After failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, it’s time for a new understanding of counterinsurgency. With the apparent lack of progress and success in Afghanistan and Iraq, counterinsurgency (COIN) has fallen out of favor within the political and military establishments in the U.S. and elsewhere. Regardless of whether these failures were due to erroneous implementation or…
Category: Hybrid Warfare
It is Time for the U.S. Military to Innovate like Insurgents
These three Army captains built a gun that kills drones. It took them ten hours and cost $150. What can the Army learn from them? The recently concluded meeting of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) has become a yearly tradition for senior military leaders, congressional staff, and members of foreign armies to…
The Moral Hazard of Proxy Warfare
It has been a very bad month for advocates of the “indirect” approach to U.S. national security policy. U.S.-trained rebels in Syria handed over their weapons to al-Qaeda; and the United States has been forced to sit back helplessly and watch as Russian bombers target CIA-backed rebel forces. The Department of Defense’s train-and-equip program has…
Here is How World War 3 Could Start Tomorrow
By PW Singer and August Cole There is an old adage that militaries set themselves up by failure by preparing to fight the last war. When it comes to 21st Century warfare, the problem however may not be with looking back, but that we aren’t looking back far enough. For the last two decades, leaders…
A Sneek Peak at Russias High Tech War Machine at work in Syria
Russia has been sending fighter jets, drones, and bombers to Syria to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad, generating concern and outrage among the United States and its allies. Far less attention has been paid to Moscow’s simultaneous deployment of advanced surveillance, signals intelligence, and electronic warfare equipment that could deal a new blow to…
US Navy to Challenge Chinese Claims in South China Sea
The Navy is preparing to send a ship inside the 12-mile territorial limit China claims for its man-made island chain in the South China Sea, according to military officials. The action could take place within days but awaits final approval from the Obama administration, the officials told Navy Times. Plans to send a warship through…
U.S. Naval Commander in Europe: NATO must Adapt to Russia’s New Way of Hybrid Warfare
Russia has found ways to slow NATO military responses while simultaneously quickening its own ability to mobilize, the commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe and Africa said, and NATO needs to find ways to adapt. Adm. Mark Ferguson, who also commands the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, said at the Atlantic Council…
7 Times the U.S. almost stumbled into War with Russia
With all of the shenanigans going on in Syria with Russia lately, I thought it prudent to review America’s history with this long time cold (and sometimes hot) enemy.-SF In light of current events in places like the Ukraine and Syria, the risk of America and Russia fighting a proxy war or even a real war…
Corbett vs. The Caliphate: What a Long Dead Naval Strategist Tells us about Combatting the Islamic State
Julian Corbett (1854-1922) has long been hidden in the shadow of Clausewitz and by the baneful glare of modern think tanks. Renowned as a naval thinker, Corbett was far more—and ever adept at pointing out how absolute theories collapse when faced with reality. Of particular pertinence to the current befuddlement of U.S. policy toward…