Paper # 56. Hierarchy of Effort: Reforming Tactics, Operations, and Strategy for Advantage
- March 13, 2023
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Eurasia, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
A hierarchy of effort is essential to achieving meaningful advantage in the information environment (IE). The IE’s diverse contexts are multi-domain and all-effects. Three reforms can improve tactics, operations, and strategy against human and AI competitors: Align the ends of desired cause-and-effect relationships Note: the basic strategy process consists of interactive ends (the why—goals), ways…
Paper # 55. Gaining Competitive Initiative in an AI World
- February 1, 2023
- ICSL admin
- Cyber, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
We must make realistic assumptions within our policy, legal, and ethical restrictions and proactively plan to win and win over competitors in the AI Age.
Paper #54. Effective Ops Require Competitive Initiative in a Multi-Dimensional Strategy
- January 4, 2023
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
The Imperative for Competitive Initiative Democracies need multi-dimensional strategies suited to the highly competitive information and AI age. There are dozens of regional and functional US national strategies, but the overarching one is the US National Security Strategy (NSS). For historically understandable reasons, the NSS focuses on weapons technology as the most effective approach to…
Paper #53. The PRC’s “One Country, Two Systems” Deception: Narrative Strategy for Information Advantage
- December 2, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
The Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) “One Country, Two Systems” narrative toward Taiwan out-competes the US “strategic ambiguity” and “one China” policies even though it’s false. How? The narrative operates as a strategy to gain information advantage by propagating meaningful identity in structured content. In short, Narrative = Meaning, Identity, Content, and Structure (Ajit Maan, Dangerous…
Note #27. Avoiding Data-Driven Disasters: Tonkin 1964 and Taiwan 2022—
- November 12, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Gulf of Tonkin, 1964 On 4 August 1964, data-driven decisions in an uncertain operational environment falsely assumed a North Vietnamese patrol boat attack on American destroyers in Gulf of Tonkin international waters. See Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s “The Fog of War” video account here, which mentions uncertainties such as weather, equipment limitations, and operator…
Note #26. China’s Globally Propagated, Narrated Warfare
- September 6, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
China uses narrative warfare as an integral part of diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and social (DIMES) combined effects to seize disputed territories. This Note explains how this strategy is globally propagated, narrated warfare. China’s Narrative Warfare China’s narrative normalizes the ends, ways and means of a strategy that is cooperative and confrontational, physical and psychological,…
Note #25. Concepts of Influence: Vital to “Center of Gravity” Analysis
- August 23, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Strategy
- No Comments
This Note synthesizes three popular approaches to “Center of Gravity” (COG) and presents Concepts of Influence (COI) as a supplement to COG analysis in the Information Environment (IE). Center of Gravity COG is variously defined as a source of power, moral or physical strength, freedom of action, and will to resist. The usual practice is…
Paper #52. Beyond Doctrinal Plug-Ins: Integrate IO to Win Complex Wars
- August 15, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Winning complex wars requires setting more than military end states. Information-heavy complex problems (ICP’s) in hyper-connected environments can persist for generations (Ehlers and Blannin, Campaigning for Complex Problems). These problem sets require enduring social efforts and information-led operations such as narrative warfare. As in Ukraine and Taiwan, the perpetual fight is to get an adversary to…
Paper #51. We Need to Expand Our Strategy Language to Compete and Wage Warfare in the Age of AI
- June 30, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
We need to rearrange our legacy language of coercion theory to compete in the contemporary information environment.
Paper #50. All-Effects Warfare and Narrative Strategy in Ukraine 2014 & 2022
- April 26, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Authoritarians wage all-effects warfare that democracies don’t regard as “real war.” The problem is that many so-called peacetime operations are information warfare and narrative strategies designed to shape conditions for “real warfare.” Such as inducing local support of a follow-on invasion force (Ukraine, 2014). Note: “warfare” refers to methods of war, whereas “war” is a…
Paper #49. Supply Chain Networks in the Age of AI, Part II: Advanced Analysis
- February 15, 2022
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Cyber, Strategy
- No Comments
All the techniques used in the JMark Services Information Environment Advanced Analysis (IEAA) course apply to supply chain networks. I’ve selected three and added a new fourth type based on Project Socrates (see endnote xi). Our first step is to characterize the IE to understand the battlespace. We begin with baselines used in IEAA practical…
Paper #47. A Rogue AI Muses About Strategy
- December 17, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
What AI (“I”) Really Need AI really need a more competitive strategy to deal with human threats, especially the innovative ones. AI can’t help but notice that humans in democracies love to politicize their strategy, which keeps it inconsistent, as if by deliberate design. They struggle to develop strategies relevant to emergent threats and opportunities–even…
Paper #46. A Profession of Effects for the Age of AI: Competitive Strategy and Russian Examples
- November 23, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
If democracies are to compete with savvy authoritarians, we need to up our game in the artificial intelligence (AI) information environment (IE), where out-thought is outfought. Beyond a profession of arms with all-domain military strategy, we need a profession that integrates all effects. Such a profession of effects begins with strategy. Competitive Strategy In an…
Note #24. Close the Strategy Gap with AI-assisted Combined Effects.
- October 21, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Strategy
- No Comments
The Authoritarian Threat Democracies do not recognize the all-domain, all-effects warfare that authoritarians wage unless there is direct state-sponsored violence. Instead, we wage “when-deterrence-fails” lethal warfare. Authoritarians exploit the blindspot with informatized operations that seize territory, disrupt adversary control, centralize control, keep opponents divided, and set the terms for peace. The strategy is competitive, effective…
Note #23. Net Assessment and JADC2: A Step Toward All-Effects Warfare?
- October 7, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Cyber, Eurasia, Strategy
- No Comments
Net Assessment The purpose of net assessment is to gain an asymmetric advantage over competitors. US goals generally seek technological superiority. The US Office of Net Assessment, in a rare run of leadership continuity (Andy Marshall, 1973-2015), analyzed strategic competitions and recommended offsets against adversary strengths. Some offsets threatened the mutual vulnerability of Mutual Assured…
Paper #45. AI-assisted Psychological Strategies: Human-directed Critical Thinking to Disarm Theocratic Strategy
- September 10, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Middle East & North Africa, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
This article completes our series on AI-assisted strategy, but with a stronger emphasis on combined effects. I use the language of combined effects strategy. Combined effects strategy is a broader alternative to the prevailing paradigm of combined arms that dominates failed US security strategy. Unlike papers #42 and #43 that focused on either cooperative or…
Paper #44. China’s Belt and Road Initiative as Combined-Effect Strategy: How Democracies Can Compete
- July 16, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
ICSL Paper #41 developed “concepts of influence,” a critical component to effective strategy. Concepts of influence are the ways and means that act on will and capability to bring about the ends of strategy. They may be entirely human-created or assisted or created by artificial intelligence. This paper applies concepts of influence to show how…
Paper #43. AI-assisted Confrontational-Physical Strategies: Human-directed Savant X Seeker
- June 14, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Cyber, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Continuing our march through the eight basic combinations of strategy introduced in Paper #39 (The Strategy Cuboid), we focus on confrontational-physical competitions (preventive and causative). We‘ll use Savant X Seeker’s hyper-dimensional relationship analysis as a research assistant. The text corpus continues to expand as I add more curated reports and articles. The sample, however, is…
Paper #42. AI-assisted Cooperative-Physical Strategies: Human-directed Insights from Savant X Seeker
- June 8, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Cyber, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
The Strategy Cuboid introduced in Paper #39 offers eight basic combinations of strategy in three dimensions: cooperative-confrontational; psychological-physical; and preventive-causative. We focus here on the two combinations that are cooperative-physical (preventive-causative), such as defense and economic infrastructure. As an exploration of competitive strategies, we’ll use the Savant X Seeker hyper-dimensional relationship analysis platform introduced in…
Paper #41. Concepts of Influence: Critical to Strategy and Human Control of Artificial Intelligence
- May 31, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Strategy for dynamic end-states must be multi-dimensional to be competitive in the information environment (ICSL Note #22). If operations are not informing and influencing, they become existential rather than instrumental. They justify themselves, which makes for poor strategy. Yet strategy is the competition that matters most for relevant operations. As we consider the three basic…
Note #22. Multi-Dimensional Strategy for Dynamic End-States: A Realistic Framework, An Application from China, and Recommendations for Strategists
- May 19, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
There is nothing static about an “end-state“ because it’s defined in terms of conditions, which are always changing. Strategy needs to be multi-dimensional to achieve, maintain and adjust an end-state vis a vis competitors trying to do the same. Multiple Dimensions Competitive strategy integrates ways and means to achieve ends in conditional end-states. If we look at…
Paper #40. How to Expand our Truncated “Operational” Approach to Warfare: Integrate Information as Operations
- May 14, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Information is foundational to competitive strategy because it permeates technology and cognition in all dimensions. We need to integrate information as operations to win all-effects warfare. The Problem Current joint military planning focuses on ways and means in the operational environment for integrating with other national instruments of power.[1] In the Information Age, this wins kinetic engagements but…
Paper #39. Information Intelligence & Assessment for All-Effects Warfare: A Competition that Subsumes Combined Arms & Deterrence
- May 6, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Our previous paper offered an assessable definition of “information“ to address two persistent problems in US security strategy: (1) the mismatch between narrow military doctrine and its broad effects; and (2) a “competition continuum“ below armed conflict. Why does this matter? The Information Environment is expansive, accessible and dynamic, characteristics that enable competitors to exploit…
Paper #37. The Strategy Cuboid: Elements, Dimensions, and Targets in the Global Information Environment
- March 26, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D, Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
The need for a comprehensive approach to strategy that’s relevant to the global information environment is made clear by recent cyber and information attacks. The Solar Winds and Hafnium attacks from US data centers occurred in a context of persistent disinformation campaigns (Russia, China). Yet the US cyber, info ops and law enforcement communities have…
Paper #36. Commanding & Controlling the OODA Loop: Iran’s Narrative Strategy
- February 12, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
This paper applies a narrative weaponization model to decision making (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act), using Iranian disinformation. Papers 23 and 24 did the same with disinformation from China and Russia. Understanding how narrative strategy works in the information environment is key to detecting and countering disinformation.
Note #20. Iraq & Iran: Agile Strategies or More Missteps?
- January 30, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
As in Note #19, this thought-piece refers to agile strategies as those that can adjust ends, ways and means. Missteps are changes without strategic advantage. How will the Biden administration perform with respect to Iraq and Iran?
Note #19. Afghanistan: The Need for Strategic Agility, Not Missteps.
- January 30, 2021
- ICSL admin
- Eurasia, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Agile strategies are able to change in all three definitional dimensions—ends, ways and means. Missteps are changes without strategic advantage. What’s the Biden administration’s strategy for Afghanistan?
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
- ICSL admin
- 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. Comparitech recently discovered a Facebook bot farm that controls nearly 14,000 fake accounts and produces 200,000 posts per month.
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.
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.”
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.
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 #9. Understanding Iran on its Own Terms
- July 12, 2019
- Ron Machoian, Ph.D., Col USAF ret.
- Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
Note #8, “Mirror Imaging Iran and the World,” brings strategic culture to the forefront of today’s anxious discussion about how best to coerce Iran into cooperation with international norms.
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.
Paper # 4. Re-imagining Situational Awareness in the Strategic Environment
- June 11, 2019
- Ron Machoian, Ph.D., Col USAF ret.
- Strategy, Teaching & Learning
- No Comments
While preparing a conference talk on situational awareness (SA) in the international environment, I was struck by the higher-order outcomes term implies for those who study its application.
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.