U. S. Army War College Press

The genesis for this anthology occurred almost two years ago. As the internship program grew, we realized that many of their projects were too good to be used only by us. We thought their ideas deserved a forum where others might also benefit from their observations. This anthology is not exhaustive. In fact, there were many more papers we would have liked to include but, alas, we had to make the cut somewhere. These papers were written between 2010 and 2012. As we noted in our recently published monograph, Smart Research: Leveraging Interns and Fellows to Enhance Your Research Program, most often, interns are brought into organizations and given basic tasks. That is not the modus operandi at PKSOI. The number one rule here is that each intern must be given a real assignment, not "make work" and, most often, that project comes from our or a collaborator's research list. These are research projects that would not otherwise be completed.

Transportation is the "web of union", and sustainability of systems relies upon political will. Sustainable transportation is the result of intentional policy at the strategic level and potentiates unified governance and economic growth. This book proposes that a long term vision and four key principles of sustainable transportation are critical to success in establishing and operating transportation systems. Sustainable transportation is integral to U. S security and prosperity, and a critical component in strategy for peace keeping and stability operations abroad. Sustainable transportation is both foundational to and interdependent with security and prosperity. Peace and stability are reliant upon sustainable transportation that can best be accomplished in a comprehensive approach starting with a long term vision and focused on balancing the key sustainability principles of transportation resilience, economic development, environmental health, and social values.

After 13 years of prolonged ground combat, a weary American public is leery of further interventions requiring land forces. Shifting geostrategic conditions, such as a revanchist Russia and a rising China, reinforce this reluctance. At the same time, technological innovation once more offers the chimera of war from a distance that does not endanger land forces. Nonetheless, at some point, a highly volatile international security environment will place U. S. national interests at risk, requiring the use of military power. Given the increasing rise of interdependence among all components of military power (air, cyberspace, land, sea, and space), a better understanding of Landpower is essential if national leaders are to have a full range of policy options for protecting and promoting those interests. Landpower, "the ability-by threat, force, or occupation-to gain, sustain, exploit control over land, resources, and people," stems from a country's geostrategic conditions, economic power, population, form of government, and national will. The military elements of Landpower include a country's ground forces, the institutions that generate and sustain those forces, and the human dimension-intelligent, highly adaptable, and innovative individuals-so vital to the successful employment of Landpower. Landpower offers policymakers tremendous utility in peace, crisis, or war, as it can defeat, deter, compel, reassure, engage, and support the nation. Within each of these roles, as well as across them, Landpower can carry out the broadest range of military operations. This versatility across the spectrum of conflict offers national leaders the greatest number of effective policy options.

The United States plays a significant role in the Middle East. When dealing with the region, often the dilemma is: should there be a strong or weak regional leadership in order to facilitate a transitional phase? However, this decision is contextual, and a state must know what is its own foreign policy. To promote its national interests in the long term, the United States might have to prioritize the local interests and almost altruistically help the regions overcome their internal divisions and problems. In this book, Dr. Anastasia Filippidou reviews the main leadership theories in order to set the foundations for analysis of asymmetric leadership in transitional processes. The report also examines the different leadership types and highlights that, with the exception possibly of toxic leadership, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine that a specific type is better than another in every situation. According to Dr. Filippidou, some leadership styles are likely to be more effective in certain situations, and that a really effective leader is one who is able to determine the context of the situation and use the most effective leadership behavior required at the time.

It is important to involve the security sector agents themselves in the process to overcome institutional opposition; appealing to professional ethics and identity is equally bound to be more successful than patronizing civilian attitudes. Ultimately, security sector reform against the wishes of the sector in question will always result in mitigated success, if not to say failure. For better or for worse, Arab security sectors remain one of the pillars of Arab states. Without security, no economic development is possible in either Libya or Egypt-and economic conditions led to the 2011 events in the first place. Western governments so far have refrained from extensive security sector reform in the Arab world, preferring security sector assistance or occasional training. What 2011 has shown, however, is that reforms are not only beneficial, but at this stage mandatory. Since civilian actors are themselves challenged by ongoing transitions, the main agents in this reform will have to be the institutions themselves. Understanding their concerns and needs will certainly foster their cooperation-and in any case such understanding is crucial to delivering the efficient and legally bound security sector that citizens and institutions alike are striving for.

This book examines the underlying issues behind the continuing low-level Islamist insurgency movement in the Russian North Caucasus. It begins by analyzing the history of relations between the Russian and the North Caucasus nations, focusing specifically on the process of subjugating the region by the Russian Empire. Since the 18th century, Russia has used brutal force to expand territorially to the Caucasus. The mistreatment of the North Caucasus continued after World War I and especially during and after World War II, when entire North Caucasus nations faced persecution and forcible deportations to remote parts of the Soviet Union-in which up to 30 percent of the exiles perished. Thus, the Russians planted the seeds of resentment and hatred toward them that persist to the present time. These tragic events lie at the heart of the grudges the Chechens, the Ingush, the Circassians, and other North Caucasus nations feel against the Russians. Right after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union, these grudges came to the surface. Chechnya tried to break free from what the Chechens considered occupation of their lands by the infidel Russians. Its attempt was suppressed in two wars so as to preserve the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation

After nearly 13 years, over 2,200 lives lost, and over U. S.$650 billion spent since the United States began its air campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban in October 2001, the end of the long American military campaign in Afghanistan appears to be in sight. Despite the cost and challenges, the reality that Afghanistan still ranks consistently in the bottom 10 countries for human development and corruption, and the uneven but clear progress that the country has made in many areas, the United States will soon scale down its involvement in Afghanistan, and quite possibly pull all uniformed military forces out of Afghanistan quite rapidly. Additionally, the widely reported corruption that exists throughout the Afghan government, the resilient Taliban-led insurgency, and a litany of Western blunders, mishaps, and tragedies have all helped to undermine Western interest in the Afghan War. Recent surveys suggest that public support for the war is dwindling in Western and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries, with 75 percent of European respondents and 68 percent of U. S. respondents supporting either withdrawal or immediate troop reductions according to the German Marshall Fund Annual Transatlantic Trends Survey. Alternatively, perhaps the declining interest in Afghanistan is connected to a widespread popular and policymaker belief, especially since the 2011 Abbottabad raid (Operation NEPTUNE SPEAR) that killed Osama bin Laden, that U. S. and NATO war aims in Afghanistan have been achieved, or at least achieved to a sufficient degree given the current fiscal and political climate. This monograph answers six key questions about U. S. policy and strategy for Afghanistan:1. Did the United States have or develop critical national interests in Afghanistan and its immediate neighborhood on or because of the events of September 11, 2001?2. Was overall U. S. strategy to pursue those interests successful and appropriate?3. What outside conditions shaping U. S. involvement in Afghanistan exist now?4. Do new vital and/or important national interests not met by our earlier strategies exist in this region?5. What strategy(s) should the United States adopt or emphasize to achieve any vital and/or important national interests in/around Afghanistan?6. What risks and challenges are associated with new policies and/or strategies?

The current international security environment is characterized by unprecedented uncertainty. In the Asia-Pacific, our allies adjust to China's rise and hedge against instability coming from North Korea. In the greater Middle East, the Syrian civil war draws in powerful state and nonstate actors, Iran's weapons program worries its neighbors, the Arab Spring continues its uncertain course, and we see a growing Sunni-Shia split throughout the region. In Europe, the need for a strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance has become clear as nations along Russia's periphery reevaluate their strategic alignments in the wake of the situation in Crimea. In Africa, weak states with ethnic and religious tensions set conditions for terrorist groups to operate with near impunity. It is in this uncertain and unstable world that U. S. military forces will operate for the foreseeable future. These security challenges require us to remain the most highly-trained and professional All-Volunteer land force in the world, uniquely organized with the capability and capacity to provide expeditionary, decisive Landpower to the Joint Force, and ready to perform the range of military operations in support of combatant commanders to defend the Nation and its interests at home and abroad, both today and against emerging threats.

The United States has diplomatic relations with 194 independent nations. Of these, none is more important to America than Mexico in terms of trade, investment, tourism, natural resources, migration, energy, and security. In recent years, narco-violence has afflicted our neighbor to the south-with more than 50,000 drug-related murders since 2007 and some 26,000 men, women, and children missing. President Enrique Pe a Nieto has tried to divert national attention from the bloodshed through reforms in energy, education, anti-hunger, health care, and other areas. Even though the death rate has declined since the chief executive took office on December 1, 2012, other crimes continue to plague his nation. Members of the business community report continual extortion demands; national oil company Petr leos Mexicanos (PEMEX) suffers widespread theft of oil, gas, explosives, and solvents (with which to prepare methamphetamines); hundreds of Central American migrants have shown up in mass graves; and the public identifies the police with corruption and villainy. A common fear of the elite and growing middle class is kidnapping. In 2012, Mexico recorded 105,000 cases; in 2013, the country led the world in abductions, surpassing such volatile nations as Afghanistan, Colombia, and Iraq.

For over a decade, SSI has published the annual Key Strategic Issues List (KSIL) to inform students, faculty, and external research associates of strategic topics requiring research and analysis. Part I of the Academic Year (AY) 2014-15 KSIL, referred to as the Army Priorities for Strategic Analysis (APSA), has been developed by SSI in coordination with Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA). The APSA will help prioritize strategic research and analysis conducted by USAWC students and faculty, USAWCFellows, and external researchers, to link their research efforts and results more effectively to the Army's highest priority topics.

Profound changes in regional geopolitical dynamicsin the Arabian Gulf since the early-2000s renderthe region a highly challenging environment for U. S. foreign policy and military engagement. At a time of continuing domestic instability in Iraq and an increasingly isolated Iran, the geopolitical weight of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states has risen dramatically over the past 10 years; the GCC states' enormous economic power, coupled to some of the most stable political systems in the entire Middle East and NorthAfrica region, call for continuously close U. S.-GCC relations in the security sphere as an important element in U. S. foreign policy. But these fundamental shifts in the political environment coincide with changes in the regional perception of the United States as a security partner. The conflict in Iraq, resulting in yet another unstable state at the heart of the Middle East and in immediate proximity to the GCC, has left many former supporters of U. S. engagement in the region disappointed and cynical. Furthermore, ongoing U. S. defense budget adjustments have raised concerns among GCC leaders about the future of U. S. military capabilities and U. S. willingness and ability to engage in the region. In addition, U. S. responses to the Arab Spring sent important signals to the GCC about the potential durability of U. S. political and military support in the event of popular demand for more democratic rights and access to their countries' economic resources.

For 7 years now, the border area between Israel and Lebanon has witnessed calm and stability. At first sight, this has all the appearances of a paradox. The 2006 war between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Lebanese organization, Hezbollah, was followed neither by a peace agreement nor by a mere diplomatic process. Both sides prepared their forces to wage the next war and additionally have been confronted in past years to major changes in the distribution of power in the Middle East in the midst of the so-called "Arab Spring." Against all odds, the area comprising north Israel and south Lebanon remained very quiet these last months. This book argues that the key to understand this paradox is the game of deterrence played by both Israel and Hezbollah. Specifically, an informal deterrence dialogue has been developing between Israel and Hezbollah and that strategic stability prevailed because of this indirect exchange. Because both sides understood that a next round would be devastating and that each could not entirely eliminate the threat of retaliation in a first wave the solution has been to bargain deterrence, meaning to deter the other party from attacking its homeland by pledging a full-scale retaliation.