Since the development of the Total Force Policy in 1973, the answer regarding how the Army Reserve effectively integrates its capabilities into the active force has remained elusive. Indeed, the strategic question for the Army Reserve in the last decade is how does the organization continue to maintain its operational footing in a fiscally constrained environment. Historically, operational-level integration initiatives—to include Bold Shift, Training Support XXI, CAPSTONE, and the “roundout” or “wartrace” concepts—have largely failed to emerge as viable options for solving this dilemma. One reason for this continued failure was an inability by military leaders to change the cultural mindset within the different components toward the integrated use of reserve forces in active duty formations. On the other end of the spectrum, structural and administrative disparities between the component's personnel and pay systems have further complicated this integration process, forcing leaders to revert back to historical frameworks. Finally, the increased demand for military support around the world has stressed the active force, putting added pressure on the Army Reserve to fill the existing

The United States homeland does not enjoy sanctuary in the twenty-first century geopolitical environment. Near-peer rivals, such as China and Russia, have capabilities that can impact the United States homeland during a high-end war. Adversaries’ aerospace capabilities have the potential to cause large volumes of psychological casualties among the United States population. Psychological casualties during a high-end war could serve as the basis for a mass call to end a war due to the altered information processing seen among traumatized people. Such a call to end a war could result in unfavorable peace settlements. The United States homeland must improve its ability to prevent cognitive hacking and it must insulate its population from epistemologies unfavorable to the United States.

The U.S. has been battling ISIS and its forerunners for over two decades; however, ISIS continues to endure and expand. While described as a death cult by some political leaders and other key stakeholders, this assertion received little consideration in the scholarly literature. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether ISIS satisfied the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult through the application of a historical qualitative research design and meta-analysis. Based on the results, the null hypothesis that ISIS does not satisfy the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult was rejected, and the hypothesis that ISIS satisfies the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult was accepted. This outcome has significant implications regarding U.S. policy and how practitioners develop effective strategies to neutralize the threat.

This study investigated the impact of topic interest, alongside L2 proficiency and gender, on L2 vocabulary acquisition through reading. A repeated-measures design was used with 135 Korean EFL students. Control variables included topic familiarity, prior target-word knowledge, and target-word difficulty (word length, class, and concreteness). Participants read both high- and low-interest topic passages and took vocabulary posttests (word-form recognition, translation recognition, and translation production) immediately and four weeks after reading. Analyses revealed significant effects of topic interest and L2 proficiency, and a significant interaction between topic interest and gender. These results were maintained over time. The article concludes by discussing the facilitative role of topic interest, expanding on the motivational factor considered in the involvement load hypothesis.

Concurrent to the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq between 2006 and 2008, Sunni tribesmen in the U.S. Marine-controlled western Anbar province of Iraq experienced an “awakening” movement, which led them to side with U.S. and coalition forces. The Sunni Awakening demonstrates that individuals will often realign because of betrayal and opportunities for advancement. It also demonstrates that individual motives can have macrolevel social consequences. Complexity theory suggests that political factions will realign based on individual considerations that then develop into macrolevel movements. Complexity theory also combines both agency (in terms of microbehaviors) and structure (in terms of initial conditions). An important concept within the complexity literature is the idea of “critical mass.” Theories of self-organization suggest that individual considerations aggregate to a point of critical mass to become macrolevel movements. In the case of Iraq, you had individuals who decided as individuals to align with the Americans, but the macrolevel Awakening movement did not gain momentum until enough individuals had joined the movement. This pattern suggests that complexity theory can be used as a framework for understanding how critical mass is achieved in realignment.

Value and the concept of value co-creation in marketing networks are growing in importance in providing competitive advantage in increasingly saturated markets. Service-Dominant logic (S-D logic) revolves around the concept that value is always co-created by customers and organizations together (Gronroos, 2006; Vargo and Lusch, 2004; 2008). This study provides a conceptual framework around the topic of co-creation, and identifies customer value creating processes, supplier value creating processes and encounter processes within a single case study of a pharmaceutical organization (called PharmCo for this study). This organization has successfully created its own competitive space, achieving 34% market growth, year-on-year, over a seven-year period. The paper summarizes some of the key conditions of service dominant logic (Ballantyne & Varey, 2007), including value in use, stakeholder interaction, co-creation and the role of integrated networks, the role of the marketer as managing communication, interaction and relationships, between networks of co-operators.

The Islamic Republic of Iran hegemon strategy is a clear and present danger to the Middle East; the strategy exacerbates ethnic and sectarian tensions and poses a danger of nuclear proliferation in the region. This analysis traces the roots of the Islamic Republic of Iran strategy as driven by Shiite religious imperatives and Iranian national interests. Two recent events, the resultant chaos from the Arab Spring and the new U.S. policy of disengagement from the Middle East changed the Middle East geostrategic environment; the residual consequences of the Arab Spring produced new threats to Iranian security and the United States progressive disengagement altered the regional strategic calculus. Iran adapted to the evolving environment to achieve major strategic advantages. Iran achieved increased political influence in countries flanking Saudi Arabia, gained additional leverage in the nuclear negotiations with the U.S., and deployed Iranian military forces outside Iran in a de facto sectarian war. The primary conclusion is Iran has effectively used the U.S. disengagement policy and localized vulnerabilities, which emerged in the Arab Spring chaos, to seize increased Iranian political and military freedom of action in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

The primary hypothesis of the thesis is the identification of deliberate foreign-influenced infiltration of socialistic ideologies into the American culture. This study examined the present American political and cultural milieus with respect to specific historical documents and literature on socialistic ideology. The doctrines of Karl Marx, Lavrentiy Beria, and Saul Alinsky were compared in two case studies involving current sensitive political situations for possible indications of infiltration. The research question became not only whether our President over-steps his boundaries but also why and whether a foreign factor is influencing this shift. Are the drivers of current political and intelligence community policies simply the result of, as Dougherty describes, an “acceptance of all-embracing state authority [that] is largely due to fatigue and despair brought about by war or economic disorder” (Dougherty, 2010, p. 8)?

Hezbollah combat forces joined the Syrian Civil War in 2012 in alliance with the Assad regime. This Hezbollah action increased geopolitical uncertainties in the Levant and created a potentially existential crisis for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah emerged in 1982 as a Shiite terrorist organization and an ideological Shiite proxy for Iran. During the next ten years, Hezbollah evolved into a complex institution; Hezbollah became a major political force in Lebanon and emerged as a powerful non-state military force in the region. Open-literature peer-reviewed documents and vetted media reports provide event and timeline evidence of consistent adaptive behavior patterns by Hezbollah. Hezbollah has three inherent weaknesses that constrain the Hezbollah political potential: Hezbollah depends on Iran for money, weapons, and training resources. Virtually all of this Iranian support flows through a Syrian logistics channel. Shiite Hezbollah is a minority political faction within Lebanon. Hezbollah and the Assad regime are part of an Iranian geostrategic scheme to establish a “Shiite arc of influence” from Iran across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The Sunni community, led by Saudi Arabia, opposes the Iranian move to be the dominant power in the Middle East. The Shiite and Sunni factions moved from a political dual to open sectarian warfare conducted by Shiite and Sunni proxy forces in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Although Hezbollah effectively intervened to rescue the Assad regime from a successful rebel conquest, there are negative political, material, and social consequences to Hezbollah for the intervention in the Syrian War. These problems will persist into the longer term for Hezbollah.