Win Wars Research Articles

DEVELOPING DIGITAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES IN MILITARY: A WAY FORWARD

Military leadership today deals with a plethora of information related to its on-field and off-the-field operations that are complex in nature and needs critical thinking which can affect the decision-making process. Information overload is a phenomenon that creates uncertainty and ambiguity in decision-making. Losing direction is very likely in such situations as it could be an issue for the leadership to keep track of what needs to be contained and what needs to be discarded from the chunks of informationreceived continuously. Building adaptive and agile leadership is imperative to technology adaption in the military as digital decision-making and a tech-savvy culture will be key attributes of the future. Adapting digital technologies will help fight and win wars in the digital era and military leadership must learn the digital leadership skills to win the fights driven by technology. With the future of warfare going digital, knowledge-based decision-making will be a valuable asset as these capabilities will become a necessity in times to come. Information control will play a pivotal role in digital leadership and digital leadership combined with the foresight and experience of the commanders can help tackle fifth-generation warfare.Keywords: Digitalisation,Digital Leadership, Hybrid Warfare, Military Leadership,PakistanIntroductionecurity threats have changed considerably for Pakistan in the last two decades. Today, the dangers lurking with traditional security challenges are still on the table because of the unstable regional dynamics but the non-traditional threats have increased in theirintensity. The characteristics of war have changed from traditional air, ground, and water to include space and information control. These technological changes especially autonomous systems and artificial intelligence also known as fifth-generation warfare have changed the dynamics of battlefields. Currently, less is fought on the ground as compared to information wars through digital media, cyberspace, and satellite technologies. The changes in military approach to warfare around the world demands the military leadership to be tech-savvy. Therefore, the current and future military leaders of the country must make their acquaintance with digital technologies. The adaption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the military is a key development around the world. The use of information warfare (IW) and *Mr. Jawad Mahroof and Ms. Rabbia Javaidare an M.Phil scholars at Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi.S

DEVELOPING DIGITAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES IN MILITARY: A WAY FORWARD

Military leadership today deals with a plethora of information related to its on-field and offthe-field operations that are complex in nature and needs critical thinking which can affect the decision-making process. Information overload is a phenomenon that creates uncertainty and ambiguity in decision-making. Losing direction is very likely in such situations as it could be an issue for the leadership to keep track of what needs to be contained and what needs to be discarded from the chunks of information received continuously. Building adaptive and agile leadership is imperative to technology adaption in the military as digital decision-making and a tech-savvy culture will be key attributes of the future. Adapting digital technologies will help fight and win wars in the digital era and military leadership must learn the digital leadership skills to win the fights driven by technology. With the future of warfare going digital, knowledge-based decision-making will be a valuable asset as these capabilities will become a necessity in times to come. Information control will play a pivotal role in digital leadership and digital leadership combined with the foresight and experience of the commanders can help tackle fifthgeneration warfare.

Spotted Tail: Renaissance Man of the Lakota ed. by James A. Hanson (review)

Reviewed by: Spotted Tail: Renaissance Man of the Lakota ed. by James A. Hanson Tim Trudell Spotted Tail: Renaissance Man of the Lakota. Edited by James A. Hanson. Chadron, NE: Museum of the Fur Trade, 2020. viii + 209 pp. Illustrations, maps, contributors, index. $30.00 cloth. Lakota chief Spotted Tail is painted as a pragmatic leader seeking to extend the freedom of his Brulé Lakota citizens against the expansion of Euro-American settlers in the Great Plains, as told by multiple writers in Spotted Tail: Renaissance Man of the Lakota. The book's contributors tell the Lakota chief's story factually, avoiding the often-clichéd view of Native Americans. Spotted Tail's Sicangu Lakota moved around the Great Plains, from central South Dakota to south of the North Platte River in western Nebraska. The book, a collection of essays from academicians and historians, follows Spotted Tail's rise as he transitions from a soldier to the leader of the Brulé, acquiring an acumen for the art of negotiation over fighting. While some may look at Spotted Tail as a person who catered to the white man in hopes of carving out a small parcel of the expansive Lakota territory for his tribe, Spotted Tail: Renaissance Man of the Lakota portrays him instead as a leader who, according to the authors, realized the survival of his people depended on a working relationship with the federal government, because westward movement was only going to grow and the Brulé were not going to win wars. The authors note that not all Spotted Tail's ideas worked, such as his failed negotiations for mineral rights for the Blacks Hills (Paha Sapa), considered sacred among Lakota and other Indigenous nations, which backfired when the government ignored his request of $60 million, instead allowing miners access to the region. Despite his reputation as a pragmatist, Spotted Tail did enter battle, primarily fueled by actions of Euro-Americans, such as avenging the massacre of Cheyenne and Arapahoe people at Sand Creek and when the army attempted to relocate the Brulé from Fort Laramie to Fort Kearny. The book documents Spotted Tail's rise, from one not born to a ruling family to one who became chief of the Lower Brulé (Sicangu). Given credit for securing reservation land near the Missouri River, not all Lakota were enamored with him. Crow Dog, a subchief who Spotted Tail removed as leader of the tribal police force, accused the chief of stealing tribal land-lease funds for his personal use. The two struggled, with Crow Dog killing the Brulé chief. Authors view Crow Dog's action as self-defense. Reparations made to Spotted Tail's family, however, considered acknowledgment of wrongdoing. In sharing the life and legacy of Chief Spotted Tail, possibly the most pragmatic of the Great Plains Indigenous leaders, the book's authors use well-documented sources. [End Page 105] Tim Trudell Freelance Writer and Online Content Creator Omaha, Nebraska Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Training Leaders to Win Wars and Forge Peace: Lessons from History

Leaders of business schools and other educational institutions have enjoyed decades of stability. Today, we confront a set of systemic global challenges, including a pandemic, severe economic weakness, heightened inequality, racial injustice, and a climate emergency. Taken together, these challenges redefine the environment in which we operate—and offer us an opportunity to reimagine our organizations. We can learn about how to deal with this level of upheaval by studying how leading U.S. business schools responded to World War II. All shrank as students and faculty were drafted, most innovated in fairly traditional ways while still maintaining existing activities alongside of war-time innovations, and some pushed forward long-standing institutional change. One school choose a different path, shutting all peacetime programs as it fully committed not only to helping win a global war but, just as importantly, to forging a lasting peace—the long-term economic prosperity that followed the war. The lessons we can draw from academic leaders from nearly eighty years ago are apt today.

Obóz koncentracyjny jako narzędzie władzy i transformacji społecznej w XX wieku

The author compares 12 concentration camp systems, from US camps in the Philippines (1901–1902) to Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995). He uses comparative history for macro-causal analysis, discusses the challenges in defining concentration camps, and compares camps with other institutions. Some of the features outlined in the paper can be found in all concentration camps (forceful isolation of masses of people in accord with a “collectivist logic”, power, and cruelty), while others are limited to certain sub-types (forced labor, medical experiments). The author proves that concentration camps were predominantly a tool that was intended to help win wars, reinforce and stabilize power, and create a new, obedient form of citizen. Therefore, camps were one of the many methods used to pacify hostile populations and internal opposition. At the same time, their potential became apparent and led to the rise and spread of absolute power structures.

The Darker Side of Military Mental Healthcare Part One: Understanding the Military’s Mental Health Dilemma

The military’s primary mission is to prevent, fight, and win wars. A critical key to its success is the military’s dual mission of force health protection that translates to preventing and treating the physical and psychological wounds of war in order to preserve the fighting force. To accomplish both missions, the military relies extensively on documenting its lessons learned to build upon its successes and prevent avoidable disasters caused by repeating its failures. The military’s commitment to learning battlefield lessons are directly responsible for unparalleled technological and medical, life-saving advances that greatly benefit both military and private sectors. However, the evolution of modern industrialized warfare’s capacity to kill, maim, and terrorize has exceeded the limits of human endurance whereby psychiatric casualties have outnumbered the total of combatants, both wounded- and killed-in-action, since the Second World War. Psychiatric attrition and skyrocketing costs associated with psychiatric treatment and disability compensation threaten the military’s capacity to accomplish its primary mission as well as risk straining the finances of society, thereby presenting a significant mental health dilemma. Central to the military’s mental health dilemma are two competing alternatives: (1) to fulfill its moral, ethical, and legal obligation of preventing and treating war stress injuries by learning from its documented lessons learned, or (2) develop strategies to avoid learning its war trauma lessons in order to avoid psychiatric attrition, treatment, and pensions. The first option conjures deep-seated fears of mass evacuation syndromes should the military treat mental wounds similar to physical injuries. Consequently, the military has embraced the second option that inevitably has been harmful to veterans, their families, and society, in what we refer to as the darker side of military mental healthcare. In this, the first of a three-part review, we examine the contextual factors framing the military’s dilemma and 10 strategies utilized to avoid learning its war trauma lessons, which will be explored in-depth in parts two and three. While disturbing, these signs of failures are readily ignored and dismissed by a war wary republic. To our knowledge, such an analysis has never been undertaken before or publicly disclosed. When considered as parts of the whole, the findings point to a critical need for improvement in treating military psychological injuries in the war theater.

The instrumental use of norms in war: Impact on strategies and strategic outcomes

ABSTRACTStates and non-state actors increasingly use norms instrumentally as integral parts of strategies to help win wars by exploiting political vulnerabilities produced by other actors' adherence to the norms. Actors especially manipulate reactions to violations of casualty-aversion norms to entice or prevent external interventions in conflicts. States have few defenses against the instrumental manipulation of norms they hold dear, and seem largely oblivious to their normative vulnerabilities. High success rates and the continuing proliferation of human rights mean new types of instrumental uses of norms for new purposes are likely to emerge, posing major practical challenges to policymakers, military personnel, and intelligence services, and theoretical challenges for scholars.

Competitive Alliances and Civil War Recurrence

Why do internal wars start anew after they apparently end? I argue that rebel arrangements made for strategic reasons during wars sometimes create provocative effects even after conflicts end; coalitions formed between opposing groups during conflicts often precipitate disruptive commitment problems at the end of wars. This competition can abet the conflict renewal process, especially after wars terminating in military outcomes. Using new data on competitive militant alliances in civil wars, this study probes how rebel rivalries impact peace duration after wars. The evidence indicates that rivalry within coalitions shortens the period of postconflict peace. Wars ending in military victories give way, as many scholars argue, to lengthier periods of peace. But this effect reverses in the context of conflicts characterized by competitive alliances. Indeed, the combination of competitive alliances and a military victory strongly precipitates a resumption of hostilities. This perpetuation of the “conflict trap” proves especially pronounced when rebels win wars. My study implies that peacekeeping or third party forces may find the least local consent for their presence precisely where they matter most in post-conflict environments. As former work has shown, victorious rebels, having wrested power by force from vanquished governments, have relatively little desire for outside interference.

Why Can't Israel Win Wars Any More?

With its basic security against non-nuclear threats now essentially ensured, Israel should develop a greater ability to live with the pain inflicted by Hizbullah, Hamas and others like them.

The 2006 Lebanon War: Lessons Learned

To critics of airpower, Israel's 2006 with Hizballah exposed the fallacy that targeting centers of gravity, such as population, command and control, and infrastructure could coerce the adversary into surrendering, and that airpower could obviate the need for land forces and independently win wars. Given Israel's unexpected challenges in waging the Lebanon war, airpower and then Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, seen as the overzealous proponent of airpower, became easy targets in after-action reports, criticism that ultimately led to Halutz's resignation and replacement by Gaby Ashkenazi, a former infantry commander. (1) But does the Lebanon warrant a swing of the strategic pendulum back towards favoring ground forces? What contributed to Israel's unprecedented military challenges in confronting Hizballah? What are the appropriate strategic lessons to glean from the summer 2006 in Lebanon? In examining the Lebanon campaign, this article highlights three weaknesses in the Israeli strategy. First, the Israeli leadership's faith in airpower as an antiseptic, low-casualty answer for modern warfare clouded the possibility of other strategies that may have been more effective in achieving its objectives. Second, the leadership suffered from the classic fighting the last war mentality, internalizing the lessons from a military campaign-namely Kosovo--in which airpower was successful and applying it to an incongruous environment. Third, airpower was ultimately counterproductive against an asymmetric adversary such as Hizballah. By launching mobile katyusha rockets from holy sites and schools, Hizballah virtually ensured that Israel would inflict civilian casualties; through its strategic use of the media, Hizballah used the collateral damage to intensify support for its ideology and recruitment. In this asymmetric environment, airpower and perhaps military force more generally may be limited in their effectiveness. As this article suggests, only a comprehensive strategy that integrates airpower and military force into a broader political strategy will ultimately bring this type of adversary to its knees. The Airpower Debate Proponents and opponents of airpower have debated its use for almost 100 years, taking on both the general utility and applications of airpower compared to ground forces. Soon after the advent of aircraft, and with World War I stagnating in the trenches, General Giulio Douhet of the Italian General Staff saw airpower as the way out of the standstill. He envisioned the use of bombers to render the enemy useless by destroying their cities, population, and will to fight; command of the air, Douhet promised, would translate into victory. (2) His contemporary, Brigadier General William (Billy) Mitchell, responsible for US air units in France during WWI, shared Douhet's view though he applied it more judiciously, arguing that if airpower successfully targeted transportation and industry, it could defeat the adversary. Mitchell, like Douhet, tirelessly promoted the view that airpower should transform what he saw as the atavistic reliance on land and sea forces. Both men found their views heavily challenged by senior leaders, and Billy Mitchell's efforts to prove the value of airpower by sinking German battleships during peacetime (the 1920s) ended with his court-martial and resignation from the military. The Cold War's airpower advocates, including Curtis LeMay, chief of Strategic Air Command--responsible for the US bomber and missile-based nuclear arsenal--further cemented the reputation that the use of airpower meant strategic bombers to the exclusion of tactical air and ground support operations, let alone other instruments of power, whether military or diplomatic. Colonel John Warden (USAF Retired) more elegantly conceptualized the logic behind airpower and strategic bombing by defining the adversary's centers of gravity and explaining how airpower would cause physical paralysis and eventually lead to the enemy's resignation. …

How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict

How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. By Ivan Arreguin-Toft. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 250p. 29.99 paper.The question of asymmetric conflicts or, more precisely, wars between two states of unequal power capabilities is an important one, but it has received scant scholarly focus, especially in the international relations field. More importantly, the subject of weaker actors winning wars against stronger adversaries has received limited attention. This is especially puzzling since during the Cold War, both superpowers experienced defeat or stalemate at the hands of weaker powers. In the case of the Soviet Union, an ill-fated asymmetric war in Afghanistan contributed to its demise as a state. America's failure in Vietnam had a major impact on U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy behavior for years to come. It affected American strategy regarding war in the developing world, encouraging the development of and reliance on new precision-guided weapons systems and strategies that would preclude ground combat. The failure of France in Indochina and Algeria also point to the significance of the phenomenon of asymmetric war. The Israeli and American withdrawals from Lebanon in 1982 and 1983 and India's pulling out from Sri Lanka in 1990 are other instances of stronger powers failing to make gains against their weaker adversaries. In the post-9/11 world, asymmetric conflicts have increasingly received the attention of military strategists as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they have not received commensurate attention from IR scholars.

How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict (review)

Reviewed by: How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict Jeremy Black How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. By Ivan Arreguín-Toft. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-521-54869-1. Tables. Figures. Appendixes. Notes. References. Index. Pp. xv, 250. $29.99. A political scientist with a background of service in the U.S. Army, including as a military intelligence analyst, Dr. Arreguín-Toft sets out to offer a theoretical perspective on why the weak win wars. He does so by means of a theoretical section which is then followed by five case studies: Russia in the Caucasus, 1830–59, the Second Boer War, the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935–40, the U.S.A. in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. A number of variables that might explain the contrasting success of strong states in asymmetric conflicts are evaluated, for example "democratic social squeamishness". Arreguín-Toft concludes that the strategic interaction thesis best explains the situation: "According to this thesis, the interaction of the strategies actors use during a conflict predicts the outcome of that conflict better than competing explanations. If . . . when [End Page 297] actors employ similar strategic approaches . . . relative power explains the outcome . . . when actors employ opposite strategic approaches . . . weak actors are much more likely to win" (p. 18). The case studies are each examined from the perspective of the overall thesis. For example, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, the author argues that strategic interaction explains why the Soviets failed in 1980–82—by pursuing a conventional attack strategy against a mujahideen guerrilla warfare strategy. In 1983, however, the Soviets switched to a barbarism strategy, but, Arreguín-Toft argues, still failed because the mujahideen were able to rely on intelligence and logistical support from foreign powers. Much of the discussion will not surprise military historians, and some may be dismayed by the heavy emphasis on the theoretical model, rather than detailed research on operational and strategic issues, not least the decisionmaking processes of the combatants. Some readers may also dissent from the conclusions as applied to current American security concerns and foreign policy: If it wants to win the peace . . . it must support its resort to arms by eliminating foreign policy double standards and by increasing its capacity and willingness to use methods other than violence to resolve or deter conflicts around the world. So long as the United States continues to support corrupt and repressive regimes in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, terrorists and insurgents will continue to frustrate US interests in global peace and prosperity. (p. 227) This appears a simplistic account of the politics of much of the world, of American policy and of the response to it, each of which is over-determined to accord with a model. More generally, it is valuable to think in theoretical terms and Arreguín-Toft raises an important point when he demonstrates that strong states have become less effective with time. However, rather than differentiating between causal factors, it is more pertinent to argue in favour of multifactor explanations that cannot be readily separated. Much scholarship fails to address theoretical factors explicitly but, nevertheless, implicitly rests on a theoretical base. It may well be better to discuss the theories explicitly, but to do so it is best not to adopt an overly rigid approach. Jeremy Black University of Exeter Exeter , England, United Kingdom Copyright © 2007 Society for Military History

A Strategy for Success: How the Weak Defeat the Strong

How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. By Ivan Arreguin-Toft. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 274 pp., $75.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-521-83976-9), $29.99 (ISBN: 0-521-54869-1). How do the weak prevail in conflicts with significantly stronger opponents? This is the central question in Ivan Arreguin-Toft's How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict . According to Arreguin-Toft, the basic presumption that power trumps all other factors in determining who is victorious in battle is historically untenable. With increasing frequency, the weak have been defeating the strong. As Arreguin-Toft notes (pp. 5–6, 20), the field of international relations has failed to produce any systematic explanation for this empirical puzzle. How the Weak Win Wars is an attempt to fill this lacuna in the security studies literature, while providing policymakers and political analysts some insights into the conditions that make asymmetric conflicts tremendously costly in terms of political legitimacy and human life. Arreguin-Toft begins by building upon Andrew J. R. Mack's (1975) seminal discussion of small wars, in which Mack argued that relative interest is the deciding factor in wars between the strong and weak. Because weak actors are fighting for survival, they are systematically more motivated to absorb the costs of long wars than their stronger adversaries. In turn, the combination of low interests and high costs puts a strong actor's ruling elite in a position of political vulnerability, and eventually they succumb to domestic pressures to end the war short of victory. Although Arreguin-Toft agrees that the proximate cause of strong actor defeat is political vulnerability, he cites (pp. 14–15) three critical shortcomings in Mack's interest-asymmetry argument. First, power is a poor predictor of resolve. Because of alliance commitments or the prevalence of domino rationales, a strong actor may view a materially insignificant conflict as a matter of life and death and, thus, will be highly motivated to win. Second, to operationalize political vulnerability, Mack assumes that wars between the strong and weak are …

How the weak win wars: a theory of asymmetric conflict

How the weak win wars: a theory of asymmetric conflict

Success of the Army's 1996 red‐cockaded woodpecker management guidelines

AbstractIn 1996, the U.S. Army's guidelines for management of red‐cockaded woodpeckers were revised to reduce training restrictions and promote recovery. These seemingly opposed objectives in fact turned out to be mutually supportive. The type of open pine forest that constitutes good red‐cockaded woodpecker habitat also provides visibility and maneuver freedom that is suitable for many types of military training. Training restrictions have not been shown to be particularly important in promoting expansion of red‐cockaded woodpecker populations, but they are certainly a disincentive to installation commanders who must balance the requirement to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) with the requirement to train soldiers to fight and win wars. This paper describes the circumstances that led to the revision of the Army's guidelines, the approach that was used, and a summary of the important changes between the former and the new management guidelines. Population trend data are also presented, and show that red‐cockaded woodpecker populations on Army lands are increasing, suggesting that the new guidelines are beneficial. Furthermore, all Army installations with adequate forested acreage are vigorously pursuing continued population growth to achieve recovery. Lessons learned from the process of revising the Army's approach to red‐cockaded woodpecker management are likely to have applications for other species, particularly on military lands. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Unified Model of War Onset and Outcome

Recent work regarding what influences the chances that states either win or lose wars focuses on two primary explanations. The first suggests that states win or lose largely on the merits of their war-fighting strategies and capabilities. The second explanation asserts that successful states simply choose their fights more carefully, thus selecting opponents they are more likely to defeat. Although these approaches are often perceived as contending theories, they actually are complementary in that both contribute to a unified explanation of why states win wars. This article provides a theoretical explanation of success in war by joining these two approaches and arguing that because the explanations are complementary, analyses ignoring one or the other are incomplete. We report a series of censored probit models that unify these explanations. The results of the unified model support the argument that the theories should be considered complementary. Our conclusions point to the importance of conceiving of international phenomena including conflict as processes rather than as discrete events.

How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict

List of figures Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Explaining asymmetric conflict outcomes 3. Russia in the Caucasus: the Murid War, 1830-59 4. Britain in Orange Free State and Transvaal: the South African War, 1899-1902 5. Italy in Ethiopia: the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-40 6. The United States in Vietnam: the Vietnam War, 1965-73 7. The USSR in Afghanistan: the Afghan Civil War, 1979-89 8. Conclusion Appendix References Index.

Book Review: The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars?

Book Review: The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars?

The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars?

The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars?

50 years of progress in measuring and controlling industrial processes

Looking back at measurement and control technologies during the past 50 years, we have seen the field change dramatically. We've witnessed the transition from manual and mechanical technology to pneumatic, electromechanical, electronic, and today's digital and information-based world. Along the way, the tools we use to do our jobs have changed just as dramatically, and thus the training and education we need to perform our work successfully. We've gone from drawing boards to computer graphics; from rotary telephones to digital fax machines: from slide rules to calculators: and, of course, from roomsize computers to laptops. Driving these changes are the demands of a changing world: the need to increase productivity and quality, global competition, and the need to more safely manufacture products that are environmentally friendly. During the past half-century, measurement and control professionals and technicians have made manufacturing history, while they've helped win wars and grow economies. From the author's perspective, he gives a snapshot look at some significant measurement and control highlights and milestones over the past 50 years.