Paper #35. What Might Military Operations Learn From Google? In Africa
- December 22, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Strategy, Sub-Saharan Africa
- No Comments
Military operations must be prepared to conduct so-called “great power competition” as well as big and small wars just as complex. In all cases, we need to implement superior strategy to defeat clever competitors.
Note #18. a Veterans Day Sequel to “Planning-to-Win”
- November 11, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Plan with a winning strategy. Follow through with activities to bring about superior effects. Anticipate what competitors will do. Reimagine and repeat.
Paper #33. Special Ops Command-Africa Strategy: Analysis & Recommendations (Part II)
- November 9, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Security, Strategy, Sub-Saharan Africa
- No Comments
Following our historical context review of ten African states in Part I (Paper #31), this section begins Part II with linkage analysis, focusing on strategy in Somalia.
Paper #32. A Case for Peace
- October 27, 2020
- former government official
- Middle East & North Africa, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Abraham, 4 millennia ago, was not placed favorably into the contested region on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. No wonder. As the first monotheist guided by the instructions of Yahweh, he was rejected by all sides.
Paper #31. Special Ops Command-Africa Strategy: Analysis & Recommendations (Part I of II)
- October 14, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Security, Strategy, Sub-Saharan Africa
- No Comments
Security challenges on the African continent are diverse and acute. Threats are more than military, requiring all of the skill sets and partnerships that special operations forces possess.
Note #17. Information is not Knowledge; we need Intelligence
- September 11, 2020
- TD
- Americas, Leadership
- No Comments
Minds marinated in social media become unarmed targets of weaponized information, hate, and deception. On this 19th commemoration of our 9/11 heroes, it’s critically appropriate to emphasize the need for apolitical intelligence.
Paper #29. Disinformation Trackers & Destroyers
- August 1, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
This sortie is a follow-on to ICSL Paper #28 which showed how critical thinking errors lead to exploitation. Our focus here is on freely available platforms and programs that can track and destroy disinformation.
Paper #28. To Defeat Disinformation, First Arm the Mind
- July 27, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Cyber, Eurasia, Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
Disinformation is a global threat. Pervasive digitized technology and social media provide rich opportunities to distort public perceptions at scale. Authoritarians assail democracies incessantly.
Paper #26. Supply Chain Competition & Warfare II: Strategic Decisions and Integrative Options
- July 7, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Authoritarian states are weaponizing supply chains into all-effects warfare while democratic states compete with inferior strategies. We can be more competitive and wage superior complex warfare in kind.
Stick & Rudder #4. A Basic US Strategy Toward Russia: more than Deter & Defend
- June 4, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Americas, Eurasia, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
If strategy means anything, it should have definition and purpose. US strategy toward the current Russia regime, and just about any competitor, continues to be described simplistically as deter and defend.
Teaching & Learning #4. Navigating the Pandemic from a Virtual Classroom in Wisconsin
- June 3, 2020
- Ron Machoian, Ph.D., Col USAF ret.
- Teaching & Learning, With Blackboard & Map
- No Comments
On March 11th, nearly 70,000 students, faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin were met with the news that a rapid transition to virtual classroom learning would begin following the scheduled spring break.
Note #16. Transparency Attack: Launch of the Mekong Infrastructure Tracker
- May 27, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
The Mekong Infrastructure Tracker launched today, providing a public platform that creates transparency on nearly 4000 ongoing or planned infrastructure projects in this strategic region.
Paper #25. Supply Chain Competition & Warfare I: Fundamentals of Advantage
- May 20, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Supply chains are vital to socio-economic well-being and military success. They have become arenas where authoritarians wage complex warfare while democracies compete with inferior strategies.
Paper #24. Distorting the Loop: How Russia’s Narratives Reorient OODA Decisions & What to Do About It
- April 23, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
As a follow-on to China’s strategy, we show how Russia’s use of narrative reorients decisions in an Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) Loop. The distortion of information is not just divisive. It envelops the “when-deterrence-fails” US approach to warfare.
Paper #23. Collapsing the Loop: How China’s Narrative Subverts OODA Decision-making & What to Do About It
- April 13, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Cyber, Strategy
- No Comments
Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop—Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act— is a powerful model for making decisions in contested environments. Strategic use of information can defeat it. Understanding narrative strategies can protect it.
Note #15. Tracking Chinese and Russian DisInformation: Hamilton 2.0 Reloaded
- March 31, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia
- No Comments
This Note paraphrases today’s webinar from the Alliance for Security Democracy on Hamilton 2.0, a dashboard on Russian, and now Chinese, disinformation.
Stick & Rudder #3. An All-Effects Strategy Against COVID-19: Secure & Induce, Persuade & Dissuade, Defend & Deter
- March 29, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
COVID-19 is an advanced threat against humanity, requiring a broad-based combination of effects to defeat.
Note #14. Machine-learning a Video: “The Corona Virus and the Impact on the Global Supply Chain”
- March 24, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
This Note uses critical thinking to analyze complex linkages in a YouTube video from the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics: The Corona Virus and the Impact on the Global Supply Chain.
Paper #21. Informatizing Operations: The Other Half of All-Domain Warfare
- March 23, 2020
- Michael D. Phillips, Col USAF ret. & Thomas A. Drohan, Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Warfare has become all-domain, all-effects, and all-information. This reality is thriving in a comfort zone outside our entrenched concept of a “threshold of armed conflict.”
Teaching & Learning #3. Visual Analytics & Case Method Applied to COVID-19
- March 3, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Teaching & Learning, With Blackboard & Map
- No Comments
In an age of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, governments and businesses become more dependent on machine learning. Human learning is a continual requirement.
Paper #20. Competing with Analog Weapons in a Digital Arena? How to Gain Advantage
- February 27, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Let’s explore how to gain advantages by comparing analog and digital characteristics of the Information Environment (IE).
Paper #19. From Jargon to Jointness: Understanding the Information Environment and its Terminology
- February 27, 2020
- Robert S. Ehlers, Jr., Ph.D., Col USAF ret. & Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
The Department of Defense (DoD) spends much time and effort trying to make sense of the Information Environment (IE). This effort is not new.
Teaching & Learning #2. Case Method Applied to COVID-19
- February 13, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Teaching & Learning, With Blackboard & Map
- No Comments
How we frame threats in the information environment influences what we think we can do to counter them.
Paper #18. Artificial Intelligence & the Need for Proactive Doctrine
- February 4, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
US Joint Operations doctrine about the Operational Environment (OE) omits the agency of artificial intelligence (AI). How is this a problem?
Stick & Rudder #2. A Basic US Strategy Toward the Koreas: Deterrence, Defense, Compellence & Inducement
- January 28, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Strategy
- No Comments
Both North Korea and South Korea seek self-reliance and alignments with main powers. From that take-off point, I recommend this basic US strategy toward the Koreas:
Note #13. Waiting to Win & Being Proactive
- January 22, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Waiting to retaliate against use of force is a losing strategy by itself. The problem is, reacting to attacks fits prevailing outdated expectations of warfare.
Stick & Rudder #1. A Basic US Strategy Toward Iran: Deterrence, Defense, Persuasion & Coercion
- January 16, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
In August 2019 (Note #11), while waiting to see if Iran’s shootdown of a US drone would prompt a counterstrike, I noted the apparently contradictory US policies.
Paper #17. Comparative Threats and Integrated Effects in East Asia: the Koreas
- January 7, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Using complex warfare concepts from Papers #13 (East Asia), #14 (China) and #16 (Japan), we apply and compare that holistic approach to Korean security strategies.
Paper #16. Comparative Threats and Integrated Effects: Japan
- December 7, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Using complex warfare concepts from Papers #13 (East Asia) and #14 (China), we apply that approach to Japanese security strategy, with comparisons to China and Russia.
Paper #15. Countering Cyber Attacks on Infrastructure
- November 24, 2019
- Will Miller, Major, US Army
- Americas, Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Leadership, Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
State-sponsored cyber attacks against critical infrastructure are increasingly pervasive. Their global presence and effective methods are asymmetric, coercive, and debilitating.
Paper #14. Comparative Threats and Integrated Effects: China
- November 22, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
This paper uses concepts of complex warfare established in ICSL Paper #13 to analyze the world view, threat assessment, and combined effects strategy of China.
Paper #12. Time to Recreate Effective Competitive Advantage: Strategy, Technology and Information
- October 29, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
In 1983, Project Socrates began as a Reagan initiative to develop technology-driven competitive advantage. Then it ended.
Paper #11. China’s All-Effects All-Domain Strategy in an All-Encompassing Information Environment
- October 11, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Strategy
- No Comments
The essence of Chinese strategy consists of waging complex wars that exploit opponents’ expectations of warfare. The operational design creates preventative and causative effects that blend confrontation with cooperation, imposing dilemmas on opponents. Such asymmetric effects win wars via information that changes opponents’ behavior.
Note #12. We Need More than Kinetic Effects: Globally Integrated Operations in the Information Environment
- October 1, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
We are well into complex, hybrid, grey zone warfare that dynamically blends confrontation with competition. Victory in the form of relative advantages tends to be temporary, requiring a systematic yet supple all-domains all-effects approach. We have to be able to produce all of types of effects and in superior combinations to compete against other relatively-great powers.
Paper #10. Countering Russian Cyber and InfoWar
- September 28, 2019
- Will Miller, Major, US Army
- Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
We must also seek solutions that limit the effects of disinformation. This effort starts with leaders recognizing and publishing Russian exploits as they are discovered. Overt exposure of Russian methodology goes a long way in limiting the effectiveness of false narratives. Investigations should identify who is targeted in hacks, why they were chosen as targets, what information has been stolen, and the extent of related penetration.
Paper # 9. The Primacy of Information Intelligence: Operational-to-Strategic Advantage
- September 17, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Cyber, Strategy
- No Comments
The question of what and whom to trust applies to all situations because uncertainty is pervasive. In the information environment (IE), the overriding context of trust is that it’s contested. Actors fight for the kind of information and people they need to compete and prevail. Four types of competition become apparent when we consider four contested purposes of strategic and anticipatory analysis:
Paper #8. How to Integrate National Defense & Security Strategies: A Detailed Analysis
- August 16, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Americas, Commercial, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
As a detailed follow-on to The US National Security Strategy Needs Combined Effects, this paper integrates combined effects with the US National Defense Strategy (NDS), too.
Note # 11. Strategy Doesn’t End with a Limited Strike
- August 3, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
The Trump administration’s apparently contradictory actions this week toward Iran are not contradictory if we look at cooperation and confrontation as a strategy of combined effects.
Paper # 7. Intelligence Analytic Insufficiency: Fixing the Cognitive Problem
- August 1, 2019
- Michael D. Phillips, Col USAF ret.
- Americas, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
In response to chronic shortcomings, the President, Congress, and senior leaders of our intelligence agencies and service components demand original, prescient and accurate analyses.
Paper #6. Advanced Analysis is a Mindset
- July 17, 2019
- Jeffrey S. Johnson, Col USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Since 9/11 intelligence analysis and its shortcomings have been widely discussed. What has been done?
Note # 8. Mirror Imaging Iran and the World
- July 3, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
We tend to mirror image our competitors by using clock-world analogies that apply less and less to today’s cloud-world.
Paper #5. The Power of Last Resort: An Iran Strategy
- June 25, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
How should the US compete under the restraint of using armed force as a last resort against Iran, a pseudo-democratic theocracy that wages complex warfare in ways the US eschews?
Note # 7. Iran’s Shoot-down and a Strategic US Response
- June 20, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
The Iranian regime’s shoot-down of an unmanned, non-stealth, hyper-expensive US reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace today was a highly anticipate-able event.
Note #6. A Response to Paper #4: Situational Awareness, Leadership and Strategy
- June 18, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
The first plenary of the US National Defense University’s Asia Policy Assembly today noted the tendency of US grand strategy to react to threats.
Note #5. Mastering the Spectra of Competition
- June 14, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Previous notes introduced combined effects strategy for complex warfare. We can understand this form of warfare as a competition that blends cooperation and confrontation.
Note #4. Planning to Win
- June 11, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Winning is not a static end-state. It’s a continuous process of gaining and maintaining advantage through combinations of effects.
Paper #3. Defeating Authoritarian Warfare: The Case of Russia
- May 29, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Eurasia, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
While teaching sense-making in the information environment, I began to apply previous work on complex warfare strategy in East Asia to other regions. Russia is a critical case — a declining nuclear power using combinations of effects to regain a perceived loss of prestige.
Note #3. North Korean Missile Firings-Time for Smart Pressure
- May 9, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Strategy
- No Comments
Pyongyang’s firing off of two more short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan, and the seizure of the Wise Honest vessel, beg a strategic question.
Paper #2. The US National Security Strategy Needs Combined Effects
- May 3, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Americas, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Strategic leaders blend theoretical and applied thinking to realize goals.
Note #2. Strategy Leadership: Rearranging Ends, Ways and Means
- April 17, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Operations are difficult and dangerous, but too easy. It’s too easy to get distracted from thinking about how to lead strategic operations. Let’s focus on two fundamentals of strategy.
Note #1. Theoretical Thinking is Applied Critical Thinking
- April 16, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Winning complex competition and warfare requires both theoretical and applied thinking.
Paper #1. Tactics of Strategy and Strategy of Tactics: Winning and Losing in Complex Competition and Warfare
- April 15, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Strategy
- No Comments
Smart competitors are using tactics of strategy to achieve broader-than-military objectives, while US policies produce strategies of tactics that deploy forces for ambiguous purposes.