*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. As a policy initiative, Strategic Landpower never really lived. Though a brief topic of interest in 2013, when the service chiefs of the Army, Marine Corps, and US Special Operations Command wrote a combined White Paper (“Winning the Clash of…
Image created by Matt Cavanaugh. Where do we direct our blows? How do we most effectively and efficiently achieve victory? What does “victory” even mean anymore? These are hard questions a lot of smart people encounter in the most stressful of human interactions – at war. Yet we often skip straight to these issues before we…
Image (proudly) created by Matt Cavanaugh. Choices made both close and create opportunities. For a simple Valentine’s-ish example, consider that when one selects a (soul)mate for life, while that choice closes potential relationships with other partners, at the same time such a decision creates life opportunities through a committed relationship. The old saying is useful; decisions open doors and…
Image courtesy of Tremr. Make no mistake, this is not an assessment one offers with a smile. But it’s a fact: ISIS (or ISIL) has achieved victory in Northern Iraq and Eastern Syria and does meet minimum requirements for statehood. Just spend a few miserable minutes reading the most recent situation updates or listen to the Foreign…
Image courtesy of Flikr user US Army. If a soldier gets hit in a war and no one is around to film it, does it really matter? Following two highly publicized police encounters – one in Ferguson, Missouri and the choking death of Eric Garner in New York City – the New York Times…
Image of Camp Funston, Kansas (USA), US Army base, 1918 provided courtesy of Wikipedia. There are three conclusions for the military profession to be drawn from the present Ebola outbreak: the threat is enormous, but ultimately manageable; the desired ends are currently vastly under resourced; and the profession’s lack of intellectual focus on the…
Image courtesy of the New York Times. In his famous 1998 set of BBC Radio Reith lectures, military historian Sir John Keegan described war as a “protean activity” that “changes form, often unpredictably” like a “disease” that “exhibits the capacity to mutate and mutates fastest in the face of efforts to control or eliminate it.”…
Graphic created by Major Matt Cavanaugh. I seem to be writing and thinking quite a bit about the concept of strategic landpower these days. The image above is a second, better version of a similar attempt at visualizing strategic landpower. Please feel free to offer suggestions and/or comments!
Image courtesy of Life Magazine and Flikr user Vietnam History in Pictures. The US Army will not be very successful in the coming operating environment unless it develops a sense of strategic understanding in its officers (and senior noncommissioned officers). For the purposes of this essay, strategic understanding is defined here as: awareness, comprehension, and…
Image courtesy of Topoquest. Yesterday, in a cadet capstone brief on strategic landpower, I came to the realization that my general description of the concept had not been getting through. I needed a more concrete example to provide – something cadets could visualize. In short, a good example.