The Department of the Army recently selected me as one of twelve fellows in the Advanced Strategic Planning and Policy Program based on my demonstrated academic aptitude and superior leadership performance. This fully funded, multi-year fellowship supplements my military experience with a doctoral degree followed by assignment as a strategic planner in a federal agency or national military headquarters where I will apply my research. I am certain that my professional and academic backgrounds have prepared me to achieve these objectives, and I hope you will consider supporting my application for admission. First-hand experience leading soldiers executing national military strategy provided me visceral proof of the influence of non-state armed groups on human security. As a peacekeeper in Kosovo, I witnessed competing ethnic groups provoke conflict and degrade security in confounding ways. Invisible lines divided villages where a random rifle shot might spark a string of reprisals my soldiers and I were almost powerless to stop because we understood so little about our adversaries or historical context. Subsequent experiences conducting counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan again immersed me in the turmoil created by …show more content…
overlapping networks of armed groups competing for economic, social, and political power. Yet again, a dearth of understanding about that nature of our adversaries stymied efforts to secure at-risk populations and facilitate governance. If I intuitively sensed the issue in Kosovo, experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan led me to question the ascendant power of non-state armed groups, how they foment conflict, and what role the military has in mitigating their effects.
Does the context in which non-state armed groups form influence their power-seeking behavior? Can these groups translate social support into effective forms of local governance? Where does group criminality cross the line to become a legitimate security threat? Can military force effectively mitigate these groups’ effects and, if so, when? Events I witnessed lead me to believe that these groups have larger economic, social, political, and military consequences than researchers or national leaders
realize. The impact of non-state armed groups on security, governance, and stability highlight their significance within the changing dynamics of 21st Century conflict. Although researchers have examined the characteristics of these groups, most narrowly focus on aspects of extremism or political motivation. I believe researchers must expand this limited focus in order to understand the macro contexts of non-state armed group development and how these contexts influence group behaviors that jeopardize human security. These assumptions, combined with my experiences, form the basis of my desire to pursue a doctoral-level education. I seek to achieve a higher level of understanding about the role of non-state armed groups in international security. My thinking about non-state armed groups is shaped by more than my ground-level experience, and I am academically well-prepared to pursue doctorate-level study. My undergraduate thesis investigated the utility of military involvement in peacekeeping operations. It applied coursework in the geography of global change, political violence, and national security policymaking, and used elementary Boolean algebra to show the likelihood of increasing interventions. My master’s thesis explored similar questions to those I now seek to research further. I developed a case study of recent events in Mali to analyze strategic inconsistencies affecting the military’s role in future irregular warfare given the evolving character of security threats and changing operating environment. This paper won an Air Force Special Operations Association award for research excellence, and the lessons I uncovered during my research influenced my decision to participate in doctoral studies.
Theory. The term ‘civil-military relations’ is often used to describe the relationship between civil society and its associated military force, moreover the fundamental basis upon which the civilian authority exercises control over its military organization. It is generally accepted that ‘civilian control of the military is preferable to military control of the state’ and although there are states that do not conform to this norm, they tend to be less developed countries that have succumb to military interven...
Thinking historically while conducting counterinsurgency in the 21st century poses questions regarding how to develop political and strategic plans. This bibliographic essay will examine the political and military aspect of fighting counterinsurgent warfare by 20th century theorists Galula’s, “Counterinsurgency Warfare Theory and Practice” and Trinquier’s, “Counterinsurgency Warfare Theory and Practice”. Strategy in fighting guerilla wars will be discussed by comparing conflicts in battles and ideologies from the past to current day. Moreover, ways to avoid the one size fits all war mentality when combating modern day insurgents will be recommended.
LM06, Strategic Planning Student Guide. (2013). Maxwell-Gunter AFB. Thomas N. Barnes Center for Enlisted Education (AETC).
In today’s operational environments, the U.S. Army is facing a range of problems and mission sets that are arguably more complex than previously encountered. Forces face an array of demands that encompass geo-political, social, cultural, and military factors that interact in unpredictable ways. The inherent complexity of today’s operations has underscored the need for the Army to expand beyond its traditional approach to operational planning. In March 2010 in FM 5-0: The Operations
Rethinking Violence: States and Non-state Actors in Conflict. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2014).
“a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s). Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capacities, in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will.” This definition is broad and has led many military leaders to simply describe irregular warfare as anything that is not regular war. If leaders turn to this over simplified definition, then one can logically and incorrectly infer that non-violent operations such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief are forms of irregular warfare. The problem with classifying irregular warfare as a distinct and separate form of warfare is that stakeholders must in turn dedicate resources solely for the purposes of dealing with...
Political violence is action taken to achieve political goals that may include armed revolution, civil strife, terrorism, war or other such activities that could result in injury, loss of property or loss of life. Political violence often occurs as a result of groups or individuals believing that the current political systems or anti-democratic leadership, often being dictatorial in nature, will not respond to their political ambitions or demands, nor accept their political objectives or recognize their grievances. Formally organized groups, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), businesses and collectives of individual citizens are non-state actors, that being that they are not locally, nationally or internationally recognized legitimate civilian or military authorities. The Cotonou Agreement of 2000 defines non-state actors as being those parties belonging to the private sector, economic and social partners and civil society in all its forms according to national characteristics. Historical observation shows that nation states with political institutions that are not capable of, or that are resistant to recognizing and addressing societies issues and grievances are more likely to see political violence manifest as a result of disparity amongst the population. This essay will examine why non-state political violence occurs including root and trigger causes by looking at the motivations that inspire groups and individuals to resort to non-conforming behaviors that manifest as occurrences of non-state political violence. Using terrorism and Islamic militancy on the one side, and human rights and basic freedoms on the other as examples, it will look at these two primary kinds of political violence that are most prevalent in the world ...
In attempts to truthfully learn from our past and make progress towards a peaceful world with equality for all, the topic of war, and the effects of war, is an importance issue. Many people believe that war, although obviously destructive, does lead to social cohesion within the particular nation-state at war. The Senate of Canada defines social cohesion as the capacity of citizens living under different social or economic circumstances to live together in harmony, with a sense of mutual commitment. (Culturelink, par. 2) The idea that war leads to social cohesion is based upon the assumption that during a time of crisis, such as a war, people will come together out of the necessity to survive. This belief that the masses unite, neglecting prior dispositions towards one another while opposing a common enemy, has been fairly prominent throughout history. The Second World War, the Cold War, and the Gulf War will be used as examples to research the assumption that social cohesion is a result of warfare. I will argue that warfare, opposed to popular belief, causes large-scale discrimination, which in turn creates social division, not cohesion. Once an understanding of the discriminatory effects war causes is expressed, the backbone derived from the research is that we must valiantly oppose military action to uphold our freedom and equality for all, rather than trying to fight for freedom.
Leaders today need to have an appreciation for the operation process, understand a situation, envision a desired future, and to lay out an approach that will achieve that future (Flynn & Schrankel, 2013). Plans need to be created that can be modified to changes in any factors considered. However, plans should not be dependent on specific information being precise or that require things to go exactly according to schedule. Instead, the staff NCO should be flexible where they can and always be prepared for the unexpected. Today’s military members are fighting an unconventional war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The enemy constantly changes their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP’s) to counter the United States technological advances, making planning very difficult for leaders. There are multiple tools at a staff NCO’s disposal to try to anticipate an outcome of a current operation, but also assist with the development of concepts in follow-on missions. The Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) is just one tool a staff NCO can utilize. In order to stay ahead of the enemy, create effective plans and orders, it is critical for a staff NCO to assist the commander, and understand that the MDMP and planning are essential in defeating the enemy and conserving the fighting force.
Current military leadership should comprehend the nature of war in which they are engaged within a given political frame in order to develop plans that are coherent with the desired political end state. According to Clausewitz, war is an act of politics that forces an enemy to comply with certain conditions or to destroy him through the use of violence. A nation determines its vital interests, which drives national strategy to obtain or protect those interests. A country achieves those goals though the execution of one of the four elements of power, which are diplomatic, informational, military and economical means. The use of military force...
In modern military theory, the highest level is the strategic level, in which activities at the strategic level focus directly on policy objectives, both during peace and warfare. In the study of modern military strategy, there is a distinction between military strategy and national strategy, in which the former is the use of military objective to secure political objectives and the latter coordinates and concentrates all the elements of national...
My answer to these two questions is threefold: First, I assert that TSMs and INGOs can and have posed substantial normative challenges to state hegemony, most commonly the notion that the state enjoys a monopoly on representation of its citizens and their interests. Furthermore, TSMs and INGOs that employ the use of violence (particularly terrorism) breach the conventional notion that states...
I decided to observe five different groups for this paper. I chose rednecks, burnouts, two different groups of athletes, and musicians. These observations were mostly made at school in the hallways, classrooms, lunch, or in the parking lot. All of the groups were easily observable, they just had to be done at different times throughout the day. The rednecks for example were more easily observable in the school parking lot, whereas the athletes were more observable in the hallways.
When comparing and contrasting U. S. military operations and capabilities with regard to regular versus irregular warfare it is important to understand the definition of irregular and the spectrum of conflict. In recent history, the term “irregular warfare” has been used interchangeably with or alongside insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. This usage and comparison is too narrow. ...
Tilly, C. (1985). War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In: P.B Evans, D. Rueschemeyer & T. Skocpol Bringing the state back in. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 171.