Journal

“Mad Scientist” series - As the US Army considers the challenges of operating in dense urban areas, leadership requires a basic understanding of the operating environment.

“Mad Scientist” series - It may prove beneficial to leverage the IOT in order to provide our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines the decisive advantage needed to fight and win.

“Mad Scientist” series - It is critical that we understand complex systems.  This requires embracing a complex adaptive systems framework focused on urban networks.

Today’s non-warfighters have largely forgotten that Western civilization’s art and style of thinking was invented by a grunt, a decorated hero, a veteran of three wars—Socrates.

Urban areas present diverse challenges and one issue is communications. Communications that could be easy in other environments become remarkably more challenging in urban terrain.

"Mad Scientist" series - Megacities and dense urban environments are firmly on the horizon as likely and potential environments for future warfare and humanitarian engagements.

The latest in the “Mad Scientist” series - By 2050, urbanization will arguably be the most consequential event in the history of mankind.

This "Mad Scientist" essay posits that Tactical Combat Casualty Care capabilities must undergo disruptive changes that enable the development of an “intelligent” TCCC platform.

This "Mad Scientist" essay proposes adoption of a specific planning framework for urban operations.

Megacities are sure to challenge every member of a coalition. How these urban areas might do so in the intelligence realm in the near future is the primary focus of this offering.

To better understand the challenges of securing the border, this article analyzes the Border States environment, the human element, and then look towards the future.

Risky gambles or sure bets? Understanding how and why Putin makes decisions regarding the use of Russian power abroad continues to challenge outside observers.

Intolerant individuals advancing an extremist Islamist agenda entered the British landscape long before the global rise of al-Qaeda and, later, the Islamic State.

The defense establishment must embrace the energy and ideas already being produced and provide a way for them to have real impact - an innovation program that seeks true offsets.

I first posted this short piece at the Urban Operations Journal on 28 February 2003 and reposted it here at SWJ on 17 December 2007. Here are the considerations, again.

The latest in the TRADOC G-2 / SWJ Mad Scientist call for papers series.

This paper seeks to identify lessons from the Afghanistan “COIN Development” experience at the strategic level.

How do we measure the on-the-ground costs of taking civilian lives?

Every SOF practitioner will be required to understand the basics of cyberspace, computers, and coding because they’ll need those skills to conduct cyber special operations.

This is a world of closely-knit communities. It signals the end of closed border politics, the irrelevance of the politics of containment and the risks of double-standard politics.

Continue on for a TRADOC G-2 / Small Wars Journal "Mad Scientist" call for papers update.

In order to predict future impacts of megacities to the US Army, the global drivers and trends leading to megacity development must be identified.

We can become so preoccupied with how to win over the population we fail to ask when attempting to do so is even appropriate.

On the surface, facilitating mentoring seems very simple, but even establishing a common definition is a significant challenge.

In dispute is how to make attack pilots trained in and flying in an aircraft designed for an attack mission into aerial scouts.

While it contends with the Islamic State and al-Qaida an insurgency intent on challenging the sovereignty of the U.S. government is already here.

The Army must develop a holistic solution to Army-wide cyber resiliency and hardening of electronic systems to address our current cyber capability gap.

The growing planned use of UMS and robotics on the future battlefield affords both great opportunities and challenges to far future medical operations.

Interview with Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.

If we aren’t willing to use American infantry against ISIS, perhaps we might consider using robots.

SWJ discussion with Alexander Lanoszka, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College.

Kilcullen has six maxims to manage company-level COIN operations, and for me the most interesting one of the six is “travel light, and harden your combat service support.”

This research examines the cyber battle space, why it poses a significant threat, and how attribution difficulties can create significant issues for deterrence of cyber-attacks.

Lawyers like to say that “bad facts make bad law” – and that could be at play here.

America has been ignoring the overall threat that has been attacking her people since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Like the Battle of the Bulge, the 1972 Easter Offensive has often been referred to as an intelligence failure because it caught the U.S. and S. Vietnam completely by surprise.

Statecraft stands apart as a more elevated undertaking than politics... statecraft is fundamentally a strategic enterprise, while strategy in turn is... an ethical enterprise.

Are American terrorists considered combatants if not in an active combat zone engaging U.S. forces on the ground and should they be accorded additional consideration before being targeted?

This research paper examines four cells of individuals, both rooted in society and of a high socio-economic status, whose members have radicalized within North America.

The true goal of Special Forces physical training should reflect that which was sought by the OSS—complete confidence to handle uncertainty.

Egos and agendas are destroying the prospect for a powerful alliance against ISIS.

People have always given our Nation and our Army the competitive advantage. In the Cyber Domain, the people continue to be the central factor to our success.

I am struggling to think of a single insurgency that was defeated by airpower, primarily defeated by airpower, or even seriously undermined by airpower.

Allah versus the ISO’s fraudulent martyrdom - a fraud that is sinful at many levels.

The politics and theology of Muslims is now the dominant source of global instability; although any separation of the two is moot in most nations with an Islamic majority.

American strategy must consider the potential to prompt a deterioration of the relationship between the United States and India and foster a partnership between China and India.

The persistent use of RC forces is referred to as the Operational Reserve.  For the last several years there has been much debate on what the OR is, or is not. 

In summation, this is an excellent work derived from a number of years of intimate interviews and field reports conducted by Grillo.

Transnational criminal enterprises are now forging alliances in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their operation with the intention of increasing income, influence, and power.

Contrary to what the subtitle says you will not learn to “think like the enemy” by reading the book Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy by Micah Zenko.