Sarah H. Bana

This report assesses the economic impacts that a shipbuilder has on its local community and region. The authors utilize a case study methodology to examine two U. S. shipbuilders and the Saab Aeronautics Gripen program in Sweden. While each shipbuilder has had beneficial effects on its local economy, neither shipbuilder has given rise to the ecosystem of favorable spillovers and spin-offs that the Gripen program seems to have created.

This report describes counterinsurgency strategies and practices and conditions in which U. S. small-footprint partnerships may succeed. Successful U. S. operations have been concentrated in favorable conditions, but most insurgencies occur in worst-case conditions. Case studies of the Philippines and Pakistan reinforce findings of the analysis and highlight challenges for the U. S. in trying to influence partners. Recommendations are offered for managing troubled partnerships."

The authors evaluated the effectiveness of the Common Core the first phase of the U. S. Army's system for developing critical thinking skills in its officer corps and the extent of differences among course venues: distributed, resident, and mixed delivery. Future evaluation should focus on whether the best possible outcomes within venues, rather than equivalent outcomes across venues, are achieved."

The U. S. Army s Command and General Staff School offers its Advanced Operations Course (AOC) for junior field-grade officers using both traditional resident instruction and a model referred to as blended distributed learning (BDL). This report assesses the effectiveness of AOC-BDL based on student and graduate surveys and identifies best practices for BDL from empirical research and case studies."