Commentary
Civilian oversight of support functions — the whole of the service secretary’s task — is currently done or repeated by existing elements in the offices of the undersecretaries of defense, writes former secretary of defense Harold Brown.
Report
RAND researchers developed an initial prototype tool to help determine capabilities and resources a locality will likely require during a disaster. The report also describes two social networking tools for local coordination of disaster preparedness.
Commentary
To prepare for the interventions to come in the next decade, the United States must adapt the lessons from its experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and use them to generate a new, more realistic, and feasible doctrine, write Radha Iyengar and Douglas A. Ollivant.
News Release
The U.S. Department of Defense will receive more detailed, transparent and credible assessments of its counterinsurgency campaigns by replacing its top-down approach with a bottom-up method driven by contextual, narrative reporting provided by commanders on the ground.
Report
The U.S. Department of Defense will receive more detailed, transparent, and credible assessments of its counterinsurgency campaigns by replacing its top-down approach with a bottom-up method driven by contextual, narrative reporting provided by commanders on the ground.
Research Brief
Current processes used by the U.S. military do not provide accurate assessments of counterinsurgency campaigns. A new process that adds transparency and context to assessments would make them more credible and useful at all levels of decisionmaking.
Commentary
The Afghans will have better prospects for defeating their insurgency with continued improvement, of course, and the United States can contribute to that improvement while American forces remain, writes Christopher Paul.
Commentary
While NATO countries and allies like Jordan and Qatar have started to train and equip the security forces, there is more that outsiders can do to help, writes Frederic Wehrey.
Report
Although irregular warfare includes a range of activities in which naval forces have played an integral role, there has been little examination of the characteristics or potential of such operations in maritime environments. Current notions of irregular warfare would benefit from increased recognition of potential maritime contributions.
Report
The U.S. Department of Defense Civilian Expeditionary Workforce (CEW) is deployed to support theater operations. This paper builds on prior RAND research to examine how private security contractors may interact with and affect CEW operations.
Commentary
With U.S. troops out of Iraq, the U.S. presence there will fall to 5,000 private security contractors....The experience with private security contractors during the war was fraught with challenges that pose risks now, writes Molly Dunigan.
Report
As challenging as coalition warfare is during conventional conflicts, the difficulties are compounded in number and character when the contingency is instead a stability operation. The absence of a threat that puts survival interests at risk translates into weaker commitment and more-restrictive caveats on how a participant's capabilities are employed.
Commentary
A typical Iranian has many reasons to disobey the government, whether he or she is young, an ethnic minority, a poor teacher or laborer, or a struggling student, writes Alireza Nader.
Commentary
The SCAF's attempts to curtail dissent and the democratic process have fueled doubts about its true intentions. Will the military fulfill its promise to support democracy? Or will it seek to replace Mubarak's rule with its own or that of a friendly autocrat? write Jeffrey Martini and Julie Taylor.
Report
If "strategic communication" as a term is too vague or becomes politically untenable, abandon it. Just do not allow the underlying effort to coordinate government impact on the information environment to be lost too.
Report
An analysis of 30 insurgencies worldwide between 1978 and 2008 determined what factors were ultimately correlated with success or defeat. Comparing Afghanistan in early 2011 against this scorecard results in an uncertain outcome for the conflict there, but the findings may help provide additional guidance as operations continue.
Report
Air Force range managers schedule the infrastructure and airspace needed for realistic testing and training activities, which requires adequate information about the proposed maneuvers, the acceptable context, and understanding of the goals.
Commentary
The U.S. and its allies could help Libyans communicate with the outside world by deploying cellphone base stations on aircraft or tethered balloons, write Dan Gonzales and Sarah Harting.
Commentary
The new, post-Qaddafi era is likely to be marked by the emergence of long-suppressed domestic groups jostling for supremacy in what is sure to be a chaotic political scene, writes Frederic Wehrey.
Commentary
The most favorable outcome achievable in Egypt might be what we see in Iraq, but without the violence, writes Harold Brown.
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