Paper # 56. Hierarchy of Effort: Reforming Tactics, Operations, and Strategy for Advantage

  • 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 #37. The Strategy Cuboid: Elements, Dimensions, and Targets in the Global Information Environment

  • 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 #33. Special Ops Command-Africa Strategy: Analysis & Recommendations (Part II)

  • 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 #30. Assessment & Combined Effects Strategy: COVID-19 and the Next Bio-Threat

  • Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
  • Leadership, Strategy
  • No Comments

As we watch the media count COVID-19 death rates, it reminds me of the ”body count“ metric during the Vietnam War.

Stick & Rudder #5. A Basic Strategy Toward China: Rules-based Competition that Cooperates & Confronts

  • Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
  • Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Security, Strategy
  • No Comments

Competing effectively with the authoritarian regime in Beijing requires a superior blend of cooperation and confrontation.

Paper #13. Comparative Threats and Integrated Effects: Concepts for Complex Warfare in East Asia

  • Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
  • Asia-Pacific, Security, Strategy
  • No Comments

Complex warfare is a high stakes competition in learning and we are being out-thought.

Note #10. Information-Related Capabilities & Information-Related Effects

  • Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
  • Leadership, Strategy
  • No Comments

Information-Related Capabilities abound in doctrine-approved professional communities of practice. All the while, historically-derived doctrine lags reality.

Note #4. Planning to Win

  • 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.