Archive for December, 2011

A Ranger argues that prolonged stress and sleep deprivation undermine training — and even troops themselves

At the U.S. Army Ranger School, one of the military’s most renowned courses for combat arms …

A look back at the year’s most intriguing and influential pieces

Two decades after the Cold War and 10 years since 9/11 “changed everything,” strategists are still casting about for the next …

To the Army, for its Network Integration Evaluations (NIEs).

After years of high-profile acquisition failures — Future Combat Systems was only the most spectacular — the service is trying a different approach. …

How the military must adapt to an era of shrinking budgets and growing threats

The subject of the hour in defense circles is guessing how deeply the defense budget is going to …

The U.S. should create its own version of the military coopérant, which would furnish better understanding of local processes, dynamics, possibilities and limitations

The U.S. would do well to emulate France in …

Hint: Get the entire U.S. government onboard, and don’t test first

By the time the federal government buys an IT security product, it is several generations obsolete.It takes the Pentagon an average …

To the Office of Special Counsel, for its work in protecting whistle-blowers.

In 2007, Marine Corps science adviser Franz Gayl criticized military leaders for moving too slowly in deploying mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles …

We’ve been using the wrong OODA picture

The October 2011 AFJ article “Goodbye, OODA Loop” should have set off alarm bells across the U.S. defense community. In their well-written article, Kevin Benson …

What history tells us we’ll need tomorrow

Here we go again. As active participation in Iraq and Afghanistan fizzle out, the defense intellectual community casts about looking for the next enemy. Picking …

Andrew Marshall’s lessons for strategic forecasting

There are numbers that count, and numbers that don’t. Andrew Marshall has spent a lifetime trying to assess which ones are which. In October 1973, Arab …