Baltimore Rally: Joint 

Interagency Planning, 

Training, and Leader 

Engagement Achieves Unity 

of Effort in Response to 

Baltimore Unrest

The American Insurgency: 

Lessons from a Failed British 

COIN Strategy

The New Surrogate Actor: The 

Utilization of Cyber Surrogate 

Forces and Proxy Forces in 

Unconventional Warfare

Breaking Down the 

Fundamental Challenges in 

Effective Operational 

Assessment

Campaigning

The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College

“That All May Labor As One”

Featured Essays

Fall 2016
Campaigning 

Fall 2016 

https://jdeis.js.mil/jdeis/index.jsp?pindex=69

Commandant, Joint Forces Staff College 

RDML Jeffrey Ruth, USN 

Acting Dean, Joint Forces Staff College 

Col Peter E. Yeager, USMC 

Editor 

Dr. Daniel H. McCauley 

Editorial Board: 

Assistant Professor William S. Marlowe 

Dr. Kenneth P. Pisel 

Dr. Frederick R. Kienle 

Cover image: JCWS Students 

at various venues, 2014 – 

2016. Photos by Grant Highland 

and Daniel McCauley. 

Director, Joint and Combined

Warfighting School

CAPT John M. Maxwell, USN

Director, Joint Advanced 

Warfighting School

COL Stephen C. Rogers, USA

Director, Joint Continuing

and Distance Education

School

Col Tricia L. York, USAFR

Director, Joint Command,

Control and Information

Operations School

COL Maxwell Thibodeaux, USA

Campaigning Fall 2016 i
In this issue of Campaigning: 

Editor’s Corner........................................................................................iii 

Dr. Daniel H. McCauley 

Features 

Baltimore Rally: Joint Interagency Planning, Training, and Leader Engagement 

Achieves Unity of Effort in Response to Baltimore Unrest......................................1

COL Paul J. Cisar 

Breaking Down the Fundamental Challenges in Effective Operational 

Assessment...............................................................................................13

LCDR Anthony Lee, Dr. Richard Medina, and COL Fred Bolton 

The New Surrogate Actor: The Utilization of Cyber Surrogate Forces and Proxy 

Forces in Unconventional Warfare................................................................23

Maj Robert M. Cowan, LCDR Scott D. Rathke, MAJ Andrew S. Brokhoff, and Lt Col Sean A. Leaman 

The American Insurgency: Lessons from a Failed British Counterinsurgency 

Strategy..................................................................................................31

Dr. Charles V. Pratt 

Commentary 

Operation Unified Response – The 2010 Haiti Earthquake..................................39

Dr. David R. DiOrio 

Managing the Expectations of the Third Offset.................................................56

CDR Ted Ricciardella, LtCol David Berke, Lt Col Eric Hresko, and LTC David Zinn 

Developing an Operational Approach for the Transition from War to Peace 

through Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Development: Understanding Strategic 

Direction................................................................................................69

Thomas J. Snukis 

The Foresight Factor 

On the Horizons: Leveraging Foresight for National Security Reform....................76

Dr. Daniel H. McCauley 

Author Submission Guidelines.....................................................................90

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this journal are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Joint 

Forces Staff College, National Defense University, or the Department of Defense. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 ii
Welcome to the Fall 2016 edition of 

Campaigning. In a recent speech at the Air 

Force Association Air and Space Cyber 

Conference, the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph F. Dunford, 

Jr., expressed the need for the U.S. Joint 

force to maintain a balanced inventory of 

capabilities to defeat an array of potential 

adversaries across the range of military 

operations. In addition, he highlighted the 

need to think and act globally to address the 

challenges inherent within the transregional, 

multi-domain, and multifunctional strategic 

environment. This edition’s essays present a 

range of analysis and thought that not only 

span multiple regions, domains, and 

functions, but incorporate historical and 

future aspects, too. 

The Features section begins with an essay 

by COL Paul Cesar titled “Baltimore Rally: 

Joint Interagency Planning, Training, and 

Leader engagement Achieves Unity of 

Effort in Response to Baltimore Unrest,” 

that focuses on the Maryland National 

Guard, the Maryland Emergency 

Management Agency, and the City of 

Baltimore’s response to civil unrest in April 

2015. Leveraging relationships established 

within the State’s interagency components 

through exercises and training events prior 

to the unrest, state and city leaders were able 

to minimize the potential physical and social 

impacts. 

The second featured essay, “Breaking Down 

the Fundamental Challenges in Effective 

Operational Assessments,” by LCDR Lee, 

Dr. Medina, and COL Bolton, takes an indepth look at the challenges associated with 

assessment methods. In their essay the 

authors identify the two principal barriers 

that impede operational assessments and 

provide five recommendations to consider 

when conducting operational assessments. 

Maj Cowan, LCDR Rathke, MAJ Brokhoff, 

and Lt Col Leaman provide our third 

featured essay, “The New Surrogate Actor: 

The Utilization of Cyber Surrogate Forces 

and Proxy Forces in Unconventional 

Warfare.” In this essay, the authors argue 

that proxy cyber forces, much like 

traditional guerilla forces, operate as 

surrogates and as small-scale irregular 

military forces on behalf of others. The 

surrogates fuse modern cyber capabilities 

with traditional unconventional warfare 

concepts and practices to achieve politicalmilitary advantages against stronger 

conventional forces. As such, the U.S. SOF 

community must develop similar capabilities 

to address this shortfall in current SOF 

capability and doctrine. 

Out final featured essay is, “The American 

Insurgency: Lessons Learned from a Failed 

British Counterinsurgency Strategy,” takes a 

historical look at the American 

Revolutionary War through the lens of a 

counterinsurgency campaign. In this essay, 

Dr. Pratt speculates that if the British 

military leadership had understood the true 

nature of the American rebellion, they may 

have opted for a more traditional 

counterinsurgency strategy as opposed to the 

Editor’s Corner

Campaigning Fall 2016 iii
traditional conventional war strategy that 

was largely pursued. 

This edition’s Commentary features three 

essays. The first essay, “Operation Unified 

Response – The 2010 Haiti Earthquake,” by 

Dr. DiOrio, provides an overview of the 

relief effort and some of the challenges 

associated with this specific disasters. Dr. 

DiOrio offers reflections of senior military 

and civilian leaders and what can be done 

nationally and internationally to facilitate 

future relief efforts. 

The next essay, “Managing the Expectations 

of the Third Offset,” by CDR Ricciardella, 

LtCol Berke, Lt Col Hresko, and LTC Zinn, 

provides a brief overview of previous offset 

strategies and the DoD’s desire for 

developing a third offset strategy. The 

authors posit that the success or failure of 

the third offset will hinge upon how well the 

Services and research laboratories work 

together to transform concepts and ideas into 

a flexible strategy. 

Our final Commentary is by Associate 

Professor Snukis. In his essay, “Developing 

an Operational Approach for the Transition 

from War to Peace through Stabilization, he 

advances the argument that Joint Force 

commanders must begin any planning 

endeavor by comprehensively understanding 

strategic guidance and direction. Failing to 

do so, especially considering the longer term 

requirements in stabilization and 

reconstruction, will continue to result in less 

than desirable outcomes. 

Finally, in this edition’s Foresight Factor 

essay, I present a strategic foresight tool, 

The Three Horizons, that can be used by 

leaders, strategists, and planners, to help 

identify and understand competing futures 

and values that create policy and strategy 

spaces. Leveraging the current discussion on 

national security reform, the Three Horizons 

provides a conceptual framework for 

discussion on future defense reform. 

We hope you enjoy this edition of 

Campaigning. You can let me know what 

you think by emailing me at 

mccauleyd@ndu.edu.

Daniel H. McCauley 

Editor 

Campaigning Fall 2016 iv
Baltimore Rally: Joint Interagency 

Planning, Training, and Leader 

Engagement Achieves Unity of 

Effort in Response to Baltimore 

Unrest

COL Paul J. Cisar 

In April 2015, Baltimore, Maryland,

experienced the most violent civil unrestsince 

the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in

1968.1 In response to the April 2015 unrest 

and Emergency Declaration that followed, the 

Maryland National Guard employed over 

3,000 Soldiers and Airmen in Operation

Baltimore Rally to support civilian 

authorities. Effective execution of Operation

Baltimore Rally resulted largely from 

relationships developed during prior

interagency civil disturbance planning and 

training by components of the Maryland

National Guard, the Maryland Emergency

Management Agency, and Baltimore City

Police that facilitated trust, operational

understanding, and decision-making,

ultimately supporting unity of effort during 

Operation Baltimore Rally.

Planning and Preparation2

“As a result of the inadequate plans and exercises,

when Hurricane Katrina struck, a lack of

understanding existed within the military and among

federal, state, and local responders as to the types of

assistance and capabilities that the military might

provide, the timing of this assistance, and the

respective contributions of the National Guard and

federal military forces.”

General Accounting Office (GAO) Report 20063

In August 2013, the Director of Joint Staff for 

the Maryland National Guard (MDNG),

Brigadier General (BG) Linda Singh, 

approved a new MDNG domestic operations 

planning strategy, shifting from a single All 

Hazards Plan to individual Contingency Plans 

geared toward specific response scenarios 

supported by an overarching Campaign Plan

[MDNG Military Support to Civilian

Authorities Campaign Plan].4 The single All 

Hazards Plan was over 600 pages, but lacked 

specificity or detail for specific scenarios, 

which also made it difficult to transition to

executable orders for specific response

operations (hurricanes, snowstorms, civil

disturbances). What was needed were

individual Contingency Plans (CONPLANs)

geared toward specific potential hazards the 

state might face. This would provide the 

necessary planning level detail and make

them easily adaptable to specific events and

executable for short/no notice events. In

2014, a new MDNG Joint Training Plan (JTP)

became effective integrating individual 

CONPLAN development with joint training 

executed throughout each training year.5 This 

JTP had a five year planning horizon. The

new integrated planning and training strategy

supported revision or development of new 

specific hazard-based CONPLANs while

simultaneously building response capability.

Lessons learned from exercises during the 

year supported significantly improved final

CONPLANs. In 2014, the new Director of 

the MDNG Joint Staff, BG Jeffery Kramer,

directed Civil Disturbance training and

OPLAN development as the focus for 2014 

based on his assessment that Civil

Disturbance planning and training needed

attention.

Campaigning Fall 2016 1
Figure 1. MDNG Joint Planning and Exercise Strategy6 

As the year progressed, the MDNG Joint Staff

actively pursed interagency support and

participation during exercise development and

planning activities. The Operations Director

for the Maryland Emergency Management

Agency (MEMA), Ms. Kate Hession, was a 

key advocate for State agency participation.

She facilitated an 8 June 2014 Civil

Disturbance Table Top Exercise (TTX)

attended by leaders from MEMA, the 

Baltimore City Police Department (BPD),

both components of the MDNG, and key unit 

leaders. The TTX received favorable 

feedback and afterward the BPD indicated 

they would also revise their “Civil 

Disobedience Plan.”7

Throughout the year, the Joint Staff actively 

shared Civil Disturbance planning products 

including the draft CONPLAN, briefings, 

TTX after-action review, and other 

information with MEMA, the Maryland State

Police (MSP), and BPD. In September 2014, 

the MDNG executed a full-scale Civil 

Disturbance exercise that included all MDNG 

initial response forces and supporting units. 

BPD observers present at the exercise 

provided advice and feedback to the units. 

Key leader and staff exchanges increased

throughout the year and developed into close 

coordinating relationships among the 

agencies in a number of areas including civil 

disturbance response, natural disaster 

response preparedness, and support for special

events such as high profile sporting events. 

BG Kramer had regular communications with

senior members of the BPD including Lt. Col. 

Melissa Hyatt, the Area 1 commander

overseeing the Central District and Inner 

Harbor area of Baltimore. Baltimore’s Star

Spangled Spectacular celebration on 

September 8-16 2014 provided additional 

opportunities for many of the State agencies

including MEMA, MDNG, and the BPD to 

work together closely. MDNG liaison 

officers worked in the BPD emergency

operations center throughout the Star 

Spangled Spectacular. The 10-day 

celebration drew more than 2.5 million 

visitors including visits to Fort McHenry by 

President Obama and Vice President Biden. 

Numerous other events including a US Navy 

Blue Angels demonstration and port calls by

US and British naval vessels and tall ships 

from many nations required coordination 

with the US Coast Guard and US Navy. 

In January 2015, the Director of Planning in

the Mayor’s Office of Emergency

Management requested BG Kramer’s

input/concurrence on the City’s Civil 

Disobedience Plan. The plan identified eight

potential tasks for the MDNG, developed

Campaigning Fall 2016 2
through staff coordination between the BPD 

and MDNG Staffs.8 This higher level of key

leader and staff coordination would be 

critical in the months to come.

Understanding the Operating 

Environment

“Disorder did not erupt as a result of a single

"triggering" or "precipitating" incident. Instead, it 

was generated out of an increasingly disturbed 

social atmosphere, in which typically a series of

tension-heightening incidents over a period of

weeks or months became linked in the minds of many 

in the [African American] community with a 

reservoir of underlying grievances. At some point in

the mounting tension...came the breaking point and

the tension spilled over into violence.”

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders

19689

On 12 April 2015, BPD arrested Freddie Gray 

after a brief foot chase. During transport to

the detention facility, Gray suffered a medical

emergency and died at the hospital seven days

later.10 Seven months earlier, a Ferguson 

Missouri Police Officer shot and killed 18-

year-old Michael Brown; more than 100 

witnesses offered varying accounts of the 

shooting.11 In December 2014, a Staten 

Island Grand Jury decided not to indict a New

York City Police Officer whose arrest and 

physical restraint of Eric Garner led to his 

death; the decision came a week after a 

similar decision in the Michael Brown case.

12 

These highly publicized events resulted in 

calls for police reform and protests across the 

country particularly among the African

American community. Slogans such as “I

Can’t Breathe” and “Black Lives Matter”

appeared on tee shirts and signs at public 

demonstrations and protests. In Ferguson, 

unrest broke out in the immediate wake of 

Brown’s death and following the Grand

Jury’s decision not to indict the police officer 

involved. Following the Brown grand jury 

decision, many political leaders across the 

country raised a concern. President Obama

stated, “The fact is, in too many parts of this

country, a deep distrust exists between law

enforcement and communities of color.”13 In 

Baltimore, social, religious, and political

leaders were also speaking out. Two days 

before the Brown decision, Louis Farrakhan 

spoke to a crowd of more than 2,000 at

Morgan State University in Baltimore, telling

them, "They know an explosion is going to

come," referring to predicted violence in

Ferguson.14 In West Baltimore, Reverend Al

Sharpton, social leader and cable television

host, spoke at the Macedonia Baptist Church 

saying, “We worship this morning at a time of 

real crisis and concern.”15 Religious leaders in

Baltimore played a key social and political

role, particularly among the African

American community. Reverend Jamal H. 

Bryant of the Empowerment Temple AME

Church was a key organizer of protests in

Baltimore following the Brown grand jury 

decision. Outspoken on civil rights issues in

Baltimore and nationally, Bryant had spent 

time in Florida during the Trayvon Martin

incident and several weeks in Ferguson after

Brown’s death.16

Baltimore’s demographics also factored into

the environment. Like many other large

Northeastern “Rust Belt” cities with large

former industrial-based economies, 

Baltimore’s population has undergone a major

shift. Since 1970, Baltimore City’s population 

declined almost 30%; during that same

period, the African American population 

remained nearly steady, resulting in a 65% 

increase in their share of the city’s

Campaigning Fall 2016 3
population.17 According to US Census Bureau

estimates, the 2014 population of Baltimore

was 622,793, composed of 63% African

American, 37% white or other ethnic descent;

a ratio almost exactly the opposite of 

surrounding counties in Maryland.18

 Figure 2. Baltimore City Poverty Rate Map19

The median household income from 2009-

2013 for Baltimore City residents was 

$41,385 with 23.8% of city residents falling 

below the poverty level; Maryland’s overall

median income over the same period was 

$73,538, with 9.8% of the population falling 

below the poverty level.20 Baltimore’s

economy also experienced a major transition

over the last 50 years. The once thriving 

industrial, steel and major manufacturing base

largely disappeared giving way to a more

diversified finance, healthcare, tourist, and

international trade-based economy focused 

around the port and inner harbor area.21 The 

resulting demographic and economic shifts 

concentrated poverty around the city’s center 

with affluent areas concentrated in the 

Northern suburbs and Inner Harbor areas.22

Baltimore is the only independent city in 

Maryland not located within a county. It has 

a charter form of Government with a Mayor

who leads the executive branch and 15-

member city council who form the legislative 

branch with lawmaking powers; all serve 

four-year terms.23 In November 2011 voters 

elected Democrat and former City Council 

President, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, to her 

first term as Mayor with 87% of the vote.24 

Also in 2011, voters elected City Council 

President Bernard Young to his first term,

replacing Rawlings-Blake. He and eight

other City Council members as well as the 

Mayor are representative of the city’s 

majority African American electorate.

The BPD Commissioner leads the eighth

largest municipal police department in the US

with 3,200 sworn officers.25 The BPD is

responsible for policing an area encompassing 

92 square miles, including 11.7 square miles 

of water (primarily the Patapsco River a 

major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay 

providing deep-water port access to the 

City).26 The BPD organizes policing 

responsibilities in nine districts; five in the 

western portion of the City and four in the 

eastern.27 Several major facilities within the 

City limits have law enforcement authorities 

and forces including the Port of Baltimore’s

Maryland Transportation Authority Police,

the US Park Police for Fort McHenry 

National Park, and the US Coast Guard for

navigable waters of Patapsco River and Inner 

harbor. Other important facilities include the 

5th Regiment Armory, Headquarters for the 

MDNG, and the Cade Armory in West

Campaigning Fall 2016 4
Baltimore. Six additional MDNG Armories 

are located within 5 miles of the City limits.

Response Operations28

We asked our incident commander focus group 

“what problems do you see on every incident?” 

Several incident commanders immediately replied: 

unclear, multiple, conflicting, uncooperative and

isolated command structures... What accounts for

command problems, for failure to collaborate?... 

First, they said, agencies lack the commitment to

coordinate with each other. At best, they are

unaware of what other agencies are doing and do

not try to find out. At worst, they are unwilling to 

cooperate. This stems from a lack of trust between

agencies and a lack of understanding across

disciplines.

A Study of the Lessons of Disasters, Why We 

Repeat Them, and How We Can Learn Them.

29

After the outbreak of violence in Ferguson,

leaders of the MDNG and BPD became

increasingly concerned about potential unrest 

in Baltimore. The MDNG provided liaison

officers to the BPD during several major 

Michael Brown related protests in Baltimore 

and increased alert posture for initial response 

units on several occasions. MDNG liaison 

officers provided staff support to BPD,

situational awareness for the MDNG, and 

quick direct access to MDNG leaders and

senior staff to answer BPD questions about 

potential MDNG response capabilities. On 

April 12, BPD representatives attended a 

MDNG briefing on support the Missouri 

National Guard provided in response to 

unrest in Ferguson. 

Seven days later, on Sunday, April 19, 

Freddie Gray died of injuries sustained after 

his arrest by BPD officers. Protests erupted 

that day and tensions between BPD and 

demonstrators grew over the following week.

By Tuesday, protestors began to mass

regularly around the BPD Western District 

Headquarters near where police arrested

Gray.30 Leaders from the MDNG and BPD 

remained in close contact monitoring the 

situation. While demonstrations had been

relatively peaceful, BPD raised concerns over 

planned weekend protests that would be 

significantly larger. By Friday, the MDNG

revised the standing Civil Disturbance 

Operations Plan tailoring it specifically to

current events in Baltimore. The MDNG 

Joint Staff also issued a Warning Order to all 

subordinate elements addressing the current 

situation.

Saturday evening, April 25, protests turned 

violent. There were thirty-four arrests and six

police officers injured after demonstrators 

broke windows and vandalized police cars

following a day of peaceful protests and

strong rhetoric from protest leaders, including 

Mr. Malik Shabazz, president of Black 

Lawyers for Justice.31 On Monday, Gray’s

funeral was the focal point of protests and

continued strong rhetoric. Jamal Bryant told 

his congregation, "Somebody is going to

have to pay" for Gray's death.32

The situation deteriorated rapidly. On 

Monday afternoon at 3PM, a group of mostly

high school students gathered at Mondawmin 

Mall after a social media message called for a

“purge”.33 Shortly after 3PM, violence and 

looting broke out and spread across multiple 

areas of the City. Police, largely in a 

defensive posture, were overwhelmed 

quickly. With media reports of looting, 

burning buildings, and chaos across the City, 

Governor Hogan declared a State of

Emergency at 7PM. Shortly afterward, the 

MDNG issued Operations Order Baltimore 

Campaigning Fall 2016 5
Rally, initially calling up 500 Maryland 

Guardsmen. By 2AM Tuesday, initial

MDNG elements arrived in the city to support 

the BPD with missions to secure critical

infrastructure and facilities. With numerous

additional requests coming from BPD for 

roving patrols, transportation support, and

crowd control elements, the MDNG activated 

an additional 475 Guardsmen including the 

State’s Joint Task Force, JTF-MD, comprised

of the 58th Troop Command to assume

command and control of all activated units. 

Over the next ten hours, the number of 

activated Guardsmen doubled to 2,000, 

including the Maryland Air National Guard to

execute their joint reception, staging, onward movement and integration mission.

 Figure 3. MDNG, Joint Staff, J1 Activation Strength34

While the MSP served as the lead state agency 

for the response, close coordination continued 

with the BPD, which provided mission

priorities based on BPD requirements. On

Wednesday, April 29, BG Kramer assumed

command of a new Joint Task Force, JTFChesapeake, created to assume command and

control of two subordinate Task Force

elements assigned to the City. This helped

relieve span of control issues as larger

numbers of MDNG forces flowed into the 

response effort. BG Kramer also assumed a 

critical role as the primary National Guard

liaison to the BPD Commissioner, Anthony 

Batts. This role was crucial in providing both 

lead-time for mission requests as well as

shaping Guard mission tasks to ensure they 

were suitable and feasible. 

One of the decisions BG Kramer and

Commissioner Batts made early on was to

establish a central staging base for both police 

Campaigning Fall 2016 6
and MDNG troops in Lot C of the Baltimore

Ravens Stadium in downtown Baltimore.

This facilitated both rapid coordination and

link up between Police and MDNG troops. 

More than 1500 MDNG personnel and 1000 

police officers from jurisdictions all over 

Maryland and other supporting states used Lot

C as a primary base for staging operations. 

BG Scott Kelly from the Maryland Air

National Guard commanded the MDNG

portion of the staging base, ensuring MDNG

units had the sustainment and support

requirements were met, as well as helping unit 

commanders

coordinate last

minute mission

requirements or 

changes with

MSP leaders on 

site. 

The Adjutant 

General of the 

MDNG, MG

Singh, spent most

of her time in the 

City maintaining

regular direct contact with Governor Hogan

and advising the Mayor. She also spent a 

great deal of time on the streets visiting troops

and did a great deal of public affairs

messaging, reminding the public how 

Guardsman included members of the 

community and were on the street to protect

the City. The combination of a rapid

deployment by MDNG forces, MSP, and

other police as well as the curfew put in place

Monday was effective. By Thursday, 30 

April, violence subsided. 

There were very few violent incidents 

involving MDNG troops and protestors. By

in large, troops were welcomed by many and

garnered a large measure of respect

contributing significantly to their

effectiveness and support of the police. Uparmored MDNG vehicles provided critical

transportation for both police and troops who

often conducted joint patrols and used them to

move forces to and from locations around the

City.

 Figure 4. JTF Chesapeake Operations Overlay 1 May35

As the weekend of 2-3 May approached with 

additional protests planned, political and

civic leaders were determined to keep the 

calm. The number of authorized Guardsmen

mobilized rose to 3,000. The MDNG headed

into the weekend with two notable operational

changes, a more robust task organization and

streamlined mission assignment process with

refined coordination measures and lead-time

worked out with the BPD and MSP. The 

Maryland Air National Guard activated 500 

additional Airmen and trained many of them

in civil disturbance techniques and tactics to

support missions over the weekend. Two

Campaigning Fall 2016 7
hundred and fifty Airmen attached to JTF

Chesapeake supported missions in the City

over the weekend, while the remainder

continued to execute the support missions.

The weekend remained calm and by Monday, 

with the curfew lifted and calm restored,

police took control of the city and MDNG

forces began demobilizing. 

Analysis, Lessons Learned, and

Conclusions

Lessons in Command and Control from the 

Los Angeles Riots in 1997 included: 

California NG leadership did not have a 

deployment timeline establishing when troops 

would be available on the streets; law 

enforcement agencies expecting military 

support did not know when to expect troops 

to arrive; and law enforcement agencies did 

not know where they wanted the troops to be 

deployed nor exactly what the soldiers should 

do once they appeared.

36 It had been a very 

long time since law enforcement leaders had 

seriously considered the possibility that the 

military might be required to help them in

quelling a civil disturbance. When the crisis 

came, military support arrangements would 

be mostly ad hoc.

Civil disturbances are complex events, but are 

often predictable by maintaining situational 

awareness and understanding of social

dynamics at play. A key to success in 

achieving unity of effort during Operation 

Baltimore Rally was the recognition by senior 

leaders of both the MDNG and supported 

agencies that conditions were building toward 

potential unrest and required proactive 

preparatory efforts. This led to the focus on 

civil disturbance planning, training, and 

increased interagency coordination in the year

preceding the April 2015 unrest in Baltimore.

Prior lessons learned from unrest in Los

Angles, Ferguson, and other incidents led

MDNG leaders to recognize that establishing 

leader and staff relationships among 

supported and supporting agencies was key to

enabling effective interagency planning and 

ultimately effective response. 

Achieving unity of effort is a challenge. 

While many organizations have significant 

capability, the central challenge is how to

integrate and synchronize those capabilities

by first getting organizations to work

together.37 MDNG joint planning and

training events in 2014 that included most of 

the agencies ultimately responding to the 

unrest in Baltimore established a forum for

agencies to discuss and work through 

potential unrest response scenarios. More 

importantly, it established key relationships

that would facilitate ongoing coordination, 

understanding of capabilities, limitations, and

interoperability concepts. For example, the 

BCP incorporated components of the MDNG 

Civil Disturbance plan into their plan, which

clearly outlined expected timelines for 

various MDNG forces to mobilize and be 

available. Their primary mission statement " 

To protect the life and property, and maintain 

civil order for the citizens of Baltimore" and 

end state “to protect the right of all citizens to

peacefully assemble and conduct free speech

activities as guaranteed under the 1st 

Amendment to the US Constitution” closely 

followed verbiage in similar sections of the 

MDNG Civil Disturbance plan.38

The relationships established through leader

and staff engagement and coordination paid 

dividends during the response. MG Singh 

Campaigning Fall 2016 8
and BG Kramer both had immediate access 

and credibility with senior civilian leaders,

including the Governor, City Mayor, and

Police Commissioner, which translated down 

through the ranks. Information requests, 

clarifications and suggestions regarding 

mission requirements, assignments, and 

execution flowed laterally across staff 

elements and between Commanders and 

Police leaders in the field. It is quite likely

without these pre-established working 

relationships, the coordination processes very 

easily could have bogged down in 

bureaucratic levels of review and filtering. 

The importance of established informal 

communication and coordination measures, 

especially in the early stages of response, was 

a lesson learned and implemented from the 

1992 Los Angeles riots.

39

Press conference coverage featured key 

leaders from all the responding agencies

together, and included MG Singh reinforcing 

key messaging requesting peaceful 

demonstration and compliance with the 

curfew and police direction. This unified 

messaging, reinforcement of civilian

authority and military support roles, and close 

working relationships presented a united front

to the public and was likely a factor in 

reducing violence and restoring calm. In 

contrast to the relationships and derived 

benefits among civilian and military staffs and

leaders, many pointed to apparent discord 

among city officials and between City Mayor

and Governor as a contributing factor in 

delaying initial response decisions and

action.40

As expected, there were challenges in

sustaining unity of effort during the response. 

A common challenge cited in many large 

incidents is the command structure and weak

implementation or understanding of the 

incident command system (ICS).41 The

MDNG faced command structure challenges 

for the first 72 hours. The urgency for forces

on the street and the rapid mobilization of 

more 1800 service members in 24 hours 

resulted in battalion and higher headquarters 

elements mobilized simultaneously or even 

after subordinate units. Those headquarters 

elements struggled to gain situational 

awareness, understanding, and command and 

control of subordinate units, some of which 

were already executing missions in support of 

police. Rapid mobilization and deployments 

also resulted in span of control issues as 

headquarters elements initially received

assignment of significantly larger numbers of 

forces and units than normal. This impacted

units executing missions early in the 

operation; some went longer than 48 hours 

before getting relieved for a formal rest cycle.

It also affected timely and effective orders

flow, processing, synchronization, and 

execution as various command elements came

online. 

Standing up and integrating a formal incident 

command structure was also a challenge for

both police and MDNG. Under the ICS, the 

MSP served as the state’s lead agency under 

the state’s Emergency Support Function 13 

(Law Enforcement), although the City Mayor 

and Police Commissioner primarily were 

generating both police and MDNG mission 

requirements. It took several days for multiagency mission coordination mechanisms to 

develop a clear unified command structure,

and for coordinated and integrated mission 

request and assignment processes to evolve. 

The BPD “Civil Disobedience Plan” laid out 

Campaigning Fall 2016 9
basic information needed for initial 

interagency response operations but did not 

include a formal ICS incident action plan 

(IAP) with assignments for detailed roles and 

responsibilities including for a single Incident 

Commander, nor did it account for a multiday incident.42 

 

The establishment of the joint interagency 

staging base at Lot C of the Ravens Stadium 

with co-located operations leaders from the 

MSP, BPD, and MDNG early in the response 

was key in de-conflicting or clarifying

mission assignments before these agencies 

deployed for operations across the City as

integrated teams. MDNG Liaison officers at 

the City EOC and senior military leader 

engagement with both the MSP, the City, and 

Governor’s staff also significantly reduced 

the impacts of the evolving command and

coordination processes on the MDNG Civil 

Disturbance training and related unit 

preparations clearly benefited MDNG units 

supporting the response. Well prior to 

activation for Operation Baltimore Rally

initial response force units had specialized 

training and equipment such as Non-Lethal

Warfare kits, individual protective gear, and 

ammunition pre-staged and ready. 

Requirements for additional equipment and 

ammunition to support follow on forces was 

on order or identified for rapid sourcing and

distribution. Logistical challenges existed,

but were anticipated and ultimately overcome 

with little or no impact to mission support. 

One of the primary logistical challenges was

accountability for the large amount of 

equipment and ammunition pushed to rapidly 

mobilized and deploying units, and 

accounting for it at the conclusion of the 

operation. According to reports and reviews,

the BPD had significant shortcomings in 

equipment and training that affected their

response.43

The April 2015 unrest in Baltimore was 

traumatic for the citizens of Baltimore. 

Recovery from the physical damage and 

social impacts likely will take years, but it

could have been worse. While over 100 

police officers were injured and there was 

significant property damage to more than 400 

businesses, there was no documented direct 

loss of life due to the unrest.44 Despite the 

challenges, prior joint and interagency

planning, training and most importantly the 

relationships built in accomplishing those 

preparedness activities facilitated the trust,

common operational understanding, and 

decision-making that ultimately supported 

unity of effort during Operation Baltimore 

Rally.

Author Biography.

COL Cisar is currently serving as the Chief of Staff for 

the Maryland National Guard, Joint Force

Headquarters. 

1 The terms civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil disorder, civil 

disturbance, and riots are often used synonymously

in broad terms by many references to describe the protest activities 

of a group of people which can span the spectrum of conflict from 

lawful peaceful protest to mass violence and property destruction. 

Generally, civilian authorities including law enforcement and

military planners use one of the first four terms in the

planning/preparedness context. This reflects both political and social 

sensitivities to defining any specific potential event or group as a 

riot or rioters. The term riot or rioter connotes unlawful behavior and 

violence; use of the terms prior to an incident raises concerns of 

incitement, constitutional rights infringement, and generally negative

authoritarian view of the exercise of first amendment constitutional 

rights to assembly. This terminology sensitivity is reflective of 

recent public scrutiny of Missouri National Guard planning 

documents that used doctrinal military planning formats that 

included the word “Enemy” in referring to Ferguson protestors.

2 Material in this section is based on the Author’s experience as the 

Maryland National Guard, Joint Force

Headquarters, Joint Staff, Joint Plans and Training Officer (J5/7) 

during the period from December 2011 through August 2015.

Campaigning Fall 2016 10
3 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), HURRICANE 

KATRINA, Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the 

Military’s Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters, (Washington, 

DC: GAO, May 2006), 4.

4 Paul Cisar, Maryland National Guard All Hazards Operations

Plan (AHOP) Structural Revision, Staff Position Paper

(Baltimore Maryland, MDNG JFHQ, July 2013)

5 Maryland National Guard, Joint Training Guidance and Joint 

Training Plan for FY 15‐19 (JTP 15‐19), memorandum

(Baltimore Maryland, MDNG JFHQ, June 2014)

6 Ibid, 6.

7 The Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management 

and City Police Department refer to their plan to deal with incidents 

involving civil disobedience, crowd management, and mass arrests 

as the Baltimore City Civil Disobedience Plan

8 Chi‐Poe S. Hsia, email RE: Civil Disturbance Planning to BG

Jeffrey P Kramer, Director, Maryland National Guard

Joint Staff, 25 January 2015.

9 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. 1968. Report

of The National Advisory Commission on Civil

Disorders. Government Report, Washington, DC: Government 

Printing Office, 3.

10 State of Maryland v. Goodson, case No. 6B02294452, 1‐5 

(District Court of Maryland For Baltimore City 2015)

accessed July 15, 2015, 

http://sbg.minbcnews.com/template/corp/package/cityincrisis/stories/

125868‐Charging‐ documents‐for‐6‐Baltimore‐police‐officers‐

charged‐in‐Freddie‐Gray‐case.shtml

11 Department of Justice, Report Regarding The Criminal 

Investigation Into The Shooting Death Of Michael Brown

By Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson (Washington 

DC: DOJ, March 4, 2015), 4.

12 J. David Goodman and Al Baker, “Wave of Protests After Grand 

Jury Doesn’t Indict Officer in Eric Garner

Chokehold Case”, N.Y. Times, December 3, 2014, accessed July 18, 

2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/nyregion/grand‐jury‐

said‐to‐bring‐no‐charges‐in‐staten‐island‐chokehold‐ death‐of‐eric‐

garner.html?_r=0

13 Obama, Barack. Remarks by the President After Announcement 

of the Decision by the Grand Jury in Ferguson,

Missouri. Washington, DC, November 24, 2014, accessed July 18, 

2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the‐press‐ 

office/2014/11/24/remarks‐president‐after‐announcement‐decision‐

grand‐jury‐ferguson‐missou

14 Colin Campbell and Justin George, “Far from Missouri, 

Baltimore readies for Ferguson ruling”, The Baltimore Sun, 

November 23, 2014, accessed July 18, 2015, 

http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/‐1/article/p2p‐82073109/

15 Ibid

16 Jonathan Pitts, “What's the role of the church in troubled times? 

Pastors disagree.” The Baltimore Sun, April 25,

2015, accessed July 18, 2015, 

http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/‐1/article/p2p‐83382706/

17 Randy Yeip, “Baltimore’s Demographic Divide”, The Wall Street 

Journal”, May 1, 2015, accessed July 18, 2015,

http://graphics.wsj.com/baltimore‐demographics/

18 “State & County Quick Facts” US Census Bureau, accessed July 

18, 2015,

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/24510.html

19 Yeip, “Baltimore’s Demographic Divide” 

20 Ibid

21 Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, 

Brief Economic Facts, Baltimore City, Maryland

(Baltimore, MD, 2015) accessed July 18, 2015, 

http://business.maryland.gov/media/document‐library

22 Yeip, “Baltimore’s Demographic Divide”

23 Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, 

Brief Economic Facts, Baltimore City, Maryland,4 24 “About the 

Mayor”, Baltimore City Mayor’s Office, accessed July 18, 2015,

http://mayor.baltimorecity.gov/biography

25 “Baltimore Police Department At a Glance”, Baltimore Police 

Department, accessed July 18, 2015,

http://www.baltimorepolice.org/newsroom/staying‐connected

26 Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, 

Brief Economic Facts, Baltimore City, Maryland,4 

27 “Baltimore Police Department At a Glance”, Baltimore Police 

Department

28 Material in this section is based on the Author’s experience as the 

Maryland National Guard, Joint Force

Headquarters, Joint Staff, Joint Plans and Training Officer (J5/7) 

during the period from November 2014 through May 2015.

29 Amy Donahue and Robert Tuohy, “Lessons We Don’t Learn: A 

Study of the Lessons of Disasters, Why We Repeat

Them, and How We Can Learn Them” Homeland Security Affairs,

Vol. II, Iss. 2. 12

30 Justin George, “Tensions remain high over Gray's death”, The 

Baltimore Sun, April 22, 2015, accessed July 23,

2015, http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/‐1/article/p2p‐

83355908/

31 Sheryl Stolberg and Stephen Babcock, “Scenes of Chaos in 

Baltimore as Thousands Protest Freddie Gray’s

Death”, The New York Times, April 25, 2015, accessed July 23, 2015 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/us/baltimore‐crowd‐swells‐in‐

protest‐of‐freddie‐grays‐death.html?_r=0

32 John Bacon, “Pastor: 'Someone has to pay' for Freddie Gray's

death”, USA Today, April 26 2015, accessed July 23,

2015, 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/26/freddie‐

gray‐protest‐funeral/26407267/

33 Sheryl Stolberg, “Baltimore Enlists National Guard and a Curfew 

to Fight Riots and Looting,” The New York Times,

April 27, 2015, accessed July 23, 2015, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/us/baltimore‐freddie‐gray.html

34 Major General (MD) Linda Singh, “2015 Baltimore Civil Unrest: 

Operation Baltimore Rally,” Briefing for National

Guard Senior Leadership Conference, Stone Mountain, GA, 17 June 

2015. 5 

35 Ibid. 6 

36 Christopher M. Schnaubelt, “Lessons in Command and Control 

from the Los Angeles Riots,” Parameters Summer

1997, 90

37 H Steven Blum and Kerry McIntyre, Enabling Unity of Effort in 

Homeland Response Operations. Strategic Studies

Institute (SSI) Pub 1108, (Carlisle, PA: SSI, 2012), x 

38 Yvonne Wenger, Justin Fenton, “Batts' messages to police 

department, operations plan redacted,” The Baltimore

Sun, July 27, 2015, accessed August 1, 2015, 

http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/‐1/article/p2p‐84085074/

39 Patrick W. Wiegleb, Can’t We All Just Get Along?: Civil Support 

and Interagency Cooperation in the 1992 Los

Angeles Riots. Joint Military Operations Paper (Newport, RI: Naval

War College, 2007), 11

40 Luke Broadwater, “Baltimore Wasn’t Fully Prepared for Riot, 

Mayor Says”, Emergency Management, 29 July

2015, http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Mayor‐Baltimore‐

wasnt‐fully‐prepared‐for‐riot.html, accessed August 23, 2015

Campaigning Fall 2016 11
41 Donahue and Tuohy, “Lessons We Don’t Learn: A Study of the 

Lessons of Disasters, Why We Repeat

Them, and How We Can Learn Them”

42 Police Executive Research Forum, Lessons Learned from the 

2015 Civil Unrest in Baltimore, (Washington, DC: Police Executive 

Research Forum, 2015), 4

43 Kevin Rector, “Transit police union criticizes response to 

Baltimore riots”, The Baltimore Sun, July 26, 2015,

accessed August 23, 2015

44 Broadwater, “Baltimore Wasn’t Fully Prepared for Riot, Mayor 

Says”

Campaigning Fall 2016 12
Breaking Down the Fundamental 

Challenges in Effective Operational 

Assessment

LCDR Anthony Lee, Dr Richard Medina, and 

COL Fred Bolton

Assessments Processes in Military 

Operation 

Assessments are a critical component of 

determining how the United States military 

forces are, or are not, meeting their

objectives throughout the range of military

operations. Joint Doctrine describes 

assessment as the “determination of the 

progress toward accomplishing a task, 

creating a condition, or achieving an 

objective.”1 Assessment activities help 

Commanders make decisions by providing a 

means for tracking progress toward specific 

objectives.2 Without appropriate assessment 

techniques in place to inform the 

Commander and the staff of their 

operations’ impacts, there can be no real 

understanding of whether or not what they 

are doing is actually meeting the intended 

objectives, or for that matter, if it is doing 

any good at all. 

More recent U.S. counterinsurgency and 

counterterrorism operations have generated 

ample questions and concern about 

performing assessments across the range of 

military operations. A review of the 

“Decade of War” from the Joint Staff, Joint 

and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA) 

Center report demonstrates how assessment 

is a key consideration across at least two of 

its eleven themes, Understanding the 

Operational Environment, and Host Nation 

Partnering.3 JCOA’s research acknowledges 

the need to (1) educate leaders on the 

importance of conducting assessments, and 

(2) develop meaningful assessment

frameworks. Consequently operational 

assessments across the range of military 

operations are flawed in their 

implementation by two fundamental 

barriers: a lack of knowledgeable and 

experienced analysts and the guidance the 

analyst might use to design and execute an 

assessment.

The challenges with operational assessments 

and the two principal barriers faced in 

conducting this critical task must be 

understood. These barriers ultimately lead to 

the large number of subsequent problems 

typically seen in Command assessments.

4

There are, however, ways to improve the 

assessment process as part of force 

development and operational design. 

General Problems with Assessment 

Methods 

The absence or poor quality of assessment 

feedback mechanisms can give rise to the 

inability to identify and mitigate against a 

number of negative trends such as 

duplicated development efforts, wasteful 

spending, a lack of decision-making 

accountability, and counter-productive 

policy or program implementation.5 It is 

acknowledged, however, that designing and 

conducting assessments are often difficult in 

complex asymmetrical situations such as in 

Afghanistan, Iraq, or across the continent of 

Africa, where several different operations 

can be undertaken at any given time.6 The 

challenge of conducting effective 

assessments may be further exacerbated by 

activities from other international 

Campaigning Fall 2016 13
organizations and agencies conducting 

similar development or stability operations 

that may not be wholly accounted for or 

understood. 

These agency complexities can have a 

multitude of cascading effects that make 

performing an assessment convoluted. 

Actions conducted in theater can 

simultaneously impact the host nation along 

political, economic, and social lines, at 

multiple levels of its hierarchy, and can vary 

spatially and temporally across the region. 

In his essay, "Why Operations Assessments 

Fail: It's Not Just the Metrics,” Jonathan 

Schroden elaborates that “in unconventional 

conflicts the theories of war are more 

complex, objectives and ways to achieve 

them are less straightforward.”7 This 

description of the operational environment is 

one of the more common and well-known 

problems of performing assessments intheater.

8

Additional difficulties lie in geopolitical 

environments where particular command 

concerns span an array of countries. Such 

difficulties are exhibited where a number of 

failed or failing states exist, a population is 

to some extent hostile to Americans, or a 

state’s government is likely the root cause of 

such a failed state now or in the recent past. 

Further adding to these situations, the 

United States might be engaged in combat in 

a particular region that is continuously 

unstable. 

Assessment is a difficult undertaking with 

only one of these added elements, and the 

problem may be compounded by multiple 

elements. Former Combined Joint Task 

Force, Horn of Africa Commander, Rear 

Admiral Brian Losey indicates that “the very 

nature of a population-centric approach to 

foster stability through Civil-Military 

Operations (CMO) and humanitarian 

assistance activities makes determining 

whether a specific activity achieved a 

tactical or strategic objective – a very tall 

order.”9

 

Consequently, there is a notable deficiency

in suitable assessment feedback mechanisms 

by which the staff might make appropriate 

recommendations to the Commander. More 

to the point, the assessments themselves 

contain a number of weaknesses that are 

continually reinforced and propagated as 

each staff turns over and continues with 

unsuitable methodologies. These findings 

mirror those of others in the military 

assessment community.10, 11 It is therefore 

necessary to identify the most common and 

fundamental barriers to an effective

assessment process to begin to overhaul the 

current process.

The Fundamental Barriers to Operational 

Assessments

There are two conditions that primarily lead 

to inadequate assessments through the range 

of military operations. These are gaps in the 

required education, training, and experience 

that the analyst will need to perform the 

assessment, andclosely tied to education 

and experiencethe guidelines analysts 

have at their disposal to formulate and 

execute the assessment plan. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 14
Educational Obstacles to Military 

Assessment Processes

Assignment of experienced and trained 

personnel to an assessment team is an 

essential element of success for the overall 

assessment process. Unfortunately, it is 

often the case within the military that 

unqualified personnel are assigned to 

assessments positions. Observations through 

several deployments and at various levels of 

command have suggested that there are few 

within the military ranks that have a robust 

comprehension of assessing operations. In 

this case, the military assignment process, as 

well as military education and training, 

simply fall short of preparing Service

members to execute these responsibilities.12 

This shortfall does not mean that those 

without specific skills and designations do 

not have the ability to perform analytical 

work, only that they lack the specific 

education or experiences to perform such 

duties from the start. In many cases an 

undergraduate degree is an implied criterion 

when assigning personnel to assessments 

branches, however, it is not explicit. 

Moreover, there are no criteria set forth as to 

the specific types of degrees or coursework 

needed. The assumption is made when a 

staff believes that assigning a person into a 

billet that they could somehow understand 

the scientific principles behind research at 

the outset. It could be argued that these 

persons should have this understanding with 

basic undergraduate education and, granted, 

most college programs require some 

semblance of basic statistics or research 

design. The question is then how many 

retain this knowledge through experience 

and further education? How many have 

advanced degrees; how many have had 

advanced statistics and research coursework; 

how many are skilled in ethnography, 

geospatial analysis, demographics, models 

and simulations, social sciences, program 

and policy analysis or other similar 

methods? On the other hand it could also be 

reasoned that Operations Research Systems 

Analysts (ORSAs) would have the necessary 

skills to perform operational assessments, 

however, as Schroden’s observations 

indicate, this may not necessarily be the 

case.

13 

Understandably, there is a need for filling 

billets; however, untrained and 

inexperienced “analysts” performing a 

command’s assessments can have dire 

consequences for actions taken based on 

analysis results. Those who have not been 

trained, educated, or lack experience in the 

techniques of research will have great 

difficulty in identifying valid methodologies 

and equally important, in identifying those 

that are not appropriate. Moreover, in his 

essay, “Operations Assessment in 

Afghanistan is Broken. What is to be 

Done?,” Stephen Downes-Martin articulates 

“it is difficult for those not explicitly 

educated and trained in science, analysis, 

and critical thinking to identify whether an 

approach is logically or scientifically 

valid.”14

This will be painfully apparent when 

evaluating aspects of model uncertainties 

and validations. Other examples of research 

failure might be improper data collection 

techniques, development of unknown and 

undefined variables, unawareness of key 

Campaigning Fall 2016 15
operational and strategic system 

complexities, unqualified results, improper 

reporting methods, and most importantly, 

reliability of the conclusions. Further, 

specific failings of the researcher include an 

inability to identify problems, shortcomings, 

assumptions, and cautions within their own 

research, and the importance of reporting 

these conditions. These conditions only 

serve to amplify the adage that they don’t 

know what they don’t know. 

Procedural Obstacles to Military 

Assessment Processes

In the recent past, one of the fallacies behind 

the typical design of an assessments shop is 

the notion that the analyst relies and most 

often structures the research design around 

incomplete design criteria. In essence, 

doctrine itself has led to challenges of how 

analysts might perform assessment by 

having been too limiting in the guidance that 

it provides. This is a view that has been 

identified within the joint community with a 

recent Joint Doctrine Note (JDN), 

explaining the need to address the gap by 

noting that... 

“Current assessment doctrine does not 

provide sufficient guidance and procedures 

on how to evaluate progress toward 

achieving objectives, creating desired 

conditions and accomplishing tasks during 

joint operations.”15 

Research design methodology calls for 

consideration of multiple methods for data 

collection and assessment. Unfortunately, 

because of limited guidance on methods in 

doctrine, untrained analysts will utilize the 

best and often easiest techniques available. 

Many analysts assigned to assessment 

positions have no alternative but to reference 

what has been done in the past without an 

understanding of what they are referencing, 

nor do they understand the ability to expand 

their methods to consider other techniques. 

In previous efforts to guide analysts, in their 

2012 Prism essay, “Recognizing Systems in 

Afghanistan. Lessons Learned and New 

Approaches to Operational Assessments,” 

Upshur, Roginski, and Kilcullen argue a 

common finding that “these metrics can be 

irrelevant and subjective whereby it 

represents an attempt to create an 

appearance of rigor through the use of 

quantitative language to express (in many 

cases) subjective judgment.”16 Review of 

the JDN however reveals a thorough 

presentation of the why, what, and when of 

operational assessments and to a good 

degree, the how. It addresses some key 

considerations and challenges introduced 

here such as skills, organization and 

placement of the assessment team, and 

design considerations. Moreover it addresses

even basic statistical considerations that an 

analyst should be keenly aware of in the first 

place. Of particular interest is the 

presentation of the framework to conduct 

operational assessments which is akin to a 

research proposal or a Data Collection and 

Analysis Plan (DCAP). This is something 

desperately needed in providing specificity 

into understanding the processes involved. 

For all it does, the Joint Doctrine Note falls 

short, however, in explicitly explaining 

nuances of the guidance it provides. Noting 

that the JDN considers the capabilities listed 

as non-directive in nature, and that it is not 

an “introductory research methods” course, 

Campaigning Fall 2016 16
the assumption is made that these 

capabilities are inherent in nature. It is in 

this regard that the entirety of the 

assessments process breaks down. Although 

these considerations are well intended (and 

severely needed) to provide initial guidance 

into the planning and execution of an 

assessment, the analyst simply has not been 

trained in how to perform analytical 

functions. Most college curricula, for 

instance, require some aspect of research 

design and basic statistics, but many people 

do not pursue research as a profession. Thus, 

the basic understanding of the field is not 

practiced on a regular basis, particularly 

when you consider an operational warfare 

practitioner. It would be akin to an 

individual taking a course in astrophysics in 

undergraduate work and then asking them to 

fill in for a cosmologist for twelve months. 

This is not to say that being a research 

analyst is the same as unlocking the secrets 

of the universe, but the example illuminates 

the assumptions that are made when one is 

thrown into such a position because they had 

a class or two, five to ten years ago.

In presenting its assessments “best 

practices,” the JDN explains some primary 

requisite skills, but the point is that these 

skillsets are largely devoid from those 

practicing assessments duties.17 These 

skillsets include the following: 

Quantitative and Qualitative analytical 

skills –The primary concern is that those in 

assessments positions largely do not have 

the necessary skills. Does the analyst 

intuitively understand the statistical methods 

that can and cannot be used and why? Do 

they understand how to test hypotheses if 

needed? 

Experience with common data analysis 

software and programs – It is not enough to 

explain that an analysis might be comprised 

of useful spider- or stop-light charts, bar 

graphs, or a geographic output, but how 

does one generate these and why? How does 

one analyze data in Excel for instance, how 

does one utilize statistical software packages 

like Geographic Information Systems (GIS) 

or Statistical Package for the Social Science

(SPSS)? No guidance is provided on 

stepwise processeseven to the degree of 

providing a resource to review. 

Some experience with or an understanding 

of military operations – The nature of the 

assessment is inherently military in nature. It 

is critical that the analyst have an 

understanding of what operations are taking 

place and how they will impact the 

environment. 

Strong understanding of, and experience 

with, survey and polling techniques and 

analysis – In many cases it has been 

observed that the simplest solution is to “just 

write a survey” to get the data. However this 

area of methodology can be more difficult 

than quantitative methodologies. Survey 

theory, design, and analysis techniques are 

complicated and there is a particular art and 

science to survey and interview design, 

implementation, and subsequent analytical 

techniques. Furthermore, field observations 

are one other aspect that could be considered 

but only with properly trained personnel. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 17
Strong understanding of, and experience 

with, cultural understanding of the area of 

operations – To achieve this, the analyst 

should have the education of a sociologist, 

anthropologist, geographer, or sufficient 

training in these areas. A “strong” 

understanding of the cultural domain is not 

necessary in the context of analysis; 

however, stronger skills should be required 

for the analytical processes. While the 

knowledge of cultural aspects are nice to 

have, one must consider the numerous 

social, ethnic, and cultural nuances across 

even one area of operation let alone 

multiple.

Experience with common survey analysis 

software and programs – Noted above, will 

the analyst know which software is available 

and which statistical analysis techniques are 

appropriate in analyzing the data?

Ability to facilitate structured discussions of 

contentious issues and basic mediation skills 

There will, more often than not, be issues of 

contention when dealing with operations and 

assessments. An analyst should be able to 

provide ample justification for the 

information or positions presented to the 

staff and the Commander. Facilitation and 

mediation of contentious issues implies the 

analyst will be a buffer of sorts in addressing 

the issues within the staff and the 

assessments process. Analysts should 

maintain objectivity and provide clear and 

concise findings, recommendations, and 

conclusions to the staff. However, it is not 

their place to mediate a best solution for 

contentious issues.

Approaches to Consider for the Conduct

of Operational Assessments 

Based on the difficulties identified here, 

there are a number of recommendations that 

are provided for the improvement of the 

military assessment process. Though by no 

means exhaustive, they are meant to address 

the aforementioned barriers in ways that 

may range from being considered easily 

implemented, to the more administratively 

challenging, and perhaps even provocative. 

Of note are those recommendations 

associated with assignment, education, and 

qualifications of the analyst with various 

degrees of research methods, designing, and 

implementing training programs, fusing 

command-level assessment directorates, 

transforming U.S. military processes and 

terminology, and increasing reliance on 

academic and subject matter expertise. 

Recommendation 1: Ensure Suitable 

Selection of Personnel

As an organization, DoD should develop a 

standard skill identification code and 

associated standards for personnel who will 

perform operational assessment functions 

within a Joint Force Headquarters. The 

Army Functional Area 49 (ORSA) and Air 

Force Specialty Code 61AX (Operations 

Research Analyst) designations provide a 

sound basis for personnel selection but only 

if individuals are available to fill those 

positions. Because personnel availability in 

these low density specialties is limited, an 

additional proficiency identifier should be 

created for those personnel with the 

expertise to perform assessment duties 

outside of their primary military specialty.

Commands should then be in a better 

Campaigning Fall 2016 18
position to identify those individuals with 

required skills, education, and experience to 

place into these analyst positions within the 

staff during the “recruitment” phase. In 

addition, interviewing personnel for these 

positions would be optimal, as there are few 

with the required skills. While application of 

assessment techniques can certainly be a 

learned skillset, if the intent is to revamp or 

restart an assessment cell, or if there simply 

is not enough time to provide training, it is 

recommended that the individual(s) have the 

competencies prior to deployment. 

Recommendation 2: Implement Training 

Programs 

To address the skills of research and 

analysis across the military, a professional 

training program should be developed, aside 

from the existing traditional Operations 

Research Systems Analysis (ORSA) training 

models.18 This program will provide basic 

understanding of how to design research that 

will be useful within “state building,” 

counter-insurgency, or counter-terrorism 

lines of operations along various academic 

disciplines such as social and 

anthropological fieldwork, public 

administration and policy, and geographic 

analyses. In addition, a formal training 

program should provide basic and advanced 

statistical methods and consider both 

quantitative and qualitative analysis 

approaches as they are equally valuable.19

As part of a pre-deployment training 

process, an overview course in assessment 

techniques could be completed in as little as 

three to four weeks, provided a student has

had a foundation in basic research 

methods.20 As an outgrowth of joint 

doctrine, a formal Operational Assessment 

Course should be developed under the 

purview of the Joint Staff at either the Joint 

Forces Staff College or Joint Targeting 

School. 

Training should be founded upon the two 

primary responsibilities an analyst should 

undertake. One is the application of rigorous 

research methods and the other is the ability 

to understand the operational environment. 

For a research analyst to perform 

assessments, it is essential that they 

understand both aspects. An analyst should 

be able to understand or apply the principles 

for designing and conducting various modes 

of research. The analyst needs to 

comprehend the research design process as 

well as simple descriptive and inferential 

statistics and, to some extent, the more 

advanced and complex statistical testing 

methodologies (as needed). More important 

though, is understanding where application 

of such methods may or may not be 

appropriate. 

Secondly, the greater skillsets the analyst 

has in understanding the operational 

environment, the more an assessment will be 

comprehensive in nature. The analyst should 

also be able to understand and apply 

concepts related to Systems of Systems 

Analyses (SoSA), spatial relationships, 

Operational Network Assessments (ONA), 

Social Network Analysis (SNA), and 

analysis of Political, Military, Economic, 

Social, Infrastructure, and Information 

(PMESII) conditions or similar theories and 

methods. 

Lastly, the analyst should be multi-faceted 

in terms of technology use. They should 

Campaigning Fall 2016 19
have an understanding at some level of 

advanced statistical software such as SPSS, 

SAS, or MiniTab; data mining software, 

such as Palantir; modeling and simulations; 

decision-making models; or geospatial 

analytical software packages, such as 

ArcGIS. 

Recommendation 3: Create a Centralized 

Assessment Department for Enhanced 

Integration 

To become more integrated with 

assessments across a command, the variety 

of command directorate perspectives should 

be considered.

21 The process should be 

unquestionably coordinated and integrated 

but, moreover, be completely inclusive and 

transparent, however, with one sole source 

of analyses to determine effects and 

objectives attainment. The purpose of 

having a centralized assessments department 

is to “fuse” all data and information together 

for analysis and reporting; and the 

department should be autonomous, 

answering to the Commander alone. This 

autonomy will preclude the analyst staff 

from becoming too personally involved with 

each individual department’s success(es). It 

will remove them from the daily operations 

of getting other tasks completed and allow 

them to focus on pure research and analyses. 

Recommendation 4: Transform 

Terminology and Practices 

Considering the shortcomings of U.S. 

military assessment methods, “developing 

Measures of Effectiveness (MOE) and 

Measures of Performance (MOP) does not 

adequately address the challenge of 

developing an assessment plan that will help 

guide decisions and identify opportunities 

and risks during execution.”22 Restructuring 

the U.S. military’s assessments framework 

to emulate other prominent or relevant 

agencies may promote inter-agency 

collaboration by reducing 

miscommunication between practices and 

terminology. 23 

Research designs should be planned to 

mimic common governmental evaluation 

methods. Whole of government operations 

are used to “create a platform for political, 

economic, and human security”24 and 

include assignment of personnel to host 

national, military, and/or civil agencies to 

develop professional behaviors, build 

capacities, and assist in policy making. 

These activities are similar to what a public 

administration might perform, and it would 

be advantageous to treat them as such. 

Moreover, a more resounding consideration 

is the fact that many military officers who

have taken research or statistical methods in 

undergraduate and/or graduate programs

have learned these common research designs 

and terms. Ergo, using common terms and 

frameworks could allow quicker 

comprehension of the research needs and 

design structure. 

Recommendation 5: Integrate Academic, 

Government, and Contractor Subject 

Matter Experts (SME)

Analysts should have access to academic 

institutions, think tanks, and/or military 

subject matter experts. In addition, they 

should have access to academic journals for 

theoretical and applied science references 

and should be equipped with various 

methodology reference materials on site. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 20
Having access to academics, whether 

remotely or on the Commander’s staff, is 

extremely advantageous; they can provide 

the link between socio-cultural concerns and 

how the military and other federal agencies 

operate in the field. More importantly, 

experts can reinforce any shortcoming in the 

assessment staff expertise, and substantiate 

methods and findings. 

There should be opportunities to work more 

closely with them as a military organization 

rather than have them work in isolation and 

apart from the rest of the staff. In this way, 

ideas can be shared, lending a better 

understanding of perspectives for 

academics, SMEs, and military personnel 

alike. 

Conclusions

The importance of the assessment process 

cannot be underestimated. Regardless of the 

level of conflict intensity or phase of 

operation, understanding the conditions 

based on “ground truth” is an essential task. 

Without an effective assessment framework 

there can be no understanding, or at the very 

least, a more robust educated guess as to 

what progress is being made toward meeting 

the objectives. 

The time is now to address these concerns 

and bring them to the forefront; and as the 

JCOA “Decade of War” report exclaims, 

there is a definite need to “employ a 

comprehensive framework for conducting 

assessments of relevant U.S. and host-nation 

variables to understand conditions, 

requirements, and progress necessary to 

meet national security objectives and 

promote needs of the host nation.”25 There 

are many practitioners and theorists who 

have proposed or implemented different 

approaches to operational or campaign 

assessments and all have made substantial 

progress in applying various analysis 

techniques. The principal concern, however, 

is that while the United States is becoming 

less involved in stability operations, 

development aid, and or capacity building 

within Iraq and Afghanistan, many may not 

feel this is a useful endeavor at present. 

A counterpoint to this sentiment is the scale 

of development and stability operations 

taking place across the continent of Africa 

and other countries in the Middle East with 

no end in sight. To be sure, the U.S. military 

has made substantial improvement toward

advancing the understanding of the 

difficulties of assessments. As addressed 

above, there are well-defined difficulties 

associated with performing assessments for 

the operational environment. Addressing 

these difficulties may alleviate other followon assessments challenges. The key themes 

in successful operational assessments are a 

lack of training, education, and skills of the 

assigned analyst; the limitations of 

overarching U.S. policy in terms of 

interoperability; and constraints within DOD

doctrinal processes. 

The goal is to address the fundamental 

problems associated with performing 

assessments in an operational environment 

in the first place. Only then can a more 

meaningful and interrelated, whole-ofgovernment assessment of U.S. operations 

take place. Until then, we are simply 

recycling the same ideas with the belief that 

these processes will work in the future even 

Campaigning Fall 2016 21
though they have not necessarily worked in 

the past. It may be thenin the next major 

conflictthat we will revisit our 

assessments and interoperability problems, 

realizing only too late that we have no clear 

picture, thus, repeating the cycle. 

Author Biographies.

LCDR Anthony Lee, USN, is currently assigned to 

the Joint Staff J-7, Joint and Coalition Warfighting. 

Dr. Richard Medina is currently an Assistant 

Professor of Geography at University of Utah. 

1 United States. Department of Defense. Director for Operational 

Plans. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and 

Associated Terms. JP 1-02. Joint Force Development (J7). 2007. 2 United States. Joint Warfighting Center. Joint Concept 

Development and Experimentation Directorate, Standing Joint 

Forces Headquarters. Commanders Handbook for Assessment 

Planning and Execution. 2011, 63. 3 The Decade of War study is JCOA’s response to the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s call for learning the lessons of the past 

decade of US military operations. 

4 A Command in this sense is a general term for a joint command 

such as a Combatant Command or Joint Task Force; and does not 

consider Service-specific operations assessments. 5 Office of the Special Inspector General Afghanistan 

Reconstruction. DoD’s Compressed Natural Gas Filling Station in 

Afghanistan: An Ill-Conceived $43 Million Project. By John F. 

Sopko. 2015.

6 Downes-Martin, Stephen. "Operations Assessment in 

Afghanistan Is Broken: What Is to Be Done?" Naval War College 

Review 64, no. 4 (2011): 103-125. 7 Schroden, Jonathan. "Why Operations Assessments Fail: It's Not 

Just the Metrics." Naval War College Review 64, no. 4 (2011): 89. 8 Paul, Christopher. "Foundations for Assessment: The Hierarchy 

of Evaluation and the Importance of Articulating a Theory of 

Change." Small Wars Journal 9, no. 7 (July 30, 2013). Accessed 

June 10, 2015. http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/foundationsfor-assessment-the-hierarchy-of-evaluation-and-the-importance-ofarticulating-a 9 Losey, Brian L. "Conflict Prevention in East Africa. The Indirect 

Approach." PRISM 2, no. 2 (2011): 87. 10 Upshur, William P., Roginski, Jonathan W. and Kilcullen, David 

J. “Recognizing Systems in Afghanistan. Lessons Learned and 

New Approaches to Operational Assessments.” PRISM 3, no. 3 

(2012), 89.

11 Osburg, Jan, Paul, Christopher, Saum-Manning, Lisa, Madden, 

Dan, Payne, Leslie. Assessing Locally Focused Stability 

Operations. Rand Corporation and the United States Army. 2014. 12 Connable, Ben., National Defense Research Institute, Rand 

Corporation, and Ebrary, Inc. Embracing the Fog of War : 

Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency. Rand Corporation 

Monograph Series. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012, 23. 13 Schroden, Jonathan. "Why Operations Assessments Fail: It's Not 

Just the Metrics." Naval War College Review 64, no. 4 (2011): 97. 14 Downes-Martin, Stephen. (2011). Operations Assessment in 

Afghanistan is Broken. What is to be Done? Naval War College 

Review, 64(4), 103-125.

COL Fred Bolton, ANG, is currently assigned to 

Virginia Army National Guard as the Leader 

Professional development Project Officer. 

15 United States. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Staff, 

J7. Operation Assessment. Joint Doctrine Note 1-15. 2015. 

Accessed December 05, 2015. 

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/notes/jdn1_15.pdf 16 Upshur, William P., Roginski, Jonathan W. and Kilcullen, David 

J. “Recognizing Systems in Afghanistan. Lessons Learned and 

New Approaches to Operational Assessments.” PRISM 3, no. 3 

(2012), 91.

17 United States. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Staff, 

J7. Operation Assessment. Joint Doctrine Note 1-15. 2015. 

Accessed December 05, 2015. 

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/notes/jdn1_15.pdf

18 There are several other specialties that are often used as a basis 

for “best practice” in selecting assessment personnel. Trained 

intelligence analysts often have acquired skills that can be applied 

to the assessment process. In addition, personnel associated with 

the targeting process, especially those who have completed 

training through the tactically focused Joint Targeting School 

three-week Staff Officer Course or one-week Battle Damage 

Assessment course have a foundation from which to build 

assessment skills.

19 Connable, Ben., National Defense Research Institute, Rand 

Corporation, and Ebrary, Inc. Embracing the Fog of War : 

Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency. Rand Corporation 

Monograph Series. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012, 20. 20 Basic research methods and analysis courses are typically a 

component of most graduate level programs in business, public 

administration, and the social sciences. This background provides a 

firm foundation for the literature review process as well as basic 

statistical analysis.

21 United States. Army. Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies. 

United States. Department of the Army. Field Manual; No. 3-24. 

2014.

22 Rowlett, Rick, Carl Young, Alan Mangan, and Steven 

Townsend. "The Way Ahead for Joint Operations and Planning 

Doctrine." Joint Force Quarterly: JFQ, no. 77 (2015): 142. 23 Caslen, Robert L. and Louden, Bradley S. “Forging a 

Comprehensive Approach to Counterinsurgency Operations.” 

PRISM 2, no. 3, (2011): 9. 24 United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Stability Operations. Joint 

Publication; 3-07. Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2011. 25 United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Coalition Operational 

Analysis. Decade of War. Volume I, Enduring Lessons from the 

past Decade of Operations. 2012.

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 22
The New Surrogate Actor: The 

Utilization of Cyber Surrogate 

Forces and Proxy Forces in 

Unconventional Warfare

Maj Robert M. Cowan, LCDR Scott D. Rathke, 

MAJ Andrew S. Brokhoff, and Lt Col Sean A. 

Leaman

"This is another type of warfare--new in its intensity, 

ancient in its origin-- war by guerrillas, subversives, 

insurgents, assassins-- war by ambush instead of 

combat, by infiltration instead of aggression--seeking 

victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead 

of engaging him."1 

John F. Kennedy 

Modern warfare has changed the nature of 

Unconventional Warfare (UW). Proxy 

cyber forces, like traditional guerilla/proxy 

forces, operate as surrogates and as 

members of small-scale irregular military 

forces. They operate in concert with an 

overarching political-military strategy 

against conventional forces and 

governments. The capabilities of surrogates, 

acting on behalf of others, seek to create 

discord and incite internal disruption from 

within the target state. UW is fundamentally 

an indirect application of power that 

leverages foreign population groups or 

entities in the support of mutual interests. 

By fusing proxy cyber actors and surrogates 

into UW concepts and practices, modern 

technologies enable UW mission objectives. 

Enhancing U.S. SOF cyber-enabled special 

warfare capabilities and training is a 

strategic-level offensive capability gap that 

needs to be closed.2 Closing this gap will 

level capabilities between existing cyber 

actors. Special Operations Forces need to 

pursue a form of special warfare that 

integrates cyber effects into tactical-level 

unconventional warfare. Integrating a 

cyber-enabled military specialization at the 

tactical-level would ultimately enable SOF 

the ability to confront cyber warfare. 

Having SOF trained in basic cyber 

techniques and capabilities is a cornerstone 

of that effort. Cyber-enabled UW bridges 

the gap between the virtual and physical 

worlds by harnessing modern information 

networks and fusing them with “oldfashioned, face-to-face SOF partner 

engagement.”3 

UW refers to the support provided to enable 

an insurgency designed to resist, coerce, 

disrupt, or overthrow a government or 

occupying power by operating through or 

with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla 

forces in a denied area.4 UW lines of effort 

include: disruption, intelligence, logistics, 

and psychological operations. Cyber 

surrogate forces are uniquely suited to 

provide effects across all UW lines of effort. 

As proven by the Islamic State of Iraq and 

the Levant (ISIL), Russia, and many others, 

those that control the narrative have a 

distinct advantage in cyberspace. By 

utilizing the range of options in cyberspace, 

cyber surrogates can amplify, create, and 

distribute vast amounts of information. The 

ability to exploit social media platforms for 

psychological impact plays out by the 

minute in online forums, Twitter, Facebook, 

and countless others. 

First, disruption activities provide a key part 

for success during UW operations. This may 

include the destruction or degradation of 

enemy infrastructure, sabotage operations, 

communications, or limiting enemy 

Campaigning Fall 2016 23
sustainment capabilities. Currently, SOF 

use of cyber for disruption activities is 

limited even though it would give a 

commander unique options to support 

disruption efforts. By employing cyber 

surrogate forces, UW operations would limit 

the possibility of attribution, increase the 

element of surprise, and enhance 

intelligence gathering. Cyber surrogate 

forces can either be employed via 

traditional, kinetic, or sabotage activities 

against key adversary command and control 

networks and nodes or through non-kinetic 

denial of service activities that limit the 

ability to command forces or communicate. 

In addition, while our unconventional 

adversaries continue to leverage cyberspace 

for intelligence operations, the U.S. SOF 

community is behind in exploiting this 

informational domain. Intelligence 

operations present one of the advantages of 

cyber surrogate forces. As an example, 

social media platforms provide areas for 

intelligence collection through exploiting 

publicly available information as well as 

supporting disruption activities. 

In order to leverage the unique accesses, 

placement, and capabilities of SOF, standing 

engagements and interaction with partner 

forces provide an avenue for implementing 

cyber UW surrogates. By incorporating 

unclassified cyber tactics, techniques, and 

procedures (TTP), partner nation forces will 

be better postured to take advantage of 

adversarial cyberspace vulnerabilities. 

During key leader engagements (KLE) with 

U.S. foreign counterparts, it is imperative 

the upper echelon staffs properly message 

the importance of how SOF can play a vital 

role in cyber warfare and direct assistance 

on cyber-enabled UW. Expanding cyber 

subject matter experts (SME) and training 

interaction with partner forces enables 

interconnectedness based on a common 

understanding of the domain and provides 

not only avenues for further engagement, 

but also access to forces familiar with 

language intricacies, social norms, and the 

local area. 

Additionally, advancing SOF cyberorganizations would offer significant 

benefits to modern UW efforts. A Special 

Operations Command-Cyberspace (SOCCYBER) led by a Colonel or Navy Captain, 

provides the nation strategic capabilities and 

expertise no other DoD service can provide.5

 

The thought process behind SOC-CYBER is 

that it would align SOF forces to be fully 

incorporated with USCYBERCOM to assist 

in managing complex human-driven cyberoperations pursuing the most treacherous 

gray zone threats.6 SOC-CYBER would 

supplement perceptions during the 

expansion of national strategies, by inserting 

unconventional insights and asymmetric 

options throughout the development process. 

SOF enhances U.S. Cyber Mission Forces 

by mixing the best of technical and 

practitioner experience to jointly push-back 

against cyber-warfare’s menagerie of 

threats.7 SOF are suited to provide an 

enhanced viewpoint on offensive cyberactions that optimize ambiguous relations 

between adversaries, computers, and data, 

while minimizing risks to force and mission. 

SOF’s unconventional approach for 

avoiding decisive engagements while 

conducting offensive operations applies to 

Campaigning Fall 2016 24
all types of human-based warfare, including 

cyber-war.8 

By leveraging irregular actors, operating 

“by, with, and through” to our mutual 

advantage, UW makes possible the conduct 

of operations beyond the normal range and 

application of the instruments of national 

power. Emerging military problems of 

A2/AD, adversarial use of the internet, 

social media exploitation, and the reliance 

on cyberspace as a means for propaganda 

distribution and adversarial messaging 

require novel approaches to how the U.S. 

finds, builds, and utilizes proxy forces, 

especially those used to generate cyberspace 

effects. It is important to note not all 

operations that utilize irregular actors are 

limited to effects against “state actor” 

entities. The utilization of irregular actors 

like cyber surrogate forces can and should 

be leveraged against counter terrorism (CT), 

counter proliferation (CP), foreign internal 

defense (FID), and traditional counter 

insurgency (COIN) objectives. 

Additionally, the employment of cyber 

surrogate forces can be utilized as part of 

operations waged by general-purpose forces 

in a supporting role and reliance on 

information warfare objectives where 

supporting cyber-effects are part of both 

kinetic and non-kinetic effects on the 

battlefield. Additionally, the U.S. and our 

Allies will continue to face hybrid threats. 

The U.S. Army’s Field Manual 3.0 suggests 

that hybrid threats will characterize the 

future operational environment. 

Combinations of regular/irregular terrorists 

and criminal groups will be decentralized 

and syndicated against the U.S.9 These

hybrid threats will create a more competitive 

security environment. These threats 

currently take the form of violent ideological 

extremist organizations, rogue states, and a 

variety of other irregular challenges such as 

revisionist states like Russia, North Korea, 

and Iran.

State Actors

Revisionist states seek to challenge their 

current place in the global community and 

often rely on the subversive use of proxy 

forces to achieve their political and national 

objectives. These states will continue to rely 

on hybrid/asymmetric warfare TTPs to 

counter U.S. strengths and advantages. 

Unconventional and asymmetric warfareleaning adversaries continue to expand their 

utilization of cyberspace for operational 

effects, command and control (C2), 

communications, intelligence gathering, 

disruption efforts, and other illicit activities. 

As explained by Duggan in Strategic 

Development of Special Warfare in 

Cyberspace, Russia successfully 

demonstrated its new understanding of how 

to integrate asymmetric technologies into 

unconventional warfare. By dispatching 

small teams of Spetsnaz Special Forces and

enlisting virtual “privateers” and bounty 

hunters to conduct cyber-attacks against 

Ukrainian government information and 

logistics infrastructure, Russia was able to 

add opacity to the “fog of war” and create 

strategic effects by utilizing tactical forces.10 

Campaigning Fall 2016 25
By utilizing SOF-enabled cyber forces, 

Russia choreographed cyber disinformation 

and cyber-attacks to create the conditions for 

conventional forces to achieve strategic 

objectives “under the guise of peacekeeping 

and crisis.”11 Additionally, Russia waged a 

massive disinformation campaign aimed at 

legitimizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea 

and support for separatists in eastern 

Ukraine. Russia has also employed socalled “troll armies” to invade online 

territories armed with pro-Moscow rhetoric

to generate a narrative supporting their 

strategic goals and messaging.12 In order to 

promote this narrative, Russia adapted a 

two-pronged strategy, releasing its troll 

armies as it tightened internet controls in the 

homeland. “Gray zone conflicts are not 

formal wars...they involve some aggression 

or use of force, but in many ways their 

defining characteristic is ambiguity.”13 For 

example, in the “gray zone” conflict, Russia 

annexed Crimea and continues to foment 

civil conflict and separatism in eastern 

Ukraine through the extensive use of 

surrogates and cyber effects against key 

infrastructure.

 

Alternatively, new cyber/online censoring 

capabilities and operations in the A2/AD 

space have increased. As the use of 

cyberspace increased, so too has the drive 

for governments and groups to control it. 

China’s Golden Shield Project, otherwise 

known as the Great Firewall of China, 

controls who sees what and when through 

censorship and surveillance. Selective 

disruption and blocking of websites as seen 

in the Arab Spring in 2010 by Egypt, Libya, 

Syria, and Tunisia provide a stop-gap 

mechanism to slow information flow and 

messaging. Further, internet “kill switched” 

countries, such as North Korea, stand ready 

to disconnect from the rest of the world and 

further isolate themselves. Cyber surrogate 

forces could be utilized to provide access 

options to the outside world by utilizing 

proxy server access. Onion routing,such as 

I2P or Tor, and virtual private network 

(VPN) capabilities provide opportunities, 

not limitations, for subversive activities.14 

Additionally, forces operating in “cyber 

constrained” A2/AD environments can be 

utilized for access, intelligence collection, 

preparation of the environment, disruption 

efforts, and surveillance/reconnaissance 

activities enhancing situational awareness of 

the battlespace.

Non-State Actors

Today, Violent Extremist Organizations 

(VEOs) and their aspirants are extremely 

effective at utilizing social media platforms 

to communicate, coordinate activities, 

recruit, and proselytize. ISIL utilizes every 

aspect of social media to communicate to 

external and internal audiences. By 

maintaining a consistent appearance and 

presence on social media, both governing 

effectiveness and ruthlessness of ISIL’s 

propaganda campaign can appear far more 

successful and intimidating than reality. 

Additionally, cyberspace offers VEOs like 

ISIL a vast “global-commons” for 

recruitment and message dissemination. As 

John Horgan explains, “foreign fighters are 

driven to join ISIS by the need to belong to 

something special ... find something 

meaningful for their life.”15 Their ability to 

Campaigning Fall 2016 26
motivate foreign fighters to join the cause is 

truly global. In December 2015, The Soufan 

Group cited 12,000 new recruits flowed into 

Iraq and Syria in 2014 but grew to over 

30,000 in 2015.16 ISIL’s ability to recruit 

exceeded all other terrorist groups, including 

Al-Qaeda. Through effective use of social 

media tens of thousands of aspirants were 

emboldened to join ISIL’s Jihad. According 

to Bean, “The largest terrorist threat on 

Twitter is ISIS ... whose social media 

efforts have been used to spread [their] 

message across the globe and recruit 

thousands to its cause. ISIS is estimated to 

have over 46,000 accounts on Twitter.”17 

Social Media tools like Facebook, Twitter, 

YouTube, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and 

countless other provide both the vehicle and 

conduit for communications, command and 

control, propaganda, and “branding.” The 

means of their communication may serve as 

the most effective method for disrupting the 

terrorist’s ability to recruit and generate 

narrative. Because of terrorist groups’ 

reliance on “softer” technologies like smart 

phones and Wi-Fi connectivity, commercial 

off-the-shelf hacking tools can be utilized 

and vulnerabilities exploited with little 

training or expertise.

Countless organizations, groups, and 

individuals offer services for hire in the 

open, on the dark web, and other forums that 

also challenge the operating environment. 

Hackers sell anything from access to 

Facebook accounts to Botnet rental 

programs.18 The dark web offers cheap, easy 

tools and individuals for hire to create the 

effects needed. Beyond service for hire 

capabilities, emboldened groups of 

“patriotic hackers” and hacktivists are 

becoming a larger part of the cyber 

landscape for both adversaries as well as 

another friendly avenue to counter narratives 

and achieve objectives.

At the forefront of patriotic 

hacker/hacktivist group is Anonymous. 

Anonymous branded themselves as “an 

Internet gathering” with “a very loose and 

decentralized command structure that 

operates on ideas rather than directives.”19 

Anonymous functions as a surrogate entity, 

conducting intelligence gathering with 

nuances of psychological operations. They 

became known for a series of wellpublicized webpage defacements and 

disruptive, distributed denial-of-service 

attacks against government and corporate 

websites and servers. Following 2016 

terrorist attacks in Paris, Anonymous 

expanded its counter ISIL “Operation ISIL” 

campaign with #OpParis. Anonymous 

conducted a “day of rage” and “International 

ISIL Day of Trolling” on 11 December 

2015, advocating the use of hashtags 

#Daeshbags and #TrollingDay. They 

offered trolling advice and instructions for 

all internet users calling for openly mocking, 

taunting, and trolling via Twitter, Facebook, 

Instagram, YouTube, and others. They 

encouraged average internet users to also 

engage by pointing out anyone can 

participate in the “day of rage” and that it 

does not require special skills. 

Additionally, numerous hacker communities 

including Anonymous, GhostSec, and 

Ctrlsec actively sought out and distributed 

thousands of Twitter account user names, 

Campaigning Fall 2016 27
email addresses, and social media persona 

details of ISIL members. This is 

unprecedented amongst the digital world as 

it is the first time these groups have come 

together for something this large. 

Energizing these groups as part of UW 

activities and the utilization of hacktivists by 

various entities and state-sponsored actors 

will become a larger part of controlling the 

narrative, psychological operations, and 

ultimately enhance cyberspace operational 

effectiveness.

The main challenges and obstacles to 

employing cyber surrogate forces in support 

of these concepts for the U.S. revolve 

around legal issues, possible retaliatory 

effects, and applying the correct framework. 

In the United Nations charter and the 

principles of International Law – 

Declaration on Principles of International 

Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States, “Every State has 

the duty to refrain from organizing or 

encouraging the organization of irregular 

forces or armed bands, including 

mercenaries, for incursion into the territory 

of another State.”20 Additionally, there are 

legal issues when considering the use of 

surrogate forces in cyberspace. The “status” 

of combatant/noncombatant and the legality 

of using forces as surrogates and the 

location of those forces provide some 

protections under the laws of war. Also, a 

cyber-space operation by individuals could 

constitute an attack on a state.21 

In the case of enlisting privateers, private 

individuals who engage in hostilities forfeit 

many of the protections afforded civilians 

under the law of war. While there are not 

standing laws governing the use of 

surrogates in cyberspace, there are 

correlations with existing limitations and 

definitions as to what constitutes an “armed 

attack” and the status of those forces and 

subsequent protections offered to those 

conducting the attack. The issue of nonstate actors was addressed in the 

International Court of Justice under the 

Nicaragua Judgment, where the funding of

guerillas alone did not constitute an armed 

attack; however, arming and training those 

forces constituted an armed attack and 

justified the opponents’ use of force.22 

The framework for cyberspace operations 

and unconventional warfare may need to be 

adjusted based on legal limitations, a future 

unknown model, and attribution/nonattribution requirements. For limited denial

of service attacks or social media 

exploitation, the use of cyber surrogate 

forces could be beneficial to directly 

supporting an irregular warfare operation. A 

different option could be dedicated cyber 

forces inside of USSOCOM that are trained 

to provide the types of effects SOF requires. 

This could follow the model of another 

recent technological advance, Remotely 

Piloted Aircraft (RPA). While most RPAs 

are operated by conventional forces, 

USSOCOM has dedicated assets available to 

support SOF-specific requirements. Finally, 

surrogate SOF could still be linked back to 

their U.S.-provided training based on 

‘fingerprinting’ the techniques and tools 

used during an operation. Attribution of 

cyber operations provided by surrogate 

forces would need to be discussed and 

Campaigning Fall 2016 28
policy created to effectively manage any 

undesired effects. Because of the limitations 

placed on the use of surrogate forces and 

public perception on the ethics of use of UW 

in general, the employment of cyber 

surrogates supporting UW may be 

unpalatable to leaders as a viable avenue for 

conducting warfare. 

Despite the continued advancement and 

pervasiveness of technologies worldwide, 

more work is needed in relation to the 

utilization of cyber proxy forces and their 

employment in support of national 

objectives, especially in UW and SOF 

operations. UW may be the only viable 

option through which access, placement, and 

situational awareness are developed and 

fostered. The development of cyber 

surrogate forces and an operational 

framework based on long standing SOF 

practices along with sustained effort to 

develop, train, and equip “friendly” forces 

will enhance options for commanders and 

provide another mechanism to disrupt, deter, 

coerce, and defeat our adversaries. 

Surrogate forces have been utilized in the 

UW realm for the past 60 years, and 

cyberspace offers a logical progression to 

enhance commander’s options during 

conflict. Increasing the effectiveness of UW 

operations through cyber surrogate forces, in 

order to enhance disruption, intelligence, 

logistics, and psychological operations, is 

key to achieving strategic objectives in the 

21st century.

Author Biographies.

Major Robert M. Cowan, USAF, is a Cyber Warfare 

Operations Officer currently serving as the Chief, 

Offensive Operations for Special Operations 

Command Pacific, Camp H.M. Smith HI. 

Lieutenant Commander Scott Rathke is a Naval 

Special Warfare Officer currently serving as 

Taiwan/Japan Desk Officer for Special Operations 

Command Pacific, Camp H.M. Smith HI. 

Lieutenant Colonel Andrew S. Brokhoff, USA, is a 

Signal Officer currently attending The George 

Washington University’s Masters in Cyber Security 

and Strategy program. 

Lieutenant Colonel Sean A. Leaman, USAF, is a F15E Weapon Systems Officer and is currently serving 

as Chief, Air Force Programs in the Office of 

Defense Cooperation, US Embassy, Athens, Greece. 

1 Kennedy, “Remarks at West Point to the 

Graduating Class of the U.S. Military Academy.” 

2 Duggan, Strategic Development of Special Warfare 

in Cyberspace p.52.

3 Ibid, p 52.

4 DOD Directive 3000.07, “Irregular Warfare” p.14.

5 Duggan “Why Special Operations Forces in US 

Cyber-Warfare?” The Cyber Defense Review 

http://www.cyberdefensereview.org/2016/01/08/w

hy-special-operations-forces-in-us-cyber-warfare/ 6 Cowan R. M. (2016) Gray Zone, refers to a space 

in the peace-conflict continuum. Activities are 

coercive and aggressive in nature, but deliberately 

designed to remain below the threshold of 

conventional military conflict and open war.

7 Duggan “Why Special Operations Forces in US 

Cyber-Warfare?” The Cyber Defense Review 

http://www.cyberdefensereview.org/2016/01/08/w

hy-special-operations-forces-in-us-cyber-warfare/ 8 Duggan “Why Special Operations Forces in US 

Cyber-Warfare?” The Cyber Defense Review 

http://www.cyberdefensereview.org/2016/01/08/w

hy-special-operations-forces-in-us-cyber-warfare/ 9 FM 3-0, Operations p. 1-5. 10 Duggan, Strategic Development of Special Warfare 

in Cyberspace p.47.

11 Coalson, “Top Russian General Lays Bare Putin’s 

Plan for Ukraine,” p.2.

12 Japaridze, “Inside Russia’s Disinformation 

Campaign” p.1.

Campaigning Fall 2016 29
Hogan quote: Erin Banco 09/05/14 Why do 

People Join ISIS? The Psychology of a 

Terrorist...International Business 

Times....www.ibtimes.com/why-do-people-joinisis-psychology-terrorist-1680444 12 Barno, Bensahel “Fighting and Winning in the 

“Gray Zone” May 19, 2015 The War on the Rocks 

http://warontherocks.com/2015/05/fighting-andwinning-in-the-gray-zone/ 13 Ibid.

14 Cowan R. M. (2016) Onion Routing, technique for 

anonymous communication over a computer 

network. In an onion network, messages are 

encapsulated in layers of encryption, like the layers 

of an onion.

15 Duane Bean 08/14/15 How ISIS Made Twitter One 

of Its Main Recruiting Tools – And What Can Be 

Done About It. Independent Journal 

www.ijreview.com/2015/08/380544-how-isis-madetwitter-one-of-its-main-recruiting-tools-and-whatcan-be-done-about-it/ 16 Soufan Group (2015). Foreign Fighters an Updated 

Assessment of the Flow of Foreign Fighters into 

Syria and Iraq. 

http://soufangroup.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/1

2/TSG_ForeignFighters Update3.pdf

17 Duane Bean 08/14/15 How ISIS Made Twitter One 

of Its Main Recruiting Tools – And What Can Be 

Done About It. Independent Journal 

www.ijreview.com/2015/08/380544-how-isis-madetwitter-one-of-its-main-recruiting-tools-and-whatcan-be-done-about-it/ 18 Ibid.

19 Kelly, "Investing in a Centralized Cybersecurity 

Infrastructure" p.1663-1710 20 United Nations Carter p.123.

21 Tallinn Manual on the International Law 

Applicable to Cyber Warfare p.46.

22 Department of Defense Law of War Manual p.75.

 

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 30
The American Insurgency: Lessons 

from a Failed British 

Counterinsurgency Strategy 

Dr. Charles V. Pratt 

The American Revolutionary War was 

essentially a colonial insurgency against 

England, instigated by failed diplomacy, 

coercive laws, and taxation without 

representation. History has depicted the 

colonists’ war for independence as a victory 

for enraged subjects of the British Crown. On 

the other hand, it could just as accurately be

described as a failed counterinsurgency 

strategy on the part of England’s welltrained, well-armed military. A 

historiographical argument reveals how an 

untrained, under-equipped colonial 

insurgency was able to overcome all odds to 

defeat a superior British force. Perhaps if 

England’s military leadership had understood 

the true nature of the rebellion and 

insurgency, they may have elected a 

counterinsurgency strategy rather than a 

conventional war strategy, possibly leading 

to an entirely different outcome to the 

American Revolutionary War. 

Even regarding established conventional war 

strategy, the British were experiencing 

difficulties. Strategic communication, both at 

home and abroad, was problematic, as were 

their command and control capability and 

operational coordination. Furthermore, 

England severely overestimated loyalist 

support within the colonies and 

predominantly in the south. Acutely focused 

on pursuing Washington’s Army, British 

forces exercised brutal tactics that rapidly 

diminished any remaining support among 

colonists. Ultimately Britain’s inability to

comprehend the larger, predominate 

insurgency was incapacitating. Their 

reluctance to abandon conventional war 

strategies led to an unfathomable surrender at 

Yorktown in October 1781.

Counterinsurgency 

Paramount to a successful strategy of British 

rule over the colonial population and 

colonial insurgents, an understanding of 

counterinsurgency (COIN) is vital. COIN is 

essentially civilian and military efforts 

designed to simultaneously defeat and 

contain an insurgency while addressing its 

root causes. Thus COIN is fundamentally an

armed political competition between a host 

nation’s (HN) government (England in this 

case) on one hand, with insurgents 

(colonists) and their supporters on the other. 

Although a typical COIN strategy involves 

military operations to eliminate and degrade 

insurgent elements, peaceful operations such 

as foreign assistance and humanitarian aid, 

help to ensure stability operations are a part 

of a comprehensive approach to counter an 

insurgency.1

Overall COIN strategic approaches should be 

adaptable depending on the operational 

environment and focused on addressing the 

needs of the overall population rather than 

just the insurgents. This effort allows 

reinforcement of the HN legitimacy to rule, 

and allows the address of insurgent 

grievances in order to reduce insurgent 

influence throughout the region. This often 

can be achieved through political reform to 

help improve the quality of governance. The 

host nation’s ability to comprehensively 

understand underlying grievances are key to

Campaigning Fall 2016 31
addressing the root causes of the insurgency, 

many of which may be legitimate. The 

existence of a large insurgency may 

demonstrate that a substantial part of the 

population views the HN government as 

illegitimate. A realistic political strategy that 

focuses on addressing the root causes, 

motives, and grievances of the insurgency are 

key to reestablishing HN legitimacy. COIN 

operations should ensure that HN end states 

are aligned with the physical, economic, 

political, and human dimensions of the 

insurgency.2 Peering into the past is always a 

dangerous proposition and certainly can 

induce the “what if” scenario. However, 

there were marketable lessons to be learned 

throughout the American insurgency period 

from 1774-1783.

British strategic communications at home 

and abroad 

The British communications network in the 

colonies was lackluster in comparison to the 

information operations capability of the 

colonists. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense 

(1776), for which the Continental Congress 

had copyright, sold over 150,000 copies and 

was effectively distributed throughout the 

colonies.3In his book, Paine articulated 

reasons for rebellion against tyranny. He 

argued that although government was a 

“necessary evil,” the common man had the 

right to equal representation. His writing 

struck a chord with colonists on the fence 

regarding loyalty to the Crown.4

Perhaps not as well-known as Paine’s work

was a series of newspaper essays known as 

The Crisis (1775) which fostered an 

awareness of threats to colonists’ rights and 

proposed the need to resist enemies with an 

opposed armed force.5 The Crisis achieved 

epic strategic communications goals for the 

insurgents by spotlighting England’s bribed

elected officials and corrupt Anglican 

bishops, and ultimately suggesting the King 

was the greatest criminal in England.6 The 

British Government was unable to curtail 

such coercive language from reaching all of 

the colonies and further undermining waning 

Tory support.

Compounding the strategic communication 

difficulties abroad were Britain’s internal

communication woes. In their counsel to the 

King of England, Lord Germain, head of the 

Department of War, and Lord North, of the 

House of Commons, perpetuated the 

perception that the rebellion could be put 

down with force and that colonists some 

3,000 miles away could be effectively 

subjugated to British law. The distance 

barrier also led to a large transactional 

distance between military leadership in 

England and the commanding generals in 

New York. Continental Army military 

leadership, the Continental Congress, and the 

insurgent movement throughout the colonies 

could easily send coded messages over land 

and sea in a matter of days or weeks. Orders 

from England’s War Ministry, on the other 

hand, could take up to four months to travel 

across the Atlantic to British commanders in 

the colonies. Simply, British military leaders 

were out of touch with colonial society at

large and were not providing efficient, timely 

communication back to decision makers in 

England. 

In the wake of the Boston Massacre, Samuel 

Johnson, a member of the British 

Campaigning Fall 2016 32
Parliament, wrote Taxation no Tyranny An 

answer to the resolution and Address of the 

American Congress. In this work, Johnson 

fervently asserted that colonists’ acceptance 

of British protection stipulated obedience to 

the Crown and thus subjugated them to 

British rule and government.7

 However, not 

everyone within the British government 

agreed with Johnson. John Wilkes, Lord 

Mayor, insisted the fighting in America had 

been started by the British in Boston, 

Lexington and Concord. He blamed British 

troops for inhumanly murdering colonists as 

early as 1774, including women and children; 

reports of such brutality continued until after 

the Battle of Breeds Hill in June 1775. 

Published eyewitness reports from British 

soldiers returning from the battles 

corroborated Wilkes’ claims. England’s lack 

of internal control over their own 

information operations allowed sentiments 

among the country’s populous to run the 

gamut, fueling the view, in certain circles, 

that the rebellion was nothing more than a 

group of rabble-rousers who needed a good 

thrashing.8 

It was this sorted lack of strategic 

information operations that continued to 

prejudice British military leadership and 

cause the populous to doubt the truth about 

reports of British brutality in the colonies. 

Further, the confusion dissuaded internal 

evaluation of the trade policy and the 

taxation issues actually fueling the 

insurrection. British lawmakers and military 

leadership could have possibly countered the 

insurgency had they realized from the outset 

the uprisings were the result of overly harsh 

subjugation and begun to allow more 

representation to colonists concerning 

taxation. In addition to turning a blind eye to 

the causes of the insurrection, the British 

internal communication, operational 

coordination, and command and control 

failures were detrimental to their military 

strategy. 

British Command and Control Failures 

While planning for the Northern Campaign 

in February 1777, Lord Germain approved an 

operational plan submitted by General John 

Burgoyne. Burgoyne convinced Germain 

that, by moving British troops down from 

Quebec through Lake Champlain and the 

Hudson Valley to Albany, they could isolate 

the center of the colonial rebellion. This 

operational strategy would cut off 

Washington’s Army from the southern 

colonies and bolster Loyalist support. 

However, for this strategy to work 

effectively, there needed to be substantial 

coordination with General Howe’s troops in 

Philadelphia, who were in position to attack 

that city by sea. According to Burgoyne’s

plan, Howe would travel up the Hudson 

River with his army of nearly 21,000 to 

support Burgoyne’s forces in New York.9 

Although Howe was aware of Burgoyne’s 

plan, a personal rift between the two factored 

into an unwillingness to cooperate and 

decentralized decision making capabilities 

made it difficult for Lord Germain to ensure 

coordinated efforts. So, Burgoyne’s plan,

although approved by the King, was never 

mandated by the Department of War and was 

largely ignored by Howe, who had submitted 

his own plan for taking Philadelphia.10

 

Although Howe and Germain corresponded 

eight times, Germain neglected to mandate 

Campaigning Fall 2016 33
his coordination with Burgoyne and General 

Clinton. 

Clinton, whose troops were being dispatched 

to Canada, saw the dangers of an

uncoordinated attack on two fronts. Although 

he realized the detrimental lack of 

coordination, his personal disdain for Howe 

prevented him from attempting to persuade 

either of the other commanders to adjust their 

plans.11 Washington watched as Howe, 

choosing not to reinforce Burgoyne and 

Clinton to the north, sailed for Philadelphia 

on a hunch that by taking Philadelphia he 

could end the rebellion. Howe’s decision not 

to support Burgoyne, instead moving to take 

Philadelphia by way of the Chesapeake, 

effectively took his army out of the fight. 

Washington, seeing that Howe was not 

supporting Burgoyne, was able to rout 

Burgoyne’s army at Saratoga. Burgoyne was 

forced to surrender 5,721 men, including 

seven generals, 27 cannons, and 5,000 

weapons to General Gates on October 17, 

1777. This was a devastating blow to the 

British forces.12

 

The victory by the rebel forces at Saratoga 

and the loss of the British campaign through 

the Hudson Valley were viewed as the great 

turning point in the war, bolstering rebel 

confidence and drawing in French 

assistance.13 This failed campaign would set 

the tone for continued command and control 

dysfunction and perpetuate personal agendas. 

Disjointed combined operations would 

eventually spell out several losses for the 

British over the next four years, costing the 

British hundreds of lives and valuable 

resources and ultimately turning the tide of 

war. The rebellion, now center stage on the 

international front, created further legitimacy 

for the Revolution. 

Loss of loyalists support in the Southern 

Campaign 

In order to achieve a successful insurgency, a 

rebellion needs local support for the cause. 

Sometimes the best counterinsurgency 

strategy is less about winning battles and 

more about not encouraging enemies. From 

the colonial point of view, the revolution 

hinged on Tory support for the British troops. 

The failure to maintain this support was 

perhaps the major reason for England’s 

defeat in the Southern Campaign from 1778-

1781. 

Three strategic faults culminated in the 

failure of this three-year campaign. First, the 

overall campaign strategy was based largely 

on the assumption there were more loyalists 

in the South than in the North, requiring a 

smaller British army presence to fight the 

rebels, quell the rebellion and restore British 

rule of law. Secondly, the disjointed 

leadership vision between Clinton, Germain 

and Cornwallis, who ultimately was running 

the Southern Campaign, created ineffective 

support, unraveled logistics and undermined 

momentum. Thirdly, the British failed to 

realize they were, in fact, dealing with a 

large-scale insurgency. Had they adhered to 

counterinsurgency tactics, they may have 

been able to win the hearts and minds of 

rebel dissidents, rather than create more 

insurgents. 

Instead, the British relied on an 

“Americanized” pacification strategy in an 

effort to achieve economy of force. The 

Campaigning Fall 2016 34
strategy allowed the British army to train 

loyalists to maintain and defend liberated 

territory, freeing British forces to move on to 

other regions.14 This strategy hinged on 

continued loyalist support, beyond future 

British presence. Germain conceived the 

idea of pacification and convinced the King 

this strategy was the only way to gain victory 

in the colonies. Further, he surmised there 

would be large numbers of angry southern 

colonists, displaced by the war, who would 

fight the Continental Army and any local 

dissidents. Thus, the war would become an 

internal civil war between colonists.15 This 

strategy of invoking locals to fight against 

their own populous in hopes of creating a 

civil war does not, however, align with a 

counterinsurgency strategy. Neither 

Cornwallis nor Clinton believed pacification 

would work, so they never gave it due 

diligence, often waffling between this 

mandated strategy and their own 

preservation of forces. 

Southern loyalists willing to take up arms 

against the insurgent forces were far fewer 

than England had estimated. The realization 

of this drastic miscalculation should have 

indicated to British military leadership they 

had a large-scale insurgency on their hands, 

rather than an opposing military force. Even 

non-combatants were not in support of 

British rule. Cornwallis himself declared it 

was wishful thinking to expect the militia to 

restore any order and ultimately force rebels 

to submit to British rule. He further claimed 

loyalists recruited in the South were 

inefficient, unreliable and often worse than 

the rebel militia itself.16 Additionally, it was 

not uncommon for British officers to 

promise spoils of war in order to elicit 

contracts with local militia. However, as 

battles were lost and contracts broken, the 

militia simply ended their commitment, 

despite attempts to coerce them to join 

regular British forces.17 Simply, they had no 

true loyalties to the British cause and were 

merely motivated by a degree of monetary 

promise. This weakness in loyalty and lack 

of commitment to quell the insurgent 

message severely stymied British strategy. 

Cornwallis and Clinton’s inability to

adequately motivate the Tory militia and win 

over southern colonists’ loyalty, along with 

England’s persistent overestimation of 

loyalist support resulted in embarrassing 

losses in Saratoga in 1778. Further 

complicating matters, the cost of the war had 

far exceeded England’s budget. Drastic 

reductions in support forced Cornwallis to 

maintain large expanses of territory with only 

4,000 regular troops.18 The contentious 

population fostered an increasing number of 

loyalist defectors. British mistreatment of the 

local populous further tipped the scales in 

favor of the rebel forces. 

By not recognizing the war as in insurgency, 

Clinton was overly focused on conventional 

warfare, chasing Washington’s Continental 

Army in the North. Clinton and Cornwallis 

both thought that luring out and defeating 

Washington’s army should be the primary 

goal, well worth an entire year of 

pacification. They failed to comprehend their 

aggressive amphibious raids on the southern 

coasts were striking terror into colonists 

rather than winning over loyalist support. 

Such disconnected strategic messaging also 

confused British soldiers as to whether or not 

they were to be inducing a sense of security 

Campaigning Fall 2016 35
or demoralizing the populous.19 There was 

perhaps no one more brutal in his tactics 

than Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton of 

Cornwallis’ army. Seen as a hero in 

England. Tarleton gained fame in South 

Carolina in a battle known as the Massacre at 

Waxhaw’s Creek. Rebel forces who 

surrendered under a flag of truce, expecting a 

measure of quarter, were made to kneel over 

prone. Tarleton, bayoneted anyone 

demonstrating signs of life, ostensibly killing 

them and any wounded.20 His brutality 

earned him the title “Bloody Tarleton”.

Later, in the battle of Cowpens, Tarleton’s 

butchery ignited the killing of many loyalist 

militia at Kings Mountain. When defeated, 

the loyalists threw down their weapons and 

demanded quarter. The rebels, however, 

responded with “Tarleton Quarters!” This 

response was followed by merciless attacks 

on unarmed men.21 From that moment on, 

Cornwallis would not be able to recruit 

nearly as many loyalists as before, and he 

was certainly unable to keep the remaining 

loyalist faithful. By brutalizing the American 

populous, the British strategy of pacification 

was nullified; more and more insurgents 

emerged with each misstep. 

The British continually underestimated the 

persistence of the insurgent colonists and 

Washington’s Continental Army. As late as 

the battles at Lexington and Concord the 

British perceived their troubles in America 

were inspired only by a few conspirators and 

not by a robust insurgency engulfing the 

southern colonies. Further, they perceived 

that most colonists loved the King, and their 

loyalties were still with England.22 This 

disillusionment propagated by Lord North 

and Germain was the lynchpin in their failed 

strategy. Both Clinton and Cornwallis were 

of the notion that reconciliation should be 

given a chance by ending the war with 

compromise. 

Had the Americanism strategy not been 

implemented, the English may have ended 

the war in 1778, and not protracted the 

expansive war another seven years. Even 

Lord Howe, while commanding the Navy in

American waters, agreed the southern area 

was too large to control and the American 

campaign should be abandoned.23 Overall 

the disjointed nature and incoherence of the 

British leadership, strategic goals, and end 

states heavily contributed to British failure in 

the Southern Campaign and ultimately led to 

losing the final battle in Yorktown in 1781.24 

Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned 

A COIN campaign must understand the 

operational environment. Primarily it must 

understand key groups within the society, 

relationships, tensions, ideologies, and 

narratives that resonate amongst these 

groups. Further, it is vital to understand their 

value system, interests, motivations, an, 

lastly, the means by which they 

communicate.25 The British did not truly 

understand the operational environment of 

the colonies for many years prior the 

Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

British government officials imbedded 

through the colonies refused to acknowledge 

growing insurgent sentiments, understand the 

communication of insurgent narratives, and 

respond to a colonial desire for more 

representation in British government 

decision making. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 36
Insurgents should be isolated from their 

cause and support. It is easier to separate the 

insurgency from its ideological sources rather 

than attempt to kill every insurgent. A 

successful COIN strategy would cut off the 

sources which provide the recuperative 

power to recruit more insurgents. Some 

sources of the insurgency could be cutoff off 

simply by addressing the social, economic, 

and political grievances that fuel the 

insurgency.26 The British fixation on 

defeating Washington’s army overshadowed 

the catalyst of why it was created in the first 

place. Addressing the major colonial 

grievances such as taxation without 

representation and ability to manufacture 

goods would have gone far to quell the 

growing anger and frustration of the colonial 

population. 

An effective COIN strategy should prepare 

the HN for a long-term commitment. COIN 

operations demand a considerable investment 

of time and resources. The population may 

prefer the HN to the insurgents. However, 

the population will not actively support the 

HN government unless they are convinced 

that the insurgency can be overcome by the 

capability, means, and will to win. The 

population must have confidence in the 

staying power of the counterinsurgents and 

the HN.27 The British initially were in for the 

long haul while committing enormous 

resources to quell colonial unrest. However, 

when resources waned in 1780 and 

Cornwallis suggested capitulation due to lack 

of resources in the south, the British instead 

decided to implement a new “pacification” 

strategy. The British tried in earnest to offer 

southern loyalists security and stability 

through use of monetary contracts. 

However, once the contracts were broken the 

loyalists soon turned against the British as 

their perceived continued viability waned. 

England’s long term commitment was cut 

short by lack of loyalist support, economic 

hardship, rising war debt, and lack of popular 

support back home. 

Finally, the appropriate level of force must 

be used. The use of force will generate 

reactions. Although overwhelming force 

must be used to destroy an opponent to 

reassure the populace’s safety and security, 

counterinsurgents and the HN should 

calculate carefully the type and amount of 

force used to avoid collateral damage. An 

operation or individual actions that 

needlessly kill five insurgents is 

counterproductive if its actions leads to the 

recruitment of fifty more insurgents.28 

The British and Colonial forces waged an 

equilibrium conflict with similar weapons 

and tactics. Although the British had 

superior numbers, modernized equipment, 

and ships, their outdated European tactics 

brought many British to slaughter. British 

forces were not overwhelmingly brutal to 

colonial insurgents and there is no record of 

overwhelming collateral damage to the 

populous during battles. However, the 

bombing of the southern coast cities in 1781 

and the brutal tactics of Banastre Tarleton 

were more counterproductive than any other 

combat methodology used by the British. 

Simply, the British created more insurgents 

as the conflicted wore on. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 37
Conclusions 

The question of why British military 

leadership both in America and England 

never perceived a larger insurgency among 

colonists from 1775-1783 and yet were 

disillusioned by the notion of conventional 

warfare as a means to counter the insurgency 

still is not clear. However, major 

contributions to a failed counterinsurgency 

strategy were poor or nonexistent British 

strategic communications and the failure to 

quell colonial strategic communications. 

Additionally, the failure of British command, 

control, and coordination within its own 

military operations and hampered by a poorly 

conceived strategic end state, failed to 

overcome the large transactional distance 

between England’s War Ministry and its 

commanders in America. It further created 

vast inefficiencies of manpower and rapidly 

diminished the resources required to quell the 

growing insurgency amongst the colonies. 

Furthermore, brutal British tactics 

diminished remaining loyalist support in the 

south contributing to a growing insurgent 

sentiment among colonists who were 

otherwise neutral. Finally, it was England’s 

inability to identify and address population 

grievances early on, accurately identify the 

insurgency’s roots, and pivot from a 

conventional war strategy to a 

counterinsurgency strategy which led to their 

ultimate loss of the Revolutionary War. 

The sheer determination of the colonial 

insurgency, the remarkable leadership of 

Washington and his officers, and support of

the French in 1781 which led to ultimate 

victory cannot be overstated. However, had 

the British chose to understand the true 

nature of the growing insurgency in the 

beginning, they may have opted for a 

counterinsurgency strategy offering more 

colonial representation, limited taxation, and 

allowed colonial manufacturing to blossom. 

Certainly their inability to recognize and 

capitulate to these colonial grievances 

blinded them to the notion that an 

overarching insurgency was possible and 

existing. 

Author’s Biography.

Dr. Charles V. Pratt is on the military faculty at the 

Joint Forces Staff College. 

 

1

 Department of Defense, Joint Publication 3-24, Counterinsurgency, 

(Nov 2013), III-3 

2

 Ibid., III-4 

3

 Christopher Hibbert. Redcoats and Rebels. (Yorkshire: Pen and 

Sword, 2005), 114.

4

 Thomas Paine. Common Sense. (New York; Dover Publications, 

1997), 3.

5

 T.H Breen, American Insurgent American Patriot; The Revolution 

of the People. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 262.

6

 Ibid,. 271.

7

 Hibbert, Redcoats and Rebels. 22.

8

 Ibid., 77.

9

 Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American 

Revolution, 1763-1789. (New York: Oxford University Press, 

1982), 373.

10 Ibid., 375.

11 Ibid., 376.

12 W. J. Wood, Battles of the Revolutionary War 1775-1781

(Cambridge: Chapel Hill, 1990), 171.

13 Edmund Morgan, The Birth of the Republic: 1763-1789 (Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press, 1956), 82.

14 John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed (Michigan, University of

Michigan Press, 1990), 199.

15 Ibid., 200.

16 Hibbert, Redcoats and Rebels, 274.

17 Gordon S Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New 

York: Vintage Books, 1991), 164.

18 Hibbert, Redcoats and Rebels, 275.

19 Shy, A People Numerous and Armed, 201.

20 Benton Patterson, Washington and Cornwallis: The Battle for 

America 1775-1783 (Maryland: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004), 

223.

21 Ibid., 254.

22 Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 440.

23 Shy, A People Numerous and Armed, 195.

24 Ibid., 198.

25 Department of the Army, Army Field Manual 3-24, Insurgency 

and Counterinsurgency (May 2014) 1-22.

26 Army Field Manual 3-24, 1-23.

27 Ibid., 1-24

28 Army Field Manual 3-24, 1-25.

Campaigning Fall 2016 38
Operation Unified Response – The 

2010 Haiti Earthquake

Dr. David R. DiOrio 

Figure 1.

With airport control tower destroyed, Air Force Special Tactics 

Teams directing air traffic on day one. 1

On January 12, 2010, a massive 7.0 

magnitude earthquake centered 25 km. 

southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti killed 

over 230,000 people, injured another 

300,000, and created over one million 

homeless.

2

 An estimated 45,000 Americans 

were stranded. The country’s infrastructure 

was decimated and a majority of air and sea 

transport facilities were destroyed. Hospitals 

collapsed and key access roads were blocked 

with debris, which greatly hampered rescue 

efforts. Six field hospitals at schools and 

stadiums were established within a few 

days, but the medical situation was bleak. 

The Haitian government (GoH), with a 

majority of civil leadership dead, was 

effectively paralyzed.3 On the first day of 

the quake, the President of Haiti declared a 

national emergency, confirmed by the U.S. 

Ambassador to Haiti, and both requested 

immediate assistance from the United States 

and the international community.4 

The security situation in Haiti remained 

amazing calm, but shortages of relief 

supplies and delays in distribution led to 

angry appeals from international aid workers 

and survivors. Looting and violence was 

sporadic and the local police presence was 

virtually non-existent.5 Four thousand 

inmates from the Prison Civile de Port-auPrince were unleashed on the public. Haiti is 

the poorest country in the Western 

Hemisphere, and now the already fragile 

economy was in shambles. The power grid, 

marginal even before the quake, was 

devastated and there were no available 

petroleum reserves for generators. Public 

landline and cellular telephone capability 

was gone and all the radio stations went off 

the air. The clothing industry, which 

accounts for two-thirds of Haiti's exports,

came to a standstill.

 

In the following days and nights, most 

Haitians slept in the streets, in cars, or in 

makeshift shanty towns because they feared 

that standing structures would not withstand 

after-shocks. Construction standards are low 

in Haiti—there are no building codes. The 

country suffered from fuel and water 

shortages even before the disaster, so there 

was no reserve capacity. In the heat and 

humidity, corpses buried in rubble began to 

decompose and smell. Port-au-Prince's 

morgues were quickly overwhelmed with 

tens of thousands of bodies.6 The dead were 

hastily stacked in the street before burial in 

Campaigning Fall 2016 39
mass graves dug in fields north of the 

capital. Towns in the eastern Dominican 

Republic began preparing for tens of 

thousands of refugees, and hospitals close to 

the border were filled to capacity. The 

border was reinforced by soldiers, and the 

Dominican Republic asserted that all 

Haitians who crossed the border for medical 

assistance would be allowed to stay only 

temporarily.

Forward leaning military... a plan will 

come later

 

The United States Coast Guard, at the time 

of the quake, had two cutters near Port-auPrince and four more joined within a few 

days to provide initial damage assessments. 

The most immediate concern was opening 

the air and seaports. The Haitians handed 

over control of the airport to the U.S. to 

hasten flight operations, hampered by 

damage to the control tower. By Day 2, a 

team of Air Force special tactics teams 

reopened the Port-au-Prince airport, but 

understandably; air traffic control was 

initially confused. Some planes carrying 

medical supplies were not allowed to land in 

favor of evacuation or security related 

aircraft. Incoming planes from around the 

world arrived without notice—most circled 

for at least an hour—and they all seemed to 

be out of gas upon arrival. A formal 

agreement to prioritize humanitarian 

assistance flights had to be brokered by the 

United Nations (UN). Airfield management 

capability and subsequent flow improved 

significantly when the Air Force 

Contingency Response Group arrived at 

Port-au-Prince and Canadian air traffic 

controllers opened Jacmel airport. 

“Just tell them to keep sending me stuff, I’ll tell 

them when to stop.” 7

 

LTG Keen, CDR JTF-Haiti 

U.S. military resources began arriving 

within hours. Two MC-130Hs immediately 

began the distribution of essential food and 

water. The USAF sent in 6,000 airmen 

including a Kansas Air Guard Engineering 

Squadron to break the log-jam at the airport. 

The U.S. Navy mustered 33 ships, including 

the carrier USS Carl Vinson that arrived on 

Day 4 fresh from sea trials, loaded with food 

and water (with distilling capability) and 19 

helicopters, supported by the cruiser 

USS Bunker Hill. The hospital ship USNS 

Comfort soon arrived with two USNS 

salvage ships and USCG buoy tenders that 

tried to re-open the ports. Approximately 

4,000 United States Marines of the 22nd and 

24th MEUs (diverted from the Middle East 

deployment cycle) arrived with V-22 Osprey

and helicopter squadrons on 

USS Bataan (LHD-5) and USS Nassau

(LHA-4) supported by their amphibious 

ready group support ships. Three thousand 

United States Army soldiers of the 82nd 

Airborne Division (Global Response Force) 

from Fort Bragg were sent in to establish a 

base to distribute food and water.8 By Day 

3, U.S. helicopters were distributing tons of 

food and within the first week after the 

disaster, and the U.S. military had a total of 

17,000 military personnel in and around 

Haiti. They were joined by over 43 

militaries from around the world; some 

Campaigning Fall 2016 40
integrated or coordinated with the U.S.—

and some did not.9 

Global Response ... abundance of 

enthusiasm surrounding political turmoil

“Since...the first hours and days are absolutely 

critical to saving lives and avoiding even greater 

tragedy, I have directed my teams to be as forwardleaning as possible in getting the help on the ground 

and coordinating with our international partners as 

well.”10 

 President Barak Obama 

The French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish and 

Canadian Navies sent ships that arrived 

within the first week (including the Italian 

Carrier Cavour). An Argentine military field 

hospital, that was part of the UN Mission in 

Haiti, MINUSTAH, was the only hospital 

left operating. Within a week, rescue and 

medical teams arrived from the United 

States, Canada, Russia, France, Chile, Peru, 

Jamaica, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Iceland, 

Sri Lanka, China, and Korea. From the 

Middle East, the government of Qatar sent a 

strategic transport aircraft (C-17) and the 

Qatari armed forces set up a hospital. The 

Israeli Defense Forces also established a 

field hospital which included specialized 

facilities to treat children and the elderly. 

Initially the relief teams were autonomous 

with independent logistics support. Since the 

functioning logistics train ended at the edge 

of the Port-au-Prince airport—the field 

hospitals and emergency response vehicles 

ended up clustered there as well.11

The combined military response to Haiti was 

impressive, but political turmoil erupted that 

overshadowed events on the ground. 

Although Haitian President Preval and his 

remaining cabinet met with the international 

representatives daily, there was confusion as 

to who was in charge and no single group 

had organized the relief effort days into the 

crisis.12 The UN expressed approval of a 

United States humanitarian mission and 

stated that the American troops would not 

stay long, although the plan was not yet 

developed. The neighboring Dominican 

Republic and the U.S. were the fastest and 

largest contingents to respond. The French 

immediately expressed dissatisfaction with 

the larger size of the American relief 

operation compared to those of European 

nations and they resented the commanding 

role of U.S. forces. Several Latin American 

leaders accused the US of militarily 

occupying Haiti—including Venezuelan 

President Chavez, former Cuban President 

Castro, Bolivian President Morales and 

Nicaraguan President Ortega. It did not help 

that Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) 

opposed operations citing concerns of an 

"open-ended U.S. military occupation of 

Haiti.”13 The U.S. Department of State

(DoS) rejected these allegations stating that 

U.S. forces were requested by the Haitian 

government. The dispute culminated with a 

UN brokered agreement that gave the United 

States military responsibility for the ports, 

airports, and roads for distribution of 

humanitarian assistance—and the UN 

mission (supported by select militaries and 

Haitian authorities) responsibility for law 

and order.14 

Over 60 nations and hundreds of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and 

private organizations responded by sending 

special teams and supplies, despite the 

Campaigning Fall 2016 41
unknown disposition of the relief resources 

upon arrival. The NGOs proved invaluable. 

International aid workers, without food or 

shelter themselves, acted as translators for 

outside rescuers to communicate with 

Haitians whose only language was Creole. 

Red Cross organizations from around the 

world, most notably the International 

Committee of the Red Cross, dispatched 

doctors, nurses, and tons of medical 

supplies, but they were stranded at the 

airfield. Medical supplies in the field lasted 

only 24 hours and Médecins Sans Frontières

(Doctors without Borders) reported that 

many amputations were done without 

anesthesia or morphine—constructing 

splints out of cardboard and reusing latex 

gloves. Ophelia Dahl, director of Partners in 

Health, reported "there are hundreds of 

thousands of injured people... as many as 

20,000 will die each day that would have 

been saved by surgery.”15 The wounded 

were taken to field hospitals in ambulances, 

police pickup trucks, wheelbarrows, and 

improvised stretchers. Even the Royal 

Caribbean Cruise lines shuttled supplies in 

and many wounded out. 

United States Interagency Coordination 

“Given the many different resources that are 

needed, we are taking steps to ensure that our 

government acts in a unified way. My national 

security team has led an interagency effort 

overnight.” 16

President Barak Obama

The National Security Council (NSC) acted 

quickly to coordinate a U.S. government 

(USG) response to be headed by Rajiv Shah, 

administrator of the United States Agency 

for International Development (USAID). 

USAID was designated the lead federal 

agency and they led an Interagency Haiti 

Task Force. There was general agreement 

that USAID should be in charge of 

coordinating international humanitarian 

relief efforts by leveraging their subordinate 

Office of Disaster Assistance (OFDA). 

USAID-OFDA became the final authority, 

manned with technical disaster response 

expertise and a pre-existing management 

structure that allowed it to leverage the 

assets of NGOs and other organizations to 

create a more integrated response. OFDA 

established an NGO coordination cell on 

Day 4, but USAID responsiveness and 

effectiveness was hampered by limited 

personnel, insufficient resources, 

bureaucratic hurdles and diverse political 

agendas amongst the agencies.17 

On the ground, the role of USAID as the 

lead federal agent was not clear. The 

response planning model, the International 

Response Framework (IRF), was 

insufficient to manage multiple USG chains 

of authority and did not readily incorporate 

UN or Host Nation capabilities. This 

framework was not as mature as the U.S. 

National Response Framework (NRF) that 

was frequently exercised and validated 

within the United States. Protocols between 

agencies did not exist, mandates of action 

were undefined, and budgetary 

responsibilities were unclear. The USAID 

Disaster Assistance Response Team—

Response Management Team 

(DART/RMT), military, and the U.S. 

Embassy in Haiti were operating on parallel 

paths with varying degrees of 

Campaigning Fall 2016 42
collaboration.18 High-level policymakers, 

often armed with faulty information and 

with little or no expertise in disaster 

response, created difficulties for field staff 

resulting in increased tensions between 

agencies. Refined protocols were clearly 

needed.19 The establishment of liaison 

officers proved to be a sufficient—albeit not 

optimized—interim measure to facilitate 

mutual understanding and enhance the 

overall USG effort.

Mobilization of response personnel was a 

major weakness. Leaders were unable to 

quickly tap into experts, and the lack of preresponse training significantly degraded the 

response. Expertise resident in the U.S. State 

Department’s Office for Reconstruction and 

Stabilization (S/CRS), for instance, were not 

employed due to an internal rift between 

USAID and S/CRS stemming from 

competing mission sets, budgetary 

considerations, and personalities.20 USAIDOFDA was not able to muster or hire 

additional staff to handle the magnitude of 

the crisis, and pre-existing relationships 

were insufficient to augment staff from other 

agencies. However, the many USG agencies 

that did respond did so with passion and 

professionalism, making a significant, 

positive impact despite limited resources.

The Federal Emergency Management 

Agency (FEMA) and the U. S. Dept. of 

Health and Human Services (HHS) were 

charged with providing shelter and 

emergency medical care to augment local 

resources and to assist in evacuating 

American Citizens (AMCITS)—and they 

responded relatively quickly. Shelter and 

healthcare are vital to maintain social 

cohesion and reduce lethal congestion at the 

points of aid distribution, but there was no 

coherent strategy.21 The establishment of 

shelter was delayed due to devastation and 

bottlenecks at the ports and airfields, and 

this provided an opportunity for the civil 

authorities to work with the military to open 

vital lines of communication. The Federal 

Aviation Administration (FAA) coordinated 

with military airport engineers and 

controllers to do just that with great success. 

Seaport capabilities proved more 

problematic due to the extensive port 

infrastructure damage.

The U. S. Dept. of Homeland Security 

(DHS) was directed to coordinate overall 

non-medical support (mostly food security 

and nutrition) across all Federal agencies. 

They did this by supporting the UN World 

Food program and its partners through a 

number of channels and the result was the 

stabilization of food prices, although the 

nutritional standard for surviving children 

remained below emergency thresholds 

months into the crisis. From the outset, the 

international community’s delivery of 

emergency aid depended entirely on 

logistical support from the U.S. military. 

According to USAID, the military should be 

commended for its extraordinary efforts in 

actively liaising with its civil partners, but 

the perception was that the military is less 

proficient in delivering humanitarian aid 

than it is in conducting search and rescue.22

 

The U.S. military involvement in Haiti was 

met with apprehension by some NGOs, 

especially early-on during the emergency 

Campaigning Fall 2016 43
relief phase when search and rescue needs 

were prioritized over delivering life 

sustaining supplies. From the USAID 

perspective, the mandate and role of the 

military should be clearly delineated and 

exit strategy defined before mobilization. 

Secretary Clinton, recognizing the void of 

clear guidance and resulting confusion, 

collaborated with the Haitian President who 

emphasized that the priorities were to 

reconstitute the government, clear roads, and 

dispose of the dead. It would take some time 

to get the U.S. “whole of government” effort 

in gear, but the Pentagon, understanding that 

time was of the essence, pushed forces and 

resources while USAID commenced 

detailed planning.23 

USSOUTHCOM and the challenges in 

forming the Joint Task Force 

“The COCOM Staff has a BIG role in being the 

strategic shaper for the JTF so that the JTF can 

function at the operational and the tactical 

level...the challenge was that we had - by necessity - 

to be the operational and strategic headquarters for 

this crisis while the JTF stood up. Once the JTF 

HQ was functional...they took control of the 

operational/tactical level actions and we then 

transitioned to the strategic level shaping actions. 

So, the COCOM HQ has to ‘look up and inform 

down’ along strategic level actions by J-Code 

function and other policy considerations.”24 

BGen Garza, USSOUTHCOM Chief of Staff

USSOUTHCOM commenced crisis action 

planning on the evening of 12 January—

over 12 hours before they would get official 

tasking from the Joint Staff. The most 

immediate tasks at hand were establishing 

security and making damage estimates. Two 

significant challenges emerged; the lack of 

situational awareness and clear on-theground assessments to enable decisions and 

subsequent force flow, and the nagging 

planning shortfalls that resulted from 

SOUTHCOM’s unique and unorthodox staff 

organization that was optimized for theater 

security cooperation rather than crisis 

response. The command was functionally 

aligned with the interagency and without 

traditional J-codes to promote theater 

cooperation activities. This made the task of 

forming a JTF very challenging.25 

 

“The functional organizational model we were 

under did not survive the crucible of the crisis.”26 

BGen Garza, USSOUTHCOM Chief of Staff

On Day 5, CDRUSSOUTHCOM, 

understanding the planning dysfunction, 

directed the staff to reorganize into the 

traditional J-code structure. This created 

confusion, but ultimately culminated with a 

better organization to deal with the crisis. 

The new—albeit traditional—J code 

structure allowed faster integration of 

augmenters and facilitated communication 

between staffs organized in the same 

manner. The external staff augmentation 

was overwhelming. The command not only 

had to work through the problems associated 

with the crisis itself, but they also had to realign in stride and assimilate what would 

eventually be 274 new members from the 

Joint Staff, other CCMDs, and the Services.

 

“When the Haiti earthquake hit, we immediately 

went into crisis action mode and quickly realized 

that we did not have the personnel depth to 

maintain 24/7 daily operations. Accordingly, the 

Boss (General Fraser) went to the JS (Joint Staff) 

and COCOMs and requested personnel augments. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 44
Within 24 hours we received several staff augments 

- initially NORTHCOM provided 3 FO/GOs 

(flag/general officers) and 34 Action Officers”27 

BGen Garza, USSOUTHCOM Chief of Staff

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

issued an execute order on Day 2, 

authorizing humanitarian assistance and 

disaster relief (HADR) operations. 

USSOUTHCOM stood up Joint Task Force 

Haiti (JTF-H), commanded by their Deputy 

Commander, LTG Ken Keen, who was 

visiting the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, 

Kenneth Merten, on a routine theater 

security cooperation visit —having dinner 

with him at the time of the quake. LTG 

Keen’s Haiti desk officer, Lt Col Bourland, 

was killed in his hotel which left him with a 

small staff and armed with a Blackberry and 

one tenuous land line. USSOUTHCOM 

decided to build the JTF around Keen, very 

familiar with the area of responsibility 

(AOR) and who had fostered personal 

relationships in Haiti. Most notable was his 

long-time friendship with MG Peixoto, a 

Brazilian officer in command of UN 

MINUSTAH (security mission), who was 

spared, although many—including the 

Mission Chief—were killed in the collapse 

of their HQ. Their relationship, which 

extended back many years to an exchange 

program in which CPT Keen was assigned 

to the Brazilian Airborne Brigade where 

Peixoto was a Pathfinder. His relationship 

was critical to working through a host of 

highly politicized issues, not the least of 

which was delineating security 

responsibilities between the U.S. forces and 

MINUSTAH.28

Establishing security ... a prerequisite for 

effective humanitarian relief

MINUSTAH was given the mission to 

establish security. By Day 3, when food and 

water were not keeping pace with demand, 

violence erupted—mostly related to gang 

activity. Uruguayan UN peacekeepers had to 

fire rubber bullets to try to control crowds. 

Brazilian troops distributing food had to 

employ tear gas and pepper spray. Several 

men scaled walls at the Haitian Dept. of 

Commerce, raided aid trucks, and started 

throwing supplies into the crowd. Across 

the countryside, stones were often thrown at 

aid workers. Nepalese UN Peacekeepers had 

to wield batons to try to control unruly 

crowds. Many convoys delivering food were 

attacked by bandits and required UN escort. 

The UN requested and received assistance 

from the European Union (EU) which sent 

300-350 police officers from France, Spain, 

and the Netherlands. U.S. forces, in charge 

of airport and seaport operations, established 

security at those logistics nodes. LTG Keen 

announced that despite the looting and 

violence, there was less violent crime in 

Port-au-Prince after the earthquake than 

before. As security improved, JTF-H could 

focus on organizing and executing the 

humanitarian assistance mission, but the task 

would not be easy. 

Identifying and organizing the JTF-Haiti 

component parts

JTF-H was officially established by vocal 

order (VOCO) on 14 January, but the 

process of identifying and assembling the 

components of the Joint Task Force would 

Campaigning Fall 2016 45
take the next six weeks. With no assigned 

forces and an outdated HADR functional 

plan (FUNCPLAN 6130-06) the 

USSOUTHCOM and JTF staffs had to build 

the team from scratch. Almost immediately, 

the major building blocks of the JTF such as 

TF-41, including the USS Carl Vinson, the 

22nd and 24th Expeditionary Strike Groups, 

as well as the 2/82 Airborne Brigade 

Combat Team were alerted and committed 

to the response.29 However, many of the 

supporting forces and the command and 

control necessary to build the JTF were not 

part of the Global Response Force (GRF) 

and had to be identified on the fly. The lack 

of a designated JTF HQ or joint logistics 

element within the GRF required ad-hoc 

deployment planning by the staff with little 

force deployment planning experience and 

capacity. Many necessary enabling 

capabilities (to include engineering, civil 

affairs, psychological operations, public 

affairs, and medical) were not in a 

contingency ready status. 

 

The component elements of the JTF were in 

various states of readiness and were 

scattered across the United States. Some 

were in the Active Component, others in the 

Reserve, each with different mobilization 

timelines. Some were at or near “force 

projection platforms” such as Ft. Bragg and 

Pope AFB, while others were scattered and 

had to move long distances to reach an aerial 

port of embarkation (APOE) or a sea port of 

embarkation (SPOE). These considerations 

added to the challenges at the early stages of 

planning and complicated the decision 

making at the CCMD level with regard to 

JTF composition and force sequencing.30 

Selecting the Core of the JTF HQ

Early in the planning, a major decision was 

to identify the “core” command and control 

element around which to form the JTF. The 

main options considered were: a subordinate 

Service component command—US Army 

South (ARSOUTH), 2nd Fleet, II MEF, 12th 

Air Force, the USSOUTHCOM Standing 

Joint Force Headquarters (SJFHQ), or an 

external organization that was “JTF 

capable.”31 From the start, LTG Keen felt 

that the nature of the crisis warranted that 

some, if not all, of his headquarters to be 

situated on land. He desired to be tightly 

connected to the embassy, the government, 

the UN, other relief organizations, and 

perhaps most importantly—the people. He 

believed that a highly visible land-based 

presence was important to instill confidence 

among the Haitians.

 

A land-based requirement effectively 

narrowed the field to the two ground 

Services. II MEF was unavailable due to 

operational commitments in CENTCOM, so 

ARSOUTH appeared to be the logical 

choice as they had been “certified” as a JTF 

capable HQ. However, ARSOUTH was 

focused on a significant security concern 

associated with the potential mass exodus of 

Haitians toward Cuba or the U.S. 

Accordingly, the Joint Staff tasked 

ARSOUTH to prepare for mass migrant 

operations. USSOUTHCOM designated 

ARSOUTH as the JTF-Migrant Operations 

(JTF-MIGOPS) with the specified task to 

deploy its HQ to the U.S. Naval 

Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. With 

Campaigning Fall 2016 46
ARSOUTH committed, SOUTHCOM had 

to find an alternate JTF headquarters.32 

An alternate option was to employ the 

Standing Joint Force Headquarters (SJFHQ) 

and build around it. Lead elements of the 

USSOUTHCOM SJFHQ arrived in Port au 

Prince within 24 hours. While providing 

important preliminary staff capability, the 

SJFHQ could not form the nucleus of the 

JTF staff without significant personnel 

augmentation. All but 22 of its original 56 

designated personnel had been redirected 

and integrated into another directorates 

within the staff to make up for manning 

shortfalls. Although the initial team that 

arrived in Haiti brought with them a 

comprehensive understanding of the 

country, they were too few to provide a 

viable planning staff for continuous day and 

night operations. Additional staff assistance 

would come from an unexpected source. 

LTG Keen received a phone call from LTG 

Frank Helmick, Commander of the XVIII 

Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg, NC. Helmick 

was a personal friend who offered his 

Assault Command Post (ACP) to support 

the JTF-H core headquarters.33 The ACP 

was already packed and ready to deploy for 

a training exercise in Korea and were 

already tagged for deployment—the 

decision to accommodate their offer was 

easy.

JTF-Haiti kicks into gear

Mission: The JTF-H mission was to 

conduct Foreign Disaster Relief 

operations in support of USAID to 

support the GoH and MINUSTAH by 

providing localized security, facilitating 

the distribution and restoration of basic 

human services, providing medical 

support, and conducting critical 

engineering operations in order to 

alleviate human suffering and provide the 

foundation for the long term recovery of 

Haiti.34 

Within 72 hours, the XVIII ABC Assault 

Command Post (ACP), led by MG Allyn, 

was on the ground in Haiti, providing a 

proficient staff around which JTF-H would 

mature. Though very experienced as a result 

of a recent Iraqi Freedom tour, the XVIII 

Corps staff was not a joint team and required 

the addition of a host of “plugs” to balance 

the service and interagency representation. 

The JFCOM Joint Enabling Capabilities 

Command (JECC), with a joint and 

interagency complement, arrived and 

provided valuable operational capabilities 

that rounded out the XVIII ACP operational 

and logistics planning capability. Soon, 

other staff augmentation from the Joint 

Force Maritime Component Command 

(Task Force 41), the 12th USAF’s Air 

Component Coordination Element (ACCE), 

as well as numerous other joint and 

interagency staff members turned the Army 

“green” team into a joint “purple” team. 

The JECC’s Joint Communications Support 

Element (JCSE) provided an early entry 

communications package to support the adhoc staff, and all communications domains 

became available.35

Campaigning Fall 2016 47
Coordination, Collaboration, and 

Communication

“The military’s planning capability is not the most 

expensive part, but it is probably the most valuable. 

The international coordination structure would not 

have stood up if they weren’t there – we tapped into 

the JTF planning capacity.”36

United Nations Strategic Plans Officer

 

The nascent JTF staff established a footprint 

on the embassy grounds that provided space 

and communications within a close 

proximity to the epicenter. The embassy also 

afforded an opportunity to nurture host 

nation and interagency relationships. While 

this arrangement was very beneficial for 

coordination and collaboration, the inflow of 

so many personnel greatly strained the 

embassy life support and legacy 

communications infrastructure.37 To 

alleviate the burden, personnel were lodged 

in tents on the embassy grounds and the JTF 

headquarters was established in a vacant lot 

near the UN HQ, thereby maintaining a 

close proximity to vital collaborating 

partners as the operation matured.38 The 

JECC’s communications team employed 

deployable systems and workarounds to 

alleviate the connectivity problems. 

The JTF commander realized the importance 

of organizing coordination cells to facilitate 

a collaborative environment and align 

efforts with the UN, MINUSTAH, and 

NGO/PVOs. He established a Humanitarian 

Assistance Coordination Cell (HACC) as a 

mechanism to integrate with the UN Cluster 

system. To promote an atmosphere of 

political neutrality, LTG Keen designated 

BG Matern, a Canadian exchange officer 

assigned to the XVIII ABC HQ, the 

responsibility to lead the HACC efforts. 

Primarily staffed by the 98th Civil Affairs 

(CA) Battalion, the HACC integrated 

military support to USAID and the Haitian 

Government by establishing medical clinics 

and food distribution points.39 Dedicated 

military personnel were also assigned to 

directly support USAID and MINUSTAH. 

Determining Requirements

“Many of the early assessments were simply 

guesses. SOUTHCOM guessed at what ... 

capabilities and capacities would be needed and 

sent them forward without ever being requested 

by the lead agency (USAID)”40

BGen Garza, USSOUTHCOM Chief of Staff 

The major military force deployment plans 

were crafted within the first few days when 

the situation was still very vague. As a 

result, the fledgling staffs had to make some 

bold assumptions. Though USSOUTHCOM 

developed a generic functional plan 

(FUNCPLAN 6150-06) for HADR 

operations in theater, the plan was written 

with a traditional J-code construct in mind—

but the CCMD staff was not configured that 

way. Moreover, there was no standing 

Concept of Operations (CONOP) or 

Operations Plan (OPLAN) with an 

associated Time Phased Force Deployment 

Data (TPFDD), built for HADR that the 

staff could leverage to begin force flow 

planning. Adding to these complications, 

logistics and deployment expertise had been 

disaggregated under the current staff 

organization.41

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 48
Force Flow and Logistics 

“The opening of the airport by the US was critical 

since initial over-the-shore supplies were more 

hampered. They went from around 35 flights per 

day to just over 200 flights per day, which was 

incredible. From the humanitarian assistance 

perspective, logistics is the best thing that the 

military does for such a disaster and we did it 

well.”42 

W.L. “Ike” Clark, USSOUTHCOM 

Humanitarian Assistance Division Chief 

At first, USSOUTHCOM implemented a 

“push” concept of force deployment. 

Because speed was of the essence, the 

CCMD opted to overcome ambiguity and 

uncertainty with the deployment of willing 

and available forces as directed by the 

Services. Force flow was prompted on 

verbal orders, given the absence of an 

established TPFDD. This resulted in an 

unsynchronized sequencing of units and 

equipment for several weeks. Supporting 

commands did not adequately communicate 

with each other and the risk of inadequate 

support for responders was very high. The 

precipitous infusion of manpower and 

provisions, while inefficient and ad-hoc, was 

nonetheless effective in bestowing the onscene commander the means to stabilize the 

situation and save lives.43 

 “We had 16 pages of VOCOs regarding force flow. 

Official RFFs were not required and the 

bureaucracy was eliminated by this approach. This 

was the enabler for speed-of-response.”44

RADM Parker, USSOUTHCOM J-3 

Yet the speed of response had a downside. 

The nonexistence of an audit trail, due to 

reliance on verbal orders, deprived 

commands of coordinated force flow 

planning and tracking. Because effective 

Joint Reception, Staging, Onwardmovement, and Integration (JRSOI) was not 

doctrinally implemented as expected; a Joint 

Logistics Operations Center (JLOC) was not 

established for weeks. Operational planners 

did not have adequate visibility of “what 

they had, where it was, and what was 

coming.”45 Rather than approaching the 

mission from an operational perspective, the 

staff was overwhelmed with tactical 

distribution of “whatever showed up at the 

airfield from well meaning contributors”.46

To adjust, JTF-H created the Force Flow 

Working Group (FFWG) consisting of J3 

and J4 personnel who met frequently to 

remove barriers, de-conflict issues, and 

advise the commander. The FFWG was one 

of several ad hoc organizations to deal with 

the early confusion. Later, as additional 

boots-on-the-ground arrived and the JTF 

matured, actual requirements became 

evident and a “pull” approach was 

implemented, improving effectiveness and 

efficiency. 

Information Gathering and Situational 

Awareness

“I can honestly say that ... we have not had any 

problems sharing information. One of the key 

reasons for this is that from the outset of this crisis, 

we at the SOUTHCOM Headquarters decided to 

classify our Operations Order as UNCLASSIFIED. 

This classification gave us ease of transmission 

across the military, civilian sectors and with our 

partner nations.”47 

BGen Garza, USSOUTHCOM Chief of Staff

Campaigning Fall 2016 49
Information sharing was vital to mission 

success. Communications barriers and 

limited data was available for management 

decisions and there were overwhelming 

requests for information within the beltway 

and the media.48 News reports became a 

driver for a deluge of inquiry during the first 

weeks. Responding to the great demand for 

detailed tactical information from senior 

leaders placed a heavy burden on the staff 

on the ground that often disrupted the 

planning process. The staffs spent several 

hours each day to “chase down” facts and 

prepare for VTCs with Washington 

leadership; often asked questions with no 

means to answer. USSOUTHCOM was also 

responsible for situational awareness on the 

activities of other U.S. and international 

contributors in support of the relief effort. 

Foreign embassies bombarded the State 

Department with inquiries. In turn, 

USSOUTHCOM had to constantly support 

the Country Team by providing critical 

elements of information. Fortunately, the 

integration of interagency representation, 

coupled with augmentation from 

USNORTHCOM, provided an enhanced 

ability to gain sufficient situational 

awareness of the whole of government 

effort.49 

A Joint Information Center (JIC) was 

established and successfully faciliated 

information flow, but projecting a unified 

message between all the agencies was 

difficult. USSOUTHCOM applied an 

“open” communications approach by 

developing an unclassified network to 

facilitate information flow. Though 

degraded, the commercial communications 

infrastructure became part of the de-facto 

crisis response coordination architecture and 

a viable alternate means to military 

communications. For several weeks, much 

of the operation in Haiti was run off of cell 

phones and mobile email devices. 

 

Commercial technology helped greatly. The 

International Charter on Space and Major 

Disasters was activated, allowing satellite 

imagery of devastated regions to be shared 

with rescue organizations. Social 

networking sites such as Twitter and 

Facebook spread information quickly. The 

OpenStreetMap community improved 

access to real-time mapping using satellite 

imagery provided by Google Maps© 

(through GeoEye Inc.) for use by all relief 

teams. Open source websites, such as 

Ushahidi, synchronized messages from 

many sites to assist trapped Haitians and 

inform families. Google Earth updated its 

coverage of Port-au-Prince, showing details 

of the the earthquake-ravaged city. On the 

Internet, the JTF staff leveraged the All 

Partners Access Network (APAN) and a 

User Defined Operational Picture (UDOP), 

allowing them to link with USAID and other 

government sites.50 The merging of digital 

sources created a near real-time information 

sharing environment that enabled 

collaboration. 

To address information gaps, traditional 

intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance 

(ISR) systems, was merged with nontraditional means such as those found on 

open internet sites. ISR platforms produced 

hydrographic and geographic surveys and 

imagery to provide a preliminary assessment 

Campaigning Fall 2016 50
of damaged infrastructure and the 

disposition of internally displaced persons 

(IDPs). USSOUTHCOM re-tasked its sole 

P-3 aircraft to conduct full motion video 

(FMV) of Port au Prince. National 

Technical Means, including commercial 

satellites, RQ-1 PREDATORs, RC-26 Air 

National Guard aircraft, and the RQ-4 

GLOBAL HAWK, provided geospatial 

intelligence to enhance situational 

awareness.51 Additionally, new sensor 

capabilities, ALIRT (airborne laser imaging 

research test bed) and LIDAR (light 

detection and ranging), also provided 

assessments of infrastructure damage. 

JFCOM’s Joint Warfare Analysis Center 

(JWAC) provided detailed infrastructure 

analysis of roads, food distribution, water 

sources, IDP movement, and electrical 

grids.52 

 

“The SOUTHCOM J2 provided estimates on the 

viability of Haitian hospitals by using satellite 

imagery showing movement around the buildings; 

but this gave no real intelligence on functionality, 

capability, or staffing that can only be obtained 

from in-person assessment.”53 

CAPT Miguel Cubano, USSOUTHCOM Surgeon 

General

Most of the information gathering had to be 

done the old fashioned way—with boots on 

the ground. USSOUTHCOM deployed 

intelligence teams to comprehensively 

assess the human terrain. Information was 

merged from social networking sites, local 

clergy, non-governmental organizations and 

the Haitians themselves, to focus the 

humanitarian effort. Ground troops 

conducted ground reconnaissance and 

provided assessments to the headquarters 

and local leaders. The U.S. Special 

Operations Command (USSOCSOUTH) 

deployed special operations teams to 

provide on-the-ground assessments outside 

of Port au Prince. Later, the innovative use 

of Google Earth combined air and ground 

reconnaissance with the commercial 

mapping to form a Common Operating 

Picture (COP).54

 

Strategic Communications

LTG Keen and his staff recognized the 

importance of an effective strategic 

communications plan to get out in front of 

the voracious media. To accomplish this, 

they organized the Joint Interagency 

Information Cell (JIIC) —a centralized 

coordination team comprised of USG 

agencies assisted by the U.S. Embassy’s 

Public Diplomacy Officer. The message was 

to portray the U.S. as a capable, efficient, 

and effective responder. Focusing on the 

Haitians, international community, and 

American people; the core themes 

emphasized “Haitians helping Haitians” and 

a partnership effort.55 Of equal importance 

was dismissing the undesirable messages 

that the U.S. was saving an inept Haitian 

Government, that it was an occupying force, 

or that the U.S. was commmitted to 

rebuilding the country. The White House 

sent a “trusted agent” to synchronize 

messages, and the Chairman of the Joint 

Chief of Staff, ADM Mullen, sent his 

personal public affairs officer to assist the 

JTF Commander.56 

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 51
“For the first few days of the crisis, the guy that 

was most valuable to me was the Chairman’s 

PAO—he was with me all the time.”57

 LTG Keen, JTF Commander

The JECC support team included the Joint 

Public Affairs Support Element (JPASE). 

JPASE provided media and production 

specialists to fill the information void that 

was initially filled by the media. In the early 

days, there were more media representatives 

on the ground than military. Using real time 

video and satellite feeds, the media were 

ahead of the military in describing the 

situation on the ground. This provided a 

beneficial window for leaders, but with 

drawbacks—it tempted those in Washington 

to apply a “10,000 mile screwdriver.”58 

Mission Performance and Transition

By April 2010, in spite of severely damaged 

docks, the port doubled its capacity through 

JTF assistance and projects, allowing the 

offload of over 8,500 containers totaling 

over 10.2 million short tons. Navy and 

Army divers repaired the damaged south 

pier in record time and by mid-March the 

port was turned back over to the Haitian port 

authority. Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore 

operations brought much needed supplies 

from ships anchored offshore to the beaches 

via landing craft, amphibious vehicles, and 

hovercraft. JTF helicopters from the Army, 

Navy and Marine Corps flew every day, 

bringing in supplies and transferring 

patients. By the end of May, over 4.9 

million meals, 17 million pounds of bulk 

food, and 2.6 million bottles of water were 

delivered to the people most in need. Over 

one million Haitians received emergency 

shelter, while more than 80 blocks of debriscovered streets were cleared and over 

40,000 buildings were assessed by JTF 

engineers.59 

 

The Operation Unified Response military 

effort effectively concluded with the 

redeployment of the 24th MEU on March 

24th—ten weeks into the crisis. International 

partners took over responsibility for food 

and water distribution. The JTF continued 

to orchestrate relief support through 

engineering projects. Through mid-May, 

the JTF mission focused extensively on 

mitigating the dangers of heavy rains, 

floods, and mudslides at the nine main 

displacement camps in Port au Prince. This 

included supporting GoH, UN, USAID, and 

NGO partners in relocating displaced 

persons to transitional resettlement sites. 

JTF-Haiti engineering operations resulted in 

the protection of over 37,000 persons at high 

risk. Through these transitional efforts, JTFHaiti postured for a seamless transfer of 

responsibility to the newly created 

Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Cell 

(HACC) that coordinated follow-on Haiti 

relief operations and Theater Security 

Cooperation activities via the New Horizons 

initiative. The New Horizons initiative 

sponsored medical readiness training 

exercises, construction projects, and medical 

relief missions in rural areas. The overall 

operation officially concluded on June 1st, 

2010.60 

Reflections on Haiti

During an after action plenary session in 

August 2010, the key leaders with agency 

Campaigning Fall 2016 52
representation reflected on the Haiti 

response. Represenatives included the 

USAID Administrator, Dr. Shah; 

USSOUTHCOM Commander, General 

Fraser; JTF Commander, LTG Keen; DoS 

representative, Undersecretary Kennedy; 

U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, AMB Merten; 

and the initial USAID response coordinator, 

Ambassador Lucke. Dr. Shah noted that a 

critical enabler for the response was strong 

presidential support backed by Congress and 

the American people, which led to 

attempting innovative methods and taking 

risks to save lives. Clear policy—shared by 

the USG, Host Nation, and International 

Partners—served to establish priorities and 

foster effective solutions. Dr. Shah 

identified a shared decision-making 

capability shortfall that requires an 

investment. This investment, he argued, will 

enhance the impact of each direct aid dollar 

that is spent. Then, authorities on the 

ground—aligned to the resources—may be 

better applied to the response.61 

General Fraser emphasized the need for 

unity of response by utilizing a common 

operating picture supported by 

comprehensive and capable logistics. The 

military’s ability to move people, equipment 

and supplies and to repair and operate the 

airport and ports was essential, but it is 

expensive and the Department of Defense 

does not always understand the requirements 

and humanitarian imperative that USAID, 

NGOs, and other stakeholders understand. 

However, there is a need to use the strength 

of military logistics to maximize the overall 

government response.62 

Undersecretary Kennedy reminded the 

audience that all humanitarian contingencies 

are not the same, and planning must be 

flexible. By international law, it is the host 

government that has the authority to direct 

activities; however in situations like Haiti, 

wherein the host government is severely 

impacted and has limited capacity—our first 

effort must be to persuade that government 

to allow the U.S. to take charge of key 

functions.63 Diplomatic actions are 

necessary to rally international support. The 

most important role for the USG, through 

the Embassy, is to protect U.S. citizens and 

better tools are needed to perform this 

task.64 There is a need to coordinate support 

in Washington in order to enable the effort 

(especially in terms of logistics) and to 

alleviate the burden on the field staff. 

LTG Keen reinforced the need to respond 

quickly, build partnerships, fully support the 

lead Federal Agency, and work closely with 

the U.N. Humanitarian community. He 

recommended that the USG develop a 

capable Response Assessment Team and 

form a reserve International Civilian and 

Military capacity to respond to disasters—

and this team must be exercised. Better 

doctrine and processes are needed for the 

Humanitarian Assistance Coordination 

Centers (HACC) —and they need 

“unclassified” information sharing tools to 

better integrate and support the NGOs and 

public/private sectors.65 

Ambassador Merten reflected on how the 

U.S. Embassy staff had to play a dual role of 

victim and responder. Many lost their homes 

and over 16,000 Americans had to be 

Campaigning Fall 2016 53
evacuated—the largest evacuation of U.S. 

citizens since World War II. He underlined 

the significance of collaborating with all 

partners before deploying, and the resulting 

assistance must be self-sustaining, as to not 

overwhelm the staff and resources at the 

Embassy.66

 

Ambassador Lucke expressed the 

importance of designating a civilian agency 

supported by an existing—as opposed to ad 

hoc—international planning and 

communications system. He expressed 

concern that much of the decision-making 

power was concentrated in Washington, and 

highlighted the importance of empowering 

1

US Government Photograph: www.southcom.mil Accessed June 

27, 2016.

2 United States Agency for International Development, Office of 

U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, Haiti - Earthquake, vol. Fact 

Sheet #58 (Washington, D.C.: USAID, 2010), 1. 3 United States Agency for International Development.

Independent Review of the U. S. Government Response to the Haiti 

Earthquake, by Debarati Guha-Sapir, Thomas Kirsch, Shayna 

Dooling, and Adam Sirois (Washington D.C.: USAID, 2011), 11.

4 United States Department of Defense, United States Southern 

Command, USSOUTHCOM OPORD 01-10: Haiti Earthquake 

Foreign Disaster Relief. (Tampa, FL: United States Southern 

Command), 2.

5

 Independent Review of the U. S. Government Response to the 

Haiti Earthquake, 12. 6 United States Agency for International Development, Fact Sheet 

#58, 2. 7 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 9. 8 USSOUTHCOM OPORD 01-10: Haiti Earthquake Foreign 

Disaster Relief, 2. 9 Ibid.

10 Barak Obama, "Remarks by the President on Rescue Efforts in 

Haiti," Briefing Room, January 13, 2010, 1, accessed August 20, 

2010, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarkspresident-rescue-efforts-haiti. 11 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 10. 12 Independent Review of the U. S. Government Response to the 

Haiti Earthquake, 9. 13 Ron Paul, "Ron Paul's Statement in Opposition to H Res 1021,

Condolences to Haiti” ONTD Political, January 25, 2010, 1, 

accessed August 7, 2010, http://ontdpolitical.livejournal.com/5183802.html.

14 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 10. 15 "2010 - Haiti Earthquake," 3, accessed August 20, 2010, 

http://www.iodr.cd/documents/haiti2010.pdf.

16 Barak Obama, 2. 17 Independent Review of the U. S. Government Response to the 

Haiti Earthquake, 41. 18 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 15. 19 Ibid, 12.

field missions to handle the disaster 

response.67 The Ambassador indicated that a 

balance must be established between the 

demand for information in Washington and 

the ability of USAID to deliver, so that relief 

efforts on the ground are not sacrificed. All 

presenters applauded the overall response 

efforts in Haiti, but there is clearly much 

more that can be done to prepare for the next 

crisis. 

Author Biography.

David R. DiOrio, PhD, is a Professor of Practice at 

the Joint Forces Staff College.

20 Ibid, 14. 21 Ibid, 12. 22 Ibid, 12. 23 USSOUTHCOM OPORD 01-10: Haiti Earthquake Foreign 

Disaster Relief, 1. 24 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 16. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid, 8. 27 Ibid, 3. 28 Ibid, 9. 29 USSOUTHCOM OPORD 01-10: Haiti Earthquake Foreign 

Disaster Relief, 1. 30 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 9. 31 Ibid, 10. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 USSOUTHCOM OPORD 01-10: Haiti Earthquake Foreign 

Disaster Relief, 1. 35 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 12. 36 Ibid, 15. 37 Ibid, 14. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid, 7. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid, 11. 43 Ibid, 13. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid, 14. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid, 7. 48Independent Review of the U. S. Government Response to the 

Haiti Earthquake, 12. 49 Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 4. 50 Ibid, 7. 51 Ibid, 5. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid, 6. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid, 15. 56 Ibid. 

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 54
 

57 Ibid. 58 Ibid, 5. 59 United States Agency for International Development, HaitiEarthquake, vol. Fact Sheet #58, 2. 60 "2010 - Haiti Earthquake," 4, accessed August 20, 2010, 

http://www.iodr.cd/documents/haiti2010.pdf.

61 Independent Review of the U. S. Government Response to the 

Haiti Earthquake, 110-115. 

62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid.

Campaigning Fall 2016 55
Managing the Expectations of the

Third Offset

CDR Ted Ricciardella, LtCol David Berke, Lt Col

Eric Hresko, and LTC David Zinn

In a speech delivered at the Southeastern

New England Defense Industry Alliance in

September 2014, Secretary of Defense

Chuck Hagel outlined his vision for a strategy designed to cope with the military realities of the 21st century.1

 Secretary Hagel

noted that while the United States has been

mired in conflict in the Middle East, nations 

like Russia and China have not been sitting 

idly by. Instead, they have been seeking to

reduce our technological superiority by developing systems and operating concepts of 

their own that seek to negate our ability to

power project and operate relatively unmolested at a time and place of our choosing. 

Coupled with a flat, if not shrinking, defense

budget, building a larger military is an untenable solution to the problem. Instead, 

Secretary Hagel proposed looking back to

our past experiences combating the Soviet 

Union during the Cold War. From this, the 

so-called Third Offset Strategy was born. 

The ideas contained within the third offset

are in many ways aspirational. Those concepts, and how they will translate into research and development are clear. What is

unclear is how that technology will develop 

into grand strategy. Secretary Hagel has

proposed a way forward, but the final shape 

the strategy will take has yet to be determined. What is clear is twofold. First, like

the previous offset strategies, the third offset

will take time to mature. Developing and

procuring new technology is a long and not 

always linear process. Second, to be truly

effective, the third offset must become more

than a technology procurement strategy. It

must evolve into a joint military strategy

that goes hand in hand with the national 

strategy it underwrites. Before the Third

Offset was officially announced, each of the 

services had already begun planning for the 

future with respect to new technologies and

operating concepts. The services have thus 

far focused on developing their future operating concepts but have done little work to

integrate with the other services. For the 

Third Offset to be a truly effective strategy,

the technologies and operating concepts

must be integrated into a joint strategy.

A Brief History of American Offset 

Strategies

The concept of an offset strategy is not a 

new one. Since the end of World War II, the

United States has developed two strategies

that have been identified as offset strategies.2

 Put simply, an offset strategy is

where one attempts to “offset” the advantages an adversary possesses in an asymmetric and presumably more affordable 

manner.3

 In the case of the United States,

our offset strategies attempted to counter the 

Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact’s numerical

superiority over the U.S. and its allies.

The first instance of a U.S. offset strategy

came on the heels of World War II, while

the U.S. was still involved in the Korean

War. President Eisenhower came to realize

the U.S. was being rapidly out produced 

with respect to conventional forces. In

1953, the Soviet Union could field some 175 

Campaigning Fall 2016 56
divisions to the U.S.’s 29 divisions.4

 In contrast, the U.S. held an almost 7:1 edge over 

the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. 

Moreover, building, fielding, and maintaining nuclear weapons was less expensive and

required far less manpower than a large

standing Army. Even if the U.S. wanted to

maintain parity with conventional forces, Eisenhower and his advisors feared such a 

course of action was economically untenable 

in the long run.5 Out of this realization, the 

so-called “New Look” was born6. Instead of 

relying on U.S. conventional forces to meet

Soviet aggression head on, this new strategy

sought to deter aggression with the threat of 

the use of nuclear weapons.7

Some 20 years later, the U.S. found itself on 

the tail end of the Vietnam conflict with a 

rapidly declining defense budget. In the intervening years, the U.S. recognized the difficulties of deterring Soviet conventional aggression with the threat of nuclear war. Because of this, Secretary of Defense Harold

Brown, along with Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering William

Perry sought a new investment strategy they

termed an “offset strategy.”8

 This offset

strategy sought to counter Soviet numerical

superiority with U.S. technological superiority.9

 Many of the systems we have come to

associate with recent conflicts such as the E8 JSTARS, ATACMS, and Link-16, can

trace their roots to this second offset strategy.10 The core tenets of the second offset

strategy were based on developing advanced

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and space capabilities, along 

with new precision weapons intended for

deep strike.11 The idea was that deep ISR,

coupled with precision strike could have the

same effect on the Soviet’s ability to command and control as tactical nuclear weapons.12

Foundations of the Third Offset

While the Third Offset focuses on completely different technologies, it shares the 

same overall goal as the previous two offset

strategies. Its aim is to substitute large numbers of weapons and a large standing military with superior technology. Additionally, 

while the previous two offset strategies were

developed when the U.S was lagging behind 

the Soviet Union in military strength, the 

third offset strategy has been initiated when

the U.S. is in a position of strength. Rather

than an attempt to catch up with an adversary, this new strategy is designed to keep

the U.S. firmly ahead in the face of rising

foreign military powers.

Much like the past two offset strategies, the

third offset strategy is one firmly rooted in

technology. After Secretary Hagel’s unveiling of the third offset strategy, the Department of Defense (DoD) began several new 

initiatives focused on understanding the 

character of the future operating environment and determining what sorts of technological investments the DoD should undertake. From the creation of the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), which was tasked

with looking at immediate needs, to a series

of strategic portfolio reviews focusing on 

mid-term problems, to the Long Range Research and Development Planning Program,

focusing out past 20 years, the DoD has

Campaigning Fall 2016 57
taken a comprehensive look at the anticipated future threat, and where our technological strengths lie. The results of those 

three near, medium, and long-term focus efforts determined the major technological

thrust of the third offset should revolve 

around human-machine collaboration combat teaming. 13 Secretary Work further subdivided human-machine collaboration combat teaming into five sub-categories:

Learning Machines – using big data analytics to help better predict future events.14

Human-machine collaboration – using 

machines to assist humans with decision

making.15

Assisted Human Operations – technology, 

such as wearable electronics and exoskeletons which directly aid a human performing

a task.16

Human-Machine Teaming – also known as

manned- unmanned teaming. This would 

involve a human or manned platform directly aided by unmanned platforms.

Automated Weapons – weapons that can

select and engage targets without human intervention.17

Each of the services has subsequently tailored their research and development portfolios to align their efforts along the lines of

the third offset strategy.

 

US Army 

The U.S. Army is undertaking a significant

intellectual effort focused on designing and

fielding an innovative and adaptive future 

Army that will remain the bedrock of the 

Joint Force. The ongoing renaissance of 

warfighting ideas is reminiscent of General

William Depuy’s post-Vietnam development of AirLand Battle doctrine that stimulated the Second Offset within the Army. 

The effort includes the recent release of a vision statement and new operating concept, 

the realignment of institutional responsibilities, and re-focused institutional wargaming

and experimentation. While the Army’s

work preceded the announcement of a Third

Offset Strategy, the Army’s plan for innovation aligns with Secretary Carter’s guidance.18

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command 

(TRADOC) published the Army Operating

Concept (AOC), “Win in a Complex World, 

2020-2040,” in the fall of 201419. This

foundational document describes how the

future Army will prevent conflict, shape security environments, and win wars, and

guides future force development by identifying first order capabilities that the Army

needs to sustain supremacy in the land domain.

The science and technology appendix of the 

AOC identifies technological focus areas

that nest with the five pillars of the Third

Offset. One focus area of technological development is artificial intelligence that will

enable the deployment of autonomous and

semi-autonomous systems with the ability to

learn. These learning machines will provide 

increased autonomy, and subsequently, enable the future force by increasing its tactical

operating area, force protection, and capability. Future development of autonomous Unmanned Ground Systems (UGS) will provide additional capability through humanCampaigning Fall 2016 58
machine collaboration, such as achieving

enhanced situational understanding through 

persistent reconnaissance. Another technological focus area is human-machine combat 

teaming through the development of UGS

that integrate into manned formations, including UGS with autonomous weapons. 

The Army also seeks to develop assisted human operations technologies to enable automated and autonomous air and ground resupply and affordable, interoperable, autonomous and semi-autonomous systems that

improve the effectiveness of Soldiers and

small units. 

TRADOC, currently commanded by General David G. Perkins, has overall responsibility for developing the capabilities of the 

future Army as part of the Third Offset. The

Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC), part of TRADOC, is the lead agency

for future capabilities. ARCIC oversees the 

development, evaluation, and integration of 

concepts, requirements, and solutions for the 

Army and is currently led by Lieutenant

General H.R. McMaster, widely considered

an intellectual visionary with a penchant for

institutional innovation. McMaster will primarily leverage two sub-directorates for the 

development of Third Offset capabilities:

the Concept Development and Learning Directorate (CDLD) and the Force 2025 and

Beyond Directorate (F2025BD). CDLD develops the Army's vision of future conflict

and future joint land operations that drive 

the development of Army concepts and capabilities. F2025BD integrates and synchronizes the development of future Army concepts and capabilities, and helps foster innovation efforts across the force.

In the spring of 2016, Lieutenant General

McMaster announced the impending release

of the Army’s Robotics and Autonomous 

Systems (RAS) Strategy.20 Significant efforts of the RAS will be Ground Vehicle

Autonomy and autonomous Leader-Follower technology. The Squad Multipurpose 

Equipment Transport (SMET) is an example

of an autonomous ground vehicle that is being tested today. The vehicle is designed to

accompany a squad of nine Soldiers during 

operations and performs a variety of roles,

including equipment-bearing, breaching, and

employment of autonomous weapons. The

SMET is expected to fill roles that enhance

situational awareness, augment protection, 

or provide a capability to Soldiers that is

currently unavailable.

While developing Third Offset capabilities,

the Army will primarily leverage two initiatives to test and assess ideas and concepts:

Unified Quest (UQ) and the Army Warfighting Assessment (AWA).21 UQ is the 

Army’s future study plan designed to explore enduring strategic and operational 

challenges to identify issues and explore solutions critical to current and future development. The AWA is an annual capstone exercise at Fort Bliss, TX, which allows the 

Army to experiment, assess, and test new

concepts and capabilities, in a field training

environment, with Soldiers and equipment.22

The Army is institutionally aligned to pursue 

Third Offset capabilities as part of the joint 

force but will continue to face challenges

with budgetary pressure and operational demands. These challenges may force the 

Campaigning Fall 2016 59
Army to make tough decisions between

readiness and future investments in development. The Army Vision and Operating Concept provide the roadmap for future development. TRADOC and ARCIC will continue 

to guide and manage Army innovation and

development. Historically, the Army has

been cautious not to over-rely on emerging

technologies. The nation’s premier ground 

force recognizes that war will always be a 

fundamentally human endeavor, where the

American Soldier remains the most discriminately lethal force on the battlefield.23 The

Army will continue to invest significantly in

the human dimension, but must also integrate emerging technologies to maintain

overmatch against future adversaries.

US Navy 

The Sea Service’s 2015 maritime strategy,

“A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century 

Seapower” takes on an offensive warfighting tone and states that where the United

States has interests, it needs access. The

country may have to fight for that access

against increasingly sophisticated adversaries – including in domains where we have

long taken dominance for granted.24 This

maritime strategy is aligned with the “third

offset strategy.” The Navy views the third

offset strategy as a combination of both new

capabilities and new concepts of operation. 

Designed to give the United States an edge

in high-end conventional warfare, the focus 

of the third offset is not just on technology, 

but a combination of technology and our 

greatest asset, our people. The offset strategy concentrates on the operational level of 

war and uses human-machine collaboration 

and combat teaming at its core.

The Navy’s focus in this respect has been on 

anti-access and area-denial, guided munitions, undersea warfare, cyber and electronic

warfare, human-machine teaming and the 

development of new operating concepts. 

New technologies, like the Anti-Submarine 

Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program and the 

autonomous cargo resupply platform, are

crucial to this effort. Equally important is

the effort to repurpose existing weapons to

create advantages. The Navy is currently attempting to turn SM-6 surface-to-air missiles into anti-ship missiles, has recently upgraded Virginia-class attack submarines to

more than triple their missile payload and

created a Tomahawk missile with a ship-attack capability.25

In a rapidly changing defense environment, 

the long-term viability of programs will depend on the ability to affordably add technologies and capabilities during a systems

lifespan. One example of where the Navy is

applying these new methods is electronic

warfare. The EA-18G Growler has a vast

array of sensors and weapons that provide 

the warfighter with a lethal and survivable 

weapon system to counter current and

emerging threats.26 Currently, when an aircraft encounters a new kind of signal on the 

battlefield, it records the data and brings it

back to its base or ship to be analyzed. In

conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Navy

is introducing new deep-learning systems

into the EA-18G, aiming to use this artificial

intelligence to detect, catalog and counter 

Campaigning Fall 2016 60
the threat in real time. This “cognitive electronic warfare” approach allows a nearly instantaneous response and reaction, and a 

threat can be taken care of during the mission. As DARPA director, Arati Prabhakar,

explains, “We want to get to where we respond and react faster than human timescales. The way we do that is by scouring 

the spectrum in real time and, secondly, applying some of the most amazing frontiers

of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Then we use those to build systems that

can learn what the adversary is doing in the 

electromagnetic spectrum, start making predictions about what they’re going to do next,

and then adapt the onboard jammer to be 

where the adversary’s going before they get

there.”27

The idea of the Third Offset is not to have 

machines replace humans, but to have machines and humans work together where

each brings what it does best. This teams up 

human insight with the tactical acuity of 

computers. A prime example is the Aegis

weapon system. This weapon system uses

computers and radar autonomously to track

and guide weapons to destroy enemy targets,

while at the same time keeping humans in

the loop, if desired.28

The ASW Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) is the Navy’s autonomous 

warship designed to hunt foreign stealth submarines. It is a crewless, 140-ton robotic 

ship that the Navy hopes to have in the Fleet

by 2018. Extremely inexpensive compared

to a manned system, ACTUV is designed to

overtly track and trail target submarines. 

Operating under minimal supervisory command and control, the vessel has advanced

autonomous navigation and is to be in constant contact with other ships and aircraft

through a satellite link.29 The potential effect this program has is tremendous and has

the capability to change the landscape of 

surface warfare.

The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance

(BAMS) program includes the MQ-4C Triton. The Triton is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that services ISR missions and

can cover vast areas. Developed in conjunction with the manned P-8 Poseidon maritime

patrol aircraft, the Triton UAV is specifically designed to work with its manned partner to funnel information to the man in the 

loop for decision making. This teaming

concept provides a near continuous source 

of information to maintain the Common Operational and Tactical Picture (COTP) of the 

maritime battlespace.30

In an attempt to provide 24/7-capable orbits

from an aircraft carrier, the Navy’s unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike system (UCLASS) program’s goal is “to effectively and affordably 

conduct sea-based 21st-century suppression 

of enemy air defenses, strike and surveillance missions within the emerging global 

command and control architecture.”31 In

order to make this the most agile and affordable force, a squadron of UAVs on an aircraft carrier should have interchangeable

modules that the strike-group commander

could rapidly employ depending on the mission.32

The Navy stands on the cusp of achieving a 

huge operational advantage through the use 

Campaigning Fall 2016 61
of unmanned and autonomous systems – air,

surface and subsurface.33 The goal must be 

to develop a future force architecture that

will migrate a mix of autonomous and

manned systems across all domains and, 

more importantly, provide the underpinnings 

for reprogramming funds to make it happen.34 The current stovepipe approach to

design, acquire, use these innovative technologies will prevent the Navy from realizing their full potential, however. A unified 

(joint) strategy is needed. The Navy must 

learn how to align these new unmanned and

autonomous systems, not just within the 

Navy using Navy assets, but inclusive of national, joint, coalition, and interagency platforms as well. 

 

US Marine Corps

The Marine Corps Combat Development 

Command (MCCDC) is chartered to integrate concepts to properly equip the force of 

the future.35 As the Third Offset develops, 

MCCDC will play a pivotal role in developing a strategy for identifying systems that reinforce the technological advantage the Department of Defense (DoD) is searching for.

Specifically, the Marine CorpsWarfighting

Lab will be the Marine Corps’ lead agency 

for Third Offset, responsible for coordinating across industry and within the DoD. 

“A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century 

Sea Power” describes the increasing technological advancements made by our adversaries, but also the need to counter them and

preserve access to all domains.36 Additionally, RAND testimony before the House 

Armed Services Committee in 2014 identified specific facets of the Third Offset that

pertain to the future of Maritime and Air

Power projection.37 Clearly the Marine

Corps has a role and a responsibility to seek

the needed change to remain America’s

force in readiness.

 

An experimental yet critical venture began

in 2010 when the Marine Corps and

DARPA developed the Legged Squad Support System (LS3).

38 Commonly known as

the robotic mule, it represented the type of 

relationship that the Marine Corps would 

need to explore in the future. The mule was

designed to carry heavy loads of equipment 

and allow infantry personnel freedom of 

movement and increased speed during assaults. While the mule has since been retired, the Warfighting Lab created a paradigm, years before the DoD revealed the 

newest offset strategy. Though the Corps 

has not traditionally looked to leverage technological advantage, it will serve the service

well to build upon the lessons learned from

the experiment.

Perhaps the most relevant developed element of the Third Offset for the future of 

Marine Corps warfighting is the ability to

overcome the Anti-Access/Area-Denial networks developed by its adversaries.

39 The F35 Lightning II will soon be the only tactical

aircraft in the inventory to support the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). As

the replacement for The F/A-18 Hornet,

AV-8B Harrier, and EA-6B Prowler, it will

perform all the missions of Marine tactical

aviation in contested environments. The

ability to offset the anticipated area denial

Campaigning Fall 2016 62
weapons of the 21st century will allow the 

Marines to execute their Expeditionary 

Force 21 warfighting concept. Doctrinal responsiveness and versatility demand a system capable of functioning where current

systems are prohibited from operating.40

The advancement of network enabled weapons is required to support other pillars of the 

strategy. While weapon systems may not be 

autonomous in the near future, the ability to

update them from multiple platforms within

a network will facilitate the agility and responsive needed to outperform threat networks currently being created. Naval Air

Systems Command had begun the developmental testing that can one day be integrated

into normal F-35 employment of long range

and lethal fires.41 The integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into airspace

control has been occurring for over a decade. The Marine Corps must look to leverage the Multifunction Advanced Data Link

(MADL) native to the F-35 to incorporate 

future UAS platforms, making them more 

flexible and viable in contested airspace.

Stand alone or segregated operations of 

manned and unmanned vehicles are not conducive to dynamic 21st-century combat operations. The integration of the platforms into

tactical and operational schemes of maneuver promotes offensive strengths while reducing risk to mission and personnel. 

US Air Force

Much like the other services, the USAF not 

only has programs in development now 

which support the concepts contained within

the third offset strategy, but is also building 

a research and development portfolio for future systems that will enable the DoD to operationalize the third offset strategy. In September 2015, the United States Air Force released the Air Force Future Operating Concept (AFFOC), a document which illustrates

and explains how the Air Force will evolve 

to perform its mission in the future joint operational and strategic environment in the 

year 2035.42 Broadly speaking, it outlines 

how the USAF will evolve from a service

that defeats it adversaries by conducting 

simultaneous, parallel operations to paralyze

enemy’s decision-making capabilities, into a 

service that stymies an enemy’s ability to respond by presenting more problems than the 

enemy can react to.43

While the basic functions and missions of 

the USAF will not drastically change over 

the next 20 years, the breadth and scope of

those missions will continue to evolve. 

Whereas today’s Air Force focuses on air

and space superiority, with the integration of 

cyberspace into every facet of future operations, tomorrow’s Air Force will rely on 

Adaptive Domain Control (ADC), simultaneously operating within air, space, and cyberspace against enemy targets in all domains.44 To do this, the USAF of the future 

will integrate air, space, and cyberspace

command and control (C2) under one command and control function termed multi-domain command and control (MDC2). No

longer will C2 of air, space, and cyberspace

be relegated to separate organizations. Instead, C2 will be integrated seamlessly “under one roof” to make overall C2 more agile

and responsive across all domains.45

Campaigning Fall 2016 63
The key to this evolution is what the USAF

has termed “operational agility.” On the one 

hand, operational agility refers to the 

USAF’s ability to develop multiple approaches to solving operational problems. It

also refers to the ability to switch rapidly between operational approaches based on 

changes in the tactical and operational environment, or as the AFFOC puts it, “the ability to act appropriately within a changing

context.”46 However, this operational agility comes at a price, and that price is the 

continued reliance on new technology. Fortunately, the technologies proposed under 

the third offset go hand in hand with the new

operating concepts contained within the AFFOC. 

On the non-kinetic side, learning machines

will be central to MDC2 and ADC, both for

helping to predict future events, and to better

understand and react to events as they unfold. The AFFOC envisions learning machines that can fuse date from social media,

real-time internet activity, and multi-source 

intelligence and analyze trends to identify

patterns and anticipate behaviors.47 These

systems will then employ human-machine

collaboration techniques to provide human 

operators air analysis of the situation, predictions of possible future outcomes, and

potential courses of action to consider. Additionally, the AFFOC envisions the use of 

human-machine collaboration in areas where

humans are unable to process data quickly 

enough.48 For example, in cyberspace operations, humans will likely be unable to make

decisions in real time, and instead will predelegate many operations to computer systems. On the flip-side, humans will be able

to react better to and understand unforeseen 

circumstances. Human-machine collaboration will help divide tasks between humans 

and computers, allowing humans and computers to do what they do best in an integrated manner. 

On the kinetic side, the Air Force is already

embracing human-machine teaming and automated weapons. While the USAF is comfortable with operating manned and unmanned aircraft in close proximity, directly

teaming manned and unmanned platforms

are unexplored territory. The USAF has begun basic research into the subject and the 

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) recently unveiled a new initiative focused on 

understanding many of the fundamental issues associated with teaming, such as trust

and other psychological issues.49 The AFFOC envisions mixed formations of manned

and unmanned aircraft. However, instead of 

requiring the aircrew of the manned platforms to fly the unmanned platforms remotely, these future unmanned platforms

would be capable of fully autonomous operations when provided with mission-type orders from the formation lead.50 Additionally, the USAF is pushing the boundaries 

with respect to the use of fully automated

weapons. In concert with the U.S. Navy, the 

Air Force is developing Long Range AntiShip Missile (LRASM), which incorporates

varying degrees of autonomy for routing and

targeting.51

Third Offset Way Ahead

Despite the fact the services are actively

working to develop technologies and operatCampaigning Fall 2016 64
ing concepts compatible with the third offset

strategy, there is still much work to be done. 

In order for the third offset to be truly effective, it needs to be more than a procurement

strategy for the individual services. It needs 

to evolve into a coherent, department-wide

strategy that underpins a larger and comprehensive national strategy. In the case of the 

first two offset strategies, the military strategy was coupled with a broader national

strategy. The New Look dovetailed with a 

more comprehensive strategy meant to deter

Soviet aggression by threatening the use of 

nuclear weapons not just at the point of conflict, but more broadly against Soviet forces

across the globe. In essence, it sought to

raise the stakes of smaller conventional conflict so high as to give the Soviets pause before they acted aggressively.52 Similarly,

the second offset strategy sought to integrate

across the service components in a joint 

manner, leveraging the strengths of each service. Beginning with airborne ISR assets

able to detect and locate Soviet forces deep

behind the front lines, to digital datalinks 

able to pass information to platforms and

weapons irrespective of service, to longrange fires and maneuver forces able to

strike deep and exploit enemy weaknesses,

the second offset evolved from a collection

of technological marvels into a joint and integrated military strategy.

In much the same way, for the third offset

strategy to be truly effective, it must be coupled with a coherent military and national 

strategy. To be sure, both the first and second offset strategies began with a recognition of U.S. vulnerability, namely in the face

of overwhelming Soviet numerical strength. 

Over time, however, they matured into fully

developed strategies with operating concepts 

tailored to fit the operational and strategic

problems if their day.

The roots of the third offset strategy, however, arise from a different problem. As

Deputy Secretary of Defense Work stated,

the U.S. is currently in a position of military

preeminence. However, during the time we

have been mired in conflict in Afghanistan

and Iraq, other nations have learned from

our experiences and are building military capabilities that directly counter ours.53 Specifically, he noted that the third offset is focused on maintaining DoD’s power projection capabilities into the future when he said,

“Our perceived inability to achieve a power 

projection over-match, or an over-match in

operations, clearly undermine, we think, our 

ability to deter potential adversaries. And we

simply cannot allow that to happen.”54 In

many ways, maintaining a technological advantage can be more difficult than it is for

an adversary to narrow the gap, more so in a 

free and open society, in which our military

strength is dependent on free enterprise.55 

At this stage in the development of the third

offset, the key will be to approach the problem from multiple directions, and not limit

ourselves to one or two approaches.56 Because the nature of our next great challenge

is unclear, we need not limit ourselves artificially at this stage in the game.

 

Finally, developing a coherent strategy takes

time, more so when the strategy is intimately

linked with research, development, and procurement. The first offset took only a few

Campaigning Fall 2016 65
years to enact because the means were already at hand. The United States had the 

upper hand with respect to nuclear weapons, 

and the New Look was less about developing new technology than it was about utilizing existing technology in a new way. The

second offset, however, took considerably 

more time. Envisioned in the early 1970s, 

many of the weapons and platforms which

came out of the second offset were not operational until the mid to late-80s. In 1976, 

then DARPA director Dr. George Heilmeier

wrote a short article for Air University Review entitled “Guarding Against Technological Surprise.” In it, he daydreamed about 

future technologies he envisioned could revolutionize the way the U.S. conducted warfare if, and only if, the U.S. were the first to

adopt those technologies.57 Some of the 

technologies he envisioned, such as spaced

based chemical lasers, never came to pass, at

least not in the form he imagined. Others,

such as chip-based infrared sensors and

adaptive optics, were developed over the intervening decades and are now ubiquitous 

both on and off the battlefield. The point is

that developing such technologies to maturity takes time, and not every promising

technology will mature and bear fruit. Strategy development is a dynamic process in

much the same way as technology development, and the final iteration of the third offset will likely be very different than we envision it today. 

Conclusion 

The third offset strategy is much more than

an assemblage of new weapons and support 

systems. The third offset is an idea which

seeks to combine new technologies and innovative operating concepts into a strategy

which capitalizes our strengths against an

uncertain adversary in a time of fiscal austerity. While the services have already

stepped up to the plate and are actively

aligning their R&D and procurement priorities with the proposed third offset strategy,

the path to an executable strategy is a long 

one. While the New Look only took a few

years to become a reality, the second offset

took decades to realize. Not only did the 

technology take years to mature, but the operational concepts which made those technologies so effective could not mature until 

the technologies were themselves fully developed. Dr. Heilmeier encouraged a culture within the DoD that put commanders

and technologists in close contact, facilitating dialogue between those developing new

technologies, and those entrusted with their

use in war.58 Ultimately, the success or failure of the third offset will hinge on how well

the services and research laboratories are

able to work together over the next decade

and develop new concepts and ideas into a 

flexible and workable strategy able to cope

with the uncertainty of the future.

Author Biographies. 

CDR Ted Ricciardella, USN, is a naval flight officer

stationed at Oceana NAS, VA. 

LtCol David Berke, USMC, is serving on the Joint

Staff, J-8.

Lt Col Eric Hresko, USAF, is a Fellow at Blue Horizons, Montgomery, AL. 

LTC David Zinn, USA, is a Fellow at Stanford University.

Campaigning Fall 2016 66
1 Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, ”’Defense Innovation Days’ 

Opening Keynote’” (address, Southeastern New England Defense

Industry Alliance, Newport, Rhode Island, September 3, 2014).

http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/605602

2 Robert Martinage, Toward a New Offset Strategy: Exploiting

U.S. Long-term Advantages to Restore U.S. Global Power Projection Capability, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategy and Budgetary Assessments, 2014), 5. 3 Ibid., 2. 4 Ibid., 7. 5 Herman S. Wolk, “The ‘New Look’”, Air Force Magazine, August 2003, 81. 6 At the time the New Look was not called an offset strategy, but it

possessed all the attributes of one. 7 Wolk, “The ‘New Look’”, 82. 8 Martinage, Toward a New Offset Strategy, 13. 9 Ibid., 13. 10 Ibid., 14. 11 Ibid., 14. 12 Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The Third Offset

Strategy and its Implications for Partners and Allies” (address,

Washington DC, 28 Jan 2015). http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/606641/the-thirdus-offset-strategy-and-its-implications-for-partners-and-allies 13 Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The Third Offset

Strategy” (address, Reagan Defense Forum, Simi Valley, CA, 7 

November 2015). http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/SpeechView/Article/628246/reagan-defense-forum-the-third-offset-strategy

14 Aaron Mehta, “Work Outlines Key Steps in Third Offset Tech

Development,” DefenseNews, 14 December 2015, http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/innovation/2015/12/14/work-thirdoffset-tech-development-pentagon-russia/77283732. 15 Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The Third Offset

Strategy” (address, Reagan Defense Forum, Simi Valley, CA, 7 

November 2015). 16 Aaron Mehta, “Work Outlines Key,” DefenseNews, 14 December 2015. 17 DOD Directive (DODD) 3000.09, Autonomy in Weapon Systems, 13. 18 David Vergun, “Army Seeking ‘3rd Offset Strategy’ to dominate

enemy,” WWW.ARMY.MIL, 22 February 2016,

https://www.army.mil/article/162768/Army_seeking__3rd_offset_strategy__to_dominate_enemy/

19 Perkins, D. (2014). TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1, The U.S. Army

Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World, 2020-2040. Fort

Eustis, VA: Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command

20 Jen Judson, “US Army Putting Finishing Touches on Autonomous Systems Strategy,” DefenseNews, 17 March 2016,

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/show-daily/ausaglobal-force/2016/03/17/army-autonomous-system-strategy/81897736/.

21 Gen Raymond T. Odierno, “Force 2025 and Beyond: How the

Army is Preparing for its Future,” Defense One, 30 July 2015,

http://defenseone.com/ideas/2015/07/force-2025-beyond-howarmy-preparing-for-its-future/118723/ 22 Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “AWA is NOT NIE: Army Tries to Buy

Weapons That Work,” Breaking Defense, 1 April 2015,

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/04/awa-is-not-nie-army-wrestleswith-requirements-reform/ 23 STAND-TO!: U.S. Army Human Dimension Concept,

https://www.army.mil/standto/archive_2014-07-03/ 24 J F Dunford, J W Greenert, and P F Zukunft, “A Cooperative

Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready”,

March 2015, available at www navy.mil/. 

25 Mackenzie Eaglen, “What is the Third Offset Strategy?” Real

Clear Defense, February 16, 2016. https://www.aei.org/publication/what-is-th-third-offset-strategy/. 26 “Navy EA-18G Growlers ready at Osan for Vigilant Ace 16”,

Osan Air Base public website, 8 November 2015, 

http://www.osan.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/3958/Article/640070/navy-ea-18g. 27 Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Faster Than Thought: DARPA, Artificial Intelligence, and the Third Offset Strategy” Breaking Defense,

February 11, 2016. http://breakingdefense.com/2016/02/fasterthan-thought-darpa-artificial-intelligence-the-third-offset-strategy/. 28 Katie Lange, “3rd Offset Strategy 101: What It Is, What the

Tech Focuses Are, DOD Live, 30 March 2016,

http://www.dodlive.mil/index.php/2016/03/3rd-offset-strategy101-what-it-is-what-the-tech-focusesare/#sthash.LUD40mwn.dpuf

29 “Deputy Secretary of Defense, Senior U.S. Navy Leadership

Join DARPA Director to Christen ACTUV Prototype Vessel.” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency News and Events. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, April 11, 2016. 30 Barrett, D and Mills, J 2013, “Aye, Navy Robot.” U.S. Naval

Institute Proceedings, 139, 4, pp. 58-63, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 9 May 2016. 31 “Boeing/DARPA Demonstrate UCAV Interoperability with

Manned Aircraft,” The Free Library, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Boeing%2fDARPA+Demonstrate+UCAV+Interoperability+with+Manned+Aircraft.-a0131731869 32 Carr, Nevin. “The Second Derivative and the Third Offset.” 

Web log post. USNI Blog. USNI, April 1, 2016. Web. 33 Barrett, D and Mills, J 2013, “Aye, Navy Robot.” U.S. Naval

Institute Proceedings, 139, 4, pp. 58-63, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 9 May 2016. 34 Ibid. 35 http://www.mccdc.marines.mil/ 36 Department of the Navy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, March 2015. 37 David Ochamanek, “The Role of Maritime and Air Power in

DoD’s Third Offset Strategy” (testimony, United States House of

Representatives, 2 December 2014). 38 Hope Hodge Seck, “Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule

Due to Noise Concerns,” Military.com, 22 December 2015,

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/12/22/marine-corpsshelves-futuristic-robo-mule-due-to-noise-concerns.html 39 Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The Third Offset

Strategy and its Implications for Partners and Allies” (address,

Washington DC, 28 Jan 2015). http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/606641/the-thirdus-offset-strategy-and-its-implications-for-partners-and-allies 40 http://www.mccdc.marines.mil/Portals/172/Docs/MCCDC/EF21/EF21_USMC_Capstone_Concept.pdf

41 http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.NAVAIRNewsStory&id=5815

42 Department of the Air Force, Air Force Future Operating Concept, September 2015,4. 43 Ibid., 7. 44 Ibid., 18. 45 Ibid., 18. 46 Ibid., 7. 47 Ibid., 24. 48 Ibid., 24. 49 Department of the Air Force, Broad Agency Announcement:

Trust in Autonomy in Human Machine Teaming, 21 Sept 2015. 

www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=8e61fdc774a736f13cacbec1b278bbbb&tab=core&_cview=1

50 Air Force Future Operating Concept, 22.

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 67
 

51 “LRASM Missiles: Reaching for a Long-Range Punch,” Defense Industry Daily, 17 May 2016, http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/lrasm-missiles-reaching-for-a-long-reach-punch06752/

52 Wolk, “The ‘New Look’”, 83. 53 Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The Third Offset

Strategy” (address, Reagan Defense Forum, Simi Valley, CA, 7 

November 2015). http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/SpeechView/Article/628246/reagan-defense-forum-the-third-offset-strategy

54 Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The Third Offset

Strategy and its Implications for Partners and Allies” (address,

Washington DC, 28 Jan 2015). http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/606641/the-thirdus-offset-strategy-and-its-implications-for-partners-and-allies 55 George H. Heilmeier, “Guarding Against Technological Surprise,” Air University Review (Sept-Oct 1976), http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1976/sep-oct/heilmeier.html

56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 George H. Heilmeier, “Guarding Against Technological Surprise,” Air University Review (Sept-Oct 1976), http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1976/sep-oct/heilmeier.html

Campaigning Fall 2016 68
Developing an Operational 

Approach for the Transition from

War to Peace through Stabilization, 

Reconstruction, and Development: 

Understanding Strategic Direction

Thomas J. Snukis

The Islamic State (ISIS) dominates today’s 

headlines with their violent approach and 

apocalyptic goals. Terrorist attacks in San 

Bernardino, Brussels, Paris, Orlando and a 

host of other assassinations and kidnappings 

mark this group as one that must be 

addressed. As national security decision 

makers across the globe attempt to make 

sense of ISIS’s actions and craft appropriate 

responses, Sun Tzu provides sage counsel 

when he stated “War is a matter of vital 

importance to the state; the province of life 

or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is 

mandatory it be thoroughly studied.”1 

While Sun Tzu’s insight is no revelation to 

most, multiple assessments of recent U.S.

governmental operations in the Middle East 

region highlight that Operation Iraqi 

Freedom (OIF) and its aftermath absolutely 

warranted more thought and study than the 

U.S. national security apparatus allocated 

and applied.2 Sun Tzu’s advice, ignored or 

overlooked at multiple levels during the 

design, planning, preparation, and execution 

of OIF, must be applied whenever the use of 

American force is contemplated, and 

especially to the current ISIS dilemma. 

During OIF and Operation Enduring 

Freedom (OEF), most military experts 

recognized that the United States excelled in 

its ability to conduct combat operations 

against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Sadaam 

Hussein, and the Iraqi Army, but then 

struggled with the resultant transition from 

war to a sustainable peace. As General 

(Retired) Anthony Zinni USMC, former 

commander of U.S. Central Command, 

stated regarding the use of force “The most 

important question is ...and then what?”3 In 

his view what happens once the shooting 

stops and the dust clears is extremely 

important – essential! Specifically today, 

what happens once the ISIS threat is 

removed? How will the area be stabilized, 

reconstructed, and then developed to ensure 

the root causes and drivers of the ISIS 

movement are mitigated? What will fill the 

vacuum? 

As current strategic thought on U.S. Middle 

Eastern relations and engagement develops 

and refines, especially the approach towards 

the Islamic State, these questions must be 

answered leveraging the hard earned lessons 

of OIF, OEF, and other operations from the 

past to properly inform the present and 

anticipate the future. This is the first in a 

series of essays for the Campaigning journal 

that will focus on the transition from war to 

peace through stabilization, reconstruction, 

and development. This essay concentrates 

on identifying the essential U.S. 

governmental strategic guidance, concepts, 

and doctrine surrounding stabilization, 

reconstruction, and development. The series 

will look at the guidance, relevant literature, 

and lessons from history, including the 

lessons from OIF and OEF, through an 

operational lens in an attempt to provide the 

U.S. national security policymaker, 

diplomat, Joint warfighter, and other 

governmental agencies with a framework 

Campaigning Fall 2016 69
that can be used as a starting point in future 

endeavors. 

United States Government Strategic 

Directives, Stability Concepts, and 

Doctrine

Julian Corbett, an early 20th Century naval 

theoretician, in his book Some Principles of 

Maritime Strategy, promoted the benefit of 

understanding the concepts and theories 

underlying a specific issue. He directly 

extolled the value of concepts, “clear 

conceptions of the ideas and factors 

involved in a war problem, and a definite 

exposition of the relations between them, 

were in his eyes the remedy for loose and 

purposeless discussion...In this way we 

prepare the apparatus of practical 

discussion...” Corbett further advised, 

“Without such an apparatus no two men can 

even think on the same line; much less can 

they ever hope to detach the real point of 

difference than divides them and isolate it 

for quiet solution.”4 Without the essential 

requirement for developing a conceptual 

understanding among practitioners so that 

they can begin from a common starting 

point, we often find that too much time is 

spent debating the framework and not 

enough time analyzing the specific issue 

under consideration. 

Joint Publication (JP) 5-0, Joint Operation 

Planning, provides a conceptual method 

with which the Joint commander can 

develop an operational approach. This 

method or framework, called operational 

design, facilitates the development of a 

description of the broad actions the force 

must take to achieve the desired military end 

state. Within this design methodology, three 

distinct frames assist in the development of 

that approach: 1) understand the strategic 

direction; 2) understand the operational 

environment; and 3) define the problem.5 

This essay will focus on the first frame of 

operational design, which is to develop an 

understanding of the strategic direction. An 

‘upfront’ appreciation of the strategic 

direction, concepts, and doctrine develops a 

shared understanding amongst the key U.S. 

governmental stakeholders, classifying 

several foundational issues that directly 

impact stabilization and reconstruction in 

order to “isolate it for quiet solution.” 

Within this section we will identify and 

provide a synopsis of the following: the U.S. 

Strategic Direction, Operational Concepts, 

and evolving Doctrine governing postconflict Stabilization and Reconstruction. 

Strategic Direction

National Security Policy Directive (NSPD44) Management of Interagency 

Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and 

Stabilization, 2005 

NSPD-44, signed by President George W. 

Bush, laid out the directive “to promote the 

security of the United States through 

improved coordination, planning, and 

implementation for reconstruction and 

stabilization assistance for foreign states and 

regions at risk of, in, or in transition from 

conflict or civil strife.”6

 This directive

highlights the essential need for 

coordination among U.S. governmental 

agencies and departments, especially 

Campaigning Fall 2016 70
between the U.S. State and Defense 

departments. It assigns responsibilities but 

does not address the specifics of how to 

conduct these types of operations. Overall, 

the directive is useful to the U.S. national 

security apparatus as it establishes 

responsibilities and highlights the critical 

nature of solid intergovernmental 

coordination. It does, however, generate 

confusion by implying that reconstruction 

has precedence over stability by how it 

places reconstruction before stabilization in 

its description. This becomes a trend, it 

seems, as most U.S. governmental direction 

relies on the World War II model, wherein 

the U.S. governmental resources were 

extensive, and which leveraged better 

starting conditions in both Germany and 

Japan. Each had unconditionally 

surrendered; the populations were warweary and not supportive of continued 

resistance; and the populations were fairly 

homogeneous, educated, literate, and had 

experience with effective governmental 

institutions. The starting conditions in both 

post-conflict Afghanistan and Iraq were 

much more nuanced with tribal, religious, 

and sectarian divisions and scarcer U.S.

resources. The tougher starting conditions in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with limited 

investment of personnel and time, require a 

more sequenced and prioritized approach 

than in the post-WWII world.7

 

Department of Defense Instruction 

(DoDI) 3000.05 Stability Operations, 

September 16, 2009 

The goal of this directive, produced eight 

years after the start of Operation Enduring 

Freedom, was to ensure that the U.S. Armed 

services emphasized and executed stability 

operations to the same high standard that 

they established and met when conducting

combat operations. Six years after President 

Bush declared “mission accomplished” in 

Iraq and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld

stated that the U.S. was in a period of 

“stabilization and reconstruction,” the 

evidence was underwhelming that the U.S.

military and the U.S. government as whole 

had adequately embraced the essential work 

of post-conflict stability.8 DoDI 3000.05 

was published to compel the Department of 

Defense to establish and maintain the 

“capability and capacity to conduct stability 

operations activities to fulfill DoD 

component responsibilities under national 

and international law.” 9 This directive 

properly accounts for the essential activities 

necessary to create stability post-conflict. 

Moreover, the directive established that the 

“capabilities shall be compatible...[with] 

other U.S. Government agencies...and when 

directed the department can:

1) Establish civil security and civil control. 

2) Restore or provide essential services.

3) Repair critical infrastructure.

4) Provide humanitarian assistance.”10

Concepts

United States Joint Forces Command 

Stability Operations Joint Operating

Concept (JOC) 2004 

After the U.S. Army published the initial 

FM 3-07, Stability Operations, in 2003, 

United States Joint Forces Command 

(USJFCOM) followed it up by publishing 

Campaigning Fall 2016 71
the Stability Operations Joint Operating 

Concept (JOC) for the Department of 

Defense in September of 2004. Synthesized 

lessons from both Operation Enduring 

Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom 

started to emerge from the experiences of 

the U.S. Armed Forces. USJFCOM based 

their thinking on four fictional cases to 

generate their concept. The JOC enhanced 

the body of knowledge on stability in two 

key areas. First, it proposed ten guiding 

principles for the joint force commander’s 

thoughts on the conduct of stability 

operations pre, during, and post- conflict 

with an eye towards achieving a more 

coherent and stable post-conflict 

environment. These principles are:

1. Organize military and civilian agencies to 

achieve unity of purpose and coherency of 

action.

2. Incorporate information operations into 

every action, tactical and operational. 

3. Impose security by adopting an assertive 

posture. 

4. Defeat those violently opposed to 

stability.

5. Neutralize, co-opt, or induce others who 

threaten stability.

6. Act with precision quickly: Balance 

restraint and overmatching power. 

7. Act from a position of legitimacy.

8. Pursue interim conditions for “next state” 

in the transition process. 

9. Operate within the law. 

10. Develop reliable local intelligence. 11

Second, the Stability Operations JOC 

addressed internal adversaries within the 

post-conflict environment and outlined the 

concept of spoilers. They identified three 

categories of potential spoilers that the Joint 

force must account for during post-conflict 

operations. To be successful, the Joint force 

must clearly understand each spoiler 

category and how to account for each as 

they attempt to create a stabilized postconflict environment. The three categories 

of spoilers and recommended Joint Force 

actions regarding each are:

• Total Spoilers are those individuals who 

have no stake in reestablishing civil 

society...they are irreconcilably opposed to 

the U.S. and multinational position. They 

must be killed, captured, and defeated. 

• Limited Spoilers may oppose assimilation 

into society out of fear of their former 

superiors or out of a concern for a loss of 

prestige or income. They must be included 

in the emerging post-conflict political 

process or coopted for the benefit of the new 

order. If they are ignored they may become

total spoilers.

• Greedy Spoilers act to satisfy selfish, 

usually economic, interests. If their actions 

are criminal in nature they must be arrested 

and dealt with in accordance with local laws. 

This may be problematic if the rule of law 

has been removed or is non-existent because 

of preceding circumstances. If they are 

ordinary citizens just looking to gain an 

advantage in the emerging post-conflict 

order they can be co-opted. 

Failure to account for each category of 

spoilers or to mis-categorize spoilers will

Campaigning Fall 2016 72
generate challenges to the development of a 

safe and secure post-conflict environment.12 

United States Joint Forces Command 

Military Support to Stabilization, Security, 

Transition, and Reconstruction Operations 

Joint Operating Concept (JOC) 2006 

A second JOC, the Military Support to 

Stabilization, Security, Transition, and 

Reconstruction Operations Joint Operating 

Concept, provides a wealth of information 

for both the policymaker and the operators. 

They identify six major mission elements 

(MME’s) or lines of operation that the U.S.

government must perform. Those MME’s 

are:

• Establish and maintain a safe, secure 

environment 

• Deliver humanitarian assistance

• Reconstruct critical infrastructure and 

restore essential services

• Support economic development 

• Establish representative, effective 

governance and the rule of law 

• Conduct strategic communication 

As we will see with the subsequent 

documents, the MME’s accurately lay out 

the basic activities required to create 

stability. Unfortunately this document as the 

others also reinforces the notion that all 

activities must be done in parallel or

concurrently. “These...MMEs...are

executed in a concurrent manner and are

integrated and tailored to the specific 

situation.”13 

Doctrine

United States Army Field Manual (FM) 3-

07 Stability Operations 2003, 2008, and 

2014 

The first stability document that emerged 

was the United States Army Field Manual 

(FM) 3-07 Stability Operations published in 

October 2003. Updated in 2008 and again in 

2014, FM 3-07 contributes “to the 

Army...by providing tactical guidance on 

the conduct of operations focused on 

stability.... The principal audience for FM

3-07 is leaders and planners at the battalion 

level and above.” FM 3-07 establishes five 

primary stability tasks for the Army. Those 

tasks are:

• Establish civil security.

• Establish civil control.

• Restore essential services.

• Support to governance. 

• Support to economic and infrastructure 

development.14

Additionally, FM 3-07 recognizes the need 

for a near, mid, and longer-term approach to 

stability through identification of the three 

phases of the stability framework—initial 

response, transformation, and fostering 

sustainability. Unfortunately, the manual 

neglects to address the temporal aspect of 

stability with any real rigor or precision.15 

Overall, the manual does a credible job of 

identifying many of the intricacies and

variables involved in stability operations but 

fails to organize the whole in a coherent and 

easily understandable manner. The manual

tries to do too much, which ultimately 

diffuses the essence of stability operations 

Campaigning Fall 2016 73
and gives the impression that the 

practitioners must do it all, and discounting 

the reality of available resources.

United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint 

Publication (JP) 3-07 Stability Operations 

2011 

Despite the joint nature of the forces 

involved in Operations Enduring and Iraqi 

Freedom, it took ten years for the Joint Staff 

to publish joint doctrine covering stability 

operations. Once published, Joint 

Publication (JP) 3-07 captures many of the 

best practices, insights, observations, and 

concepts from a variety of sources, but it has 

not analyzed stability operations in a holistic 

manner nor has it synthesized the available

lessons learned. While many other Joint 

doctrinal publications address stability 

operations, JP 3-07 has primacy and must 

focus the efforts of the Joint Force 

Commander and his staff on the nuances and 

intricacies of this extremely difficult mission 

set. For example, General Rupert Smith in

his book, Utility of Force, highlights the 

difficulty in operating within the population. 

He terms it “war amongst the people.” He 

states that “war amongst the people is 

different...Civilians are the targets, 

objectives to be won, as much as an 

opposing force.”16 Although JP 3-07 stresses 

that “the JFC [Joint Force Commander] 

must understand the context in which 

stability operations are executed,” the 

publication does not adequately discuss the 

contextual nuances and intricacies of the 

post-conflict environment in any meaningful 

detail. This extends to the temporal 

dimension of stability operations as well as 

the coverage of the Joint functions. JP 3-07 

establishes three broad categories for 

stability missions, tasks, and activities 

accounting for the temporal dimension. 

Those activities are initial response 

activities, transformational activities, and 

activities that foster sustainability. 

Additionally, JP 3-07 addresses the fragile 

states framework and defines each category 

that a certain state may reside in. This 

difference must be accounted for in a postconflict environment. If the starting 

conditions of the state are not properly 

understood, the level of work required 

during the initial response phase will be 

underestimated. Joint Pub 3-07 also defines 

five Stability Operations Functions. Adapted 

from the U.S. Institute of Peace publication, 

Guiding Principles for Stabilization and 

Reconstruction, the five functions are: 

Security, Humanitarian Assistance, 

Economic Stabilization and Infrastructure, 

Rule of Law, and Governance and 

Participation.

17

Conclusion 

When developing an operational approach, 

the Joint commander must begin by 

analyzing the strategic guidance documents 

that underpin the desired end state as well as 

the doctrine that provides the framework for 

action. This essay analyzed and assessed the 

relevant strategic direction to U.S. Joint

Forces and other U.S. Governmental 

Agencies regarding the importance of and 

the conduct of stabilization, reconstruction, 

and development activities following a 

destabilizing event such as a war, armed 

intervention, or a natural disaster. In future 

Campaigning Fall 2016 74
Campaigning articles, we will address the 

operational environment from several 

different perspectives, and then conclude by 

attempting to define the problem facing 

today’s Joint force regarding stabilization, 

reconstruction, and development. 

1 Sunzi, and Samuel B. Griffith. 1963. The Art of War. New York: 

Oxford University Press.

2 Numerous publications have highlighted the weaknesses of U.S.

strategic/operational design, planning, preparation, execution, and 

assessment. Among several considered for this paper are: Ricks, 

Thomas E. 2007. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in 

Iraq. New York: Penguin Books. , Gordon, Michael R., and 

Bernard E. Trainor. 2006. Cobra II: The Inside Story Of the 

Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. New York: Pantheon Books. , 

Woodward, Bob. 2006. State of Denial. Princeton, NJ: Simon & 

Schuster. , Wright, Donald P., and Timothy R. Reese. 2008. The 

United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-

January 2005: On Point II: Transition To the New Campaign. Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press. , United States. 

2009. Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. 

Washington, DC: Special Inspector General, Iraq Reconstruction. 3 Zinni, Anthony C. 4 April 2003. Operational art [videorecording 

(DVD)]: non-traditional missions. ATHENA DATABASE 4 Corbett, Julian Stafford. 1911. Some Principles of Maritime 

Strategy. London, New York: Longmans, Green and Co. 5-6. 5 United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Operation Planning. 

Joint Publication 5-0.

Washington, DC: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2011. III-7. 6 Office of the President of the United States. National Security 

Presidential

Directive/ NSPD-44. Washington, DC: The White House, 2005. 3. 7 Ibid., 4-6.

Author Biography.

Thomas J. Snukis is a retired U.S. Army infantry 

officer and is an associate professor at the Joint 

Forces Staff College.

8 Rumsfeld, Donald. News Conference with Hamid Karzai. Kabul, 

1 May 2003.

9 Department of Defense. Department of Defense Instruction 

3000.05 Stability

Operations Washington, District of Columbia: United States 

Department of

Defense, 2009.

10 Ibid. 2. 11 United States Joint Forces Command. Stability Operations Joint 

Operating

Concept. Suffolk, VA: Government Printing Office, 2004.

12 Ibid. 13 United States Joint Forces Command. Military Support to 

Stabilization, Security,

Transition, and Reconstruction Operations Joint Operating 

Concept.

Suffolk, VA: Government Printing Office, 2006, iii.

14 U.S. Department of the Army. Stability Operations. Army Field 

Manual 3-07.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Army, June 2, 2014, iii. 15 Ibid. 16 Smith, Rupert. 2008. The Utility of Force: The Art of War In The 

Modern World. New York: Vintage. 17 United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. Stability Operations. Joint 

Publication 3-07.

Washington, DC: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2011. III-1 to III-59.

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 75
On the Horizons: Leveraging 

Foresight for National Security 

Reform 

Dr. Daniel H. McCauley

I was on Capitol Hill last summer when I 

heard the first rumblings of a new 

Goldwater-Nichols Defense reorganization 

initiative proposed by Senator John McCain. 

A few days after I returned to the Joint 

Forces Staff College I received a call from 

an action officer on the Joint Staff asking for 

some thoughts on a Goldwater-Nichols 

(GN) II initiative. After a short discussion, 

we determined there were any number of 

initiatives that could be undertaken but it 

essentially depended upon the vision that 

senior leaders had in mind. Since that time, 

I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the 

proposed initiative a bit more. 

What I have come to realize is that the 

Department of Defense (DoD) does not need 

a Goldwater-Nichols DoD Reorganization 

Act II. Rather, what the DoD needs is a 

McCain Defense Reorganization Act I. I 

recently had the opportunity to listen to very 

senior military officials discuss the subject 

as well as to see some of the Joint Staffs’

recommendations. What I have found is that 

any reference to Goldwater-Nichols 

subconsciously, or consciously, preserves

most of the underlying paradigmatic 

assumptions of the 1986 framework. These 

assumptions remain unexamined and 

continue to serve as the primary organizing 

principles for any proposed reorganization. 

Any approach that starts with the past and 

works forward to determine what type of 

reform is needed will likely result in a 

system framework that serves yesterday’s 

Joint force very well, today’s force 

adequately, and next year’s force poorly. 

This bureaucracy-preserving approach 

reverberates with the narrow, short-sighted 

thinking and compromise that undermines 

any meaningful or needed change by 

retaining historical equities and protecting 

the status quo. At best, this approach 

involves some “tinkering” on the margins, 

but clearly serves to preserve the certainties 

of the past. Unfortunately, the past is behind 

us and a future full of uncertainties is staring 

us in the face. To effectively meet these 

uncertainties, bold innovations are necessary 

to transform a national security system 

mired in the organizations, processes, and 

systems of the 1980s into one that addresses 

the realities of the 21st century. 

Given future uncertainties and knowing that 

the systems of the past are inadequate, the 

question becomes how does the DoD 

reorganize? Before specific organizations, 

processes, and products are discussed, which 

is where most of the current reform 

discussion centers, a more general 

discussion of the desired system, specifically 

the attributes, values, and competencies of 

the Joint force, must be defined and 

described. The U.S. national security 

interests and desired goals should form the 

initial framework for any reform. In 

addition, possible, probable, and preferable 

strategic environmental conditions must be 

analyzed and assessed to provide additional 

context for any new framework. Only after 

this broad visualization is established can 

specific courses of action be considered. 

Campaigning Fall 2016 76
The purpose of this essay is not to present a 

specific DoD reorganization proposal, which 

is well beyond the scope of this essay, but 

rather to present a method with which to 

begin a thoughtful reform process. The 

‘Three Horizons’ is a futures technique that 

facilitates the assessment of the 

inadequacies of a current system, identifies 

those needed attributes of a desired system, 

and serves as a means to understand the 

dynamics of the transition between the two 

systems.1 In this essay, I’ll broadly review 

the current DoD national security system, 

provide an overview of the Three Horizons, 

and use the tool to facilitate the discussion 

of a future national security system. 

Background 

When the 1986 Defense Reform Act was 

passed, it was a bi-polar world in which the 

United States and NATO stood toe-to-toe 

with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact 

competing for world hegemony. The 

competing ideologies were capitalism and 

communism, nuclear weapons were the 

mainstays of deterrence arsenals, space and 

precision-guided weapons were still in their 

infancy, and Apple had recently introduced 

the first Macintosh computer. In the U.S., 

Ronald Reagan was leading the rebirth of 

America, while in the U.S.S.R., Mikhail 

Gorbachev was introducing perestroika and 

glasnost. Among other notable global 

events, Iran and Iraq were still heavily 

involved in a regional war, the U.S. had 

conducted regime change in Grenada, and 

the Soviets were mired in their occupation 

of Afghanistan. In addition, the world’s 

population was 4.9 billion, the Dow Jones 

Industrial average was 1895.95, and the 

median U.S. household income was 

$24,897.2

 

Over the next 30 years, the national security 

system designed to fight the Soviets failed to 

keep pace with a world that has not only 

continued to change, but has changed at 

increasing rates.3 When one considers the 

changes in global population and 

demographics, gender and sexual roles, 

urbanization, the environment, health, 

transportation, communication, information, 

the identity and role of the state, among 

other trends, the world is a vastly different 

place and far more complex than it was three 

decades ago.4 Given the complexity of this

global security environment, the capacity of 

the current defense enterprise is taxed 

beyond its limits—the system is overloaded 

and cannot properly perform crucial 

functions.5 This is the impetus behind 

Senator McCain’s recent Senate hearings on 

National Defense Reform and a direct 

outcome of the handicaps and the specific 

shortcomings of the current national security 

system over the past 15 years.6

 

The Three Horizons

The ‘Three Horizons’ is a strategic thinking 

tool used to connect the present with the 

desired future while identifying the 

anticipated tensions, trends, and disruptions 

that might occur as one transitions from one 

system to another. Research shows that all 

systems evolve along an S-curve and lose 

their fitness over time. When using the 

Three Horizons tool, the first task is to 

identify the existing system and the 

challenges to its sustainability. This is also 

known as making the case for change 

(Horizon 1). As the external environment 

Campaigning Fall 2016 77
changes over time, the system in question 

loses ‘fit’ aspects. Commensurate with an 

analysis of the current system, a 

complementary task is to think through the 

desired end state (or the conditions that 

attainment of stated objectives are 

anticipated to create) or the ideal system and 

the emerging options (Figure 1). The ideal 

or desired system is only one of many 

potential futures, so other futures that can 

displace the current system must also be 

identified. By analyzing the historical and 

current trends, the identification of elements 

in the present can provide an azimuth check 

for the likelihood of the desired system 

(Horizon 3), while maintaining awareness of 

all options that could lead to 

transformational change. 

 

Figure 1.

It is at this point that the real intellectual 

struggle takes place. The space between 

Horizon 1 and Horizon 3 is known as the 

transition space, which is an intermediate 

space where values collide and diverge

(Figure 2). This space is inherently unstable 

and the ambiguity associated with it creates 

the tensions that exist between reality and 

the ideal. It is within this intermediate space 

that Horizon 2 emerges as innovations and 

change start to define an unrealized system 

that is already more effective than the 

current system (Figure 3). 

Figure 2.

Figure 3. 

For the strategic leader, the dilemma 

becomes whether to prolong the status quo 

or invest in an intermediate system that has 

the potential to bring the vision of Horizon 3 

closer to reality (Figure 4). The former 

approach requires managing the strategic 

risk associated with modifying a decaying 

system and sustaining it over time. With the 

latter approach, strategic risk is managed by 

leveraging relevant current system 

components, integrating current and nearterm innovations in Horizon 2, and planting 

the seeds for Horizon 3.7

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 78
 Figure 4. 

It is my contention that we often struggle 

with innovation because we consistently fail 

to project our plans into the future in 

coherent ways, and that our adversaries, 

current and potential, are restless, the global 

security environment evolving and dynamic, 

and that change is a constant. The Three 

Horizons framework offers an approach to 

reorganization that integrates the uncertainty 

of different time dimensions and the 

unknowns of innovation into our way of 

thinking. It embraces the need to address the 

multiple challenges that today’s security 

environment presents (first horizon), 

cultivates the seeds of the desired system 

(third horizon), while allocating the 

appropriate focus and resources as we 

transition from one horizon to another 

(second horizon). 

The Three Horizons Applied to DoD 

Reorganization 

A system's "fit" within the strategic 

environment determines the lifespan of the 

system.8

 At the end of the World War II, the 

National Security Act of 1947 was a major 

restructuring of the United States 

government's military and intelligence 

agencies. This restructuring was necessary 

to provide the U.S. with a more efficient and 

manageable foreign policy apparatus during 

the Cold War. The Act was subsequently 

modified in 1949, 1953, and 1958 to address 

shortfalls in the Act and changes within the 

environment. In the early 1980s, significant 

defense reform was again needed as 

exemplified in failures or less than desirable 

outcomes in Vietnam, Grenada, the Desert 

Campaigning Fall 2016 79
One raid, the Mayaguez rescue, and the USS 

Pueblo seizure.9

 

According to Jim Locher in his book Victory 

on the Potomac, the 1986 Defense reform 

had nine goals that were firmly grounded in 

the context of the Cold War and the result of 

arcane defense structures and processes that 

had not been significantly changed for over 

one hundred and fifty years. Those goals 

were to: 1) strengthen civilian authority; 2) 

improve military advice; 3) place clear 

responsibility on combatant commanders for 

accomplishment of all assigned missions; 4) 

ensure CCMD authority is commensurate 

with responsibility; 5) increase attention to 

strategy formulation and contingency 

planning; 6) provide for more efficient use 

of resources; 7) improve joint officer 

management; 8) enhance the effectiveness 

of military operations; and 9) improve DoD 

management.10 These nine goals helped to 

reshape the Defense Department into an 

unequalled 20th Century security 

organization. In short, the changes to the 

national security system that began in 1947 

and culminated in 1986 resulted in a U.S. 

security system that fit the global security 

environment almost perfectly, and

dominated that environment for a decade. 

Unfortunately, the DoD system, structures, 

and processes, designed and developed to 

confront the challenges of the 1990s, 

remained generally static over the following

30 years while the strategic security 

environment evolved resulting in a systemenvironment mismatch. The primary driver

for this system-environment mismatch 

occurred in 1991 when the global security 

system hit a strategic inflection point—the 

collapse of the Soviet Union. This event 

dramatically changed not only the way the 

U.S. thought and acted globally, but other 

actors as well. Ethnic, religious, and other 

social ‘fractures’ that were kept in check by 

the potential of global nuclear war began to 

come to the fore in the 1990s and reached a 

boiling point in the early 2000s. For 

example, in the second George W. Bush 

administration, radical ideology, political 

alienation, terrorism and new governments 

in Iraq and Afghanistan coupled with the 

‘color’ revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and 

Kyrgyzstan continued the erosion of the 

1986 national security system.11 During the 

Barack Obama administrations, ideological 

wars, religious and ethnic strife, nuclear 

proliferation, public health dangers, the reemergence of Russia, Chinese military 

modernization and economic expansion, a 

growing global economy and climate change 

among other factors continued to ‘chip 

away’ further at the strategic fit of the 

current national security system.12 

Over the past fifteen years, the DoD’s 

system-environment mismatch accelerated 

to the point at which it finds itself today—

with organizations, processes, and products 

unfit for unrestricted warfare with state or 

non-state actors.

13 This mismatch is shown 

in Figure 5 and depicts Horizon 1. The 

vertical axis is the degree to which the U.S. 

security system “fits” the strategic 

environment (from 0 to 100) and the 

horizontal axis depicts time. The brown 

horizontal lines represent trends over time 

that are affecting the strategic environment, 

such as globalization, the proliferations of 

technology, or the spread of extreme 

ideology. The yellow bomb burst represents 

Campaigning Fall 2016 80
the strategic inflection point of the fall of the 

Soviet Union in 1991. The black s-curve 

represents the fit of the U.S. security 

system—in the early 1990s, its fit was close 

to 100. Since that time, however, as the 

strategic environment has changed, the U.S. 

security system’s fit with the environment 

has declined. 

 

Figure 5. 

Whereas most strategists and planners are 

aware of the zone of change (blue-shaded 

area), which are those elements driving 

system unfitness, one of the important and 

neglected characteristics of systems is that 

there is also a zone of constants (greenshaded area).14 Within the zone of constants 

are those elements of a system that are 

present in any security system although their 

form or function (or both) may change 

slightly. Land and sea forces are examples 

of constants that have been resident in 

almost all security forces throughout history. 

 Figure 6. 

In Figure 6, the green s-curve represents the 

U.S. security system required to operate 

successfully in the near- and mid-terms and 

represents Horizon 3. This horizon is 

described by national strategic documents, 

such as the Joint Operating Environment: 

JOE 2035. This document identifies the 

future conditions within which the Joint 

force is expected to operate and includes 

such factors as: new poles of economic 

power, rebalanced energy security, the 

weakening of traditional U.S. alliances, the 

refinement of state hybrid stratagems, the 

intensification of warfare by proxy, 

contested international rules, the erosion of 

standing institutions of international order, 

increased food and water demands among a 

whole host of other equally challenging 

conditions.15 With these conditions in mind, 

the JOE identified four levels of strategic 

goals16 that the national security system or 

DoD must meet to address these wideranging challenges: 

- Adapt to changing conditions by 

ensuring that the U.S. “can adequately 

cope with emerging changes in the 

security environment.” 

Campaigning Fall 2016 81
- Manage antagonism and impose 

costs by discouraging “changes to 

the security environment that are 

unfavorable to the United States.” 

- Punish aggression and rollback 

gains by blocking and undoing 

“changes to the security 

environment that are dangerous or 

disruptive to the United States.” 

- Impose change and enforce outcomes by 

introducing “desired changes to the 

security environment that are favorable 

to the United States.”

This range of strategic goals must be used to 

inform any defense reform initiative, to 

include organizations, processes, and 

products, to achieve the desired national 

security system. One of the most interesting 

aspects of this diagram is that the 

convergence of the curves of the two 

horizons effectively define a triangle of 

choice. This space is the transition space 

(Figure 7) as the legacy system declines and 

intersects with the desired system at 

some point in the future. At the present 

time, the desired system is not fit for 

purpose (not yet developed)—it is still 

merely an unrealized desired system that 

is likely to change as the future changes.

 Figure 7.

The transition space, or the area highlighted 

in yellow, therefore, becomes critical: it is 

the space of conflict between the current 

system and the desired system of the future. 

In the current call for Defense reform, 

Senator McCain's desire for Defense 

reorganization has its genesis in this systemenvironment mismatch. In the security 

environment, this transition space is the 

region where policy and strategy are used to 

either reshape the environment to make it fit 

the old system paradigm or change the 

system to fit within the new strategic 

environmental paradigm (Figure 8). 

 Figure 8.

Campaigning Fall 2016 82
At their core, policy and strategy are 

typically about choices in values. As 

all systems decay in the face of 

change, analysis of the current system 

makes explicit the assumptions and 

values that underpin the current 

system. Hence the need to understand 

the objectives of the 1986 reform. As 

any move to a new system, as 

described by the conditions outlined in 

the recent JOE, is usually 

transformational in nature, a change in 

values, or at least the way the values are 

applied, underpin the desired system. Policy 

and strategy, therefore, determine how best 

to manage the conflicting values and their 

trajectories within the transition space. 

If an assessment of the current system and 

the strategic environment determine that a 

system-environment mismatch exists, and 

that the desired system is unattainable in the 

near future because of any number of 

internal and external constraints, a shift to an 

interim or intermediate system is required.17

This interim system is Horizon 2 and is 

indicated by the red line in Figure 9. 

Horizon 2 is used to manage the challenges 

within the transition space while 

working toward Horizon 3. From a 

national security perspective, this 

transition space can also be seen to 

encompass strategic risk. It is the 

responsibility of policy-makers and 

strategists to mitigate as much of the 

strategic risk between the current 

system and the desired system as 

possible. As strategic risk is decreased, 

however, any interim transitions may 

increase operational risk because of the 

unknowns associated with any change.

 Figure 9.

Over time, even though operational risk is 

relatively constant as the current system 

(Horizon 1), through interim systems (Horizon 

2), continually adapts to the changing 

environment and makes headway toward the 

desired goal (Horizon 3), strategic risk 

decreases (Figures 10 and 11). The reality of 

such a dynamic environment is that these three 

different horizons will be constantly in motion: 

Horizon 1 will always be changing; Horizon 2 

will never quite be attained as adjustments are 

constantly made to environmental actors and 

factors; and Horizon 3 will always be 

somewhere off in the future. 

 Figure 10.

Campaigning Fall 2016 83
 Figure 11.

Again, in the current discussion of Defense 

reform there appears to be a difference of 

opinion between those who support Senator 

McCain’s position that a transformational 

change is required (and the likely need for 

an interim horizon) and those who believe 

minor adjustments to the old system are 

adequate. For those who are old enough to 

remember the change effort that was 

required with instituting GNA in 1986, any 

significant change to the current Defense 

system will require an even greater effort 

given today’s complexities. This effort is 

made ever more difficult by dynamic 

conservatism, which is the tendency for a 

system to fight to remain the same. System 

entropy will also make the effort extremely 

challenging as is readily evident in circles 

outside of the DoD. In a recent question and 

answer session with House Armed Services 

Committee staffers, it was stated that there is 

no need nor desire to revisit the roles and 

missions of the Services again. Rather, 

tinkering on the margins with such things as 

defense acquisition reform was all that was 

needed.

18 As this example and the literature 

on the Three Horizons method points out, 

the amount of energy and resources required 

to adapt to any new requirements 

typically results in a retrenchment of 

current bureaucratic policies and 

practices.

19 

Integrating Foresight into the 

Discussion

The capacity of an organization to 

adapt itself to the changing 

environment is paramount for 

survival; for the DoD, there is an 

even greater imperative to adapt as its 

environmental fit underpins the nation’s 

security. Given the operational tempo of the 

past 14 years, coupled with the current 

operational efforts around the world, it’s 

easy to understand why there is a lack of 

appetite for any significant change. 

However, with the continued degradation of 

the current national security system and the 

fact that delaying only makes any 

subsequent change more difficult, a 

transformational redesign of current 

structures and processes is an imperative. 

A critical activity missing in the

development of current defense policies and 

strategies is foresight. A simple definition of 

foresight is the ability to think about what 

might happen in the future. Foresight is a 

strategist’s tool, designed to make better and 

more-informed decisions in the near-, midand long-term. It requires the ability to 

recognize patterns to explain how things 

work or determine what causes what.20The 

Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is the 

primary document that serves as a Defense 

programmatic roadmap for the next 20 

years.21 The 2014 QDR, however, stops short 

of integrating a range of potential futures 

Campaigning Fall 2016 84
and their associated implications into its 

planning construct for the Joint force. 

Equally important, it fails to perform the 

same intellectual exercise for competitors, 

adversaries, and potential adversaries. 

Instead, the 2014 QDR, which is not unlike 

past QDRs or other strategic planning 

documents, only provides a general 

description of individual global security 

trends and some of their implications for the 

Joint Force today. More importantly, as 

security and strategy are relative to other 

actors within the environment, it fails to 

consider not only the cross impact of the 

trends on each other, but their implications 

for other actors within the global security 

environment. Without this additional 

context, any discussion is inherently myopic 

and wholly incomplete. 

Lacking the integration of foresight into 

security discussions, civilian and military 

strategists and planners alike are solving the 

problems of the past with little or no 

understanding of the broader implications 

for global actors five years from now let 

alone 10 or 20 years. Instead, we are merely

viewing the world from a singular U.S. 

perspective while simply extrapolating what 

some of these trends may mean over the 

next few years. One of the shortcomings 

with this approach is that we are missing the 

‘so what?’ We are too bounded by our 

previous experiences or the current context 

to imagine22 who or what our next enemy 

may be. 

Granted, the current DoD approach provides 

cognitive relief from the uncomfortable 

ambiguity associated with long term trends 

and the uncertainty that comes along with 

them. In essence, we feel more comfortable 

hopping from crisis to crisis chasing the 

trend of the day without any long-term view 

that would help prioritize current efforts—as 

unsustainable as this may be. Futures tools, 

such as the Three Horizons, and the 

associated foresight that comes with it, is 

critical in the ability to develop near-term 

priorities and reasonable programmatics 

through the development of longer-term 

understanding. Without these tools 

influencing the way we think, we will be 

unable to detect new requirements nor have 

the foresight to shape the environment in 

ways that enhance the DoD’s ability to 

provide effective national security. 23

As current strategy, planning, and 

educational documents highlight, the Joint 

force, and its leadership in particular, must 

become comfortable with ambiguity and 

uncertainty. As the future is unknowable 

with any high degree of certainty, we do 

know there are trends that will converge and 

diverge in ways affected by non-linearity

and chance. Although we don’t know 

specifically how or when their effects will 

be felt, identifying the catalysts or drivers 

of game-changing events, or some of the 

specific second- or third-order effects, while 

spending time ‘rummaging’ through the 

potential implications and effects can 

provide one with a sense of how the future is 

being shaped.24 Joint staff officers must 

become comfortable with the terms 

probability and possibility to stratify the 

likelihood of potential events. These two

terms help to anticipate change and develop 

Campaigning Fall 2016 85
awareness of the impact of potential future 

drivers of change. Probability refers to 

likelihood and chance. Likeliness enables 

the ranking of alternative futures as more or 

less. Possibility is rooted in reality—a 

possible future is potentially realizable.25

Integrating these concepts with the Three 

Horizons, one should find a conceptual 

framework driving DoD reorganization that 

illustrates the major trends affecting the 

current global security environment. Over 

time, each of these trends have a number of 

possible futures as it matures individually 

and as each trend is affected by other trends 

and actors. The probability of one of those 

futures becoming realized can also be 

ascertained with some level of certainty, 

especially when considering shorter time 

horizons. In the case of national security, the 

U.S. has a desired or preferable future which 

would enhance the safety and security of the 

American people. That preferable future, 

however, is just one of many possible and 

probable futures (see Figure 12). 

 Figure 12.

In this example, the preferred future borders 

on the probable and possible based upon 

current trends and their potential

implications, which would indicate that 

environmental shaping must be 

accomplished to push the preferred future 

more squarely into the realm of the highly 

probable. 

The space between the current conditions 

and trends and the desired future thus 

becomes the policy and strategy space. It is 

within this space that other actors, and the 

effects that these trends have on them, must 

be considered for their positive or negative 

effect on U.S. national security interests and 

the continued viability of the current system. 

Policies and their associated strategies are 

then developed to manage the security 

environment over time such that the 

preferred U.S. future becomes more 

probable. Given the fit, or in the case of our 

earlier discussion of the current DoD 

organization, between the desired future and 

the current conditions, an 

intermediate future must be 

worked toward that is 

reasonable and that minimizes 

the risk associated with the 

policy and strategy space (see 

Figure 13). It is also within this 

policy and strategy space that 

the greatest strategic risk 

occurs, especially if decision 

makers defer the actions 

necessary to ‘refit’ the current 

system to the system that is needed.26

Campaigning Fall 2016 86
One other consideration for planners is that 

the desired or preferred future or system 

may not be the one that is the best fit for the 

given conditions and actors. This 

discrepancy is often at the center of 

disagreement between stakeholders as those 

who have equities and interests in 

maintaining the current system fight to 

retain them regardless of future system 

demands. For those who embrace the status 

quo, uncertainty and ambiguity are 

minimized by simply extrapolating the 

current state of affairs into the future. 

 Figure 13.

For a better and more complete analysis, 

futures scenarios must take into account the 

effects of long-term trends on current and 

potential competitors and adversaries. Only 

then can a realistic assessment of U.S. 

security system needs be ascertained. Once 

an understanding of the current and future 

security environment is understood and how 

U.S. national security interests are affected, 

then the necessary functions and forms are 

developed. Just as the current and future 

environmental conditions affect our 

interests, any resulting security function or 

form must be considered within the current 

and future conditions. In turn, the DoD 

security functions and forms have an effect 

on the environment. 

Conclusion 

The issues and security challenges leading 

up to the 1986 Defense reorganization are 

not the same we face today nor will they be 

the same in the future. The DoD enterprise 

must adapt and change to keep the U.S. the 

global leader it needs to be—30 years 

without reform has been far too long to 

remain static in the Information Age. The 

framing of any potential security 

reorganizations or solutions 

must be grounded in the current 

global security context as well as 

likely future security contexts.

Unfortunately, any reference to a 

Goldwater-Nichols Act II will 

likely subconsciously lead to 

framing the security 

environment using the same 

stale assumptions and paradigms 

that were prevalent during that 

time period. Instead, a complete redesign is 

needed, one that starts from a blank sheet of 

paper and severs our emotional attachments 

to legacy systems or old ways of doing 

business. 

Any proposed defense enterprise system 

intended to shape the strategic environment 

must be isomorphic with that system. The 

two systems, environment and security, do 

not have to be perfectly matched; however, 

to act effectively as the ‘regulator’ of the 

global security system, the complexity of the 

DoD system must exhibit a minimum 

similarity with the global system. If the DoD 

system is too simplistic or rigid, such as the 

Campaigning Fall 2016 87
current structure, then its actions are likely 

to make the global security system more out 

of control.27 In short, a new defense security 

system should not be predetermined, but 

rather developed out of a keen 

understanding of the functions as they are 

executed in the current environment and 

expected to operate in the future security 

environment(s). Anything short of this will 

only result in some "tinkering on the 

margins" that won't solve the broader issues 

in play and will likely cause second- and 

third-order effects that will have undesirable 

consequences. 

Much as the DoD Reorganization Act of 

1986 has been a work in progress, any new 

defense reorganization will take years before 

it reaches full maturation as envisioned. In 

fact, our mindset must change to understand 

that any proposed system will likely never 

be attained because of a constantly changing 

strategic environment. Rather, proposed 

systems must be agile systems that are 

1 Curry, A. (2015). “Searching for Systems: Understanding Three 

Horizons,” APF Compass, January, 11. 2 Retrieved from infoplease on June 10, 2016 at 

http://www.infoplease.com/. Dow Jones average is from December 

31st 1986. 3 For comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial average was 17,899 

(June 10, 2016)--retrieved from 

http://www.bing.com/search?q=dow+jones+average+for+today&sr

c=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IESR02; the world population is 

estimated at 7.4 billion people--retrieved from 

www.worldometers.info/world-population; and the U.S. median 

income (2014) was $53, 657.00--retrieved from 

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/us/. 4 National Intelligence Council (NIC). (2012). Global Trends 

2030: Alternative Worlds. Washington, DC. 5 Hodgson, Anthony. (2012). A Transdisciplinary World Model,

Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Vol. 29, Issue 5. 6 Lamb, Christopher J. and Franco, Megan. (2015). “NationalLevel Coordination and Implementation: How System Attributes 

Trumped Leadership,” Chapter 3 in Lessons Encountered: 

Learning From the Long War, Richard D. Hooker, Jr. and Joseph 

J. Collins, eds. Washington, DC: National Defense University 

Press. 

7 Curry, 2015. 

8 Curry, A. and Hodgson, A. (2008). “Seeing in Multiple Horizons: 

Connecting Futures to Strategy,” Journal of Futures Studies. 9 Locher, J. (2002). Victory on the Potomac, College Station, TX: 

Texas A&M University Press.

constantly adapted to ever-changing 

conditions and actors. System agility must 

be the cornerstone of any proposed system. 

Meanwhile, as we begin to realize the 

significant changes that must be made, we 

must also battle dynamic conservatism and 

organizational entropy. Any change will be 

painful, but the longer we take to make the 

necessary changes the wider the strategic 

risk gap becomes. The time to change is 

now, on our terms, rather than when a crisis 

hits and pulls the current system crashing 

down around us. Integrating foresight tools, 

such as the Three Horizons, into our 

thinking will help insure we have more agile 

and effective security systems and 

organizations.

Author Biography.

Dr. Daniel H. McCauley is an associate professor at 

the Joint Forces Staff College.

 

10 Locher, 2002. 11 Bush G. W. (2006). The National Security Strategy of the United 

States, Washington, D.C. 12 Obama, B. (2010). National Security Strategy, Washington, D.C. 

and Obama, B. (2015). National Security Strategy, Washington, 

D.C. 

13 Connable, B., Campbell, J. and Madden, D. (2016). Stretching 

and Exploiting Thresholds for High-Order War, Santa Monica, 

CA: Rand Corporation 

14 Curry, 2015. 15 Joint Operating Environment: JOE 2035. (2016). Joint Staff J-7, 

Washington, D.C.

16 JOE, 2016, 40. 17 Curry & Hodgson, 2008 18 Ibid. 19 Hodgson, 2012. 20 Hines, A., and Bishop, P. (2006). Thinking About the Future, 

Washington, DC: Social Technologies, LLC. 

21 There is no statutory requirement for a stand-alone defense 

strategy; more often than not, it is included within the Quadrennial 

Defense. CRS Report for Congress, “Quadrennial Defense Review 

(QDR): Background, Processes, and Issues,” Jeffrey D. Brake, 

National Defense Fellow, June 21, 2001. 22 Branfman, O. and Pollack, J. (2013). The Chaos Imperative. 

How Chance and Disruption Increase Innovation, Effectiveness 

and Success. NY: Crown Business, 6.

 

Campaigning Fall 2016 88
 

23 Carbonell, J., Sanchez-Esguevillas, A., and Carro, B. (2015). 

“Assessing Emerging Issues: The External and internal Approach,” 

Futures, Vol. 73. 24 McCloskey, D. (1991). “History, Differential Equations, and the 

Problem of Narration,” History & Theory, Vol. 30.

25 Mehrabanfar, E. (2014). “Wild Cards Applications in Futures 

Studies,” International Journal of Modern Management and 

Foresight, Vol. 1, Iss. 8. 26 Curry & Hodgson, 2008 27 Hodgson, 2012.

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