
Only by including perspectives from both genders is a comprehensive picture of the security environment possible.
Good ideas should not have rank, they should have influence.
As one of the oldest civilizations in human history, China maintains a level of subconscious devotion to its history and culture. This paper explores one of these devotions—the steppe.
The events surrounding the “siege of Sidney Street” raised a series of issues that echo many current concerns regarding terrorism and migrants.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: The rise of super-intelligent information technologies fueled with robotics, smart munitions, ubiquitous sensing, and extreme networking.
Despite targeting AQ for the past sixteen years and killing bin Laden, the U.S. and its allies have been unable to destroy what was once considered the most dangerous terrorist group in the world.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: Exploring the art of the possible in future infantry combat.
History falls under the realms of highly contested narratives and the Sino-Indian border war is no exception.
The political context of future conflicts will have a far greater impact on the conduct of war than current U.S. military modernization efforts reflect.
NATO member Estonia has become; along with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland; NATO`s eastern bulwark against Putin´s increasing aggressiveness.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: Leveraging robotics and autonomous systems to penetrate high-risk areas and to provide support in contested environments.
No big deal. Go here. See what you can find. Platoon is not what the book says. Small is not necessarily good. Serious bad guy country.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: New Concepts in Warfare Between 2030 and 2050
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: The MI battalion of 2025 needs electronic attack, as well as protection, collection, and surveillance aspects of EW.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: Time dominates descriptions of the MDB concept which emphasizes the rapid and transitory nature of opportunities on the future battlefield.
This prison riot and resulting massacre is one of the most serious disturbances in a Mexican prison since February 2016.
It comes as a paradox of sorts that both Daesh, with its nihilistic worldview, and Salafyo Costa, with its conciliatory approach, can manage to find a place under the umbrella of Salafism.
"Preparing for War" combines collective biography, military anthropology, and military history to illuminate the uneven tapestry of how military professions change.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: Multi-Domain Entropy - creating uncertainty within enemy domains in order to disadvantage their ability to win.
Current and prospective investors are fearful of how the situation in the DRC could develop. Instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo has become the norm rather than the exception.
Estonia moved under NATO’s collective protection too quickly by ignoring a quarter of their population who are Russian speakers, most of whom are disenfranchised.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: The integration of computational analytic tools is a necessity to visualize and understand complexity.
ABC's ‘analysis’ boils down to little more than innuendo and cheap shots against a community that is not in a position to publicly defend itself.
The challenge of fighting today's war while preparing to win the next war.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: Data will be the most coveted weapon and the greatest tool.
Considered the “Islamic Fringe” by Muslim coreligionists, S.E. Asian Muslims embraced secular pursuits and have shunned the radical variants of Islam common in the Middle East.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: In this world of flux and constant pursuit of competitive advantage, the most disruptive technologies will be tactical level electromagnetic pulse weapons.
The U.S. Army places great emphasis on the importance of judgment, but does little to explain the concept.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: Megacities - or more generally Dense Urban Areas - will emerge at the epicenter of future events necessitating military intervention.
SWJ interview with Thomas Wright, author of “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For The 21st Century & The Future Of American Power”.
TRADOC Mad Scientist Project: The intent of this paper is to present a sample of emerging human enhancement technologies that may contribute to soldier resilience.