Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.

Switch View to Grid View Slideshow

The Military-News Media Relationship: Thinking Forward

Charles W. Ricks COL, Rod Lyon Dr., and William T. Tow Prof.

Over the course of the next six months, the Strategic Studies Institute will examine the impact of the media's technological advances on strategic and operational level planning and policymaking, first in an overseas theater, and subsequently on decisions made at the national level. The first of these two studies recognizes the complexity of executing military operations under the scrutiny of a very responsive, high technology world news media. Given the volatile, unstable, and ambiguous environment in which armed forces can find themselves, the actions of field forces have a greater chance than ever before of affecting subsequent strategic decisions made at higher levels. The pressure on field commanders to "get it right the first time" is demonstrably greater than ever. The author intends that these thoughts provide commanders with an understanding of the high technology and competitive news media environment they can expect to experience and offers specific suggestions for successfully communicating with reporters.
Turkey's Strategic Position at the Crossroads of World Affairs

Stephen J. Blank Dr., William T. Johnsen Dr., and Stephen C. Pelletiere Dr.

This report analyzes the implications of Turkey's policies and the reactions of Turkey's neighbors in three discrete chapters. The authors focus their conclusions and options for U.S. policymakers on the effect of Turkish policies in Europe, the Middle East, and the former Soviet republics. The final chapter summarizes their conclusions with respect to the three regions and provides policy options for continuing U.S.-Turkish relations that are so important in the search for peace and stability in these regions.
Strategic Minerals in the New World Order

Kent H. Butts

The author discusses U.S. dependence on overseas sources of strategic minerals essential to sustain its economy and defense sector. U.S. vulnerability to a loss of access to important mineral supplies is more pronounced now than at any time since World War II. The uneven distribution of strategic mineral reserves and their concentration in a handful of politically unstable countries make it essential that U.S. policymakers ensure mineral availability in the new world order. The author considers the geographical imbalance of mineral trade patterns, evaluates the stability of the major strategic mineral producing countries, and assesses the potential for mineral supply disruption. He also examines several policy options for reducing U.S. vulnerability to a loss of strategic mineral supplies including retention and modernization of the National Defense Stockpile.
The Army and Multinational Peace Operations: Problems and Solutions

William J. Doll COL

Effectiveness in multinational peace operations has become an important issue for the Army. In addition to traditional peacekeeping to monitor cease-fires and truces, the Army is now involved in activities such as peace enforcement and the reconstruction of failed states. While the Army has well-established procedures for traditional peacekeeping, it clearly has much to analyze and learn about these new types of multinational peace operations. As part of this process, the Strategic Studies Institute and the U.S. Army Peacekeeping Institute sponsored two roundtables at the Army War College in 1993. Both brought together diverse experts from within and outside the government, and sought to clarify key questions and problems rather than provide definitive answers. To encourage frank and open discussion, the roundtables operated on a nonattribution basis.

The first roundtable examined grand strategy and foreign policy. It dealt with issues such as the future of the United Nations and U.S. objectives in Third World conflict. The second was at the level of military strategy and operations, focusing on the concerns of regional combatant commands and U.S. components in multinational forces. This is the report of the second roundtable. It is not a verbatim transcript of discussion at the roundtable, but an attempt to capture the essence of the debate and identify core issues which emerged.
The Future of the United Nations: Implications for Peace Operations

Steven Metz Dr.

President Clinton has expressed clear support for greater U.N. effectiveness in the peaceful resolution of conflict and the organization of collective security. This entails finding ways to improve U.N. peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace-enforcement. The U.S. Army will have a vital role in this process and thus must better understand both the U.N. itself and the key issues and questions associated with peace support operations. The foundation of such understanding is debate on a series of broad issues such as the macro-level configuration of the international system, alterations in global values (especially the notion of sovereignty), and the function of the United Nations in possible future international systems. While questions concerning such problems cannot be answered with certainty, they will serve as the basis for future decisions on doctrine, force structure, and strategy. It is thus vital for American security professionals to grapple with them.

To encourage this process, the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, sponsored a roundtable on October 5, 1993 that brought together distinguished experts from both inside and outside the government. They included widely-published writers, analysts, and practitioners of peace operations. Their goal was less to reach consensus on the future of the U.N. than to agree on what the vital questions, problems, and issues will be. This report is not a verbatim transcript of discussion at the roundtable, but an attempt to capture the debate and identify the core issues which emerged.
Paradigm Lost?: Transitions and the Search for a New World Order

David Jablonsky Dr.

After every momentous event, there is usually a transition period, in which participants in the events, whether individuals or nation-states, attempt to chart their way into an unfamiliar future. In the United States in this century, there are three such transitions, each focused on America's role in the international arena. After World War I, the American people specifically rejected the global role for the United States implicit in Woodrow Wilson's strategic vision of collective security. In contrast to this "return to normalcy," after World War II the United States moved inexorably toward international leadership in response to the Soviet threat. The result was an acceptance of George Kennan's strategic vision of containing the Soviet Union on the Eurasian landmass and the subsequent bipolar confrontation of the two superpowers in a twilight war that lasted for over 40 years.

Sometime in the penultimate decade of the 20th century, the United States and its allies won the cold war. Once again in the current transition period, the primary questions revolve around the management of power and America's role in global politics. Once again there are the issues of change and continuity. In terms of change, the cold war set in train a blend of integrative and disintegrative forces and trends that are adding to the complex tensions of the current transition. The integrative force that increasingly linked global economies in the cold war, for instance, also holds out the spectral potential of global depression or, at the very least, nations more susceptible to disintegrative actions, as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait demonstrated. In a similar manner, the advances in communications and transportation that have spread the results of medical and scientific discoveries around the world are countered by the malign transnational results of nuclear technology, the drug trade, terrorism, AIDS and global warming.
Afghanistan and Beyond: Reflections on the Future of Warfare

Stephen J. Blank Dr.

This report provides an historical analysis of lessons from one of the most important wars of the 1980s, the war in Afghanistan. After reading this study, you will better understand the nature of operations "other than war" in multiethnic states. Many fear that these wars will set the paradigm for wars in the 1990s and will exert pressure on U.S. forces to conduct peacekeeping, peace-enforcement and humanitarian assistance operations in especially dangerous areas. Yugoslavia and Somalia, each in their own way, bear out the ubiquity of these wars and the pressures on the United States to act. This report will, of course, contribute to the body of material dealing with the war in Afghanistan.

More importantly, it increases understanding of future wars, particularly these types of wars, so that policymakers and analysts alike will better appreciate their military and political aspects. In turn, we may devise mechanisms either to forestall and avert them, or to bring them to the speediest possible conclusion. Alternatively, should those mechanisms fail and troops have to be committed, this and future analyses will enable commanders to have a better grasp of the nature of the war they will fight. In either case, understanding the war and the theater should facilitate a solution more in keeping with U.S. interests and values.
The Nature of the Post-Cold War World

Charles William Maynes Mr. and William G. Hyland Mr.

The editors of the nation's two leading journals on foreign policy were asked to examine the nature of the post-cold war world and America's transitional role. These essays represent the views of Charles William Maynes, editor of Foreign Policy, and William G. Hyland, former editor of Foreign Affairs.

Charles Maynes reviews the major transitions that marked 45 years of Soviet-American strategic confrontation. Predictably, the U.S. global role and defense resources are declining as old threats decrease and domestic problems move higher up on the policy agenda. Less predictably, the relative defense spending of small powers is likely to increase, adding to the potential for regional instability. These trends and the proliferation of weapons technology, including weapons of mass destruction, will drive the major powers toward their third attempt in this century to deal with global instability through collective security. Power will become more evenly distributed as America's military dominance recedes and others' economic power increases. Such trends, Mr. Maynes believes, should not be disturbing so long as prudent retrenchment does not become a foolish retreat from an American global role.

William Hyland believes that no president since Calvin Coolidge has inherited an easier foreign policy agenda. Presidents from Truman through Bush did the cold war "heavy lifting," and the Clinton transitional era should mark the ascendancy of domestic over foreign policy issues. Economic power is essential to America's future and the country faces the difficult task of economic recovery while avoiding the political expedience of protectionism or other forms of belligerence toward our trading partners. This would accelerate international fragmentation, undermining the political trends toward a collective security regime that is vital to the new world order and is the best alternative to the extremes of U.S. isolationism or global policeman.
Domestic Missions for the Armed Forces

Sam Nunn Senator

During the summer of 1992, Senator Sam Nunn, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, initiated legislation to enhance civilian and military cooperative efforts in meeting critical domestic needs. In a speech before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he called for a major reexamination of the roles and missions of the nation's Armed Forces to help solve these problems. The political context of Senator Nunn's speech is as important as its content. The cold war was over, domestic crises were manifesting themselves, and the Armed Forces, especially after the Gulf War, enjoyed unprecedented prestige and unique capabilities and efficiencies. These efficiencies, Senator Nunn believes, can be turned on domestic difficulties. As budgets were cut, the broad area of roles and missions also became the vehicle for scrubbing the budget and revalidating missions and force structures. The revalidation process continues and, in simple terms, the defense budget will see dollars being taken out or new missions added. This paper details Senator Nunn's ideas for new missions. It sets forth his speech, the relevant materials from reports of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House-Senate Conference Committee (Appendix A), and the final text of the legislation as enacted in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993 (Appendix B).
Eisenhower as Strategist: The Coherent Use of Military Power in War and Peace

Steven Metz Dr.

Few if any American officers performed a wider array of strategic functions as Dwight D. Eisenhower--he was a staff planner in the War Department, wartime commander of a massive coalition force, peacetime Chief of Staff, and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Eisenhower was directly involved in a number of major transitions including the building of the wartime American Army, its demobilization following the war, and the resuscitation of American military strength during the initial years of the cold war. This means that Eisenhower's career can provide important lessons on how a coherent strategy should and should not be built during times of strategic transition. That is what this monograph begins to do. It is not intended to be a biography in the usual sense and thus offers no new facts or insights into Eisenhower's life. Instead it uses that life as a backdrop for exploring the broader essence of strategic coherence and draws lessons from Eisenhower's career that can help guide the strategic transition which the U.S. military now faces.
General George C. Marshall: Strategic Leadership and the Challenges of Reconstituting the Army, 1939-41

John T. Nelson COL

The study of strategic leadership as a formal, analytical concept is relatively new. Therefore, concrete, historical examples of leaders who have wrestled with the width and breadth of strategic-level challenges are of inestimable value. Marshall's contributions were no accident of history. They resulted from the exercise of effective strategic leadership, consciously and consistently applied across a broad spectrum of activities and interests. This study analyzes the nature and effects of that leadership and captures the magnitude of Marshall's achievements as a strategic leader during what were frequently regarded as the unglamorous prewar years.
Land Warfare in the 21st Century

James M. Dubik Colonel and Gordon R. Sullivan General

Land warfare in the 21st century will be shaped by the cumulative effects of many revolutionary changes that have yet to merge in a clear or predictable pattern. This paper identifies three elements of change that are likely to have the greatest impact on the Army and the joint conduct of land warfare. First, the international system is undergoing its third major transition of the 20th century in response to the end of the cold war. Second, changes in military technology are culminating in what many believe will be a "military-technical revolution" that brings unprecedented depth and transparency to the battlefield.

Finally, this paper cautions that change will inevitably coexist with at least three constants--the root causes of war, the nature of war, and the essence of fighting power. Preparation includes traditional non-quantifiable factors as much as technology. Leadership, courage, self-sacrifice, initiative, and comradeship under extreme conditions of ambiguity, fog, friction, danger, stark fear, anxiety, death, and destruction--all remain the coins of war's realm and no amount of technological advance will degrade their value. A central message of this paper is for strategists to carry the best of the present forward as we adapt to the revolutionary changes on the horizon. Land warfare will remain a vital component in the national military strategy, but only if we understand and respond to the forces that are shaping the battlefields of the 21st century.
Peacekeeping, Peacemaking and Peace-Enforcement: The U.S. Role in the New International Order

Donald M. Snow Dr.

The author examines the bases of American military participation in the array of Third World activities falling under the general rubric of peacekeeping and peace-enforcement. The relevance of this inquiry was underscored by President Clinton in his Inaugural Address, when he added situations where "the will and conscience of the international community are defied" to traditional vital interests and as times when American military force might be employed. He considers the major instances in the post-cold war world where so-called humanitarian interventions have occurred or may occur: the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The author then examines the effects of these actions on the principle of sovereignty. He next turns to the emerging roles of peacekeeping and peace-enforcement and the conceptual and practical differences between them, and concludes with some cautionary lessons for the Army.
Strategy, Forces and Budgets: Dominant Influences in Executive Decision Making, Post-Cold War, 1989-91

Don M. Snider Dr.

The successful application of national military strategy depends upon the existence of a balanced, flexible military establishment; a national force structured, manned, equipped, and trained to execute the broad range of potential missions that exist in the post-cold war world. With this in mind, the national leaders of the previous administration developed a concept for a military that was considerably smaller; but well-equipped, highly trained, and capable of rapid response to a number of probable scenarios in the final decade of the 20th century. The author's masterful assessment of the processes by which these plans for the future state of America's armed forces were developed is a valuable addition to the literature on strategy formulation. Working with a great deal of original source material, he is able to illuminate the critical series of events that resulted in the development of the National Military Strategy of the United States and the "base force." He comments upon the roles played throughout this process by the Secretary of Defense, by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and by the Service Chiefs. He assesses the extent to which the "build-down" has been achieved since the concept was approved, and how the process was affected by the Gulf War, domestic needs, and, to a lesser degree, by a change in administrations.
Alternative World Scenarios for a New Order of Nations

Charles W. Taylor Dr.

This futures book reflects the global trends and events of the recent past and those of today that are bringing about change to the world's political, economic, social, technological, and military environments. The forecasts found throughout the book are derived from analysis of the open literature and other media, the author's experience as a futurist, and his own futures writings. This book was written as a text and guide for long-range planners, policymakers, and others. It provides a set of plausible scenarios against which users can build policies and decisions while anticipating and judging their consequences before implementation.
Nuclear Pakistan and Nuclear India: Stable Deterrent or Proliferation Challenge?

George H. Quester Dr.

Nuclear proliferation, a security issue which has transcended the cold war, has been, and is, particularly troublesome in South Asia. There, India and Pakistan, neighbors with unresolved disputes since they were granted independence at the end of World War II, are believed to have nuclear weapons (although the leaders of both nations deny it) and are intermittently engaged in conflict with each other. Professor Quester has examined this unique nuclear relationship, analyzing the attitudes and behavior of both nations. He concludes with a paradox: both have "bombs in the basement," if not in their respective military inventories, and these weapons present serious dangers to the world simply because of their destructive potential, even if their leaders have the best intentions. On the other hand, Indian and Pakistani leaders appear to have low levels of concern about each others' nuclear (not conventional military) developments. It is possible to be optimistic and conclude that the relationship is actually stable and, like the U.S.-Soviet nuclear relationship of the cold war, helps prevent war on the subcontinent, or to be cynical and conclude that each regime cares more about the prestige of membership in the nuclear club than the ominous threat posed thereby against their populations.