We Just Lost the Initiative.....

Battles over military force structure and how the military evolves will continue for the foreseeable future. Yet to make informed decision, military leaders need to assess what long term risks and adversaries may be and anticipate potential tactics these adversaries may engage. For the most part, the military gets hung up on the last conflict and addresses the issues that created the past operational environment. Taking a napkin assessment of potential geopolitical environment, there are potentially two conventional style warfare scenarios, consisting of a large force-on-force engagement starring conventional forces. The first scenario is armed conflict with China across maritime, territory, space, and cyber-space domains. The other possible scenario is what we now call hybrid warfare with the Russians, to include direct action on a limited scale for chunks of territory. But outside of those two scenarios,...

It is my opinion that the Department of Defense has become an over-bloated top heavy organization. As an organization the military is unable to nimbly react to new and developing threats. Instead, the default position is to set up a new office, a new command, a new organization within the hierarchical structure to deal with the specific threat. Yet, except in very rare cases like the disestablishment of Joint Forces Command, these new organizational structures continue even if they can be folded elsewhere. And in the case of Joint Forces Command, the senior officials and offices were farmed out to other organizations. We are seeing an evolution in warfare where adversaries are small, mobile forces that use a mix of conventional, unconventional, terrorist, and cyber tactics to achieve specific objectives or a stalemate in a limited operational environment. So how does the U.S. Government (USG) combat these new and developing threats? Well let's take a look at a specific example. I...

With morbid fascination the world has been watching a complicated and unpredictable geopolitical play unfold right in front of our collective eyes. The actors in this play are familiar but with new set pieces. No longer is it the Soviet Union versus the United States, instead a hyper-nationalistic Russia has risen from Soviet ashes. Are we witnessing a re-kindling of the Cold War or Russian "schizophrenic" gestation as it tries to regain its prominence as a super-power? I do not believe we will see Russia rival the military might of the old Soviet Union. Russian economics are too dependent on the commodities market (in particular oil and extractive minerals) to sustain a large military in the style of the old Soviet Union. But overwhelming military might is not needed in this day and age to compete on the global stage. Vladimir Putin has repackaged elements of Russian national power (for example: the military -  par...

After attending the Middle East Strategy Task Force security working group meeting, there is a definite need to re-look American strategy in the Middle East. Find ings f rom the working group, in conjunction with rec ent terr orist activity in Lebanon and France, spurred my own thoughts on the strategy that the U.S. needs to pursue in the fu ture. I know that some of my thoughts will be consistent with current public opinion while other ideas will be seen as heretical from an American viewpoint.    The United States' engagement in the Middle East, since 2001, has been primarily military interventions centered on counter-terrorism operations and regime change with undefined objectives. But for all of the military and economic resources pumped into the region, what have been the results? Iraq disintegrates into a sectarian quagmire, Syria embroiled in a protracted civil war, refugees flood across borders creating instability in Lebanon and Jordan and creat...

Can we, yes I mean the U.S. and to a larger extent the world, finally make a concerted effort to fully engage ISIS and to end the Syrian civil war? The global community has neglected our humanity. Instead of actually doing something to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people, either through inaction or bias we have left the situation unabated and civilians (innocents) are dying to try and escape to a better life. * image courtesy of indianexpress.com Now look at Aylan! He is the result of a cowardly U.S. political establishment and an Administration that neglected to act when Assad crossed "the red line in the sand." What we see of our American politicians is a cowardly group that has abandoned a region torn apart by conflict and a mass forced migration, and an American public who are more interested in the latest Kardashian news. But America is only one of the many accomplices to have failed. Europe and Turkey have also failed Ay...

To plagiarize and bastardize an old saying: Libya disintegrates as the world fiddles. UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized countries to take "necessary action" to protect civilians from pending attack by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. NATO, seeing a potential southern security risk, engaged in a bombing campaign and enforced a no fly zone that balanced the field to allow rebellion to flourish that ended with the execution of Gaddafi. The end of Gaddafi should have ushered a new era for Libya. Or so we thought.   In the four years since the dawn of the Arab Spring, Libya has become another African basket case - a failing state that is headed towards disintegration and a possible forerunner to a region that harkens back to precolonial boundaries thus ending the Westphalian state in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region and sub-Saharan Africa. Sectarian and tribal allegiances is becoming the preeminent political force instead of the nation-state.  But...