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,…
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 #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 #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 #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…
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 #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 #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.
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.
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 #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.