Learning from Contemporary Conflicts to Prepare for Future War

Recent and ongoing wartime experience has discredited much of the thinking that underpinned the “Defense Transformation” effort in the 1990s. If we are to be prepared for future conflict, it is vital that we learn from experience and adjust our thinking about war. It is time to develop idealized visions of future war that are consistent with what post-9/11 conflicts have revealed as the enduring uncertainty and complexity of war. These concepts should be “fighting-centric” rather than “knowledge-centric.” They should also be based on real and emerging threats, informed by recent combat experience, and connected to scenarios that direct military force toward the achievement of policy goals and objectives. We must then design and build balanced forces that are capable of conducting operations consistent with the concepts we develop.     

Defense Management Challenges for the Next American President

The next American president will face a daunting list of national security problems, including a serious defense budget crunch. The budget crisis will be deepened by the global financial crisis, a tapering of supplemental funding associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the steady growth of military healthcare and other personnel costs. After six years of rapid defense budget increases, the Pentagon has lost the practice of matching strategy and resources. The next president will need to manage risk among investments in irregular warfare, counterterrorism, balancing new super powers, countering weapons of mass destruction, and traditional warfare. He will also need to begin to build non-military “soft power” capabilities outside of the Pentagon.     

COIN Machine: The British Military in Afghanistan

This article assesses the British military effort in Afghanistan looking at three key elements in the campaign: strategy, military operations, and the inter-agency “Comprehensive Approach.” We start by recognising the scale of the challenge that has faced the British: of all the provinces in Afghanistan, Helmand is the toughest to stabilize and secure. We then examine the evolution of all three elements above and find significant improvements in each: a flawed strategy has been corrected; the military have received more resources and become significantly better at COIN; and there is significant progress in the development of the inter-agency approach. In short, what the Americans will find in Helmand is a British COIN machine; a little creaky perhaps, but one that is fit for purpose and getting the job done. We briefly conclude on the prospects and the key to success: namely the development of a more coherent international strategy that accommodates the challenges posed by both Afghanistan and Pakistan.     

Effective Advice in Decisions for War: Beyond Objective Control

For half a century the study of civil-military relations has focused on the problem of civilian control, with Huntington's objective control concept supported as the optimal solution not only for civilian control in peacetime but also for military success in war. The challenges of modern warfare suggest the need for a new problématique founded upon the essential need for accuracy in pre-war net assessments. Inaccurate pre-war assessments, rather than a purported dearth of objective control or ‘derelictions of duty,’ explain many problems with recent war efforts. Furthermore, accurate pre-war assessments are hindered by objective control arrangements. An alternative approach of Open Debate among civilian and military leaders, would, in the pre-war period, acknowledge the need for high-level discussion of non-politicized expertise from multiple institutions. Open Debate would require altering institutional arrangements as well as the education of public servants.     

China's New Multi-Faceted Maritime Strategy

As trade-driven growth and prosperity redefine both the Chinese economy and the global competitive landscape, U.S. policy makers increasingly must ponder whether the Chinese leadership will seek new options and capabilities to protect its far-reaching oceanic lifelines. As imported oil and raw minerals power the Chinese juggernaut, much of these flows traverse the Strait of Malacca and other littorals where there is little current Chinese capability to project power. In recent years, there is an ongoing debate among Chinese military circles regarding the feasibility of constructing a blue-water fleet that could change the balance of power in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans. U.S. policy makers watch with increasing unease as a new generation of technically-savvy navy officers forcefully argue for a forward-looking maritime strategic posture that extends beyond the East and South China Seas. In addition, recent Chinese space-based and cyber warfare technology initatives bear watching as Beijing seeks to nullify key U.S. advantages in C4SRI using a high-tech variant of “asymmetric warfare.” Although it is unclear what direction future Chinese maritime strategy and doctrine will take, U.S. policy makers need to remain vigilant about rising Chinese maritime ambitions and capabilities in the future.     

The intersection of racial profiling research and the law

There has been a significant increase in the litigation of selective enforcement cases based on racial profiling claims. This trend has resulted in two legal issues that are problematic for racial profiling research. First, selective enforcement claims that rely on statistical evidence must successfully measure “similarly situated persons” who were eligible for police stops to provide a comparison against those actually stopped by police. Second, the research must demonstrate “how much” statistical evidence of racial/ethnic disparities exists. Although these legal components are necessary for successful selective enforcement claims, the methodologies and statistical analyses currently used in racial profiling research cannot adequately address these issues. It is argued that the over-reliance on social science research, in general, and statistical techniques, specifically, to provide evidence of discrimination in selective enforcement cases places policing research and legal decision making at a crossroads.     

Strengthening family planning stewardship with a total market approach: Mali,Uganda, and Kenya experiences

To improve overall market sustainability, governments and their donors are ramping up efforts to strengthen stewardship in developing country health markets. Key stewardship functions include generating intelligence that enable policymakers, ministerial leaders, and program managers to develop evidence‐based policies and strategies to improve the resource management, supply, and use of health products and services. The total market approach (TMA), an analytic and policy framework, generates market intelligence and improves evidence‐based decision‐making, and also strengthens other stewardship functions, such as building and sustaining partnerships, strengthening tools for implementation, aligning government policy with market interventions, and ensuring accountability/transparency. TMA evolved in response to the phase out of donor support for reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) programs and the need to improve coordination among public, private, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society to achieve greater equity, health impact, and market sustainability. To assess TMA's role in strengthening the stewardship of RH/FP markets, this article reviews three countries that applied TMA principles: Mali, Uganda, and Kenya. It identifies how TMA processes influenced stewardship functions and assesses to what degree these processes have contributed to concrete actions to improve market efficiency and sustainability.