Features

THANK YOU FOR CMDR. JERRY HENDRIX’S THOUGHT-PROVOKING ARTICLE “CARRIED AWAY” [March]. A few comments:

Expeditionary Strike Groups (ESGs) are useful but unlikely to undertake any significant operations without a Hawkeye overhead. Because …

Why presidents no longer fire generals

We are now more than six years into a war that spans the globe. American forces are engaged on the land, from the sea and from …

Israel’s operational intermediate-range ballistic missiles have a range of about 3,000 kilometers, or much more using fractional orbit delivery. He also stated that a single nuclear weapon is enough to destroy the …

A fatigued soldier is a sign of poor leadership

Throughout the history of warfare, it has been common knowledge that leadership can have crucial effects on battlefield success. During pre-industrial-era warfare, the …

The Navy neglects the importance of operational art

The Navy today is overly focused on the tactical employment of its combat forces, in its doctrine and practice. This might not be a …

KC-45A tanker award outcry is misplaced

The initial shock may be over about the Air Force awarding the KC-45A tanker contract to Northrop Grumman and its prime subcontractor, Airbus parent EADS, but …

Not all insurgencies have been protracted affairs

It has become a matter of conventional wisdom that insurgencies last an average of 10 years and that the insurgents win about 40 percent of …

Military doctrine favors the indirect and unexpected path to decisive results, hence the prevalence of the flanking maneuver. As we are reminded nearly daily, the seemingly intractable problem of U.S. dependence on …

Oil, and our reliance on it, is a catalyst for terrorism. Yet the U.S. military is powered, fueled and transported by it. Cmdr. Jeff Eggers urges a major research and development effort …

We are likely standing today on the precipice of a radical shift. The U.S. must therefore prepare to endure — or to survive — the arrival of the event that will signal …