Earthquake in Haiti: 

Application of GIS Mapping 

Technology to Coordinate 

Relief Efforts

The Accidental CounterGuerrilla

Rain of Ruin: Operational 

Design and the Pacific war, 

1944 -1945 

International Code of Conduct: 

A Cybersecurity Panacea or 

Pandora’s Box?

Campaigning

The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College

“That All May Labor As One”

Fall 2015 

Featured Essays
Campaigning 

Fall 2015 

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

Commandant, Joint Forces Staff College 

RDML Brad Williamson, USN

Dean, Joint Forces Staff College 

Dr. Patricia B. Strait

Editor

Dr. Daniel H. McCauley

Editorial Board: 

Assistant Professor William S. Marlowe

Dr. Kenneth P. Pisel 

Dr. Frederick R. Kienle 

Assistant Professor Stephen W. Dennis 

Cover image: Students of 

JCWS Seminar 13, Class 15-03

apply design concepts during a 

seminar exercise at NSA Norfolk, 

VA on Oct 20, 2015. Photo by 

Daniel H. McCauley. 

Director, Joint and Combined

Warfighting School 

CAPT John M. Maxwell, USN

Director, Joint Advanced 

Warfighting School 

Col Peter E. Yeager, USMC

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 2015 i
In this issue of Campaigning: 

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

Dr. Daniel H. McCauley

Features

Earthquake in Haiti: Application of GIS Mapping Technology 

to Coordinate Relief Efforts...........................................................................1 

Mary S. Bell

The Accidental Counter Guerrilla.................................................................10 

Mike Bennett

Rain of Ruin: Operational Design and the Pacific War, 1944-1945........................13 

COL Gerard P. Tertychny

International Code of Conduct: A Cybersecurity Panacea or 

Pandora’s Box?........................................................................................22 

MAJ Amanda Current and Lt Col Bryan Redash 

Commentary

The Challenging Art of Modern Mission Command ..........................................32 

MAJ Johannes Castro, Maj Adam Knox, and Maj Scott Worth

The Falklands Campaign: A Failure in Modern Joint 

Common Operating Precepts ......................................................................42 

LTC Phillip Borders, Maj Kelly Montier, and LtCol Michael Nakonieczny

The Foresight Factor

Using Strategic Foresight and Systems Thinking Analyses 

to Craft a U.S. Strategy for the African Sahel and Maghreb.................................50 

Col Robert Pope, LTC Jeffrey Fair, and Maj Dale Fenton

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. The appearance of external 

hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) of the linked 

websites, or the information, products, or services contained therein. The DoD does not exercise any editorial, 

security, or other control over the information you may find at these locations. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 ii
Educating the Joint force is the sole mission 

of the Joint Forces Staff College. A key 

component of the College’s educational 

approach is to develop in our students the 

ability to understand the concepts, 

principles, structures, and processes that 

Joint professionals apply or operate within 

now and in the future. On the surface, 

developing an understanding of Joint 

concepts appears a relatively simple 

educational task: read, discuss, and apply. In 

reality, developing an understanding of 

anything is far more difficult and timeconsuming than many practitioners imagine. 

To develop an understanding in the manner 

in which General Martin Dempsey has 

described in his desired Leader Attributes 

for Joint Force 2020, the student must 

examine the past, leveraging hindsight to 

comprehend how today’s environment 

developed and why; it requires the student to 

analyze the current environment, leveraging 

insight to gain a deeper appreciation for the 

elements, purpose(s), and interrelationships 

of the present system; and, finally, it 

requires the student to analyze trends, 

leveraging foresight to develop the ability to 

recognize the possibilities, plausibilities, and 

probabilities of a dynamic future. In short, to 

operate successfully in today’s global 

security environment students need not only 

study the lessons learned, but the “lessons to 

be learned” as well. 

The Fall 2015 edition of Campaigning

addresses these three components of 

understanding: hindsight, insight, and 

foresight. Assistant Professor Mary Bell 

presents the first of four essays that leverage 

hindsight. In her essay, “Earthquake in 

Haiti: Application of GIS Mapping 

Technology to Coordinate Relief Efforts,” 

Professor Bell analyzes the lessons learned 

from the 2010 Haiti earthquake and

advocates for the use of advanced mapping 

software in future humanitarian relief 

efforts. Mr. Mike Bennett provides a 

historical essay titled, “The Accidental 

Counter Guerrilla,” that draws lessons from 

successful counterinsurgencies in El 

Salvador, Colombia, and the Philippines 

from which he advocates for a template to 

apply to future counterinsurgency 

operations. In his essay, “Rain of Ruin: 

Operational Design and the Pacific War, 

1944-1945,” Colonel Gerard Tertychny

applies the current Joint Publication 5-0, 

Joint Operation Planning, operational design 

concept to the U.S. Pacific Theater of War, 

1944-1945, providing insights into the 

evolving nature of planning processes and 

concepts. Lieutenant Colonel Phillip 

Borders, Major Kelly Montier, and 

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Nakonieczny

collaborate on an essay titled, “The 

Falklands Campaign: A Failure in Modern 

Joint Common Operating Precepts.” The 

authors use the Falkland Islands campaign to 

study the application of Joint common 

operating principles as described in the 

current Joint Publication 3-0, Joint 

Operations. 

Two of this edition’s essays leverage the 

second component of understanding, insight, 

by focusing on contemporary issues. Major

Amanda Current and Lieutenant Colonel 

Bryan Redash examine the Shanghai 

Editor’s Corner

Campaigning Fall 2015 iii
Cooperation Agreement and the proposed 

cyber Code of Conduct. They argue that as 

the leader of the Western consensus, the 

U.S. should refrain from endorsing it. Major

Johannes Castro, Major Adam Knox, and 

Major Scott Worth examine another 

contemporary issue, mission command, 

discussing the implications of the concept 

for senior military leaders. 

Finally, this edition of Campaigning 

introduces a new feature, “The Foresight 

Factor,” that focuses on the third component 

of understanding: foresight. The Foresight 

Factor is dedicated to increasing the Joint 

community’s awareness of strategic 

foresight and some of the tools available to 

the Joint practitioner. These essays are the 

products of one of the Joint and Combined 

Warfighting Schools electives that focuses 

primarily on the application of foresight 

tools using a specific student-selected issue 

for context. Although the emphasis is on the 

use of the tools, the analysis and 

assessments are noteworthy. Colonel Rob 

Pope, Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Fair, and 

Major Dale Fenton provide the initial essay, 

“Using Strategic Foresight and Systems 

Thinking Analyses to Craft a U.S. Strategy 

for the African Sahel and Maghreb,” as they 

apply selected foresight tools in the analysis 

and assessment of U.S. policy, and develop 

a strategy for the African Sahel and 

Maghreb. 

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 2015 iv
Earthquake in Haiti:

Application of GIS Mapping 

Technology to Coordinate Relief 

Efforts 

By Assistant Professor Mary S. Bell 

Every American can tell you where 

they were when terrorists flew two airplanes 

into the World Trade Center in New York 

City on September 11, 2001. January 12, 

2010 holds the same significance for 

Haitians and is a day that will not be 

forgotten by the Haitian people. That day a 

magnitude 7.0 earthquake brought the small 

island nation to its knees. The epicenter of 

the earthquake was approximately 10-15 

miles from Port au Prince, the nation’s 

capital city, and photos and video of the 

immediate aftermath made the world take 

notice. Most of the devastation was 

concentrated in Port au Prince, with an 

estimated total population of 2.2 million

people. Virtually everyone in the capital city 

suffered directly from the earthquake with 

more than an estimated 300,000 people 

killed and 1.5 million people left homeless.1

One young teenager, Darlene Etienne, “was 

entombed in crumbled concrete and twisted 

steel. All around her, the sprawling city of 

Port-au-Prince was in ruins.”2 However, 

some, like Etienne, were rescued from the 

rubble. Her family had given up hope until 

after a staggering 15 days buried in the 

rubble, someone finally heard her cries for 

help. She recalled being coherent and awake 

hearing people going by, but nobody heard 

her cries for two weeks because of the 

“cacophony of rumbling equipment and 

other noises in those desperate days.”3

Etienne’s unique story of hope and survival 

are uncommon although relief efforts from 

around the world were enormous. The 

improvements and creative use of 

technologies and resources are critical for 

rescue workers whether they are trying to 

locate missing people or moving necessary 

supplies from a port of embarkation to a 

distribution center. The application of 

development and modernization theory is 

especially useful in helping understand the 

unique challenges underdeveloped nations 

such as Haiti face. Because the Haitian 

experience and view of the world is so 

different than most of the people helping

them, these theories help those organizing 

relief efforts in the future. In the midst of 

the crisis in Haiti, visionaries and 

volunteers found new applications for 

mapping software that were critical to 

providing timely information to relief 

workers. It’s possible to understand a variety 

of challenges relief workers faced in Haiti 

after the earthquake through a brief 

description of Haiti’s history, application of 

development and modernization theory, and 

a broad overview of the application of some 

mapping technology used during earthquake 

recovery.

The Violent and Difficult Haitian 

Experience 

Before the disastrous earthquake hit 

in 2010, more than 70% of Haitians were 

living on less than $2 a day and 86% of the 

people in Port au Prince were living in slums 

which mostly consisted of poorly 

constructed concrete buildings. Only half of 

the 2.2 million people in Port au Prince had 

access to latrines and only one-third had 

access to running water.4 The road network 

was poor, at best. The ports to the west of 

the capital city were the main source of 

transportation of goods to and from the 

nation and they were virtually destroyed by 

the earthquake. Haiti is roughly the size of 

Massachusetts, yet only a small percentage 

of it has serviceable infrastructure. Most 

people travel by foot or bicycle making it 

difficult to move goods to and from the rural 

areas.

Campaigning Fall 2015 1
 In addition to poor infrastructure, 

over half of Haitians are illiterate.5 Print 

media is minimally produced and consumed 

because the people can’t read. Television is 

minimally available due to poor 

infrastructure with sporadic access to 

electricity. The only form of mass media 

with a high penetration rate is radio. The 

people are able to power radios with 

electricity, batteries and solar power. 

Approximately 96% of Haitians listen to the 

radio every day making it the most common 

form of media. Nearly 42% of people in 

Haiti have mobile phones and most of those 

are used for multiple purposes including 

tuning in to radio stations. Illiteracy 

contributes to the low use of mobile phone 

SMS technology and only 8.4% use the 

internet.6

 

 All these conditions explain why 

recovery from the devastating 7.0 magnitude 

earthquake has been so difficult. Most of the 

land lacks the soil it needs to grow crops and 

trees, governmental leaders have historically 

terrorized their people, the infrastructure is 

very poor, and the people are illiterate. 

Further hindering recovery was a lack of a 

centralized government to lead the effort. 

The earthquake destroyed the Presidential 

Palace and killed an estimated 16,000 civil 

service employees. A report issued by an 

internationally recognized nongovernmental organization (NGO), Oxfam 

International “found that dysfunctional 

governance, legal hurdles and a lack of longterm strategic planning on the part of 

Haitian officials has hobbled the recovery 

effort and delayed basic construction 

projects.”7

 

 Individuals, foreign governments, 

and charitable organizations either went to 

Haiti or committed valuable resources to 

Haiti to help with recovery efforts. 

Dissecting the Haitian experience and 

correctly applying developmental and 

modernization theory will help explain why

relief workers were disappointed with 

Haitian recovery following the earthquake. 

Applying Development and 

Modernization Theory

Haiti’s only true form of mass 

communication is via radio programs of just 

about every variety including sports, 

politics, religion, music, and news. The 

current Haitian President, Michel Martelly, 

was widely popular as a radio music star in a 

local music style called Kompa. He had no 

political experience when he ran for 

president in 2010, but his millions of 

dedicated followers voted him into office.8

The power of media is strong in Haiti, 

allowing Haitians to express themselves 

through low-tech and low-cost means. 

Theorists Elihu Katz and George Wedell 

explain that radio broadcasts are vitally 

important in giving Haitians a sense of 

national identity and providing a forum for a 

radio music star to be elected as president. 

Katz and Wedell wrote, “The most 

important use of radio in the promotion of 

national integration is its encouragement of 

the national language.”9 They go on the 

stress the importance of radio in emerging 

markets is due to its very low-cost access. 

Katz and Wedell’s theory on the need for the 

proliferation of radio in a developing nation 

is applicable to Haiti, but it’s harder to 

evaluate how Haitians are able to utilize 

other forms of technology. 

Due to high illiteracy rates and 

minimal use of technology, visualizing 

spatial data can be especially difficult in 

nations such as Haiti. Yet, in the developed 

world, the creation of online mapping 

applications has become a major global 

industry. These applications are commonly 

called Geospatial Information Systems 

(GIS) and allow users to quickly import a 

variety of data formats such as geospatial 

data into online maps and share this 

information to assess real-world problems. 

Use of GIS technologies was important in 

Campaigning Fall 2015 2
the Haiti earthquake recovery efforts 

allowing relief workers to find and rescue 

injured people, determine building damage 

and track large population movements. 

There were many new applications of GIS 

during the disaster that are being further 

developed to help during relief efforts in 

other parts of the world. 

 Understanding that different cultures 

have a different view of time and space is 

one of the most difficult sociological 

concepts for humans to absorb. How most of 

us see the world is related to how we view 

power in the world. The earliest maps 

displayed power by placing continents like 

Europe at the center of the map and making 

the depiction larger than other landmasses. 

Use of GIS changes the way the world is 

portrayed discarding centuries of this subtle 

form of power. GIS allows individuals to 

manipulate data and rotate the world 

according to their perception. However, 

theorist David Bodenhamer recognizes the 

biggest problem is that “Spatial technologies 

in general, and especially GIS, are 

expensive, complex, and cumbersome, 

despite recent advances that have driven 

down costs and simplified the user 

experience.”10 GIS inherently allows each 

user to display and manipulate data using 

their personal view of the world, but only 

those with access to the technology have the 

ability to reimagine spatial relationships. 

Intersecting spatial relationships of 

different cultures is more common as the 

world globalizes. Radhika Ganjalla theorizes 

that the globalization “discourse represents 

technologies as enabling the bringing 

together of the ‘good people’ in the 

developing countries to help the poor and 

disadvantaged of the third world. This 

discourse does not tell the other side of 

globalization.”11 Ganjalla emphasizes that 

the subaltern - people who are socially, 

politically and geographically outside of the 

power structure - are often given a voice 

through fund raising efforts, but the voice 

they are given is one that is constructed to 

emphasize their need. This was especially 

evident in the fund raising models used by 

organizations in response to the Haiti 

disaster. It was not a portrayal of the 

subaltern as they feel about themselves and 

how they see their place in the world, but a 

constructed view by outsiders to enhance the 

portrayal of a large community of subaltern 

Haitians as in dire need of help. 

 Theorist Michel de Certeau wrote 

how the simplest things from giving to 

directions to reading a tour map are 

indicative of how one sees the world.12

Some people are used to orienting 

themselves using cardinal directions and 

others orient themselves using landmarks. 

There are people who consider 10 miles a 

far distance and others who would consider 

anything within 100 miles as the local area. 

It’s important to understand how different 

populations have a different view of the 

world and applying GIS to activities such as 

tracking large population movements 

doesn’t explain why the populations moved 

from one place to another nor does it 

provide insight into when they may move 

again. GIS may be used to determine the 

level of building damage resulting from an 

earthquake, but it doesn’t help move people 

out of or away from the building. The use of 

GIS provides information, but the analysis 

of how to use and apply that information is 

the next important step in determining the 

effectiveness of GIS. 

 Developmental theorist Fabienne 

Darling-Wolf emphasized several important 

concepts applicable to those trying to 

understand and help the Haitians. First she 

explained that when trying to frame how 

someone else sees the world, you must have 

a good understanding of your own biases. 

She also emphasized the importance of a 

deep understanding of other cultures that can 

only be obtained by first-hand experience.13

Campaigning Fall 2015 3
For relief workers to provide immediate 

disaster relief they need a basic 

understanding of what they will be facing. 

To have more impact and a longer lasting 

effect, it is critical that those people wanting 

to provide aid understand the history and 

culture of Haiti. People who understand the 

Haitian culture are more equipped to use 

technology to predict population movements 

even during a crisis. Darling-Wolf’s theory 

must be constantly revisited to achieve the 

best results. The more relief workers and 

charitable organizations understand about 

the culture, religion and language of the 

people they are trying to help, the more 

successful they will be.

How Mapping Technology was Used to 

Support the Relief Effort

 When developers and users of GIS 

technologies work to see the world through 

different perspectives of space and time, 

they are able to create new angles of 

viewing and incorporating information. 

Different types of GIS technologies and 

mapping data illustrates this point. Two 

types of free online, GIS software that were 

used to help relief efforts in Haiti were

Ushahidi and Google Earth. 

Ushahidi, which means testimony or 

witness in Swahili, was initially developed 

to map reports of violence and peace efforts 

resulting from protests over the Kenyan 

elections in 2008. A PhD student at Tufts 

University, Patrick Meier, had friends 

conducting research in Haiti when the 

earthquake struck. In an attempt to track his 

friends, he launched a live crisis map of 

Haiti using Ushahidi. Meier heard from his 

friends in Haiti via SMS by midnight and 

learned they had survived the tragedy, but he 

continued mapping the emergency tweets 

and SMSs being transmitted by other 

survivors. He enlisted the help of his fellow 

students and they began to help map the data

as it came in. Soon it was too much for the 

small group. They reached out to The 

Fletcher School of Tufts and “By the end of 

the week, [they] had trained over 100 

graduate and undergraduate students on how 

to monitor social and mainstream media for 

relevant, mappable content. Due to poor 

imagery of Port au Prince, hundreds of 

volunteers from around the world lent their 

expertise to create the most detailed 

roadmap of Haiti ever produced.”14 Meier 

called their volunteer relief efforts the 

Ushahidi Haiti Project (UHP). 

Relief organizations heard about 

UHP and sponsored an international SMS 

number used by the Haitian Diaspora and 

other people with contacts in Haiti. Digicel, 

the largest mobile phone company in Haiti 

offered UHP a free SMS number and helped 

promote the use of it for people within Haiti 

to send updates on their location and level of 

need. The word was spread using local radio 

stations. Another network of language 

experts translated the SMS messages and 

Tweets posted in the native Haitian language 

of Creole to English, enabling the volunteers 

at UHP to map the actionable data. 

Operators from the US Coast Guard (USCG)

and Department of Defense (DoD) heard 

about UHP and contacted The Fletcher 

School. UHP volunteers quickly responded 

and linked the USCG and DoD into their 

network. Users from both the USCG and the 

DoD wrote testimonials of the importance of 

the information mapped on Ushahidi and 

how they were able to use it to find and 

attend to critically-injured Haitians.15 

Figures 2 and 3 depict the UHP crisis map.

UHP was hugely successfully in providing 

disaster mapping that was used by NGOs, 

intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and 

US governmental organizations to deliver 

relief aid and to launch search and rescue 

operations. 

Meier created a network providing

information to those on the ground who 

could act upon it. This system saved lives

Campaigning Fall 2015 4
and demonstrated a new way to apply GIS in 

a disaster. Application of GIS this way has 

led to the use of the Ushahidi in other parts 

of the world during disasters and even “led 

to the launch of the Standby Volunteer Task 

Force (SBTF), a global network of 850+ 

volunteers in more than 80 countries around 

the world who use their live mapping skills 

to support humanitarian, human rights, 

development and media organizations.”16

 Figure 1 - Earthquake Intensity17

Figure 2 - Close up of the Ushahidi Haiti map after 24 

hours. Each number represents the individual number of 

reports within the area. Users could zoon in further to see 

the individual reports. Credit: UHP.18

Figure 3 - Ushahidi Haiti Project Map at the End of Operations19

There were other applications of GIS 

supporting Haiti earthquake relief efforts. 

Google Inc. used GIS to help in the relief 

effort, but their approach was different from 

Meier’s use of UHP. Immediately after the 

earthquake, Google Inc. obtained aerial 

imagery produced by the Open Skies 

mission and other aerial imagery platforms. 

The Open Skies aerial imagery mission is 

one example of missions flown by the US 

Government as part of the relief efforts. The 

27-person mission crew flew on the Open 

Skies aircraft (OC-135) producing thousands 

of unclassified images of Haiti that were 

digitized and offered at no-cost to 

organizations that were able to use imagery 

for mapping and analysis of the 

devastation.20 Figures 4-8 are from the Open 

Skies mission flown on January 16, 2010. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 5
Figure 4 - Projected Flight Path of the Open Skies 

Mission21

Figure 5 - Flight Path of the Open Skies Mission 

While Collecting Imagery Near the Epicenter of the 

Earthquake22

Figure 6 - Open Skies Team during the 

imagery collection mission over Haiti - Jan 16, 

201023

Figure 7 – Open Skies Imagery:

Port au Prince Port Image Depicts Both Damage and 

Masses of People Seeking Aide24

Campaigning Fall 2015 6
Figure 8 – Open Skies Imagery: Port au Prince 

Airport at Maximum Density of Airplanes Bringing 

Relief Supplies and Relief Workers25

The new images were added to the 

free Google Earth online mapping software. 

One use of these images was in conducting 

building damage assessments. Experts 

analyzed the before and after photos labeling 

buildings with a damage code that was 

compared to ground survey data for 

accuracy. Accuracy of the analysts was 

assessed at 73%, which was as accurate as 

any other method of building damage 

evaluation and didn’t require travel to Haiti. 

Google Earth was simultaneously 

used to map geo-located crisis reports 

obtained through SMS. This data provided 

timely crowd-sourced damage patterns 

identifying the buildings with the most 

damage.26 It is estimated that 30,000 

commercial and 250,000 private residences 

were either severely damaged or completely 

collapsed from the earthquake resulting in 

an estimated $14 billion total damage.27

These building damage assessments were 

important in establishing the priority of 

relief efforts. Google Inc. proved that by 

utilizing GIS, the assessment process could 

be greatly streamlined in future disasters. 

 Another issue relief workers faced 

during relief efforts was large population 

movements out of Port au Prince following 

the earthquake. These movements made it 

difficult to deliver goods and services to 

people who needed them. Scientists were

able to track these movements using mobile 

phone data. When the earthquake occurred, 

Haiti’s largest mobile phone company, 

Digicel, had 2.2 million users and 

approximately 90% coverage in the affected 

areas. Digicel provided the scientists 

anonymous data allowing them to track 

movements of users using geospatialtracking systems. Since “mobile phone 

networks are relatively resilient to external 

shocks...”28 scientists were able to use this 

method to track population movement, 

which peaked 19 days after the earthquake 

on January 31st. An estimated 630,000 

people who were present in Port au Prince 

on the day of the earthquake had not 

returned on the 19th day. This coincided with 

approximately 120,000 people moving into 

the city who were not there the day of the 

earthquake leaving a total outflow of 

510,000 people on that day.29 

 Figure 9 - Estimated Net Changes of the Port au Prince 

Population Following the Earthquake30

Large population movements were tracked 

for some time following the earthquake. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 7
This data was compared to the data 

produced United Nations Population Fund 

(UNFPA), gathered mostly through 

household interviews, and the Haitian 

National Civil Protection Agency (NPCA), 

primarily gathered by counting ship and bus 

movements. The estimates were similar and 

the technique using geospatial mobile phone 

data was significantly less time consuming 

and less expensive. The scientists were able 

to provide this timely data to relief 

organizations. This type of population 

tracking was highly effective and could be 

used in many parts of the world vulnerable 

to large population migrations.31

Conclusion 

 When providing relief efforts to 

developing nations such as Haiti, 

organizations must try to reach a basic 

understanding of the environment in which 

they are operating. Development and 

modernization theories help inform the 

understanding of the environment by 

explaining why Haitians see the world 

differently. By capitalizing on an 

1 CNN World, “Haiti Earthquake Fast Facts,” 

February 28, 2014, 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/12/world/haitiearthquake-fast-facts/ (accessed Oct 22, 2014). 2 Nicholas Garcia, “Darlene Etienne, Haiti 

Earthquake Survivor ‘Miracle,’ Makes Full 

Recovery,” HuffingtonPost.com, Jan 11, 2011, 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/da

rlene-etienne-haiti-earthquakesurvivor_n_807403.html (accessed Dec 12, 2014). 3 Ibid.

4 Disasters Emergency Committee, “Haiti Earthquake 

Facts and Figures,” http://www.dec.org.uk/haitiearthquake-facts-and-figures (accessed Oct 22, 

2014).

5 Central Intelligence Agency, “Haiti.”

6 InfoasAid, “Haiti: Media and Telecoms Landscape 

Guide October 2012,”

http://infoasaid.org/sites/infoasaid.org/files/haiti_med

ia_guide_final_211012_0.pdf (accessed Aug 12, 

2013).

7 Sal Gentile, “Report criticizes Haiti recovery 

commission led by Bill Clinton,” PBS.org, January 

understanding of these features, relief efforts 

using those technologies proved to be the 

most successful. The use of GIS 

technologies such as Ushahidi and Google 

Earth to help create maps showing where 

relief efforts should take priority and mobile 

phone tracking data to watch migration 

patterns were vital in providing the right 

type of aid, at the right time and at the right 

place. It took creative thinking and creative 

application of advanced technologies 

applied to a nation with very little social, 

economic and technological advancement. 

These successes are good examples of the 

possibility of future applications of GIS in 

both developing and developed nations. 

Author Biography

Mary S. Bell is currently serving as an Assistant 

Professor of the National Defense University’s Joint 

Forces Staff College, Joint and Combined 

Warfighting School in Norfolk, Virginia. She has 

over 20 years of service in the US Army with 

experience in Aviation and Intelligence.

7, 2011, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-toknow/the-daily-need/report-criticizes-haitirecovery-commission-led-by-bill-clinton/6187/ 

(accessed Oct 22, 2014). 8 Paolo Woods, “In Haiti, ‘video has not killed the 

radio star’,” NBC News, Feb 2012, 

http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02/01/10

254366-in-haiti-video-has-not-killed-the-radiostar?lite (accessed Aug 20, 2013).

9 Elihu Katz and George Wedell, Broadcasting in the 

Third World: Promise and Performance (Cambridge, 

Mass: University Press, 1977) 171.

10 David J. Bodenhamer, John Corrigan and Trevor 

M. Harris, eds, The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the 

Future of Humanities Scholarship (Bloomington, 

Indiana University Press, 2010) 16.

11 Radhika Gajjala, ed. Cyberculture and the 

Subaltern: Weavings of the Virtual and Real

(Boulder: Lexington Books, 2013) 73.

12 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984) 91-

108.

Campaigning Fall 2015 8
13 Fabienne Darling-Wolf, “Negotiation and Position: 

On the Need and Difficulty of Developing ‘Thicker 

Descriptions’,” Global Media Studies: Ethnographic 

Perspectives. Ed. Patrick Murphy and Marwan 

Kraidy, 2003, 109-124.

14 Patrick Meier, “How Crisis Mapping Saved Lives 

in Haiti,” National Geographic, Explorers Journal, 

July 2, 2012, 

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/02

/crisis-mapping-haiti/ (accessed Oct 23, 2014).

15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 USAID, “Earthquake Overview,” 

http://www.usaid.gov/haiti/earthquake-overview 

(accessed Oct 22, 2014). 18 Patrick Meier, “How Crisis Mapping Saved Lives 

in Haiti.” Screen captured by Patrick Meier 

(Released on September 14, 2015).

19 Ibid. 20 Rebecca A. Garcia, “Air Force asset used to assess 

damage, needs,” 459th Air Refueling Wing, US Air 

Force, January 20, 2010, 

http://www.459arw.afrc.af.mil/news/ 

story.asp?id=123186328 (accessed Oct 22, 2014). 21 Jamie McIntyre, “Haiti Overflight,” January 16, 

2010, http://www.youtube.com/ 

watch?v=qrNiQf9FtKg (accessed Aug 12, 2013).

Photo by Jamie McIntyre on Jan 12, 2010. (Released 

on September 12, 2015).

22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Photo taken by OC-135 camera equipment on 

January 12, 2010. LTC Mary Bell as Mission 

Commander. (Released).

25 Ibid.

26 C. Corbane, G. Lemoine, and M. Kauffman, 

“Relationship between the spatial distribution of 

SMS messages reporting needs and building damage 

in 2010 Haiti disaster,” Natural Hazards & Earth 

System Sciences, 2012 Vol 12 Issue 2, 255-265. 27 Mary Beth Sheridan, “Study: Haiti’s earthquake 

damage estimated up to $14 billion,” The Washington 

Post, February 17, 2010, 

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2010-02-

17/news/36856782_1_haiti-quake-haiti-funds-quakedamage (accessed Aug 8, 2013). 28 Linus Bengtsson, Xin Lu, Anna Thorson, Richard 

Garfield and Johan von Screeb, “Improved Response 

to Disasters and Outbreaks by Tracking Population 

Movements with Mobile Phone Network Data: A 

Post-Earthquake Geospatial Study in Haiti,” PLoS 

Medicine, Aug 2011, Vol 8 Issue 8, 1-9. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid.

Campaigning Fall 2015 9
The Accidental Counter Guerrilla 

(The Other Side of the COIN: 

Counterinsurgency)

By Mr Mike Bennett

Dave Kilcullen, in his book The Accidental 

Guerrilla, points out that not all guerillas 

arrive at the occupation on purpose. Some 

guerilla’s do so for a particular cause, some 

for a number of different reasons, and some 

others entirely by accident. In some 

historical cases, the United States 

successfully responded to guerillas and 

insurgencies, but in many cases it, too, 

responded by accident. An accidental 

guerilla would capitalize on successes, 

accidental or otherwise, and so should the 

United States. 

As of late, the United States has not 

fared well fighting guerillas and insurgents. 

Current operational successes and failures 

are largely the result of failure to follow 

strategic guidance documents that foreswear 

“large-scale, prolonged stability 

operations.” 2 United States Special 

Operations Command (USSOCOM), as part 

of their strategy for an international network 

approach, now focuses on “small scale 

stability operations,” and extolls the virtues 

of indirect approach operations using small 

footprint, persistent engagement.3

Researchers often cite El Salvador, 

Colombia, and the Philippines as examples 

of successful operations of that type, but a 

historical review focused on intent reveals 

that a small footprint, persistent engagement 

approach was neither intended nor planned. 

The US got to the right approach but by 

accident.

El Salvador (1981-1992) 

United States Southern Command 

(USSOUTHCOM) and the US Embassy 

followed a plan consistent with US doctrine 

for COIN in El Salvador when it employed 

an internal defense and development plan 

(IDAD) supported by US foreign internal 

defense (FID). It also employed persistent 

engagement of ten-plus years with a small 

footprint of fifty-five trainers—a limit set by 

Congress. The 55-man limit restrained the 

U.S trainers from making it a U.S. lead 

fight. The El Salvadoran Armed Forces 

(ESAF) had to do the fighting; trainers were 

not allowed to go on combat operations. 

The limitation of 55 U.S trainers was 

derived from testimony before Congress. 

This was the number of U.S. military that 

had been in El Salvador prior to the 

cancelation of the security assistance 

program. The program was canceled by 

President Jimmy Carter due to the discovery 

of massive human rights violations. 

According to former US Military Group 

Commander, BG Joe Stringham, the original 

strategy was to begin with the number of 

trainers that were in country when the 

program was canceled. The U.S Embassy 

and USMILGP never intended that number 

as a ceiling.

6

 However, Congress did not 

relent. As one of the 55 trainers in country 

in 1983, I thought, and the consensus 

amongst the trainers seemed to agree, that 

the parent organization, the 3rd battalion 7th

Special Forces Group in Panama, should 

have been deployed. 

El Salvador ended its conflict when 

the insurgent organization, Farabundi Marti 

Liberation National (FMLN) signed the 

peace accords and agreed to become a part 

of the political process. This assessment is in 

accord with the RAND Study by Seth Jones 

and Martin Libicki that found most 

insurgencies end by becoming a part of the 

political process.5 In retrospect, the 

limitation on trainers worked to the US and 

El Salvador’s advantage because it forced us 

to practice through, with and by the El 

Salvadoran forces. It was their skin in the 

Campaigning Fall 2015 10
game. The 55-man limit, however, was not 

planned; the small footprint was an accident.

Colombia (1999-present)

In initial conversations, the US and 

Colombian Governments could not agree on 

the objective of the national campaign plan, 

Plan Colombia (IDAD). Colombia wanted to 

focus on the Forces Armed Revolution 

(FARC), but the US wanted to focus on the 

drug cartels. The US viewed the cartels as 

the biggest threat to US National Security, 

and believed it could only support a conflict 

against that threat. The US never intended to 

involve itself in a Colombian civil war. 

Although the Colombians disagreed 

with the US focus, the desire for US support 

won out. Using a strategy of persistent 

engagement combined with a small 

footprint, the partnership succeeded so well 

against the drug cartels that it created a 

vacuum. The FARC attempted to fill that 

void, which allowed the US and the 

Colombian Governments to focus on them 

as narco-terrorists. The FARC’s expansion 

into narco-trafficking paved the way for 

further US support to Columbia, not just for 

police and law enforcement, but for the 

Colombian military with security assistance 

and training packages as well. 

The US government again used the 

foundations of persistent engagement, small 

footprint (no more than 800 military and 600 

contractors--this was more than the 55 man 

limit in El Salvador but significantly less 

than the US has had in Operations Enduring 

Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.) 7, and a 

national campaign plan from Colombia, Plan 

Colombia (IDAD). Plan Colombia is another 

example of a host-nation taking the lead in 

their country with successful long-term 

results. Both the US and Columbian 

governments got what they wanted, but, 

again, it was by accident and the result of an 

indirect strategic approach. 

Philippines/JSOTF-P (2001-2015) 

In 2001, the two terrorist groups, 

Abu Sayaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah 

Islamiva took a group of hostages for 

ransom in the southern Philippines. Within 

the group of hostages were several 

American citizens. Shortly after the 

kidnapping, the United States Pacific 

Command (USPACOM) responded with

Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines 

(OEF-P) and the deployment of the Joint 

Special Operations Task Force-Philippines 

(JSOTF-P). USPACOM planned to advise 

and assist Philippine security forces in 

counter-terrorist (CT) operations in the 

southern sector of the Philippines where the 

local government had lost much of the local 

control to the terrorist groups. The initial 

plan was to use the direct approach until the 

government of the Philippines objected for 

constitutional reasons. Therefore, an 

indirect/FID approach also had to be 

developed.8

 

The expected Philippine government 

objections came to fruition and resulted in 

the US and host-nation government efforts 

transitioning to an indirect approach through 

Civil Military Operations (CMO) rather than 

exclusively on CT. This combined effort 

assisted the Philippine government in 

reestablishing control in its southern islands. 

Once again, however, this was not the initial 

plan of USPACOM. The initial plan in 

response to the taking of US hostages was a 

maritime joint task force that would conduct 

US combat operations on the island. 

Ultimately, the limitations set by the 

Philippine government led to a successful, 

though alternate, and accidental approach. 

Conclusion 

US guidance and strategy documents 

directs the DoD to engage in persistent 

engagement, small footprint operations. Our 

joint doctrine also directs FID in support of 

host nation IDAD programs. Our history 

Campaigning Fall 2015 11
however, defaults to the direct approach 

favored by policy not the indirect approach 

as directed by doctrine.

USSOCOM Special Operations 

Forces 2020 emphasizes building a network 

with our partners and establishing 

relationships through persistent engagement 

in accordance with both the guidance and 

the doctrine. These three cases demonstrate 

that although the results were not arrived at 

initially by following that guidance, 

successful results were attained when the 

principles were followed, even if by 

happenstance. 

There are also more current 

examples of where that guidance has not 

been implemented and the efforts have not 

had successful results to include our 

operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 

template of persistent engagement, small 

footprint, FID, and IDAD program support 

has to be adjusted in each case to account 

for the host nation participation and 

considerations. But the principles of 

persistent engagement, small footprint and 

host nation lead don’t change. The US 

should understand that it can achieve better 

results consistently if done deliberately 

rather than by accident. 

Author Biography

Mr. Michael Bennett graduated from Loyola 

University in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 

Political Science. He retired from the US Army in 

2001 and worked at SOCJFCOM as the senior 

analyst/ trainer for 3 years, supporting OEF and OIF. 

Mr Bennett has been assigned to Joint Special 

Operations University since 2004, teaching at the 

Army, Naval, and Air War Colleges, Marine Corps 

University, and National Defense University as well 

as all of the Service component special operations 

schools. He arrived at JFSC in October 2010 where 

he teaches in the Joint Combined Warfare School, 

Joint Advanced Warfare School, Joint Command, 

Control, Communications, Computers, and 

Information Operations School, and the Joint and 

Combined Distance Education School. He also 

continues to support Joint Special Operations 

University irregular warfare courses at the service 

components as well as the service component 

schoolhouses.

1 David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla (Oxford: 

University Press, 2009)

2 Defense Strategic Guidance, Sustaining U.S. Global 

Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense 

(Offices Secretary of Defense, Washington D.C., 

2012) 12, 9 3 Special Operations Forces 2020, The Global SOF 

Network (USSOCOM, MacDill AFB Florida, 2013) 

4 

4 ARSOF 2022, Special Warfare Magazine JulySeptember 2014, Volume 27 Issue 3 (USAJFKSWCS 

Ft Bragg, NC, 2014) 5

5 Seth Jones, Martin Libicki, How terrorist Groups 

End (Rand Corporation Study, 2008) xiii

6 BG Joe Stringham, former USMILGP Commander 

El Salvador, interview held during El Salvador Panel 

Air War College Maxwell AFB Alabama June 2010

7 Mark Moyar, Hector Pagan, Wil R. Griego, 

Persistent Engagement in Colombia JSOU Report 14-

3 (JSOU: JSOU Press, 2014) 15, 18, 19

8 Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA), 

Partnered Counterterrorist Operations in the 

Philippines, A Case Study (JCOA, Suffolk VA, 

2011) 3

Campaigning Fall 2015 12
Rain of Ruin: Operational Design 

and the Pacific War, 1944-1945

By Colonel Gerard P. Tertychny, USA

“The trend in thinking in 

Washington was toward two mutually 

supporting advances across the Pacific, 

MacArthur’s and Nimitz’s, but with 

Nimitz’s taking priority.”1 Coming on the 

heels of the Japanese attack against the U.S. 

Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 

1941, the U.S effort in the Pacific during the 

Second World War took place after senior 

U.S. and Allied leadership had decided on a 

“Germany first” strategy for confronting the 

Axis powers. Forced to simultaneously plan 

for and execute operations against Japanese 

forces, senior U.S. commanders in the 

Pacific and Joint Chiefs of Staff planners 

were plagued by political realities, differing 

service perspectives on strategy, and the 

seeming inability or unwillingness of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff to identify a main 

effort. As Ronald Spector points out, the 

U.S. strategy for the defeat of Japan during 

World War II took the form of compromise. 

In reality, however, the senior U.S. civilian 

and military leadership, in deciding to 

pursue a two-avenue approach in the war 

against Japan, applied a methodology known 

today as operational design. 

Background 

By mid-1943, Allied efforts in 

Europe and North Africa were beginning to 

yield results. The Allies had driven German 

and Italian forces from North Africa, 

captured Sicily, disrupted Nazi war making 

capabilities, and forced the collapse of the 

Mussolini government in Italy. As a result, 

and following the Combined Chiefs of Staff 

conferences in 1943, codenamed TRIDENT 

and QUADRANT, the strategic issue that 

faced the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the need 

to understand the role that the war in the 

Pacific played in the overall global war and 

the need to develop a coherent strategy to 

address it. Senior leadership, therefore, 

called on the Combined Staff Planners to 

develop an estimate of the situation and an 

outline for the defeat of Japan.2

 

Confronted with British reluctance to 

emphasize operations in China or Burma, 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued guidance to 

the Joint War Plans Committee to develop a 

plan to defeat Japan as soon as possible after 

the surrender of Germany, preferably within 

twelve months. The result was the 

Appreciation and Plan for the Defeat of 

Japan, which recommended operations in 

both the Pacific and China-Burma and 

culminated in an invasion of Japan, 

operations that were estimated to continue 

into 1948.3 At the heart of these long-range 

planning efforts was a debate over which 

axis of advance against Japan to emphasize: 

through the Central Pacific, from the south 

through New Guinea, or from the north 

through the Aleutians. For a time, the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff also considered attacks from 

the Soviet Far East and Southeast Asia, 

though both were eventually considered 

geographically and politically unrealistic

and were discarded. 

The requirement that faced the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff in early 1944 was to “resolve 

Pacific strategy once and for all.”4 Specific 

issues to be addressed included the 

appointment of an overall commander in the 

Pacific, the identification of a main effort, 

and the allocation of limited resources. In 

order to arrive at a strategy, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff employed a methodology known 

today as operational design in order to 

“identify and understand the political aims 

of the war, determine the military objectives 

and allocate resources in support of them, 

and establish a military strategy to deliver 

them.”5

 

Campaigning Fall 2015 13
Operational Design 

While the term “operational design” 

has only been in use since 2002, the idea 

behind it goes back much further and the 

general concept was in use during World 

War II. As defined in Joint Publication 5-0, 

operational design is “a process of iterative 

understanding and problem framing” that 

“supports a recursive and ongoing dialogue 

concerning the nature of the problem and an 

operational approach to achieve the desired 

end states.”6

The operational approach transforms 

current conditions into desired conditions 

and it is produced through understanding the 

strategic direction, understanding the 

operational environment, and defining the 

problem.7 Critical to operational design, in 

addition to understanding the operational 

environment and defining the problem to be 

solved, is its continual review, updating, and 

modification in response to changes in the 

operational environment, desired end states, 

or the problem. 

Strategic Direction

Joint Publication 5-0 defines 

strategic direction as “guidance that 

provides long-term as well as intermediate 

or ancillary objectives.”8 What the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff planners faced in early 1944 

was the need to consider several political 

issues that directly influenced the U.S. 

policy in the Pacific. As Brower points out, 

the Joint Chiefs’ “freedom of action to 

reconcile military strategy with national 

policy was meaningful only to the degree 

that they grasped national objectives.”9 One 

issue was the role of China, both during the 

war and in the post-war world. In addition, 

planners had to appreciate the issue 

surrounding the mandate for the 

unconditional surrender of Japan. Planners 

also had to take into consideration the will 

of the American people as the war dragged 

on and casualties mounted.10

The Chinese issue was fairly clearcut: President Roosevelt’s policy towards 

China had both short-term and long-term 

goals. The short-term need was to keep 

China in the war, thereby tying up Japanese 

forces that could have been used elsewhere 

in the Pacific and also providing staging 

areas for future operations against the 

Japanese homeland. Long-term, and as a 

result of U.S. support during the war, the 

U.S. looked to China as an ally in any 

disputes with the Soviets. 

Not as clear was Roosevelt’s and 

Churchill’s policy of unconditional 

surrender with regards to Germany and 

Japan, which called for “a postwar world in 

which Germany and Japan would be unable 

to threaten the peace,” something planners 

interpreted as “political guidance from 

which they were to shape strategy.”11 The 

Joint Chiefs would see the details of this 

policy as imprecise throughout the war, 

though it was clear enough to lead them to 

the conclusion that they needed to devise a 

military strategy that resulted in “the utter 

defeat of Japan’s military,” as Japan’s attack 

on Pearl Harbor essentially ruled out the 

option of a negotiated settlement.12

The Operational Environment

Another issue facing planners was 

the need to understand the operational 

environment with regards to the war in the 

Pacific. Joint Publication 5-0 maintains that 

commanders and planners must address 

“friendly, adversary, and neutral actors that 

are relevant to a specific joint operation.”13

Key information in this effort includes, in 

addition to the strategic guidance, the nature 

of the conflict and any relevant history that 

might aid in the understanding of any 

friendly, enemy, or neutral party actions. 

Specifically, commanders and staffs must 

“analyze the operational environment and 

determine relevant and critical relationships 

between the various actors and aspects” that 

Campaigning Fall 2015 14
exist.14 One framework that is currently in 

use to analyze the operational environment 

addresses political, military, economic, 

social, information, and infrastructure 

(PMESII) factors. In addition, and based on 

the particular situation, factors such as 

geography and meteorology can also be 

considered. The requirement to understand 

the operational environment was particularly 

evident in the planning effort for the Pacific 

war that took place in 1943-44 and planners 

considered various relevant factors. 

General George Marshall expressed 

a lingering concern that the American 

people would lose the will to continue the 

fight if faced with mounting casualty figures 

and costs and the Joint Chiefs appreciated 

the need to consider the will of the 

American people when addressing China’s 

position and the unconditional surrender 

mandate. In Roosevelt’s opinion, Americans 

were not able to fully appreciate “the 

sacrifice necessary to bring about total 

victory,” so any strategy the planners 

devised for the Pacific would have to take 

into account cost, casualties, and time, 

issues that might influence American 

tolerance for operations in support of China 

and for unconditional surrender.15 

 Though the leadership of both the 

U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army looked upon 

the war in the Pacific as a “redemptive 

crusade” against Japan, the Navy, led by 

Admiral Ernest King and Admiral Chester 

Nimitz, saw the war as being waged against 

the Japanese because of their attack on Pearl 

Harbor and as one that would be 

characterized by naval dominance.16

General Douglas MacArthur, however, 

viewed the war as being waged against 

Japan because of its occupation of the 

Philippines, which resulted in MacArthur’s 

“humiliating departure from Corregidor,” 

and because of a moral obligation to liberate 

the islands.17 In addition, pre-war planning 

and existing war plans most likely 

influenced service thinking. 

Despite a policy that called for the 

defeat of Germany first, British and 

American leadership nevertheless supported 

a counteroffensive against Japan when they 

met at the Casablanca Conference in January 

1943. U.S. leadership was generally in 

agreement with a strategy that made use of 

limited counteroffensives in the Marshalls, 

the Carolines, the Solomons, the Aleutians, 

and New Guinea, all leading to a full-scale 

assault on Japan. Again, the debate centered 

on determining where to place the main 

effort, command and control options, and 

the allocation of resources. The resulting 

argument yielded two possible routes U.S. 

forces could use to attack Japan, each with 

its own advocates, advantages, and 

liabilities.

One proposed route advanced from 

Hawaii, through the Marshalls, the 

Carolines, the Marianas, and Palaus, to 

Japan and offered several advantages. First 

and foremost, an advance across the Central 

Pacific against Japan was, in the Navy’s 

estimation, the most direct route. In 

addition, such an advance would take 

advantage of U.S. naval and carrier air 

power to reduce Japanese island positions, 

destroy the Japanese advantage of interior 

lines, cut off Japan from the Netherlands 

East Indies oil supplies, and place U.S. 

forces within striking distance of Japan. 

Last, such an advance would likely lure the 

Japanese fleet into an open, decisive battle, 

where it would be destroyed by the U.S. 

fleet.

18 

Not without disadvantages, the 

Central Pacific route would, in MacArthur’s 

estimation, require multiple costly frontal 

assaults against Japanese island fortresses. 

In addition, because of the distances 

involved, this axis would reduce momentum 

by requiring forces to return to Hawaii to 

resupply after each phase, and would take 

Campaigning Fall 2015 15
U.S. forces out from under the protection of 

land-based air support.19 

A second proposed route advanced 

from Australia, through the Southwest 

Pacific to New Guinea, the Philippines, and 

Formosa, to Japan. Engaged in an ongoing 

operation in New Guinea, MacArthur saw 

the effort in the Southwest Pacific as a great 

opportunity to deal the Japanese a decisive 

blow and drive quickly to the Philippines, 

which he saw as the key to the war in the 

Pacific. His effort would also cut off Japan 

from the oil of the Netherlands East Indies, 

provide a base in the Philippines for attacks 

against Japanese shipping and against Japan 

itself through the use of long-range 

bombers, expose the Chinese coast to attack, 

possibly provoke the Japanese fleet into an 

open action, and take advantage of Australia 

as a staging base.20 

In Admiral King’s opinion, however, 

this axis was based on a New Guinea 

operation that was originally intended to 

defend Australia, not to attack Japan directly 

and bring about an end to the war. In 

addition, the New Guinea operation was, at 

the time, bogged down in a seemingly 

endless jungle battle and was always 

threatened by Japanese air, naval, and land 

forces in the area.

The Problem 

Having absorbed the strategic 

direction, and having considered the Navy 

and Army perspectives on framing the 

operational environment, the planners at the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff then looked to defining 

the problem. Using Joint Publication 5-0 as

a model, operational design calls for the 

development of a problem statement that 

identifies “how to transform the current 

conditions to the desired end state – before 

adversaries begin to transform current 

conditions to their desired end state.”21 The 

problem facing the American forces in the 

Pacific, therefore, “was how to end Japanese 

resistance before Allied exhaustion and warweariness forced a compromise on Allied 

war aims.”22 

A Solution 

The operational approach that results 

from analyzing the strategic direction and 

the operational environment and defining 

the problem describes the “commander’s 

visualization of a broad approach for 

achieving the desired end state.”23

According to Joint Publication 5-0, it 

provides a foundation for planning guidance, 

it provides a model for execution of the 

campaign, and it enables a better 

understanding of the operational 

environment. In addition, the operational 

approach addresses the strengths and 

weaknesses of various actors, identifies 

opportunities and threats, looks at the route 

from existing to desired conditions, and 

identifies likely consequences.24 

On 12 March 1944, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff met to decide on the Pacific strategy 

and presented a compromise solution to both 

MacArthur and Nimitz. Both commanders 

were instructed to initiate offensives “across 

the Pacific Ocean toward the ChinaFormosa-Luzon area.”25 Nimitz was 

specifically instructed to move across the 

Central Pacific, capture the Marianas, and 

attack Palaus. MacArthur was to support 

Nimitz (though he always viewed his theater 

as the main effort) by seizing New Guinea 

and Mindanao in the Philippines in order to 

establish air bases to reduce Japanese forces 

there and in preparation for further 

operations against Formosa, possibly via 

Luzon. 

This strategy, while seemingly 

indecisive, actually played out well and 

addressed the problem of ending Japanese 

resistance while taking into consideration 

several characteristics of the operational 

environment. First, it allowed for both 

MacArthur’s and Nimitz’s ideas to be 

Campaigning Fall 2015 16
employed and went a long way toward 

alleviating the inter-service rivalry that 

existed between the Army and the Navy, as 

both senior Army and Navy leaders had no 

problem with exercising command over 

counterpart forces, but were not willing to 

be commanded by the other.26 In addition, 

the two advances were mutually supporting: 

Nimitz’s offensive pulled Japanese naval 

and air power from the Southwest Pacific 

and MacArthur’s land campaigns pulled 

Japanese troops from the Central Pacific. 

Also, the dual-offensive strategy forced the 

Japanese to spread their forces thin and kept 

them guessing as to where the next 

American move would come, while Nimitz 

and MacArthur could maintain the initiative 

and concentrate forces against weaker 

Japanese positions.27 

A Changing Operational Environment 

and Iterative Understanding

Using the “Germany first” strategy, 

Allied forces had knocked Italy out of the 

war in 1943, had invaded France in 1944, 

and had brought the European war against 

Nazi Germany to an end in May of 1945. In 

the Pacific, the two-pronged strategy 

decided upon by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 

March 1944 had been successful in driving 

Japanese forces back across the Pacific. By 

mid-1945, simultaneous offensives by 

Nimitz and MacArthur had captured island 

bases in the Central Pacific, pushed the 

Japanese out of New Guinea and the 

Philippines, destroyed the Japanese surface 

fleet over the course of several 

engagements, and put U.S. land-based heavy 

bombers over the Japanese mainland. 

This two-axis strategy was working 

but took time, cost money, and resulted in 

considerable casualties. By August 1945, the 

war in the Pacific had been going on for 

almost four years since the attack on Pearl 

Harbor and for almost eighteen months since 

the decision to utilize this approach. Three 

months earlier, Allied leadership in Europe 

had received the German leadership’s 

unconditional surrender and an increasingly 

war-weary American population was 

looking for victory in the Pacific. In 

addition, the monetary cost of the war was 

astronomical, the continued rationing of 

food, gasoline, and basic necessities was 

taking its toll, and senior military leadership 

feared a “great impatience” on the part of 

the American people.

28 Last, the previous 

six months had seen some of the most 

savage fighting in the Pacific, at Iwo Jima 

and Okinawa, where U.S. servicemen had 

faced suicidal opposition from the Japanese 

and suffered staggering casualties on land 

and at sea.

The New Problem and Alternatives

Faced with the difficult decision 

concerning which course of action to choose 

with regards to the continuation of the war 

with Japan, President Truman, who had 

risen to the Office of the President after 

Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, had to 

consider the political and military realities of 

the situation and the problem to be solved. 

In the summer of 1945, he was presented 

with a number of alternatives to bring about 

a Japanese surrender. Each of these options 

carried risks to the three political issues that 

faced President Truman and that influenced 

U.S. policy in the Pacific: the role of China 

during the war and afterwards, the mandate 

for an unconditional surrender of Japan, and 

the will of the American people.29 The 

problem to be solved now was how to bring 

about a Japanese surrender as soon as 

possible, before China negotiated a separate 

peace with Japan or costs and casualties 

resulted in the American people losing their 

will to continue the war.

While keeping China in the war to 

tie down Japanese troops was an important 

part of the U.S. strategy, by late 1944, China 

under Chiang Kai-shek “had been 

Campaigning Fall 2015 17
discounted as an effective ally.”30 With 

China on the verge of collapse by the 

summer of 1945, Chiang might possibly 

negotiate a separate peace with Japan, 

freeing more Japanese troops for action 

against U.S. forces. In addition, the policy of 

unconditional surrender, agreed upon by the 

allied powers and backed by the American 

population, was seen as necessary to the 

complete defeat of Japan and her military.31

This policy was directly linked to the will of 

the American people. As the war dragged on 

through its fourth year, American leaders 

began to question the ability of the 

American people to support operations in 

the Pacific that might continue into 1946 

and beyond. Truman’s decision, therefore, 

had to take into account the monetary cost of 

continuing the war, the casualties that the 

U.S. and its allies would suffer, and the time 

required to execute the decision. 

One option was to continue the 

bombardment of Japanese cities through the 

use of heavy bombers. American long-range 

bombers had been striking targets in Japan 

since 1944, operating from bases in China 

and the Marianas, and these massive strikes 

against Japanese cities and industry were 

causing significant damage and casualties. 

Many advocates of air power believed that 

these attacks would, if increased in intensity 

through the occupation and use of a string of 

airbases around Japan, be sufficient to 

compel a Japanese surrender.32 

Another prospective strategy was for 

the U.S. to simply continue its blockade of 

Japan. U.S. air, surface, and submarine 

forces had all but isolated Japan from any 

importing of food or other materials and 

many believed that it would be simply a 

matter of time before the Japanese 

leadership capitulated. Supporting this belief 

was the experience gained from hypothetical 

war games with Japan conducted at the 

Naval War College throughout the 1920’s 

and 1930’s, which almost always concluded 

with a Japanese surrender brought about by 

a naval blockade.33

The bombardment of Japanese cities, 

while devastating, was showing no signs of 

driving the Japanese leadership towards 

unconditional surrender. This is incredible 

when one considers that, on a single night, 9 

March 1945, 279 B-29 heavy bombers 

bombed Tokyo in a raid that delivered 2,000 

tons of incendiary bombs and resulted in 

firestorms that boiled water in canals, 

melted glass windows, burned 16 square 

miles of the city, killed over 83,000 

civilians, injured 40,000 more, and left a 

million homeless.34 A similar bombing 

campaign in Europe resulted in significant 

Allied losses in manpower and material and 

still required a ground invasion of Germany 

to force an unconditional surrender. The 

blockade of Japan, also effective, would take 

far too much time to compel surrender and 

might send the message to Japan that the 

U.S. lacked the will to act decisively. Both 

options would also prolong the war, 

increasing the likelihood of Chinese 

leadership seeking a separate peace with 

Japan and further draining American 

resources and will power. 

Another option was a massive 

amphibious invasion of the Japanese home 

islands. Codenamed “DOWNFALL,” the 

invasion of Japan was being planned for 

November 1945, when U.S. forces would 

invade Kyushu, and March 1946, with an 

invasion of Honshu near Tokyo. This option, 

according to General Douglas MacArthur, 

stood the best chance of success, as it “was 

the only one that would permit application 

of the full power of our combined resources 

– ground, naval, and air – on the decisive 

objective.”35 

The planned amphibious operation 

against Japan was estimated to be extremely 

costly in American, Allied, and Japanese 

lives, as evidenced by the recent fighting on 

Okinawa. Here, U.S. casualties leapt to 35 

Campaigning Fall 2015 18
percent, higher than in any other Pacific 

battle and across terrain that was “strikingly 

similar” to that of Kyushu.36 Japanese 

military forces in the home islands 

numbered several million men. They, as 

well as the civilian population, would be 

fighting on their home soil and would be 

justifiably motivated, prompting Allied 

estimates of “200,000 casualties and 50,000 

fatalities.”37 Such an invasion would 

prolong the war into 1946, at least, and 

carried the risk of the Soviet Union 

intervening in the northern areas of the 

Japanese home islands. However, the 

planning and preparation for the invasion of 

Japan could continue regardless of which 

course of action Truman chose and, should 

the chosen option prove ineffective; the 

invasion could still be launched. 

Truman’s Decision 

The successful detonation of an 

atomic weapon in July 1945 gave President 

Truman an additional option. He could use it 

against civilian targets, military targets, or in 

a demonstration to the Japanese leadership 

of its destructive force, possibly giving them 

a legitimate reason for surrendering - the 

excuse that they were beaten by science and 

technology. 

Assessing the situation, Truman 

decided to use an atomic weapon against a 

target on the Japanese mainland,

determining that this was the best way to 

solve the problem that existed at that time 

and end Japanese resistance. The dropping 

of the first bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 

1945, and a second bomb on Nagasaki on 9 

August 1945, resulted in a Japanese 

surrender on 14 August. Though the 

unconditional surrender mandate was 

modified, as Emperor Hirohito remained on 

the throne, President Truman had brought 

the war in the Pacific to a conclusion in a 

week, and not with “an invasion of Japan 

and 16 more months of war.”38 

Conclusion

The Joint Chiefs of Staff planners, 

after what might be considered a slow start, 

employed the methodology of what is now 

known as operational design in their

development of the two-axis strategy for the 

Pacific War in World War II. In developing 

an operational approach, planners initially 

struggled to understand the strategic 

guidance, as espoused by President 

Roosevelt. However, they and the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff “worked hard to identify and 

understand the political aims of the war, in 

their view the first step in shaping a military 

strategy for Japan’s defeat.”39 

Planners took into consideration 

service perspectives, the opinions and 

personalities of the commanders in the 

Pacific, logistical realities, and Japanese 

capabilities in understanding the operational 

environment. The “Army-Navy” and 

“MacArthur-Nimitz” debates resulted in no 

assumptions going unchallenged and the 

development of better operational 

approaches being devised than might 

otherwise have been the case. They used all 

of this information to identify the problem to 

be solved, and then determined the military 

objectives, the resource requirements, and 

the compromise two-axis strategy to be used 

in solving that problem. The iterative 

understanding and problem solving that is 

characteristic of operational design led to 

Truman’s decision to use atomic attacks on 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki and brought about 

a conclusion to the war in eighteen months, 

several years shorter than original estimates 

and only three months after the surrender of 

Germany, well inside the guideline of 

twelve months. 

President Truman has come under 

some criticism for his decision to use atomic 

weapons, with some citing how they were 

unnecessary as Japan was on the verge of 

collapse. However, he had to make a 

decision armed only with what he knew at 

Campaigning Fall 2015 19
the time. The Japanese had put up a fanatical 

resistance at Okinawa and could only be 

expected to fight even harder on their home 

ground, most likely resulting in untold 

American and Japanese casualties and the 

utter destruction of Japan. Naval blockade 

and massive aerial bombing operations 

against Japanese cities had not brought the 

Japanese leadership any closer to surrender. 

Also, the costs of the war were already 

enormous, as were the casualties suffered by 

American and Allied forces. Truman would 

have had a very difficult time explaining to 

the American people that he had atomic 

weapons but did not employ them if his 

decision had resulted in countless more lives 

lost. 

As he stated in a press release after 

the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 

August 1945, President Truman revealed the 

reason for his decision to use such weapons, 

that is, “to obliterate more rapidly and 

completely every productive enterprise the 

Japanese have above ground in any city.”40

He made his decision at a time of 

considerable tension and disagreement 

among senior U.S. civilian and military 

leaders and in response to a change in the 

1

 Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, (New 

York, NY: Vintage Books, 1985), 279.

2

 Charles F. Brower, Defeating Japan: The Joint 

Chiefs of Staff and Strategy in the Pacific War, 1943-

1945 (New York, NY: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2012), 

41.

3

 Brower, 43. 4

 Stephen R. Taafe, MacArthur’s Jungle War: The 

1944 New Guinea Campaign, (Lawrence, KS:

University Press of Kansas, 1998), 25.

5

 Brower, 152. 6

 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 5-0: 

Joint Operation Planning, (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 2011), III-1 – III-2. 7

 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, III-7 8

 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, III-7. 9

 Brower, 5. 10 Brower, 5. 11 Brower, 8. 12 Brower, 9.

overall political, strategic, and military 

situation, both globally and in the Pacific. 

U.S. forces and leaders faced the prospect of 

continued casualties and the distinct 

possibility of the war entering its fifth year 

without a surrender by the Japanese 

government or with Japanese forces 

disregarding any surrender and continuing 

the fight, both in the Home Islands and in 

China and Southeast Asia. Based on the 

information he had at the time, President 

Truman made the decision to use atomic 

weapons in order to compel a Japanese 

surrender in as short a time as possible, 

thereby achieving the war’s political aims 

and bringing about its conclusion without 

“another Okinawa” fought “from one end of 

Japan to the other.”41 

Author Biography

Colonel Gerard P. Tertychny, USA, is the Director, 

Special Operations Forces at the U.S. Army War 

College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He is a 

graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, holds 

master’s degrees from California State University 

and the Army War College, and earned his doctorate

in education from The George Washington 

University. 

13 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, III-8. 14 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, III-9. 15 Brower, 9-10. 16 Taafe, 17. 17 Taafe, 16. 18 Taafe, 15.

19 Taafe, 17. 20 Taafe, 18. 21 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, III-13. 22 Brower, 43. 23 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, III-13. 24 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, III-13-14. 25 Taafe, 27. 26 Wayne A. Silkett, “Downfall: The Invasion that 

Never Was,” Parameters (Autumn 1994): 112. 27 Taafe, 30. 28 Thomas B. Allen and Polmar Norman, Code-Name 

Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan and Why 

Truman Dropped the Bomb (New York, NY: Simon 

and Schuster, 1995), 126. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 20
29 Brower, 8-9. 30 Allen and Norman, 119. 31 Theodore H. McNelly, “The Decision to Drop the 

Atomic Bomb” (presented at the Pearl to V-J Day: 

World War II in the Pacific Symposium, Bethesda, 

MD, 1995), 133.

32 Louis B. Morton, “The Decision to Use the Atomic 

Bomb,” In Command Decisions, ed. Kent Roberts 

Greenfield (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of 

Military History, United States Army, 1960), 500.

33 Silkett, 111. 34 Daniel L. Haulman, Hitting Home: The Air 

Offensive Against Japan. The U.S. Army Air Forces 

in World War II, (Washington, DC: Air Force 

History and Museums Program, 1999), 22. 

35 Morton, 501. 36 Silkett, 118. 37 Michael D. Pearlman, Unconditional Surrender, 

Demobilization, and the Atomic Bomb, (Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1996), 1.

38 Allen and Norman, 216.

39 Brower, 150. 40 Ayers Papers. Press Release by the White House, 

August 6, 1945.

41 Silkett, 118.

Campaigning Fall 2015 21
International Code of Conduct: A 

Cybersecurity Panacea or 

Pandora’s Box?

By Major Amanda Current, USA and Lieutenant

Colonel Bryan Redash, USAF 

The post-Cold War Era is often 

described as the “information age” in which 

the exponential advancement of technology 

revolutionized the way nation states, nonstate actors and individuals interact in the 

global system.1 Information and 

communication technologies (ICTs) have 

reshaped the international security 

environment, and dialogue concerning 

cyberspace security has entailed a “return of 

the state” as sovereign nations grapple with 

conflict and cooperation in a domain that 

transcends physical borders.2

 At present, the 

absence of a global cybersecurity treaty has 

created a vacuum that authoritarian states 

are exploiting to advance a revisionist 

narrative for international Internet 

governance. To that end, Russia and China 

are leading a cohort of like-minded states—

to include members of the Shanghai 

Cooperation Organization (SCO)—that 

promote the concepts of Internet sovereignty

and information security, which entitle states 

to set sovereign norms and manage content 

flow to protect their populations from the 

threat of hostile information.3

 By contrast, 

the United States is among a group of 

states—sometimes referred to as the 

“Western Consensus”—which advocates an 

open, interoperable medium for the free 

flow of ideas and information that 

transcends national borders.4 Thus, both 

United States and Russian governments are 

behaving as “norm-entrepreneurs” during 

the formative stages of a burgeoning 

cybersecurity paradigm.5 

The international “tug-of-norms” 

vis-à-vis cybersecurity can be traced back 

almost two decades. In 1998—and every 

year since—Russia introduced a draft 

resolution on “Developments in the field of 

information and telecommunications in the 

context of security” in the First Committee 

of the UN General Assembly.6 The 

resolution called upon member states to 

consider the issues underlying cybersecurity, 

define concepts such as unauthorized 

interference or misuse of systems, and to 

strengthen global information systems. Two 

years after introducing the draft resolution, 

Russia proposed the establishment of a 

special Group of Governmental Experts 

(GGE) to address existing and potential 

threats to information security.7

 When 

Russia opened the resolution for cosponsorship in 2005, China was the first of 

36 member states to endorse it.8 In 

September 2014, Russia and China led the 

resubmission of what is now termed the 

International Code of Conduct for 

information security to the UN General 

Assembly during the fourth GGE.9 As a 

leader among the Western Consensus, the 

United States should not endorse the Code 

of Conduct proposed by Russia, China, and 

other members of the Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization (SCO). 

Divergent Ideologies: Cyber-Realism, 

Cyber-Liberalism & the Role of Soft 

Power

Over the last 20 years, an 

“intellectual evolution” has taken place 

regarding the relationship between 

cyberspace and state power.10 The Internet 

has transformed relationships among states, 

challenging the Westphalian international 

system that has existed since 1648.11 The 

viability of existential threats occurring in 

the cyber domain has emerged from a “fear 

of increased vulnerability and loss of control 

Campaigning Fall 2015 22
that presumably is the result of moving from 

an industrial to an information society.”12

According to Assistant Professor Mary 

McEvoy Manjikian of the Robertson School 

of Government, two narratives have 

emerged to describe cyberspace from an 

International Relations theory perspective: 

Cyber-Liberalism and Cyber-Realism.13

Cyber-Liberalism is further subdivided into 

utopian and regulatory strands (See Figure 

1). “Utopians see cyberspace’s development 

as an organic growth process, while 

regulators see the Internet evolving due to 

focused international cooperation.”14 The 

latter strand of the Cyber-Liberalist regime 

describes what has been referred to as the 

Western Consensus—a pragmatic view of 

international cooperation and cyber 

regulation espoused by the United States and 

most Western European countries.15

Figure 1: Competing Views of Cyberspace16

Conversely, the governments of 

China and Russia belong to the CyberRealist camp that stresses the importance of 

ICT “as a technological change in the 

existing international system.”17 CyberRealists adhere to the core tenets of realism, 

which observe states as rational actors 

competing for survival in an anarchical 

international system. This faction views the 

cyber domain as an “extraterritorial site of 

real world power.”18 Furthermore, this camp 

is driving what some researchers have called 

a “neo-Westphalian process in the digital 

era” or a “Cybered Westphalian Age,” by 

advocating virtual fences along physical 

territorial borders.19 For both camps, these 

philosophical distinctions apply to states’ 

treatment of the cyber domain and do not 

necessarily align with their International 

Relations (IR) behaviors in the physical 

realm.

Internet sovereignty and information 

security serve as the ideological foundation 

of the proposed Code of Conduct. The 

Russian and Chinese governments “strongly 

support the idea of national control of all 

internet resources that lie within a state’s 

physical borders, and the associated 

concepts of application of local 

legislation.”20 Supporters of the Code of 

Conduct also espouse a concept of 

information security—codified in the Code 

of Conduct presented at the fourth GGE—

which “promotes stability and elimination of 

threats to both information and 

communication infrastructure and the 

information itself [emphasis added].”21 

Information security differs from the 

concept of cybersecurity—the term 

preferred by the Western Consensus—

primarily in the characterization of a threat. 

Whereas cybersecurity recognizes the threat 

of hostile code, information security is based 

on hostile intent.22 Thus, under the CyberRealist paradigm, any information seen as 

harmful to a sovereign’s stability, culture, or 

social consciousness is considered a weapon 

propagated through cyberspace. The idea 

that information could be viewed as a 

weapon appeals to authoritarian regimes 

while Cyber-Liberalists (i.e., the Western 

Consensus camp) find this ideology 

inherently undemocratic.23 Additionally, 

liberal democracies have opined that the 

concept of Internet sovereignty promotes 

Campaigning Fall 2015 23
barriers to the flow of information along 

geographical borders, which is counter to 

the spirit upon which the Internet was built. 

Professor Joseph S. Nye, an 

accomplished IR scholar, has likened the 

current status of cybersecurity policy to that 

which governed the nascent nuclear program 

in 1960.24 The tendency to draw parallels 

between nuclear and cyber policy inevitably 

leads to discussions about strategic 

deterrence and norms-seeking initiatives.25 

Nye summarized the international 

cybersecurity “tug-of-norms” concisely:

For more than a decade, Russia has sought a 

treaty for broader international oversight of 

the Internet, banning deception or the 

embedding of malicious code or circuitry 

that could be activated in the event of 

war.... The United States has resisted 

agreements that could legitimize 

authoritarian governments’ censorship of the 

[I]nternet.... Even advocates for an 

international law for information operations 

are skeptical of a multilateral treaty akin to 

the Geneva Conventions that could contain 

precise and detailed rules given future 

technological volatility, but they argue that 

like-minded states could announce selfgoverning rules that could form norms for 

the future [emphasis added].26

This characterization is noteworthy 

because the soft power advantage will go to 

those states whose “dominant culture and 

ideas are closer to prevailing global norms 

... [with] access to multiple channels of 

communications ... [and whose] credibility 

is enhanced by their domestic and 

international performance.”27 Moreover, the 

relative importance of soft power in the 

information age has increased because soft 

power relies on credibility in an 

information-rich environment. The ability of 

soft power to traverse real and virtual 

terrain—and the notion that the real world 

needs to be protected from the virtual 

world—leads Cyber-Realists to extend their 

reach to the governance and enforcement of 

norms within cyberspace as a whole.28 A 

skillful use of soft power will arguably drive 

the establishment of normative behavior in 

the cyber domain. Because the effectiveness 

of soft power is directly proportionate to a 

state’s credibility, the United States must 

maintain a message of international 

cooperation to encourage a harmonized set 

of policies that are shared with like-minded 

partners. 

Supporter Concerns – Russia / China 

It is not inaccurate to characterize 

Russia and China as cyber normentrepreneurs in their own right. They have 

consistently tabled cyber policy initiatives 

and actively sought additional international 

validation through the UN for their 

proposals. Some of these same 

recommendations have encountered strong 

international opposition because they do not 

adequately address infrastructure and 

network protection—tenets deemed 

critically important to the West. This would 

appear to be a deliberate attempt by the 

Russians and Chinese not to become 

signatories to any policy that would 

explicitly proscribe cyber-espionage, 

Distributive Denial of Service (DDoS) 

attacks, and other infrastructure or networkdegrading actions. Similarly, the proposed 

Code of Conduct would empower 

signatories at the national level to filter, 

block, or otherwise limit the free flow of 

ideas across the cyber domain, as a counter 

to what many Russian and Chinese leaders 

might consider to be corrupting influences 

from the West. 

A second, more historical basis for 

understanding current Russian and Chinese 

actions and predicting future behavior in the 

cyber realm emerges by examining each 

state’s master narratives. The Master 

Campaigning Fall 2015 24
Narratives platform—a collaborative project 

of the Open Source Center, Monitor 360, 

and various partners across the U.S. 

government—focuses on “surfacing and 

articulating master narratives across a range 

of important geographies ... [which] can be 

used to understand critical audience 

segments and key influencers better, build 

analytic capabilities, and develop actionable 

messaging and counter-messaging 

strategies.”29 As defined by the Open Source 

Center, master narratives are “historically 

grounded stories that reflect a community’s 

identity and experiences, or explain its 

hopes, aspirations, and concerns.”30 The 

master narratives help illuminate each 

state’s respective motivations while also 

offering possible insights into how best to 

reconcile the disparity between CyberLiberalist and Cyber-Realist positions.

In the Chinese case, their internal cyber 

strategy is driven by a mandate “to adopt 

whatever is useful from more advanced 

countries ... [to] reclaim its rightful place as 

a world power.”31 This core master narrative 

legitimizes, if not encourages, cyberespionage as a means to this strategic end. A 

second narrative emphasizes re-attaining 

their historical status as an East Asia 

hegemon after having been humiliated for 

much of the last century.32 This master 

narrative contributed to the development of 

national strategic guidance, which recently 

included informatization and the 

modernization of China’s information 

technology as a top priority.33

Russians are similarly motivated by 

three distinct master narratives, each with 

historical underpinnings critically important 

to their cyber strategy. The first of these 

highlights Russia’s post-Cold War 

transition. They quickly went from enjoying 

superpower status in a bipolar world to 

accepting the United States ascent to their 

current role as the hegemonic superpower in 

a unipolar world. Russian strategy is now 

focused on restoring their position as a 

credible international power by positioning 

themselves as essential partners for problem 

resolution and multilateral treaty 

development.34 Their actions to promote the 

International Information Security 

Resolution and subsequent Code of Conduct 

reinforce that theme. 

The second master narrative 

informing Russia’s cyber strategy is more 

conspiratorial in nature, centering on the 

belief that few other countries are truly 

Russia’s allies, and that Russia can only rely 

upon itself.35 This perception, coupled with 

a third master narrative—one reinforced by 

nationalism and a desire to preserve national 

culture—both link directly to Russia’s 

apparent reluctance to consider any 

international cyber pact that would deprive 

them of the ability to control the content of 

the Internet within their sovereign borders.36

Dissenter Concerns – U.S. / Western 

Consensus 

In contrast to the Russian and 

Chinese cohorts’ focus on state actors and 

internal security measures, the Western 

Consensus response to the Code of Conduct 

suggests the existence of a loose agreement 

among the Cyber-Liberalist camp. In 

December 2013, the UN General Assembly 

acknowledged the Code of Conduct 

proposed by SCO member states. As part of 

the resolution, the UN invited all members 

to provide comments back to the SecretaryGeneral regarding the recommendations 

proposed in the resolution.37 Based on 

responses received in June and September of 

2014, the Western Consensus—or CyberLiberalist—point of view can be distilled 

down to four key themes. 

The first theme indicates a belief that 

existing international law is relevant and 

malleable enough to address the actions of 

Campaigning Fall 2015 25
states in the cyber domain. For example, the 

Australian government maintains that 

“existing international law provides the 

framework of State behavior [emphasis 

added] in cyberspace and for appropriate 

responses to unlawful activity by States.”38

They go on to declare this includes, where 

applicable, “international humanitarian law 

[IHL], law regarding the use of force, 

international human rights law and 

international law regarding State 

responsibility.” 39 While the Australian 

position supports the notion that existing 

international law defines appropriate 

behavior and norms in the cyber domain, 

they also assert that “elaborating how 

international law applies to State behavior in 

cyberspace in both conflict and non-conflict 

situations, while acknowledging the 

complexity involved, is a priority task for 

the international community.” 40 The 

Canadian response expands on this position 

by deeming “international law in cyberspace 

as the cornerstone for norms and principles 

for responsible State behavior.”41 These 

sentiments echo the findings of the third 

GGE, which concluded: 

[I]nternational law and in particular the 

United Nations Charter, is applicable and is 

essential to maintaining peace and stability 

and promoting an open, secure, peaceful 

and accessible ICT environment [and that] 

State sovereignty and the international 

norms and principles that flow from it apply 

to States’ conduct of ICT-related activities 

and to their jurisdiction over ICT 

infrastructure with their territory.42

The second theme that differentiates 

the Cyber-Liberalist camp from CyberRealists is the explicit support voiced by the 

Western Consensus for a free, open, secure, 

and accessible Internet allowing for freedom 

of expression online. The French position is 

clear on this point: “France does not 

consider information as such to be a 

potential source of vulnerability requiring 

protection, except under conditions strictly 

established by law, in a proportionate and 

transparent way, in accordance with article 

19 of the International Covenant on Civil 

and Political Rights.”43 Austrians provide 

additional support to the ideal of an open 

and free Internet at the international level. 

They advocate “the free exercise of all 

human rights must be guaranteed in virtual 

space; particularly, the right to freedom of 

expression and information must not be 

restricted unduly in the internet.” The 

Korean position merges the idea of a free 

and open Internet with broad ideals and 

values shared by western nations regarding 

economic liberalism; that is, in addition to 

providing greater economic prosperity, “an 

open and secure cyberspace is essential to 

increase human accomplishment and 

promote democratic participation.”44 

 The principle of unimpeded flow of 

information and ideas in the cyber domain 

underscores the next theme: support for 

democratic values. According to the Spanish 

respondents, these values include 

democracy, human rights, and the rule of 

law.45 Additionally, Sweden advocated a 

European Union (EU) cyber policy 

specifically based on the EU’s “fundamental 

values and interests.”46 Sweden was among 

a “core group of States that initiated Human 

Rights Council resolution 20/8 (2012), in 

which the Council affirmed that the same 

rights that individuals have offline must be 

protected online.”47 Sweden also strongly 

supported the “Freedom Online Coalition, a 

group committed to advancing Internet 

freedom worldwide.”48 The Canadians 

further emphasized this point by stating a 

balance must be struck between information 

security and respect for human rights and 

fundamental freedoms. Specifically, the 

Canadian respondents identified individual 

freedoms, “including freedom of expression, 

Campaigning Fall 2015 26
association and assembly and respect for 

privacy,” must be protected in the virtual 

realm.49

The final theme common to most 

Cyber-Liberalist responses is a clear 

emphasis on combating cyber-crime. 

Germany’s comments outlined a few 

initiatives they believe will support this 

endeavor. Over the next four years, 

Germany intends to focus on efforts to 

improve “consumer protection; amendments 

to the criminal law to better protect 

individuals; the passing of an IT 

[information technology] security law with 

mandatory minimum IT security standards 

for critical infrastructure; and an obligation 

in respect of all federal authorities to invest 

10 percent of their IT budget to improve the 

security of their systems.” In response to 

concerns regarding potentially unlawful 

surveillance or interceptions of 

communications, Germany is strongly 

encouraging Internet service providers to 

encrypt their telecommunications.50

Increasing emphasis on encryption would 

also serve to increase the difficulty cyber 

criminals encounter while exploiting their 

targets. Furthermore, in an effort to combat 

cyber-crime and protect personal data and 

privacy, Portugal instituted mandatory 

reporting of any personal data violations.51

These international responses punctuate a 

stark contrast between the Cyber-Realist and 

Cyber-Liberalist camps: while Russians 

emphasize the potential danger posed by the 

proliferation of information weapons, the 

“western block hardly touched upon the 

issue of information warfare and weapons, 

principally rejecting the need for 

disarmament and ... emphasizing the 

criminal misuse of IT [emphasis added].”52

The collective response from 

Western Consensus states to the Code of 

Conduct proposed by the SCO states flowed 

from beliefs that are fundamental to the 

Cyber-Liberalist paradigm. This camp 

contends that a free, open, secure, and 

accessible Internet should serve as a 

common medium for the unrestricted flow 

of information and exchange of ideas on a 

global level. This perception of the role of 

the Internet is central to supporting and 

advancing fundamental human rights and 

democratic values in a globalized 

international system.

Legal Analysis 

The absence of an international 

treaty on cyber policy is problematic for 

several significant reasons. Foremost among 

these is until there is concurrence on 

regulatory policy, global actors will continue 

to feel unconstrained in their actions. As 

technology advances, world processes 

become more IT-dependent, and the 

ubiquity of the Internet grows, malign cyber 

activity will also grow proportionately, as 

will the destructiveness of its effects. States, 

individuals, and critical infrastructure will 

become increasingly vulnerable. An 

international accord will not protect 

everyone, but it will go a long way towards 

defining and subsequently countering illicit 

activity in cyberspace. 

The Tallinn Manual is a superb first 

step in this direction. Initiated by the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization Cooperative 

Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence 

(NATO CCD COE), the Tallinn Manual

serves as a comprehensive restatement of 

international law governing cyberspace.53

The manual provides 95 separate legal rules, 

each followed by a detailed analysis, to 

include differing perspectives on possible 

applications. Although the document does 

not constitute official cyber law, it could in 

the future conceivably be used as a baseline 

for developing customary law within the 

framework of cyber cases held at either the 

International Court of Justice (states) or the 

Campaigning Fall 2015 27
International Criminal Court (individuals). 

Produced by 20 international law scholars, 

the Tallinn Manual addresses moral and 

legal concepts such as “sovereignty, 

jurisdiction, and State responsibility insofar 

as they relate to operation of the jus ad 

bellum and jus in bello.”54 For the time 

being, much work remains to be done at the 

international level to codify norms and 

develop more of an international consensus 

on the taxonomy of cyber offenses, 

including questions regarding the viability 

of applying the LOAC, definitions of an act 

of war in the cyber realm, and what might 

constitute appropriate, and legitimate, 

defensive responses in the wake of a cyberattack. Content notwithstanding, a forceful 

document—with legal authority and 

international legitimacy—is critical. 

Rather than resolve some of the 

aforementioned legal challenges, the SCObacked Code of Conduct actually clouds the 

international regulatory landscape. It also 

may reflect more Machiavellian intentions 

on the part of its authors, or what Tallinn 

Manual editor and cyber law expert Michael 

Schmitt calls “peacetime lawfare.”55 The 

concept of peacetime lawfare involves the 

use of “law or other regulatory regimes 

against one’s enemy.”56 The SCO are likely 

well aware that if the United States were to 

sign onto the Code of Conduct, it would 

impose significant constraints on the CyberLiberalist notion of the cyber domain. 

Broader international acceptance of the 

Code of Conduct would enable the Russians, 

Chinese, and others to object to U.S. 

behavior at the slightest transgression while 

denying any violations of their own. Mr. 

Schmitt avers that lawfare, rather than a 

quest for best practices and open 

compliance, at least partially explains the 

Cyber-Realist authoritarian regimes’ 

motivations behind their proposal.57 

While the Tallinn Manual has been 

lauded by most Western scholars as a noble 

attempt to clarify international law and 

preempt a cyber-catastrophe, several 

criticisms have been levied against the same, 

namely from member states of the SCO and 

the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and 

South Africa) grouping of emerging 

economies.58 

Despite the disparate priorities 

between the Cyber-Realist and CyberLiberalist states, however, there is reason for 

optimism. Past precedent exists for broad 

international collaboration on issues with 

global impact. The Intergovernmental Panel 

on Climate Change (IPCC), the Nuclear 

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the 

Vienna Convention for the Protection of the 

Ozone Layer, are but three among many 

pacts that have scored some significant 

successes in reconciling a wide array of 

interests and priorities. It is reasonable to 

think the same is possible for cyber. 

Conclusion and Recommendations 

The concepts of sovereignty, 

national security, and the role of political 

institutions are all changing in the age of the 

Internet. The increasingly pervasive nature 

of information technology is driving a 

“relentless digitization across all facets of 

human society.”59 According to some 

observers, states are reaching out to control 

what they fear from the Internet: “the lack of 

sovereign control over what comes through 

their borders.”60 International cyber 

behaviors and initiatives are clearly 

distinguishable between Cyber-Realists and 

Cyber-Liberalists. For Cyber-Realists, states 

translate their foreign relations practices to 

the cyber domain, “essentially reproducing 

the security dilemma in the virtual world.”61

Russia, China, and other authoritarian states 

view unfettered information flow as an 

imminent threat to national stability and 

Campaigning Fall 2015 28
state sovereignty. The Western Consensus, 

on the other hand, extols the virtues of an 

open, free, interoperable Internet blind to 

geographical borders. Both camps are acting 

as international norm-entrepreneurs, and 

they are not in alignment. 

Given that the international 

community is in the early stages of 

cybersecurity norm emergence, now is the 

time for the United States to demonstrate 

strong leadership and vision. The concepts 

of Internet sovereignty and information 

security run counter to the democratic 

principles espoused by the United States and 

other Cyber-Liberalist countries. Therefore, 

the United States cannot endorse the 

proposed Code of Conduct for information 

security and remain credible as a leader of 

the Western Consensus. Failure on the part 

of the United States to counter revisionist 

narratives vis-à-vis norms governing 

international cybersecurity places it at a 

strategic disadvantage. A collaborative 

approach is essential to risk reduction and 

international cooperation in the virtual 

domain. Ultimately, the United States must 

1 Rex Hughes, “A Treaty for Cyberspace,” 

International Affairs (Royal Institute of International 

Affairs 1944) 86, no. 2 (March 2010): 527, accessed 

October 22, 2014, 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40664079. 

2 Joseph S. Nye, “Cyber Power,” Paper, (Cambridge, 

MA: Belfer Center for Science and International 

Affairs, Harvard University, May 2010), 15. 3 Keir Giles, “Russia’s Public Stance on Cyberspace 

Issues” Paper, 2012 4th International Conference on 

Cyber Conflict, (Tallinn, Estonia, 2012), 3. The 

nucleus of the revisionist camp is formed by member 

states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 

(SCO): China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, 

Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

4 Ibid., 2. Giles coined the phrase “Western 

Consensus” to describe a system of views which 

forms an unstated but tangible concurrence among 

the U.S., UK and other like-minded states. 5 Tim Maurer, “Cyber Norm Emergence at the United 

Nations – An Analysis of the UN’s Activities 

primarily utilize soft power to lead an 

international effort and develop a normative 

cybersecurity policy in order to cultivate a 

multi-stakeholder framework for the cyber 

domain. 

Team Biographies 

Major Amanda Current, USA, is currently serving 

in the J25 at USCYBERCOM in Fort Meade, 

Maryland. She was commissioned through ROTC at 

Truman State University in 2002. MAJ Current 

earned a BS in Psychology from Truman State 

University in 2002 and an MS in Strategic 

Intelligence from the National Intelligence University 

in 2014. Prior to her current assignment, MAJ 

Current served as the Brigade Chief of Operations for 

the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade in Fort Campbell, 

Kentucky. 

Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Redash, USAF, is 

currently assigned to the National Reconnaissance 

Office (NRO). He was commissioned through 

ROTC at Boston University in 1997. Lt Col Redash 

earned at BA in Economics from Boston University 

in 1997 and an MS in Management from Troy State 

University in 2002. He has previously served in a 

variety of assignments both in the United States and 

abroad.

Regarding Cyber-security?” Discussion Paper 2011-

11, (Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and 

International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, 

September 2011), 3. Maurer identifies “norm 

entrepreneurs” as any entity with sufficient resources 

to exert influence in an attempt to convince a critical 

mass of states to embrace new norms. In his research 

for the Belfer Center, Maurer examined activities 

among cybersecurity stakeholders at the United 

Nations, and concluded that the international 

community is presently in the first of three stages of 

the norm life cycle: norm emergence. The second 

and third stages of the norm life cycle are “norm 

cascade” and “norm internalization”. These stages 

are not linear, and the cyclic process is not 

necessarily ever complete. 

6 United Nations, General Assembly, Resolution 

53/70 – Developments in the field of information and 

telecommunications in the context of international 

security. A/RES/53/70. (New York: United Nations, 

January 4, 1999). See also Eneken Tikk-Ringas, 

Campaigning Fall 2015 29
Developments in the Field of Information and 

Telecommunication in the Context of International 

Security: Work of the UN First Committee 1998-

2012, (Geneva: ICT4Peace Publishing, 2012), 4. 

Three of the General Assembly’s six committees 

have met to negotiate draft resolutions pertaining to 

cybersecurity: The First Committee (Disarmament 

and International Security Committee), The Second 

Committee (Economic and Financial Committee), 

and The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and 

Cultural Committee). 7 Maurer, “Cyber Norm Emergence at the United 

Nations,” 22. The first Group consisted of 

governmental experts from 15 states: Belarus, Brazil, 

China, France, Germany, India, Jordan, Malaysia, 

Mali, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, the Russian 

Federation, South Africa, the United Kingdom of 

Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United 

States.

8 Eneken Tikk-Ringas, Developments in the Field of 

Information and Telecommunication in the Context of 

International Security: Work of the UN First 

Committee 1998-2012, (Geneva: 

ICT4PeacePublishing, 2012), 7.

9 United Nations, General Assembly, Group of 

Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field 

of Information and Telecommunications in the 

Context of International Security. 69th sess., item 92 

of the provisional agenda, A/69/112. (New York: 

United Nations, June 30, 2014). The concept of the 

GGE was proposed by Russia in 2001. The first 

GGE convened in 2004; the second in 2010. The 

third GGE consisted of 15 states: Argentina 

Australia, Belarus, Canada, China, Egypt, Estonia, 

France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the 

Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great 

Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of 

America.

10 Mary McEvoy Manjikian, “From Global Village to 

Virtual Battlespace: The Colonizing of the Internet 

and the Extension of Realpolitik,” International 

Studies Quarterly, 54 (2010): 382. 11 Chris Demchak and Peter Dombrowski, “Rise of a 

Cybered Westphalian Age,” Strategic Studies 

Quarterly (Spring 2011): 32-61. Until the 1648 

Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück (understood 

together as the Peace of Westphalia), borders did not 

stabilize over many generations. The Peace of 

Westphalia not only ended the Thirty Years’ War in 

Europe, but also heralded the emergence of the 

interstate system upon which modern International 

Relations theory was based. Leading states of the 

period helped codify and enforce a collectively 

agreed upon set of rules, institutions, and norms that 

governed interactions in international society.

12 Johan Eriksson and Giampiero Giacomello, “The 

Information Revolution, Security, and International 

Relations: (IR) Relevant Theory?” International 

Political Science Review 27, no. 3 (July 2006): 225, 

accessed October 22, 2014, 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20445054? 

origin=JSTOR-pdf. 13 Manjikian, “From Global Village to Virtual 

Battlespace,” 382.

14 Ibid., 383. 15 Giles, “Russia’s Public Stance on Cyberspace 

Issues,” 2.

16 Manjikian, “From Global Village to Virtual 

Battlespace,” 387.

17 Ibid., 385. 18 Manjikian, “From Global Village to Virtual 

Battlespace,” 387.

19 Demchak and Dombrowski, “Rise of a Cybered 

Westphalian Age,” 35.

20 Giles, “Russia’s Public Stance on Cyberspace 

Issues,” 3.

21 Ibid., 4. 22 Ibid., 3. 23 Tom Gjelten, “SHADOW WARS: Debating Cyber 

‘Disarmament’” World Affairs 173, no. 4 (Nov, 

2010): 3, accessed October 22, 2014, 

http://search.proquest.com/docview/822629043? 

accountid=10504.

24 Nye, “Cyber Power,” 15. 25 Tim Stevens, “A Cyber War of Ideas? Deterrence 

and Norms in Cyberspace,” Contemporary Security 

Policy 33, no. 1 (April 2012): 148-170, accessed 

October 22, 2014, 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13523260. 2012.65957. 

26 Nye, “Cyber Power,” 18. 27 Joseph S. Nye, Power in the Global Information 

Age: From Realism to Globalization (New York: 

Routledge, 2004), 82.

28 Manjikian, “From Global Village to Virtual 

Battlespace,” 391.

29 Open Source Center, Monitor 360, Master 

Narratives Country Report: China. March 2012, 2, 

accessed October 22, 2014, 

https://www.opensource.gov/portal/server.pt/gateway

/ptargs_0_0_12162_1203_0_43/ 

content/display/fbs20120403475741. 30 Ibid., 2. 31 Ibid., 3 32 Open Source Center, Monitor 360, Master 

Narratives Country Report: China. March 2012, 2. 33 U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory, More Than Meets the Eye: 

Campaigning Fall 2015 30
Clandestine Funding, Cutting-Edge Technology and 

China’s Cyber Research & Development Program, 

by Kit Conklin and Benjamin Bahney, October 23, 

2012, 4. Informatization is a Chinese concept of 

information dominance as a means to ensure 

sustained economic growth, compete globally in the 

ICT realm, and ensure national security.

34 Leon Aron, ‘Structure and Context in US-Russian 

Relations at the Outset of Barack Obama’s Second 

Term,” Russian Outlook (Winter 2013): 4, accessed 

October 27 2014, 

http://www.aei.org/files/2013/03/08-structure-andcontext-in-usrussian-relations-at-the-outset-ofbarack-obamas-second-term_172937861857.pdf. 35 Open Source Center, Monitor 360, Master 

Narratives Country Report: Russia, 22. 36 Keir Giles, “Information Troops”—a Russian 

Cyber Command?” Paper, 2011 3rd International 

Conference on Cyber Conflict, Tallinn, Estonia, 

2011, 4.

37 United Nations, General Assembly, A/69/112, 2. 38 Ibid.

39 Ibid. 40 United Nations, General Assembly, A/69/112, 3. 41 United Nations, General Assembly, Group of 

Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field 

of Information and Telecommunications in the 

Context of International Security. 69th sess., item 92 

of the provisional agenda, A/69/112/Add.1, (New 

York: United Nations, September 18, 2014), 2.

42 United Nations, General Assembly, Group of 

Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field 

of Information and Telecommunications in the 

Context of International Security. 68th sess., item 94 

of the provisional agenda, A/68/98. (New York: 

United Nations, June 24, 2013), 2.

43 United Nations, General Assembly, 

A/69/112/Add.1, 3. 44 Ibid., 4. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., 6. 47 United Nations, General Assembly, 

A/69/112/Add.1, 6. 

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid., 3. 50 United Nations, General Assembly, A/69/112, 12. 51 United Nations, General Assembly, A/69/112, 13. 52 Tikk-Ringas, Developments in the Field of 

Information and Telecommunication in the Context of 

International Security, 5.

53 Michael N. Schmitt, Tallinn Manual on the 

International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). The 

NATO CCD COE is an international military 

organization based in Tallinn, Estonia and accredited 

in 2008 by the NATO as a ‘Centre of Excellence.’ It 

is not part of the NATO’s command or force 

structure, nor is it funded by the NATO. It is part of 

a wider framework supporting the NATO Command 

Arrangements. Its present sponsoring nations are 

Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, 

The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and the 

United States. Notably, the Tallinn Manual does not 

carry the force of international law, nor does it have 

the authority of an international treaty or agreement.

54 Schmitt, Tallinn Manual, 13. Just War theory has 

evolved through Roman and Catholic Church 

doctrine into several important bodies of international 

jurisprudence. Jus ad bellum refers to the morality 

(justice) in going to war, and jus in bello refers to 

morality (justice) in war. Jus ad bellum has largely 

been supplanted by the 1945 Charter of the United 

Nations and is sometimes known as the Law of 

Conflict Management. Jus in bello provides the 

moral basis for the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) 

and the supporting Rules of Engagement (ROE).

55 Michael N. Schmitt, email message to authors, 

October 30, 2014. Michael Schmitt is a Senior 

Fellow at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence 

Centre of Excellence, and the editor of the Tallinn 

Manual. Mr. Schmitt is also the Director of the 

Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at 

the U.S. Naval War College, a Professor of Public 

International Law at Exeter University (UK), and a 

Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on 

International Law and Armed Conflict. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Rain Liivoja and Time McCaromack, “Law in the 

Virtual Battlespace: The Tallinn Manual and the Jus 

in Bello,” Yearbook of International Humanitarian 

Law (2012): 49.

59 Demchak and Dombrowski, “Rise of a Cybered 

Westphalian Age,” 56.

60 Ibid., 34. 61 Manjikian, “From Global Village to Virtual 

Battlespace,” 386.

Campaigning Fall 2015 31
The Challenging Art of Modern 

Mission Command

By Major Johannes Castro, USA, Major Adam Knox, 

USAF, and Major Scott Worth, USMC 

Throughout history the ability to 

command and control military forces has 

been a critical component of success. In our 

military today, this requirement is made 

more difficult and complex by a myriad of 

factors including evolving technology, 

diversity of forces, geographical separation, 

and dynamic threats.

Our current joint doctrine states that 

mission command is the “preferred method 

of exercising command and control.”1

Inherent in this method are several key 

elements which constitute the “art” of the 

subject as reflected in the following joint 

doctrinal definition of mission command 

(Editor’s note: italics added for emphasis): 

Conduct of military operations through 

decentralized execution based upon 

mission-type orders. It empowers 

individuals to exercise judgment in how 

they carry out their assigned tasks and it 

exploits the human 

element...emphasizing trust, force of 

will, initiative, judgment, and creativity. 

Successful mission command demands 

that...leaders at all echelons exercise 

disciplined initiative and... delegate 

decisions to subordinates wherever 

possible, which minimizes detailed 

control and empowers subordinates’ 

initiative to make decisions. Essential to 

mission command is the thorough 

understanding of the commander’s 

intent at every level of command and a 

command climate of mutual trust and 

understanding.

2

 

At the core of mission command is 

the human element. Subordinates interpret 

and implement a commander’s intent while 

providing timely information and 

recommendations up the chain of command 

to inform the future decisions required for 

successful mission execution. The execution 

of mission command relies on junior leaders 

who must be professionally developed in 

order to attain the expertise and skills 

required to fulfill this vital element of 

mission command. Due in part to the high 

demands of recent conflicts, the military 

climate has changed and this professional 

development has eroded. In short, senior 

leadership is failing to provide junior leaders 

with the professional development they 

deserve.

To implement the art of mission 

command effectively, today’s military 

officers must return to the roots of military 

service and explore the foundations of 

effective leadership. The risk-averse nature 

of our military culture must change, 

micromanagement at all levels must be 

discouraged, and the professional 

development of junior leaders must be 

enhanced beyond mere practical experience. 

Risk Aversion

One of the largest detractors from the 

mission command concept are the risk 

averse characteristics of many of today’s 

leaders. Risk aversion is demonstrated in 

today’s military through a flawed 

performance evaluation system and a culture 

of zero-tolerance. One factor contributing to 

this avoidance of risk is the speed at which 

any missteps are brought to the attention of 

the public through the sensationalism of the 

media.

Risk aversion is evident in today’s 

military leaders through the performance 

evaluation systems of the respective services 

in general, and more specifically, their over 

inflation. In “Failure to Lead,” Brian 

Campaigning Fall 2015 32
McAllister Flinn comments on Thomas 

Ricks’ book, The Generals, and contends 

that “Army wartime command could be 

improved by addressing the systemic 

problem of failing to identify — and require 

for promotion — those innate qualities 

[George] Marshall esteemed [common 

sense, professional knowledge, physical 

fitness and stamina, loyalty, determination, 

optimism, and the ability to work within a 

group].”3

In her master’s thesis for the Naval 

Postgraduate School, USAF Maj. Stephane 

Wolfgeher, describes the evaluation systems 

of all the services and takes a deeper look at 

the process for inflammatory characteristics. 

She concludes that all services, to one 

degree or another, engage in inflation of 

evaluations. The USMC system is most 

immune to undue influence due to many of 

its objective criteria and the USAF 

evaluation system has the highest levels of 

inflation due to its pure essay format.4

Despite how commanders communicate 

their subordinates’ performance to central 

promotion boards, the result is a zero-defect 

culture. Service members know that one 

mistake has the very real potential to 

torpedo one’s career. Raters know this as 

well and are less likely to document 

substandard performance. Many have 

suggested adopting an appraisal system from 

the corporate world. 

An article in the Armed Forces 

Journal describes the positive attributes of 

General Electric’s leader development 

model and suggests two possible changes to 

the current system. Young talent is 

identified early and cultivated through “fasttrack programs, and exposed to different 

regions and opportunities, and senior leaders 

determine if continued promotion and 

reward is merited. People are evaluated 

based on organizational performance and 

peer group comparisons, and in particular, 

during temporary service at ‘the next level’. 

Top talent with ambition and vision is 

promoted to the executive level within 10 

years. Also, other highly talented people are 

allowed to remain in jobs they enjoy and are 

productive in.”5 One recommendation that is 

seen throughout the research is the concept 

of a 360-degree review. This non-attribution 

type feedback allows leaders to benefit from 

the comments of peers and subordinates 

through non-permanent constructive 

criticism. The Army currently has a form of 

360 evaluation, however; many question its 

effectiveness and its ability to not be 

distorted by the officer that is being 

evaluated. Without change, however, 

“performance evaluations will continue to 

emphasize a zero-defect mentality.”6

Additionally, today’s military 

commanders hide behind a policy of zerotolerance. The effects of this zero-defect 

culture are evident in the performance 

evaluation system, but it is degrading 

officers’ decision-making and leadership 

abilities. Flinn states, “both senior and junior 

officers have learned to avoid risk, since 

mediocre performance will probably not 

hurt one’s career, but making a mistake may 

destroy it.”7 Improvement is impossible 

without initiative and the associated risk. 

Without innovation, new discoveries are 

non-existent, new efficiencies will never be 

reached, and cost savings will not be 

achieved; it will be impossible to do more 

with less. Today’s military is stagnating 

because the price of failure—or even just 

partial success—is just too great. Senior 

leaders have forgotten the difference 

between a failure of a well-intended action 

and irresponsible behavior. “Success may 

not result from absolute perfection, but 

rather from experimentation, learning from 

failure, and the implementation of logical 

measures to manage risk. Such techniques 

should be encouraged rather than 

inadvertently constrained, as the [military] 

strives to find the right balance between the 

Campaigning Fall 2015 33
instilment of accountability and the 

encouragement of sensible risk taking.”8

 Another major contributing factor to 

rick aversion is the speed at which mistakes 

rise to the attention and judgment of the 

general public. The potential consequences 

of mistakes have been described above, but 

if that was not bad enough, the alarming 

speed at which senior leadership becomes 

aware of these incidents can be enough to 

paralyze commanders at all levels. “The 

explosion of media outlets and 

inexperienced journalists are major causes 

of negligent reporting. Mushrooming media 

competition has spawned lower 

professionalism among reporters and news 

people...The Internet also presents 

expanding opportunities for novice media 

personnel to reach mass audiences.”9 This 

combination of increased media 

competition, novice reporting, and the 

instant and irreversible nature of social 

media can be fatal to innovation and 

creativity in military operations and 

commanders’ careers. 

It is often forgotten that there are 

substantial differences between the general 

public and the military. The military is 

trained to accept and mitigate risk, but still 

undertake operations that could result in the 

loss of life. The general public is not trained 

or prepared to take this risk and is thus more 

risk averse. The instant reporting and 

sensationalism of the media unfairly 

transfers the risk avoiding nature of the 

public onto an institution that is trained to 

analyze, mitigate, and, more importantly, 

deal with the consequences of failure. A 

remedy for this would require an intensive 

public affairs campaign aimed at the 

American public. The military must engage 

the media in an effort to educate them to the 

role of the military as an instrument of 

national power. Senior leadership is often 

accused of having their ‘heads in the sand’ 

and only engaging the media in a reactive 

posture. “Their reluctance appears to be a 

by-product of the zero-defects mentality 

plaguing today’s [military]. Real or 

imagined, this perception exists among the 

[military’s] ranks and seriously inhibits 

initiative and risk-taking. Engaging the 

media no doubt involves both risk and 

initiative,” but success means more popular 

support for the military and more freedom of 

maneuver to use innovation and ingenuity to 

deal with the limited resources of this 

constrained fiscal environment.10

Risk Averse Micromanagement

The risk-averse nature of civilian and 

military leaders also leads to 

micromanagement. Starting at the top, our 

civilian leaders have distanced themselves 

from military values in the recent past, 

making them unlikely to be accepting of 

military casualties.11 This thought process 

has filtered its way down through the 

military chain of command, manifesting 

itself in micromanagement. Commanders 

from the platoon to the battalion-level are 

now scrutinized to ensure that each of their 

plans or exercises have Operational Risk 

Management (ORM) worksheets down to 

the level of a soldier or Marine getting a 

snakebite in the field and ways to mitigate 

that risk. While understanding that there are 

risks inherent to the military line of work, 

one must ask, “Do I need to ensure that my 

Colonel knows that there are snakes in the 

field that could bite me, and that I 

understand that threat?” In fact, under the 

premise of mission command and 

decentralized operations, shouldn’t senior 

leaders be more trusting of their subordinate 

leaders and their senior enlisted advisors; at 

least to the point of understanding that their 

experience may lead to them quickly 

mentioning general risks and threats to those 

in their charge? Lastly, how much 

manpower is wasted on ORM worksheets 

and other risk-related documents that could 

Campaigning Fall 2015 34
be spent on the important parts of planning, 

or even training junior military members? 

The micromanagement that manifests itself 

in ORM worksheets and extensive briefs on 

hazards in an environment completely 

contradict the nature of the very people our 

services have recruited. By nature, military 

services target and attract risk-taking people. 

It is not until they enter the military that they 

are targeted with such risk-averse 

micromanagement techniques as excessive 

paperwork or lengthy, monotonous, 

common-sense briefs. 

The requirement for “safety briefs” 

are another form of micromanagement due 

to risk aversion. Instead of holding leaders 

accountable for the ability to lead and 

mentor subordinates, senior leaders require a 

multitude of briefs aimed at everything from 

motorcycle safety to sexually transmitted 

diseases. Motorcycle safety has become the 

epitome of risk-averse micromanagement, 

specifically in the Marine Corps where 

every battalion must have a “motorcycle 

club,” which is permitted to go on a club 

motorcycle ride at least one Friday a month. 

Not only are commanders micromanaged to 

develop unit-level clubs for fear of a 

military member getting hurt, they must give 

them man-hours to conduct club events, 

wasting even more time and money. The 

answer to eliminating micromanagement 

from risk-aversion is in the hands of our 

senior military leadership. Instead of 

bringing the military closer to the civilian 

cultural aversion to risk, our general and flag 

officers must effectively convey the inherent 

risks of military service to our civilian 

leadership and the general population. This 

is not to say that we do not want to protect 

our military members from harm or educate 

them on certain dangers inherent in military 

life. The American public holds its military 

in high regard because of the inherent risk to 

life that is incurred by joining the ranks, 

ensuring that in some regard they already 

understand and only need to have their 

thinking reinforced by career military 

professionals using their positions to 

strategically communicate with the general 

population. 

Technological Micromanagement

Yet another way micromanagement 

is threatening the institution of a missioncommand climate in our military is through 

technological innovation. Many of these 

innovations are centered on command and 

control (C2) software applications in 

military networks and intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) 

assets such as unmanned aircraft systems 

(UAS) or drones. The intended impact of 

these systems are improved command and 

control, however, commanders today use 

these systems to micromanage their 

subordinates in a way that would be 

unfathomable to military leaders of the past.

From the beginning of warfare and 

into the 20th century, military leaders, 

specifically generals, were present with their 

troops on the front lines of battle. Many 

times, these leaders would be fighting 

alongside their troops, literally leading the 

charge, or, at the very least, swinging a 

sword next to their men. As militaries grew 

larger and increased the responsibility of 

generals to manage at a much higher level, 

technology also advanced and made it 

possible for these leaders to step away from 

the front lines and into command posts 

several miles away. In the 21st century, 

militaries are experiencing an even faster 

rate of technological advancement. Fourteen 

years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan 

alone has witnessed a startling advance in 

C2 and ISR assets, along with weaponry. To 

compound matters, the growth of social 

media and expansion of access to the 

internet has given the U.S, and its 

adversaries, another front in which to wage 

war. All of this has two effects: 1) increased 

Campaigning Fall 2015 35
distance from which a senior leader can gain 

understanding and command a battle, even 

at the tactical level, and 2) rapid, unfiltered 

information sharing from the battlefield to 

the rest of the world. In terms of 

micromanagement both of these effects are 

detrimental to mission command.

 The use of systems such as Global 

Command and Control System (GCCS), 

Command Post of the Future (CPoF), 

Command and Control Personal Computer 

(C2PC), and Blue Force Tracker (BFT) have 

given senior military leaders the ability to 

track their subordinate units in near-real 

time across the battlefield from the relative 

comfort of a much more distant command 

post, possibly even continents away if the IT 

network permitted. Coupled with new ISR 

assets, such as Predator and Scan Eagles 

drones transmitting live video feeds to the 

same command posts, senior leaders can 

now start to develop what they believe is a 

holistic view of the distant battlefield.12 The 

premise behind mission command is that the 

mission-type orders given to the subordinate 

commanders would give them a certain 

amount of autonomy, latitude, and flexibility 

on the battlefield in order to carry out their 

mission. If an obstacle was introduced or 

situations on the ground had changed, a 

commander may opt to change his plan in 

order to accomplish the original end-state. 

Mission command in the environment 

explained above is almost impossible. The 

distance that military leaders have strayed 

from the battlefield in centuries past has 

been eliminated through technology, 

ensuring that generals and senior civilian 

officials can all become part of the battle 

without actually being on the ground. In 

Tactical Generals: Leaders, Technology, 

and the Perils, Peter Singer recounts a story 

of a general officer who was quite proud of 

his involvement in a battle, believing he had 

a greater understanding of the situation and 

could direct which size bombs to drop and 

when to drop them in real time due to his 

view from the command post. The problem 

with this story is that his decisions skipped 

multiple layers of commanders, action 

officers, and troops, micromanaging them to 

the point of rendering them useless in the 

mission. With ground units, an even greater 

problem occurs when senior leaders decide 

that they understand the battle better than 

the commander on the ground due to their 

views of icons and videos on separate 

screens in their command post. What these 

senior leaders do not take into account is 

what they cannot see; the 3D world of a 

soldier or Marine looks quite different from 

the one thousand foot view of a Predator 

feed or the lagging blue icon on a C2 

display. Another question comes into play 

here as well: if the senior leaders are focused 

on the tactical view of a single portion of the 

battle, who is focused on the operational and 

strategic views? Micromanagement in this 

case truly impacts strategic thought. As 

subordinate commanders are becoming more 

and more micromanaged on the battlefield 

(and let us remember, those being 

micromanaged can be O-5 and O-6-level 

commanders with 18-26 years of military 

experience), the “mother-may-I syndrome” 

becomes prevalent.13 This syndrome 

develops due to the micromanagement of 

subordinates becoming so severe that they 

will not attempt to make a decision to act on 

mission-type orders without asking 

permission to higher headquarters first; i.e. 

those watching the battle from the monitors 

in their command post. Lastly, the 

development of the “mother-may-I 

syndrome” and severe micromanagement on 

the battlefield due to technology is breeding 

a culture of micromanagement among our 

junior officers. From being micromanaged, 

our junior leaders are learning through 

experience and example a way to lead which 

is completely contradictory to mission 

Campaigning Fall 2015 36
command. These junior leaders will then 

continue these practices in the future.

 Social media and the rise of global 

internet access also encourages 

micromanagement. As Marine General 

Charles Krulak invoked the thought of the 

“strategic corporal” when lamenting about 

the ability of junior military members to 

affect the battlefield due to technological 

advances, the application of the “strategic 

private” pertains to the age of global internet 

access and social media. In this instance, the 

reference is to the speed at which a video or 

picture taken on the battlefield can be 

uploaded and shared around the world in a 

matter of seconds, changing the perception 

of civilian populations and creating 

perspective enemies. One can think of a few 

examples, including the current videos of 

torture and beheadings taken by ISIS (on the 

side of our adversaries) and of Marines 

urinating on dead Taliban fighters. The 

prospect of the effect of these instances 

occurring again in the future puts into 

motion the very fearful micromanagement 

of our civilian leaders that enacts the entire 

process of micromanagement down the 

chain of command. For if public opinion is 

threatened, senior leaders seem intent on 

reacting to situations and proving they will 

change them rather than explaining the 

situation and telling the ‘why’ behind the 

action.

 Peter Singer invokes “enlightened 

control” as a way to combat 

micromanagement on today’s 

technologically advanced battlefield.14 His 

explanation of this is the understanding by 

senior leaders of when they should inject 

themselves into a process and when they 

should let their subordinates carry out the 

mission assigned to them. This is definitely 

true, and must be coupled with continued 

education on the mission command culture 

at all levels. Professional development in 

regards to mission command does occur 

now, and should be improved upon in the 

future, but the actions of our senior leaders 

must be consistent with the education we are 

providing to our junior leaders.

De-emphasized Professional Development

Another area which presents a 

significant challenge to the art of modern 

mission command is the de-emphasis of 

professional development specifically in the 

military officer corps. Officer development 

is typically thought of only as professional 

military education (PME) but what’s often 

neglected is the more enduring, holistic, 

individual officer development. It’s the latter 

component that’s the focus of this 

discussion. This individual development is 

manifest in three areas: mentoring, 

counseling, and collective training. This 

discussion will describe these challenges 

and offer some proposed solutions for future 

improvement. 

In 2013, “the Center for Army 

Leadership's annual assessment of attitudes 

and perceptions on leader development 

(CASAL) identified "Develops Others" as 

the lowest-rated leader competency for the 

fifth year in a row. Just over half of Army 

leaders (59 percent) were regarded as 

effective at developing others by their 

subordinates. The CASAL further revealed 

that one fourth (22 to 26 percent) of those 

surveyed indicated their units placed a "low" 

or "very low" priority on leader 

development activities.”15 Though these 

statistics are representative of a single 

service, it underscores the impact of the high 

demand levied on the military by recent 

conflicts and budget constraints. This 

includes a heavy toll specifically on a 

generation of officers who have come to 

expect professional development from the 

confines of a classroom or from self-derived 

on-the-job training through a multitude of 

duty assignments. Critical components such 

Campaigning Fall 2015 37
as mentoring have become casualties of this 

new environment. 

Mentoring is important to the future 

of our military because it’s “the vehicle 

through which the next generation of leaders 

and followers are molded.”16 Even though 

mentoring should ideally occur throughout 

an officer’s career, it’s most vital to junior 

officers who often lack the experience, 

skills, and resiliency required to manage the 

professional and personal challenges 

associated with a career in the military. The 

mentoring of a junior officer is important in 

that it also “establishes trust and promotes 

learning” between the mentor and mentee.17

A myriad of reasons can be noted for the 

decline in mentoring but insufficient time 

and a lack of priority by senior leaders have 

been noted as primary reasons.1819 Some 

officers might be reluctant to serve as 

mentors if they lack the skills or confidence 

especially if they’ve never had one 

themselves.

Revitalizing officer mentoring could 

remedy several problems which remain a 

challenge for each service. First, one cause 

of toxic leadership is the inadequate 

development of junior leaders. According to 

Mueller, “toxic leaders are a product of a 

lack of training and mentoring from 

superiors.”20 It would stand to reason that 

early mentoring could identify and stave off 

those traits in junior officers that could later 

manifest themselves as what we consider 

toxic leadership. Second, enhanced 

mentoring could improve officer retention. 

According to a report by Lieutenant General 

William M. Steele (Commander, U.S. Army 

Combined Arms Center) to the U.S. Army 

Chief of Staff, “mentoring and retention are 

related...younger officers felt a lack of 

commensurate commitment from the Army 

to them.”21 This problem isn’t unique to any 

one service and may be why many of our 

best and brightest junior officers leave the 

military after their initial term of service to 

pursue better opportunities in the private 

sector. Improved officer retention rates 

would benefit the government by increasing 

the return on investment for training, 

security clearances, and other required new 

officer expenditures. Third, Frank C. Budd 

notes that mentoring could help to ease the 

higher rates of “divorce...occupational... 

[and] posttraumatic stress disorder levels” 

which continue to impact the military after 

years of conflict.22

Improving officer mentoring is vital 

for the development of our future leaders but 

requires several key changes to the status 

quo. First, a renewed emphasis on the 

importance of mentoring by senior service 

leaders is needed. This would help prioritize 

time and effort on developing our human 

capital. Second, service doctrine for 

mentoring must be developed to standardize 

basic expectations and establish guidelines 

for mentoring. A joint definition of 

mentoring would also eliminate confusion in 

evaluations. Finally, education and training 

programs for mentoring must be developed, 

which begin at the basic service school level 

to better prepare new officers for their first 

assignment with the confidence necessary to 

succeed.23 Another component of mission 

command that’s been in decline is 

counseling. 

Counseling, or performance 

feedback, is another component of officer 

professional development which has eroded 

over the years. For the purpose of this 

discussion, a few important distinctions need 

to be made upfront. Counseling is typically 

conducted by a supervisor, not a mentor. 

Supervisors are focused on specific duty 

performance and may frequently change out 

while a mentor considers long-term career 

progression and is typically a more enduring 

type of a relationship. A supervisor is 

“typically more interested in training and 

perhaps coaching a subordinate.”24 A 

supervisor and mentor may be one in the 

Campaigning Fall 2015 38
same but that is certainly not the norm. 

Regardless, we need to consider why our 

counseling is inadequate and how it can be 

improved to further enhance officer 

professional development. 

When done correctly, regular 

counseling can be a valuable way to enhance 

officer professional development by 

communicating expectations, providing 

performance assessment, training, and 

coaching. The reality is that, too often, 

counseling is an afterthought, if it happens at 

all, due to the familiar constraints of limited 

time and conflicted priorities. Typically 

when it does occur, it doesn’t extend beyond 

either the initial counseling or performance 

feedback triggered by an evaluation report. 

Though some services may place more 

emphasis than others on counseling, officers 

are typically not the priority and are simply 

expected to figure things out. Joint 

organizations experience the additional 

complication of unfamiliar sister service 

forms and expected protocols for 

completion. This places an additional time 

requirement on the counselor to learn these 

standards or risk embarrassment. The 

absence of effective counseling within an 

organization creates confusion especially 

among junior officers who may be lacking 

the experience and skills that previous duties 

may afford others. In addition, junior 

officers may lack the confidence to ask for 

clear direction and may be left to guess as to 

their supervisor’s intent and expectations. 

Counseling must be a leadership 

priority in any organization striving for 

sincere improvement. Much like with 

mentoring, the requisite time, resources, and 

genuine effort must be dedicated by leaders 

in order to meaningfully convey that their 

subordinates are valuable assets worthy of 

professional development. Improved 

retention and unit morale will be the 

barometers of success. 

Mentoring and counseling play vital 

parts in officer professional development but 

they’re limited to the individual officer and 

neglect the benefits that collective or group 

training has to offer. As such, collective 

methods should be considered to prepare 

leaders for increased future responsibilities 

and to refine critical skills. These additional 

methods can be incorporated at any echelon 

or organizational level and may be 

customized by leaders to benefit their 

officers as they strive to improve their 

organizational culture. For this discussion, 

we’ll consider future leadership 

preparedness, collective professional 

development, and the sharing of lessons 

learned.

In the military, we know that people 

are promoted based on potential for future 

responsibility not on past accomplishment. 

Senior leaders should strive to constantly 

seek ways to prepare junior leaders for these 

future responsibilities. Typically we 

consider this to be a one level up focus but 

Feltey and Madden contend, “this requires 

an institutional and career-long norm of 

continuous leader development.”25

Commanders and senior leaders must 

consider this much broader approach for the 

development of their junior officers rather 

than what they merely need for their next 

assignment or subsequent rank. Especially in 

the current fiscally constrained environment, 

this must include a good understanding of 

the individual and collective strengths and 

weaknesses so that scarce resources can best 

be optimized to meet these developmental 

needs. Additional collective training should 

also be considered. 

 Collective professional development 

should be leveraged to improve officer 

training and resource utilization. These 

events not only provide valuable leadership 

skills and build confidence but also improve 

morale and cohesion. At the tactical level, 

junior officers may benefit from training on 

Campaigning Fall 2015 39
command supply programs, UCMJ review, 

admin reporting, or anything else pertinent 

to the service or unit. Other organizations 

may benefit from staff rides, planning offsites, or seminars to derive similar benefits. 

Commanders and senior leaders may also 

benefit from the group dialogue or 

opportunity to lead these events. The sharing 

of lessons learned may be an additional way 

of developing officers. 

Senior leaders can serve as a wealth 

of knowledge for junior officers. While war 

stories may be entertaining, a wealth of 

information can be obtained from leaders 

willing to share the lessons that they’ve 

learned throughout their career. Discussing 

mistakes or past errors in judgment can be a 

humbling experience but can add a human 

element to leadership while yielding 

valuable insight into decision making and 

resilience, especially when discussing what 

was learned from the mistake and how it 

shaped them for future leadership success. 

Conclusion 

History remembers only our wars’ 

commanders. Their performance in the face 

of adverse conditions, immense violence, 

and danger follow them through the 

generations to come. Strategic military 

leaders were once junior officers and 

required proper development in order to 

execute mission command effectively to 

protect the nation’s vital interests. The 

concept of mission command is nothing new 

to military operations. While the burden of 

executing mission command falls on the 

shoulders of the junior tactical level officers, 

senior leadership must alter the environment 

in which they operate and give these officers 

the tools they need to succeed. Senior 

military leaders must change the risk-averse 

nature of the military culture by installing an 

effective form of performance evaluation 

and giving young leaders the latitude to try 

new techniques and innovate. The concept 

of “enlightened control,” and the 

understanding of how to use technology for 

command and control appropriately, must be 

further developed, taught, and fostered 

among senior leaders in order to dissuade 

micromanagement at all levels. Successful 

officer development requires effective 

mentoring, counseling, and collective 

training in order to overcome the challenges 

of mission command. Finally, our senior 

military leaders must develop an 

information campaign to inform and educate 

our civilian leadership, the media, and the 

American people, on some of the intricacies 

and inherent risks of military culture.

Team Biographies

Major Johannes Castro, USA, is currently serving 

as the J51 Strategy and Policy Division Chief at the 

Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated 

Missile Defense (USSTRATCOM) in Colorado 

Springs, Colorado. He was commissioned through 

the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School in 1999. 

MAJ Castro earned a BS in Biology from the 

University of Utah in 2000 and an MS in Liberal Arts 

from Louisiana State University in 2013. Prior to his 

current assignment, MAJ Castro served as the Deputy 

Division Air and Missile Defense Chief with the 4th

Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado. 

Major Adam Knox, USAF, is currently serving as 

Deputy Chief, Office of Defense Cooperation at the 

US Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic. He was 

commissioned through U.S. Air Force Officer 

Training School at Maxwell AFB, Alabama in 2002. 

Maj Knox has an AA in German from the Defense 

Language Institute, a BS in Business Administration 

from Appalachian State University, an MA in 

Strategic Intelligence from American Military 

University, and an MA in European Security Studies 

from the Naval Postgraduate School. Prior to his 

current assignment, Maj Knox served as an Evaluator 

Pilot and Chief of Standardization and Evaluation in 

the 517th Airlift Squadron, Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. 

Major Scott Wert, USMC, is currently serving as 

the J71 Cyber Exercise Planner at USSTRATCOM, 

Offutt AFB, Bellevue, Nebraska. He was 

commissioned through the USMC Platoon Leaders 

Class program in 2001. Maj Wert earned a BS in 

Campaigning Fall 2015 40
Criminal Justice Administration from Mansfield 

University of Pennsylvania in 2001 and a BA in 

History from Mansfield University in 2011. Prior to 

his current assignment, Maj Wert served as the 

Battalion Operations Officer with 9th 

Notes

1 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. 2013. "Doctrine for the 

Armed Forces of the United States." Joint 

Publication 1. Washington D.C.: U.S. Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, March 25, p. V-15. 2 Ibid, p. V-15 3 Brian McAllister Flinn, “Failure to Lead,” Wilson 

Quarterly, accessed February 11, 2015, 

http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/failure-to-lead/. 4 Stephane Wolfgeher, “Inflation of USAF Officer 

Performance Reports: Analyzing the Organizational 

Environment,” (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate 

School, 2009), p. 30-58. 5 Arnold, Brig Mark C., “Don’t Promote Mediocrity,” 

Armed Forces Journal, last modified May 1, 2012, 

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/dont-promotemediocrity/. 6 James Joyner, “Why America’s Best Officers Are 

Leaving,” Outside the Beltway, last modified January 

6, 2011, http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/whyamericas-best-officers-are-leaving/. 7 Flinn, “Failure to Lead.” 

8 Brendan Gallagher, “Managing Risk in Today’s 

Army,” Military Review, Jan-Feb 2014, p. 96. 9 James Lovejoy, “Improving Media Relations,” 

Military Review, Jan-Feb 2002, p. 50. 10 Ibid, p. 51. 11 Furedi, Frank. "Afghanistan: The Dangers of a 

Risk-Averse War." Afghanistan: The Dangers of a 

Risk-averse War. September 7, 2009. Accessed 

February 18, 2015. http://www.spikedonline.com/newsite/article/7349#.VOTljDaKDIV. 

12 Singer, Peter. "Tactical Generals: Leaders, 

Technology, and the Perils." The Brookings 

Institution. July 7, 2009. Accessed February 18, 

2015. 

http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2009/07/s

ummer-military-singer 13 Ibid 14 Ibid 15 Crissman, Douglas C. 2013. "Improving the Leader 

Development Experience in Army Units." Military 

Review, p. 6.

Communication Battalion at Camp Pendleton, 

California. 

16 Lackey, James, and Gene C. Kamena. 2010. 

"Mentoring: Finding our way to the future." Fires

(United States Army Field Artillery Association), p. 

22

17 Ozier, Davis, Christopher Lareau, and Bret P. Van 

Poppel. 2006. "Agile Birds: Junior Officer 

Professional Development During Training Hold 

Periods." Armor, p. 35. 18 Ibid, p. 23

19 Mueller, Robert A. 2012. "Leadership in the U.S. 

Army: A Qualitative Exploratory Case Study Of The 

Effects Toxic Leadership Has On The Morale And 

Welfare Of Soldiers." Ph.D. Dissertation, School of 

Business and Technology, Capella University, Ann 

Arbor, Minnesota, p. 268 20 Ibid, p. 224 21 Captain Kopser, G. Joseph, U.S. Army. 2002. 

"Mentoring in the Military: Not Everybody Gets It." 

Military Review, p 40. 22 Budd, Frank C. 2007. "Mentoring In The U.S. Air 

Force: A Cornerstone For Success Through 

Organizational Transformation." Performance 

Improvement, p. 16. 23 Captain Anthes, Erik J. 2012. "Completing the 

Chain: Mentorship Needed in Officer Basic Courses." 

Army Sustainment, p. 23 24 Lackey, James, and Gene C. Kamena. 2010. 

"Mentoring: Finding our way to the future." Fires

(United States Army Field Artillery Association), p. 

23

25 LTC Feltey, Thomas M, and CPT John F. Madden. 

2014. "The Challenge of Mission Command." 

Military Review, p.4.

Campaigning Fall 2015 41
The Falklands Campaign: A 

Failure in Modern Joint Common 

Operating Precepts

By Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Borders, USA, Major

Kelly Montier, USAF, and Lieutenant Colonel 

Michael Nakonieczny, USMC 

The Falkland Islands campaign 

started on April 2, 1982 with the Argentine 

invasion and subsequent occupation of the 

Falkland Islands. The roots of the campaign 

stemmed from the contested rightful 

ownership of the islands between Argentina 

and the United Kingdom dating back to the 

17th Century. After decades of diplomatic 

action aimed at a negotiated settlement, 

Argentina resorted to the use of force and 

invaded the islands. 1 The resulting battle for 

the Falklands represents the largest 

integrated land, sea, and air campaign since 

World War II. Although U.S. military 

schools often highlight the British ingenuity, 

expeditionary capability, and physical 

prowess of the British infantrymen as the 

ultimate key to their victory, what is often 

overlooked are the mistakes and lost 

opportunities of the Argentines. Despite the 

success of the initial Argentine invasion of 

the Falklands, they were ultimately defeated 

due to their failure to apply the Joint 

Common Operating Precepts outlined in 

Joint Publication 3-0; in particular, they 

failed to exploit unity of effort, influence

domestic and international audiences, or 

manage transitions over time and space. 

The Argentine Invasion and British

Counter Attack

In December of 1981, the Argentine 

government underwent its second regime 

change in less than a year when General 

Leopoldo Galtieri assumed the role of 

president. Although he occupied the 

position, the real power rested with the 

three-man military junta of which Galtieri 

was already a member.

2 The newly formed 

Argentine government conducted the 

invasion of the Falklands to stifle internal 

political unrest by uniting the nation in a 

struggle designed to evoke national pride.3

The Argentine invasion plan called for 150 

Marine Commandos to conduct a raid at 

Mullet Creek, neutralize the 68 Royal 

Marines there, arrest the Royal Governor, 

and set the conditions for the invasion fleet 

to enter Port Stanley Harbor.4 Although 

unforeseen events dictated changes to the 

original plans, Argentine Commandos 

adapted successfully and the Governor, Rex 

Hunt, surrendered a short four hours after 

the Argentines first landed.5

After their rapid success, the 

Argentines rotated the initial, professionally 

trained Marine Commandos back to 

Argentina to counter potential domestic 

unrest and to reinforce the border with 

Chile, where a long-standing dispute 

existed. Three brigades of Argentine Army 

conscripts replaced the professional and 

well-trained Argentine Marines on the 

ground. The majority of these troops had not 

finished initial training and were 

individually inserted into units to achieve 

acceptable combat strength.

6

 The Argentine 

occupation force now tasked with the 

defense the island consisted of 11,000 

ground troops, an aged, but well-balanced 

naval fleet, comprised of two separate task 

forces and three submarines, and a 

formidable air force of roughly 220 fighter 

planes.

7

 The task of the air force and navy 

was to intercept any British vessels sent to 

reclaim the islands. 

Three days after the initial Argentine

invasion, the British launched their largest 

naval task force since World Campaign II to 

retake the islands.

8 The Task Force 

consisted of more than 100 ships, six 

submarines, 42 Harriers, approximately 175 

helicopters, and a landing forces comprised 

of Royal Marine Commandos and 

Campaigning Fall 2015 42
paratroopers.

9

 Despite being one of the best 

trained forces in the world, the British Task 

Force was largely unprepared for such an 

immediate deployment and the requirement 

to operate on lines of communications more 

than seven-thousand miles from their home 

shores.10 

Once the British Task Force neared 

the Falklands in late April, the Argentines 

launched several air attacks against the 

British, but were unable to penetrate the 

protective screen put up by the Harriers and 

lost four aircraft. On 2 May, the British 

submarine HMS Conqueror sunk the 

Argentine warship ARA Belgrano and 368 

Argentine sailors were lost. The sinking of 

the ship convinced the Argentines they 

could not compete with the British Navy and 

the entire Argentine Navy returned to port. 

However, the Argentine Air Force retaliated 

with a major air strike, subsequently sinking 

the HMS Sheffield and pushing the British 

Task Force and its local air superiority away 

from the islands. 11 

On 19 May, the full British Task 

Force arrived at the Falklands and 

commenced their amphibious landing. The 

Argentines launched uncoordinated air 

strikes against the British Navy, hitting five 

different warships but causing marginal 

damage, while losing ten of their own 

fighters. During the ensuing British 

invasion, casualties were high on both sides. 

The landing at Port San Carlos took the 

Argentines by surprise as they thought it 

impossible to land there. The Argentines

then launched major air strikes against the 

British Fleet, sinking three and damaging 

four other ships, and eliminating the bulk of 

the British helicopters. The Argentines lost 

another 30 planes and would be unable to 

execute air operations on such a large scale 

for the rest of the conflict.

12

The British launched attacks on 

Darwin and Goose Green in the early 

morning on 27 May. Despite losing two key 

commanders and being at a tactical 

disadvantage compared to the Argentines, 

the British succeeded in taking the locations

in what turned out to be the last large-scale 

assault of the campaign.

13 From then on, all 

tactical actions encountered by the Royal

Marines and paratroopers resembled the 

Battle of Goose Green: stiff initial Argentine 

resistance followed by a collapse of the 

Argentine soldiers once they were decisively

engaged. On the night of 11 June, British 

forces launched a brigade-sized night attack 

against the heavily defended ring of high 

ground surrounding Port Stanley. The 

surrender of the Argentine forces on 14 June 

marked the end of the conflict.14 The war 

lasted 74 days and resulted in the deaths of 

225 British and 649 Argentine soldiers, 

sailors, and airmen. The Argentines 

surrendered 9,800 troops, all of which were 

repatriated to Argentina.15

 Figure 1. JP 3-0 Common Operating Precepts16

Common Operating Precepts 

Although the Falklands campaign 

lasted only 74 days and, compared to other 

major campaigns, resulted in relatively few 

casualties. The campaign provides a 

doctrinal lens through which common 

operating precepts can be examined. The ten 

common operating precepts (see Figure 1) 

form the foundation of successful joint 

Campaigning Fall 2015 43
operations. Although the Argentine military 

violated several of the common operating 

precepts throughout their planning and 

execution of the Falkland Islands campaign, 

three of these significantly contributed to 

their ultimate defeat. These are: 

• Inform domestic audiences and 

influence the perceptions and 

attitudes of key foreign audiences as 

an explicit and continuous 

operational requirement. 

• Achieve and maintain unity of effort

within the joint force and between 

the joint force and U.S. Government, 

international, and other partners. 

• Plan and manage operational 

transitions over time and space. 17

Collectively, “these precepts flow logically 

from the broad challenges in the strategic 

environment to the specific conditions, 

circumstances, and influences in a [Joint 

Force Commander’s] operational 

environment.”18 

Inform & Influence

Although Joint publication 3-0 did 

not expound on this precept, it did address 

the importance of communication 

strategies.

19 The U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College’s 2012 Campaign 

Planning Handbook associated this precept 

with inform and influence activities which it 

defines as “the integration of designated 

information-related capabilities in order to 

synchronize, themes, messages and actions 

with operations to inform [domestic] and 

global audiences, influence foreign 

audiences, and affect adversary and enemy 

decision making.”20 It further stresses that 

this precept requires active engagement that 

can lead to operational advantage when done 

well. Although a less obvious aspect of the 

Falkland Campaign than the other precepts, 

had Argentina been able to control the 

external narrative as successfully as it did 

the internal narrative, it may have been able 

to change the international environment 

sufficiently to handicap the British effort 

while gaining material support for their own 

cause. 

Argentina was somewhat competent 

at ‘informing’ its own population. The

government had been carefully crafting and 

controlling the information flow to its 

populace for over a decade and used this to 

its advantage during the Falkland conflict.

21 

After invading the Falklands, the Argentines 

extended their information practices there as 

well. They introduced televisions to the 

islands for which only Argentine 

programing was available and limited other 

forms of media to those that were friendly to 

the Argentine cause.

22 In Argentina, papers 

such as La Nación frequently pressed the 

themes of “British colonialism” and “British 

nostalgia for the lost empire” as they framed 

the conflict in their early reporting.

23 During 

the conflict, reporting minimized Argentine 

losses while emphasizing British losses, at 

times reporting the sinking of the same ships 

multiple times during the campaign. Post 

conflict, La Nación talks about terminating 

the battle, ceasefires, and the withdrawal 

from the Falkland Islands rather than 

expressing it as a surrender, downplaying 

the failure of the junta.

24 

The Argentines attempted to 

capitalize on British weaknesses with 

moderate success; the most notable being 

the sinking of the ARA Belgrano. Although 

the ARA Belgrano was a light cruiser, likely 

headed to engage the British fleet, the 

Argentines made much of the fact that it was 

outside the stated exclusion zone when the 

British sank it killing 360 “innocent” lives. 

The sinking of the ship was characterized as

a treacherous act in the Argentine media.

25

Despite being a military victory for the 

British, the Argentine’s ability to exploit 

“the premium that the international 

Campaigning Fall 2015 44
community put on the appearance of 

avoiding escalation” turned the event into a 

minor political defeat for the British, 

particularly in Europe.26 

The Argentines made their most 

significant mistake in failing to aggressively 

influence the international community even 

before the conflict turned violent. Although 

the Argentines drove the early timeline, they 

allowed the British message to reach the 

United Nations, European Economic 

Community (EEC) and even the 

Organization of American States before the 

Argentine message. This failure allowed the 

British to push a resolution condemning 

Argentina through the UN within hours of 

the invasion and shortly after convinced the 

EEC to place an arms embargo on 

Argentina.27 The embargo severely 

degraded the Argentine defensive 

capabilities by limiting their ability to 

procure a resupply of Exocet missiles. From 

the view point of national-level strategic 

effects, the Royal Navy’s most effective air 

defense system during the campaign were

the successful sanctions and arms embargo 

imposed by Europe. The Argentines used 

Exocet missiles to sink the HMS Sheffield

and HMS Atlantic Conveyor, but they had 

only five operational missiles. The 

Argentine Air Force could have inflicted 

considerably more damage on the British 

Fleet had the French not halted upgrades on 

the Argentines’ remaining Exocets and 

delivery of another pending shipment. The 

potential destruction caused by those 

additional Exocets might have impacted the 

outcome of the conflict in favor of the 

Argentines.

28

Unity of Effort 

Unity of effort is defined as the 

“coordination and cooperation toward 

common objectives, even if the participants 

are not necessarily part of the same 

command or organization.”29 The stated 

purpose in JP 3-0 is “to ensure unity of 

effort in the accomplishment of 

objectives.”30 Additionally, JP 3-0 expands 

on the importance of unity of effort, 

highlighting how it is used to accomplish a 

specific mission by establishing an 

atmosphere of trust and cooperation.31 

During the planning and execution of 

the Falklands campaign, the Argentine 

military failed to leverage and integrate their 

joint force to achieve unity of effort. This 

failure was a result of service rivalry and 

institutional culture. At the time of the 

campaign, any Argentine joint training and 

planning that did exist was purely theoretical 

and did not translate into execution. “The 

[Argentine] armed forces were divided into 

watertight compartments, each service 

jealously guarding its rights and privileges. 

The services participation in the daily 

machinations of national politics merely 

aggravated the situation.”32

Although there were multiple 

incidents in which the Argentines violated 

the precept of unity of effort, the most 

catastrophic incident is highlighted in the 

naval and air engagements marking the 

initiation of hostilities. Given the vast 

distance between the Falklands and United 

Kingdom, the British initial strength was 

their fleet and their ability to project global 

power. Within the fleet, the troop transports 

which enabled the British to project power 

from the sea served as a vulnerability. If the 

Argentines were able to destroy the 

transports, or even deter them from 

approaching the Falklands, the chances for 

Argentine victory would have been assured. 

Once the British Task Force neared 

the Falklands, the Argentines launched 

several air attacks against the British, none 

of which were supported by naval forces. 

Despite the bravery displayed by the 

Argentine pilots, their fighters were unable 

to penetrate the protective screen without the 

supporting effects of the navy. Similarly, in 

Campaigning Fall 2015 45
a pure naval engagement on 2 May, the 

British submarine, HMS Conqueror, sunk 

the Argentine warship ARA Belgrano,

thereby breaking the resolve of the 

Argentine Navy and forcing them from the 

battle.33 In a post conflict interview, 

Argentine Rear Admiral Jorge Allare 

expressed how ill-prepared and 

uncoordinated the Argentine Navy was to 

fight the British and to support his air force 

counterpart. “None of our plans envisaged 

an all-out engagement between the two task 

forces; the difference in strength made that 

impossible. . . my orders were to carry out 

limited operations, taking advantage of 

favorable opportunities.”34 The departure of 

the Argentine Navy from the field of 

battle furthered the pre-existing divide 

between the services and doomed the 

Argentine Air Force to fight alone against 

the British Fleet. 

Despite the lack of naval integration 

and forsaking the tenant of unity of effort, 

the Argentine Air Force was still able to 

retaliate with major air strikes. Through the 

use of fighters equipped with French Exocet 

missiles, the Argentine Air Force was 

successful in sinking the HMS Sheffield. 

Pressing their attack, the Argentine Air 

Force flew more than 300 sorties against the 

British Fleet resulting in the sinking of four 

British warships while damaging eight other 

vessels.35 Intimidated by the power of the 

Exocet, the British Fleet commander backed 

his carrier force away from the islands and 

took any chance of British air superiority 

with him. 36 Given the vulnerability of the 

British Fleet to Argentine air strikes, the 

Argentines again failed to synchronize the 

naval and air effects against the British 

transports before the invasion began. 

Without naval forces pursuing the British 

Fleet, momentum was lost and the British 

landed their troops 17 days later. 

The lack of unity of effort between 

the Argentine Navy and Air Force was 

further compounded by their failure to share 

even the most basic information. Examples 

of lack of information sharing included the 

navy failing to provide the air force with the 

radar direction expected by their pilots. 

Without this direction, Argentine pilots 

searched for targets of opportunity and 

wasted fuel in the process. Additionally, the 

air force failed to profit from the techniques 

developed by navy pilots of lobbing their 

bombs to provide them with enough airtime 

to fuse. 37 Without the proper fusing set, 

multiple Argentine air delivered munitions 

struck British vessels and passed through 

them, failing to detonate. These failures 

violated principles outlined in JP 3-0 which 

state, “Each component’s mission should 

also create a complementary synergy with 

that of others. This enables the action of 

each component to enhance the capabilities 

and vulnerabilities of the other.” 38

Transitions 

 Joint Publication 3-0 states, “A 

transition marks a change of focus between 

phases or between ongoing operations and 

execution of a branch or sequel.”39 The 

common operating precept the Argentines 

failed to exploit is “plan for and manage 

operational transitions over time and 

space.”40 Despite the Argentines early 

operational successes they repeatedly failed 

at subsequent transitions negating any 

gained momentum. The Argentines failed to 

exploit opportunities between phases or 

manage transitions in ongoing operations at 

three distinct points: during the 

redeployment of forces prior to the British 

counter-attack, following successes in the 

air-sea battle, and during the final battle at 

Port Stanley on 14 June. 41 

 The taking of Port Stanley by 

Argentine Marine Commandos and the 

subsequent surrender of the Royal Governor 

Rex Hunt resulted in overwhelming success. 

Subsequently, on 4 May, the Argentine 

Campaigning Fall 2015 46
forces continued their success with the 

sinking of the HMS Sheffield, thereby 

blunting the British initial response. 42 The 

Argentines now held an opportunity to 

continue to exploit these successes as the 

British Fleet would take three weeks to cross

the Atlantic. 43 Using the transition time 

between 2 April and 19 May, General 

Mendez recognized Port Stanley as key 

terrain, placing an overwhelming 

concentration of his troops around Port 

Stanley, positioning observation post 

throughout the island along likely avenues 

of approach. However, the Argentines 

created a weakness in their plan by rotating 

the Argentine Commandos from Port 

Stanley, back to Argentina to reinforce the 

Chilean border. The commandos were 

replaced with a larger but untrained 

conscript force exposing an Argentine 

vulnerability.44 “In Argentina, the 

Argentine military were still so obsessed 

with the Chile factor that they turned Chile 

into a hypothetical enemy out of all 

proportion with reality.”45 Assuming 

success in the Falklands, the Argentine 

leadership prematurely transitioned to a 

threat on their border with Chile that did not 

exist. 

 Although the initial sea and naval 

campaign was discussed previously to 

highlight the lack of Argentine unity of 

effort, it also demonstrates the Argentine 

struggle with transition. This weakness was 

illustrated in the British counter attack 

commencing on 19 May. Once again, the 

Argentine forces exposed the ineffectiveness 

of the British Fleet’s anti-aircraft defense by 

successfully sinking the four British ships 

HMS Antelope, MV Atlantic Conveyor, MV 

Atlantic Coventry, and HMS Ardent. 46 

However, Argentine national command 

authority failed to see the focus of the battle

was transitioning from British land forces at 

Port Stanley to its maritime forces, the 

British Fleet, in mid-May and they did not 

bring the necessary maritime power to 

exploit the Argentine Air Force success. 

The lack of Argentine maritime vessels in 

the attack demonstrated a failure to 

effectively transition from air/ground to 

air/sea. The inability of the Argentines to 

foresee transitions resulted in a failure to 

achieve dominance across all three domains, 

allowing time and space for the British 

forces to gain a foothold on the eastern 

beach of the West Falkland Island. 

 Another example of the Argentine 

failure to transition was their failure to 

commit the reserve during the British attack 

on at Port Stanley 11-14 June. General 

Mendez’s defensive plan hinged on 

mobilizing his formidable helicopter reserve 

to launch a counter-attack. The plan heavily 

relied on the accurate reporting, the resolve 

of the defensive positions to hold in the face 

of British attacks, and the initiative of the 

Argentine counter-attack commander.

47 

During the British attack, the main effort 

stalled subjecting the British infantry to 

direct and indirect concentrated fires. 

Despite the tactical advantage and the 

commitment of their helicopter reserve as 

planned, the Argentine forces never 

effectively transitioned to their branch plan 

to blunt the British counter-attack. Nor did 

the Argentine air and naval forces intercept 

any British forces attempting to relieve the 

beleaguered British. Once again, the 

Argentine branch plan was never executed, 

displaying a lack of ability to manage this 

critical transition point within the 

campaign48 

Conclusion 

 Militarily, the Falkland Islands 

campaign remains the largest-naval battle 

between modern forces since the Second 

World War. As such, the conflict offers 

many lessons learned to the Joint Officer. 

For example, the United States Marine 

Corps currently uses the Falklands 

Campaigning Fall 2015 47
Campaign as a case study at the 

Expeditionary Warfare School and at their 

Commanders’ Course to educate attendees 

on “amphibious lessons relearned.” Among 

other lessons learned, the Marine Corps uses 

the Falklands campaign to illustrate the 

importance of amphibious / expeditionary 

readiness, adaptability, and the decisive 

advantage provided by fit, hardened men, 

prepared to close with and destroy the 

enemy.49 Although these lessons are 

undoubtedly true, they only tell one side of 

the story and fail to account for the 

Argentines’ actions. 

The Argentines were successful in 

their capture of and subsequent planning for 

the defense of the Falklands but they failed 

to hold the islands due to their inability to 

adhere to the common operating precepts 

outlined in JP 3-0. Specifically, the 

Argentines failed to influence the 

international community, achieve unity of 

effort, and manage transitions. As recently 

stated by General Dempsey, “...the strength 

of [the] Joint Force has always been its 

ability to combine unique Service 

capabilities to project decisive military 

force.” 50 The Argentines failed to apply 

these strengths and therefore failed to 

achieve victory.

1 Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the 

Falklands (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 

Inc., 1984), 5.

2 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

43.

3 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

65.

4 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

73. 5 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

73-74; Jorge O. Laucirica, “Lessons from Failure: 

The Malvinas Conflict” (Seton Hall Journal of 

Team Biographies

Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Borders, USA, is 

currently serving as CENTCOM Engineer Chief of 

Plans, in Tampa, FL. He was commissioned through 

ROTC at the University of Kansas in 1996. LTC 

Borders earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the 

University of Kansas in 1996 and an MS in Engineer 

Management from the University of Missouri at 

Rolla in 2001. He also holds credentialing as a 

Project Management Professional (PMP) since 2012. 

Prior to his current assignment, LTC Borders served 

as commander, 326th Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade 

Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (AASLT) at 

Fort Campbell, KY. 

Major Kelly Montier, USAF, is currently serving as 

the Iraq Security Forces Team Chief in the Joint 

Intelligence Center, USCENTCOM, Tampa, FL. She 

was commissioned through ROTC at Texas A&M 

University in 2001. Maj Montier earned her BA in 

International Studies and Russian; in 2009 she 

completed an MA in International Relations through 

the University of Oklahoma. Prior to her current 

assignment, Maj Montier served as Deputy Division 

Chief, East Asia Strategic Analysis and Integration, 

NSA/CSS Threat Operations Center, National 

Security Agency at Fort Meade, MD

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Nakonieczny, USMC, 

currently serves as the Chief of Staff, J3 Afghanistan 

Division, USSOCOM. LtCol Nakonieczny earned a 

BA in Psychology from the University of California, 

Davis in 1996 and was subsequently commissioned 

through the Platoon Leaders Class program. Prior to 

his current assignment, LtCol Nakonieczny served as 

the Executive Officer of First Battalion, First Marines 

at Camp Pendleton, CA. 

Diplomacy and International Relations, Summer/Fall 

2000): 85.

6 Alejandro L. Corbacho, “Argentine Command 

Structure” and its Impact on Land Operations during 

the Falklands / Malvinas Campaign (1982),” 

(Manuscript, Universidad del CEMA, September 

2004).

7 Laucirica, “Lessons from Failure,” 85; Hastings and 

Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 343. 8 EconomicExpert.com, 

http://www.economicexpert.com/4a/Falklands:Camp

aign.html

Campaigning Fall 2015 48
9 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

347-354. 10 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

83.

11 Joseph Allen McCullough, “The Falklands 

Campaign, The Air and Sea Campaigns,” 

Suite101.com, http://modern-britishhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_falklands_camp

aign#ixzz0XoYq3IRp; Hastings and Jenkins, The 

Battle for the Falklands, 155. 12 McCullough, “The Falklands Campaign”; Hastings 

and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 155, 200, 

216, 231.

13 McCullough, “The Falklands Campaign.” 14 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

243, 296, 318, 310.

15 EconomicExpert.com, 

http://www.economicexpert.com/4a/Falklands:War.ht

ml. 16 Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations, (11 

August 2011), I-3, FIG I-2,

http://dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jointpub_operation

s.htm. 17 JP 3-0, I-2. 18 JP 3-0, I-2. 

19 JP 3-0, I-6, I-7. 20 Jack Kem, Planning for Action: Campaign 

Concepts and Tools (U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, 2012), 103, 

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/Repository/Planningfor-Action-Kem-August-2012.pdf. 21 Marina Walker, "Framing the Falklands/Malvinas 

War: National Interest in the Coverage of The 

London Times, La Nación (Argentina) and El 

Mercurio (Chile)," Universum (Talca) Universum 1, 

no. 19 (2004): The media scenario, 

doi:10.4067/S0718-23762004000100011. 22 Luscombe, "British Empire”, Occupation.

23 Walker, "Framing the Falklands, April 4. 24 Walker, "Framing the Falklands, June 15-16. 25 Walker, "Framing the Falklands, May 3-4; Herbert 

Friedman, "Psyop of the Falkland Islands War," 

PSYWAR.ORG. October 1, 2005: FALKLAND 

ISLANDS WAR PSYOP, 

http://www.psywar.org/falklands.php.

26 Lawrence Freedman, "The War of the Falkland 

Islands, 1982," Foreign Affairs 61, no. 1 (1982): 203, 

doi:10.2307/20041358.

27 Freedman, "The War of the Falkland Islands,” 210. 28 Patrick Hew, “National Effects-Based Operations: 

The Example of Fleet Air Defence,” Security 

Challenges 4, no. 1 (Autumn 2008): 89, 94-95,

http://www.securitychallenges.org.au/ArticlePDFs/vo

l4no1Hew.pdf. 29 Joint Publication 1: Doctrine for the Armed Forces

of the United States, (25 March 2013), GL-13, 

http://dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jointpub_capstone.

htm. 30 JP 3-0, i. 31 JP 3-0, V-18. 32 Juan Carlos Murguizur, “The South Atlantic 

Conflict: An Argentine Point of View,” International 

Defence Review, vol. 16, no. 2 (February 1983): 135-

36. 33 McCullough, “The Falklands Campaign”; Hastings 

and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 155. 34 Martin Middlebrook, The Fight for the Malvinas

(New York: Viking 1989), 103.

35 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

316.

36 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

155.

37 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

323.

38 JP 3-0, II-3. 

39 JP 3-0, V-7. 40 JP 3-0, V-7. 41 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

15. 

42 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

155.

43 McCullough, “The Falklands Campaign.” 44 Paolo Tripodo, “General Matthei’s refelation and 

Chilie’s role during the Falklands Campaign: A new 

perspective on the conflict in the South Atlantic”, 

Journal of Strategic Studies 26, no. 4 (2003): 118, 

doi: 10.1080/0141-2390312331279708. 45 Tripodo, “General Matthei’s refelation”, 118. 46 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

216.

47 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

178.

48 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands,

243.

49 “Operation Corporate, Falklands War, 1982” 

(Marine Corps Commanders’ Program, Day 5, 

February 2015).

50 “Capstone Concept for Joint Operations: Joint 

Force 2020” (10 September 2012): 4, 

http://dtic.mil/doctrine/concepts/concepts.htm. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 49
Using Strategic Foresight and Systems 

Thinking Analyses to Craft a U.S. 

Strategy for the African Sahel and 

Maghreb

By Colonel Robert Pope, USAF, Lieutenant Colonel

Jeffrey Fair, USA, and Major Dale Fenton, USMC 

France is conducting counterterrorist 

(CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) activities 

in the Maghreb and Sahel regions of Africa—

specifically in Mali, Niger, Chad, and Libya—

which align with U.S. interests. The U.S. 

military has supported these French activities 

with inter/intra-theater airlift and aerial 

refueling. However, authorities and funding for 

that support expire early in 2015. France desires 

continued U.S. support and reimbursement, but 

the White House reportedly wants to end this 

assistance. The question is whether the United 

States should continue to support French CT 

and COIN activities in the Maghreb and Sahel. 

This issue is important to the United 

States not only because of terrorism concerns, 

but also because of the importance of supporting 

a key ally (France) who is taking the lead in this 

region. The emergence of groups such as the 

Islamic State, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb 

(AQIM), and the continued threat of Boko 

Haram in Nigeria have established terrorism 

threats both in and around the region. AQIM 

has expanded operations from Algeria to Niger 

and Chad, Boko Haram has expanded 

operations from Nigeria into Niger and Chad, 

and the Islamic State has moved into Libya, 

recently conducting highly publicized 

beheadings. These and other Islamist violent 

extremists organizations (VEOs) pose a 

destabilizing threat, seeking ungoverned spaces 

to build forces and launch terror attacks on the 

region, U.S. allies, and potentially in the U.S. 

homeland. The Maghreb and Sahel thus 

represent a region at risk, but also a group of 

nations that have great potential to influence 

wider continent of Africa and the world. 

The study team recommends continued 

U.S. support of French CT and COIN efforts in 

the region, as well as direct U.S. security, 

governance, and economic assistance to the 

governments of Niger, Mali, Chad and Libya. 

These U.S. and French actions should be more 

fully coordinated, eliminating duplicative 

measures and reinforcing areas of shared 

concern. If both nations use their diverse 

instruments of national power in a 

synchronized, deliberate manner, both can 

achieve their national interests in the region, and 

can do so in a cost-effective manner in this time 

of fiscal constraints. 

The team arrived at this recommendation 

by employing several strategic foresight and 

systems-thinking methods, including modeling 

the system to understand system behavior and 

identify key outcome and leverage variables, 

forecasting global trends and their impact on the 

problem, exploring alternative futures, social 

change theory, and anticipatory management.

I. System Model. We begin the analysis of 

the problem by modeling the system 

which includes key elements and 

interactions between U.S. national 

security, French national security, the key 

attributes and goals of the Maghreb and 

Sahel governments, and the key attributes 

and goals of the regional VEOs. The 

combined system model is shown in 

Figure 1. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 50
Figure 1. Causal Loop Diagram of the Combined United States / 

France / Sahel-Maghreb Governments / VEOs System

The portion of the system describing the 

United States, shown in the lower left portion of 

Figure 1, is a model of the 2010 United States 

National Security Strategy1 produced by 

Professor Dan McCauley at the U.S. Joint 

Forces Staff College.2 The left side of the U.S. 

subsystem represents the domestic portion of the 

U.S. national security strategy, while the right 

side represents the international portion. There 

are many positive, reinforcing loops in this 

subsystem, such as American strength and 

influence abroad driving global security and 

vice versa. The dominant loop in the subsystem 

runs from American security, to global security, 

to international order, to American strength and 

influence abroad, and back to American 

security.3

The portion of the system describing 

France, shown in the lower right of Figure 1, is 

a model produced by the study team based on 

the 2013 French White Paper: Defence and 

Security.

4 The French system model has several 

similarities to the U.S. model, and intersects at 

key points of shared national interests. Although 

the French White Paper does not use the term 

“Global Security,” it does use the similar term 

“International Security.” The interests of both 

governments merge in the desire for stability, 

security, and global prosperity. This is realized 

through cooperation through a strong alliance 

(namely NATO), military interoperability, and 

an open international economic system. 

When applied to the Maghreb and Sahel, 

the security situation threatens not only 

economic prosperity, but also stability within 

and on the periphery of the region. French 

economic interests are greater in the region than 

those of the United States, tying French interests 

more closely to the local governments. The 

French White Paper also emphasizes shared 

language and culture across the Francophone 

world, linking France to its former colonies and 

regional partners around the globe. The paper 

describes French interests and argues for 

continued action to support friendly 

governments, highlighting French long-term 

commitment to its allies in the region. 

The portion of the system describing the 

Maghreb and Sahel governments, shown in the 

upper left of Figure 1, is a model produced by 

the study team based on several sources, 

including reports from intergovernmental 

organizations,5 U.S. State Department 

assessments,6

 scholarly journals and books,7 and 

media reporting,8

 since the governments of 

Mali, Niger, Chad, and Libya have not 

published and made publicly available 

comprehensive security strategy documents 

comparable to the U.S. National Security 

Strategy or the French White Paper. While 

these Maghreb and Sahel governments state that 

they value human capital development and food 

security, the behavior of these governments 

Campaigning Fall 2015 51
indicates that what they value most is the power 

and legitimacy of their regime. The key leverage 

variable in this subsystem is the economy, 

which feeds positively into every other element 

in this subsystem. The outcome element in this 

subsystem of most interest to the United States 

is security, which is positively influenced by the 

economy, government legitimacy and power, 

and infrastructure. In addition to security, 

France has a greater interest than the United 

States in improving the local economies and 

governments, since the French economy is more 

strongly linked to these countries. 

The portion of the system describing the 

VEOs, shown in the upper right of Figure 1, is a 

model produced by the study team based on the 

Terrorism Threat Model found in JP 3-26 and 

Country Reports on Terrorism 2013.

9

 Global 

network links with VEOs in the region 

negatively affect international security. French 

activities that improve the regional economy, 

governance, and security within the region, 

negatively affect VEO operations. VEOs have 

less freedom to raise funds through extortion, 

kidnapping, and other criminal acts, which 

supports training and equipping of extremists 

for more successful attacks. Improving 

economic conditions within the region counters 

the negative effects of unemployment, reducing 

the underlying conditions that create pools of 

candidates for VEOs to recruit and indoctrinate 

with their radical ideology. With greater 

security restricting VEO freedom of movement, 

VEOs find fewer safe havens to train and 

indoctrinate, increase membership, and pursue 

their objectives.

Assembling these four systems 

facilitates an understanding of how they interact 

as one large system and facilitates identification 

of key output variables and leverage variables in 

the system. There are six bilateral relationships 

among these four subsystems; each is described 

briefly below. 

• Sahel-Maghreb governments and VEOs: 

One key linkage between the SahelMaghreb governments and VEOs is the 

relationship among security of these 

states, successful VEO attacks, and VEO 

freedom of movement, while the second 

key linkage is the relationship from the 

local economies to unemployment and 

the youth bulge. This indicates that 

improving security and reducing 

unemployment will reduce VEO impacts 

and VEO power. 

• Sahel-Maghreb governments and the 

United States: The key linkage between 

the Sahel-Maghreb governments and the 

United States connects security of these 

states to global security, which 

influences American security. This 

indicates that the primary U.S. national 

interest in these countries is improving 

their security. This linkage of interests is 

highlighted in the blue oval in Figure 1. 

• Sahel-Maghreb governments and 

France: There are two key linkages 

between France and these countries—

between security in the African countries 

and international security in the French 

subsystem, and between the African 

economies and the French economy. 

• VEOs and France: VEOs in this part of 

Africa primarily relate to France through 

their impact on the Sahel-Maghreb 

countries’ security and economy. 

However, there is a direct negative 

linkage between VEO radical Islamist 

ideology and French language and 

culture, insofar as these non-French 

extremist ideologies take root in 

immigrant communities in France, 

Campaigning Fall 2015 52
leading to lone-wolf or local cell VEOs 

within France. 

• VEOs and the United States: There is 

currently not a direct linkage between 

the VEOs in this region and the United 

States, since their attacks are directed at 

local and regional actors rather than 

directly on the United States. However, 

that could change if these VEOs gain 

sufficient power and resources, or if they 

perceive a direct threat from the United 

States.

• The United States and France: There are 

two key sets of relationships between the 

United States and France; both are 

highlighted in the tan ovals in Figure 1. 

The first links American security and 

global security through NATO and 

interoperability with allies and partners 

to the French interest in Strong alliance 

partners and the European Union. The 

second links American interests in an 

open international economic system, 

global prosperity, and international order 

to the French interest in international 

security. These linkages demonstrate 

that the United States and France have 

several interests in common and that it is 

in the United States’ interest to maintain 

a strong relationship with France.

II. Global Trends. The next step in the 

analysis is to apply strategic foresight to identify 

key global or regional trends, drivers, and 

endogenous variables which bear on the system 

and help to understand the problem. A trend is a 

discernable pattern of change. A driver is a 

factor that directly influences or causes change. 

An endogenous variable is an internal variable 

embedded within the system.10 Using the UK 

Ministry of Defence’s Strategic Trends 

Programme: Global Strategic Trends – Out to 

2045 as a source document, we identified the 

following global or regional trends, drivers, and 

endogenous variables which help us to analyze 

the United States/France/Maghreb and Sahel 

Governments/VEO system to determine whether 

is a sensible U.S. policy to provide financial or 

other support to French counterterror actions in 

Mali, Niger, Chad, and Libya. The global, subSaharan (which includes Mali, Niger, and 

Chad), and North African (which includes 

Libya) of most relevance to the problem are 

summarized in Table 1, while relevant 

endogenous variables, based on the causal loop 

diagram analysis of the system, are listed in 

Table 2. 

Table 1. Trends and Drivers in the Future Environment in the 

Maghreb and Sahel

Trends Drivers

Increased instability11 Demographics: Sub-Saharan African 

population is likely to double by 2045.12 

“Rapid population growth is likely to 

jeopardize social and economic 

development, particularly in the most 

vulnerable countries. With the 

proportion of those in the 15-25 agegroup higher in sub-Saharan Africa than 

anywhere else in the world, young 

people are likely to be under- or 

unemployed and hence disaffected, 

driving instability.”13 Additionally, the 

large number of ethnic, religious, and 

linguistic groups across the region does 

not align with national boundaries (a 

Nation – State misalignment) and this is 

likely to continue to drive unstable 

governments and transnational 

separatist and criminal movements. 

Decrease in military 

coups and a shift towards 

representative 

governments14

Governance: A “shift towards 

representative government is likely to

continue, driven by improved education, 

higher income and better access, via 

technology, to information and different 

points of view.”15 “Flawed democracies 

are still likely to be prevalent in 2045, 

with some countries subject to 

authoritarian governments. Demands 

for democratic elections could become 

violent, particularly in areas where 

democracy is not entrenched.”16

Campaigning Fall 2015 53
Trends Drivers

Decline in corruption in 

some parts of the region, 

but enduring corruption 

in other parts17

“Poverty, weak political institutions and 

poorly developed institutional checks 

and balances will probably continue to 

drive and allow corruption in some parts 

of the region. However, this is likely to 

be mitigated to some extent by: deeper 

involvement of civil groups; 

strengthening the judiciary; more 

transparency (facilitated in large part by 

increasing information and 

communication technology); and 

increasing education and corruptionawareness programs.”18

Countervailing forces 

both increase and 

decrease potential future 

violent extremism19

“[T]errorist groups...are 

likely to continue to 

target...Western interests 

in the region and secular 

governments, with many 

acting in the name of 

Islam and following 

Islamic fundamentalist 

principles. Most 

terrorists are highly 

likely to remain focused 

on attacks within the 

region, although AlQaeda and affiliated 

groups are likely to 

continue to target 

Western interests out to 

2045.”20

Drivers increasing violent extremism: 

“dramatic population growth, 

unfulfilled expectations, unemployment, 

radicalizing ideologies, widening 

inequalities and differences in access to 

resources”21 “Satellite television 

channels and social media are also 

likely to play an increasing role in 

spreading sectarian mistrust.”22 “Social, 

economic, religious and political 

justifications for terrorism are likely to 

continue to be used by many groups 

within the region.”23 

Drivers decreasing violent extremism: 

stronger civil societies, economic 

growth, greater access to education, the 

growing

empowerment of women, and the 

capacity of African governments and 

regional organizations, particularly the 

African Union, to deal with security 

challenges24

Improving economies25 Increased resource extraction, including 

hydrocarbons. “Oil and gas production 

is likely to grow faster in sub-Saharan 

Africa than in other regions, attracting 

significant foreign investment. China is 

highly likely to continue to be involved 

in the region.”26

Increased violent 

competition for resources 

and economic 

inequality27

With increasing wealth comes an 

increase in the potential for violence. 

“Between 2010 and 2011, friction over 

resources accounted for approximately 

35% of all conflicts in sub-Saharan 

Africa – and this trend is likely to 

continue. By 2045, dramatic population 

growth and the increasing threat from 

climate change are likely to increase 

competition for food, water and energy 

– these factors may also act as catalysts 

for further violence and instability, 

particularly in the most fragile 

countries. Water scarcity could [also] 

be a key driver of conflict.”28

Trends Drivers

Increased population 

migrations

Drivers include increasing urbanization, 

violent conflict, and climate change that 

increases droughts, flooding, and other 

threats to agricultural and community 

stability.29 “Average annual surface 

temperatures projected to increase 

across

North Africa ... by approximately 1.2 

times more than the global average. 

Global drying could lead to a general 

increase in the size of deserts, such as 

the Sahara. Annual average rainfall will 

probably reduce, with a shift to more 

intense drought events which could 

negatively impact freshwater 

availability. These climate and weather 

factors, coupled with potentially 

changing pest and disease distribution, 

could negatively impact crop yields, 

particularly in the North African 

region.”30

Increased connection to 

diaspora populations, 

increased accountability 

of government to the 

people31

Communication technology, including 

mobile phones and the Internet.32

Decrease in infant 

mortality, decrease or 

shifts in infectious 

disease, and an increase 

in first-world health 

problems

Sanitation programs, vaccines, and 

nutritional supplements will drive a 

decrease in infant mortality. “Changes 

in temperature and rainfall could impact 

the geographic distribution of malaria, 

causing areas of contraction as well as 

expansion.” “A rise in noncommunicable diseases such as 

hypertension, heart disease and cancer” 

is likely due to changing lifestyles.33

Table 2. Key Endogenous Variables in the United 

States/France/Maghreb and Sahel Governments/VEO System

Endogenous Variables

The U.S. and French vital interests to defeat threats to their 

respective homelands before they arrive in the homeland

The U.S. and French desires to reduce costs of defense and foreign 

aid

Increased French willingness, relative to the United States, to 

engage in counterterrorist or counterinsurgent activities in the 

Maghreb

Maghreb and Sahel governments which value regime stability and 

legitimacy over security or well-being of their populations

VEOs who desire a fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate in the 

Maghreb and Sahel

Trends in population growth, Internet 

use, and mobile phone use in these countries are 

shown in Figure 2, Figure 3, and Figure 4. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 54
Forecasting these variables into 2045, Mali, 

Chad, and Niger are likely to experience 

explosive population growth, while the growth 

is more modest in Libya. Internet use in Libya 

reached more than 16% of the population by 

2013 and is growing rapidly, likely resulting in 

the majority of the population having access to 

the Internet by 2045. Internet use in Mali, Chad, 

and Niger started later and is growing more 

slowly, but could reach perhaps a quarter of the 

population by 2045, with the heaviest 

concentration of Internet use in the cities. 

Mobile phone subscriptions in Libya and Mali 

have already reached more than one mobile 

phone per person, and mobile phones will 

remain ubiquitous in these countries. Mobile 

phone subscriptions in Niger and Chad were at 

about 40 per 100 inhabitants in 2013, and the 

trend has been rising rapidly since 2006, leading 

to predictions of near-ubiquitous use of mobile 

phones in these countries by 2045, as well, 

again with a higher prevalence in the cities.

Figure 2. Population, total both sexes (thousands). Data from 

Human Development Report 2014. United Nations Development 

Programme. Last updated July 21, 2014.34

Figure 3. Percentage of individuals using the Internet. Data from 

International Telecommunication Union. Last updated January 30, 

2015.35

Figure 4. Mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Data 

from International Telecommunication Union. Last Updated 

January 30, 2015.36

Several of the key forces at play in the 

Maghreb and Sahel environment are shown in 

the force field analysis in Figure 5. This 

analysis relates the forces acting against U.S. 

interests in the Maghreb and Sahel on the left 

hand side against forces acting in favor of U.S. 

interests on the right-hand side. The global 

trends discussed above are affecting the region 

and are included as part of the forces identified 

in Figure 5. Some of the forces are external to

the region, some are generated wholly within 

the area, and some external influences have coopted or combined with internal forces. As the 

force field analysis graphically demonstrates, 

the overall balance of forces is working against 

U.S. interests, requiring action to either increase 

the effect positive forces or reduce the effect of 

negative forces.

Campaigning Fall 2015 55
Figure 5. Force Field Analysis of the Maghreb and Sahel

 In the absence of external intervention or 

assistance, the study team anticipates that these 

forces will continue in approximately the same 

ratios into the future. This means that the 

negative forces of Islamic extremism, poverty, 

corruption nation-state misalignment, and 

criminal gains will continue to overcome the 

positive countervailing forces in the region. 

External actors such as the United States and 

France can assist in increasing the power of the 

positive forces by countering Islamic extremism 

by providing alternate messages and by 

capturing or killing irreconcilable VEOs. 

External actors can assist with battling poverty, 

corruption, nation-state misalignment, and 

criminal gains primarily through international 

development aid, as well as capacity-building 

programs for local governments and security 

forces. 

 The trends and drivers can also be 

analyzed using a Futures Wheel, which is a 

method to explore possible futures by 

determining first, second, and third-order effects 

of trends and events.37 A Futures Wheel 

assessing the impacts of the projected rapid 

population growth in the Maghreb and Sahel is 

shown in Figure 6, while a Futures Wheel 

assessing the effects of increased access to 

mobile phones and the Internet is shown in 

Figure 7. In each figure, the outline colors 

indicate whether the impact is positive (green 

border), negative (red border) or mixed (no 

border), while the colors within the ovals simply 

help identify the first-order (pink oval), secondorder (tan oval), and third-order (green oval) 

impacts.

Figure 6. Futures Wheel Examining the Impacts of Population 

Growth in the Maghreb and Sahel

Campaigning Fall 2015 56
Figure 7. Futures Wheel Examining the Impacts of Increased 

Mobile Phone and Internet Use in the Maghreb and Sahel

The Futures Wheel analysis of 

population grown shows more negative than 

positive impacts, including some that threaten 

U.S. security or have a high likelihood of 

causing a U.S. economic, diplomatic, or military 

response. The primary branch between positive 

and negative impacts appears to be whether the 

larger population leads to a larger employed 

workforce or to higher unemployment. On the 

other hand, the Futures Wheel analysis of 

increased mobile phone and Internet use shows 

more positive than negative impacts. In this 

case, the primary branch between positive and 

negative impacts appears to be whether these 

communication technologies lead to increased 

civil society and electronic banking or to 

improved VEO communication. 

III. Alternative Futures. Armed with 

a better understanding of the mechanics of the 

United States/France/Maghreb and Sahel 

Governments/VEO system and the key variables 

in the future of that system, the study team 

examined possible alternative futures for the 

system, focusing on high-impact variables 

which are uncertain in their future outcome. The 

two variables which seem most uncertain in 

their outcome are those developed in the Futures 

Wheels—whether increased population growth 

leads to increased employment or to increased 

unemployment and scarcity and whether 

increased mobile phone and Internet availability 

leads to increased civil society and electronic 

banking or to increased VEO communication. 

These uncertain trends could lead to four 

potential futures in 2045, as shown in Figure 8. 

Figure 8. Alternative Futures

• Growth and Development: The upper 

right quadrant represents the desired 

future, in which the increasing use of 

mobile phones and the Internet in the 

Sahel and Maghreb countries lead to 

increased civil society through better 

access to information and to increased 

electronic banking, coupled with an 

increasing population that is put into 

productive work in the economy. These 

Campaigning Fall 2015 57
outcomes would result in a growing 

economy, a reduction in corruption, 

better government accountability, and 

the growth of civic groups necessary for 

a stable democracy. All of this would 

reduce the influence of VEOs and 

increase security, leading to stability, 

growth, and development. Triggers that 

could help generate this future include 

foreign aid targeted toward electronic 

banking, microloans, and civil society 

formation, a coordinated campaign to 

counter VEO messaging, more effective 

local governments to counter the 

attractiveness of the VEO alternative, 

and measures to improve regional 

agriculture.

• Simmering Instability: If the increasing 

population is put to productive work in 

the economy but mobile phones and the 

Internet do not generate benefits, the 

decreased unemployment and growing 

economy will tend to lead to stability, 

but continued corruption, weak civil 

society, and effective VEO messaging 

would permit the VEOs to continue to 

present an attractive alternative to the 

Maghreb and Sahel governments. 

Providing foreign aid that improves 

security and economic opportunities but 

which does not leverage the potential of 

mobile phones and the Internet could 

lead to this undesirable outcome. 

• Chaos: In the reverse of the Simmering 

Instability future, focus on civil society 

development that does not also focus on 

providing employment opportunities for 

the growing population will lead to a 

dissatisfied, poor populace with time on 

their hands, the ability to use mobile 

phones and the Internet to organize, and 

increased effectiveness of VEO 

messaging and recruitment. Targeting 

foreign aid on civil society reform and 

democracy promotion while not 

sufficiently developing the economy 

could lead this undesirable outcome. 

• VEO Explosion: If the growing 

population remains largely unemployed, 

and if increased penetration of mobile 

phones and the Internet fail to improve 

finance and reduce corruption, the 

VEOs, benefiting from a more effective 

messaging infrastructure, could 

potentially cause the collapse of one or 

more of the Maghreb or Sahel 

governments into a failed state. This 

worst-case future could result from an 

absence of foreign aid or attention from 

the rest of the world while these 

problems fester and grow.

IV. Social Change. Armed with a range of 

potential futures and some understanding of the 

drivers that could lead to each of these future 

worlds, the study group next turned to social 

change theory to gain insight into how actors in 

the system perceive and react to social change, 

aiding the team in developing recommendations 

to achieve desired changes in the system. 

People from different cultures view themselves 

and others differently. In the United 

States/France/Maghreb and Sahel 

Governments/VEO system, there are three 

unlike groups all interacting with one another in 

the context of the global trends and regional 

forces detailed earlier. Social change theory 

assists in the description of these groups, their 

values and likely viewpoints on the situation 

and proposed changes. Of the ten social change 

theories described by Bishop and Hines,38 the 

study team selected a theory that best describes 

Campaigning Fall 2015 58
the interests of each of the three sets of actors in 

the system. The United States and France are 

considered one actor in this analysis because 

they share many common interests in the region 

and share considerable cultural aspects. In 

investigating these shared views, the team used 

Progress Theory to describe Western interests in 

the Maghreb and Sahel. Progress Theory is the 

dominant theory used to describe social change 

in the West and generally assumes that, 

“Today’s society is better than the societies of 

the past” and that “future societies will be better 

than the present.”39

The VEOs are best understood through the 

lens of Conflict Theory, which describes entities 

who view the world in zero-sum terms, where 

one group can only gain through seizing 

resources from another. These groups also see 

the world in constant conflict with progress of 

their faction coming only through struggle.40

Finally, in order to identify interests of the 

regional governments and the majority of the 

population of Mali, Chad, Libya, and Niger, the 

research team used Culture Theory. This region 

of Africa has a rich tribal history that existed 

long before today’s political lines were drawn 

and many inhabitants draw their sense of 

identity not from governmental associations, but 

from tribal affiliation. Culture Theory assumes 

that “society is based on culture more than on 

material environment of technology (technology 

being part of culture)” and that “ideas are the 

key components that give culture its ability to 

drive change.”41

Using the applicable social change theory 

for each group, the research team determined 

the effects of the identified global and regional 

trends on each of the stakeholder groups in the 

system. Table 3 provides a summary of these 

effects. In this figure, the green boxes identify a 

global trend producing change that is perceived 

as helpful to the interests of the group, while a 

red box signifies a trend that is counter to the 

desires of the actor. Although both the Western 

governments and the VEOs realize an even 

result (some number of aligned and misaligned 

trends), the regional governments are not as 

fortunate. The analysis identifies the risk to the 

region that global trends pose and the result, 

much like that of the regional force field 

analysis, is that the regional governments are at 

a significant disadvantage. 

Table 3. Culture Theory: Global Trends Interaction

Figure 9 shows what the three groups will 

likely do in reaction to each other, considering 

both the impact of global trends and of each 

other’s actions in the region. Conflict arises at 

the interaction of the VEOs (Conflict Theory) 

and both the regional and Western governments. 

This conflict likely will not be eliminated (some 

irreconcilable VEOs will need to be captured or 

killed because they will not shift their paradigm 

away from their zero-sum viewpoint and goals), 

but considerations can be made to minimize 

conflict through astute understanding of 

Conflict Theory and communicating to counter 

Campaigning Fall 2015 59
its negative aspects. Although there is some 

alignment of interests between the Western 

governments and the regional governments, the 

only way to ensure success is to understand 

what Culture Theory has to say about views on 

change. The United States and France should 

use that knowledge to form plans that allow for 

the culture to adopt need technologies, while 

framing other changes in terms of regional 

cultures and countering VEO messaging in a 

way that resonates with the Culture Theory 

point of view held by the local governments and 

majority of the population. 

Figure 9. Culture Theory: Interaction of Progress Theory, Culture 

Theory, and Conflict Theory in the United States/France/MaghrebSahel Governments/VEO System

V. Anticipatory Management. The 

final strategic forecasting tool the team used in 

this analysis was Anticipatory Management, 

which is a method used by organizations to 

identify and prioritize issues that could develop 

into situations requiring timely policy decisions. 

According to Molitor model of change theory, 

issues generally follow a life cycle wherein the 

magnitude of the signal—the indicator of an 

existing or future issue—increases over time. 

Significant issues often arise initially out of 

social expectations, then become part of the 

policy agenda as governments first debate and 

then formalize their policies on the issue, and 

finally culminate through execution and 

monitoring of the policy, or social control of the 

issue.42 

To apply the anticipatory management 

analysis to the issue under study, the study team 

assessed and categorized internal and external 

issues that require immediate action (Category 

I), future but not immediate action (Category 

II), and no action other than monitoring 

(Category III). The results, shown as votes by 

each of the three members of the study team, are 

shown in Table 4. 

Table 4. Anticipatory Management: Issue Categorization

Issue

Category I

(Immediate 

Action)

Category 

II

(No 

Immediate 

Action)

Category 

III

(No 

Action; 

Monitor)

IN Increased 

instability III

RI Radicalizing 

ideologies III

IC

VEO desire for 

Salafist Islamic 

Caliphate

III

WH World health

problems II I 

$D

U.S. cost cuts to 

defense and 

foreign aid

II I 

FCT Increased French 

CT activity II I 

EC Enduring 

corruption I II

RSL

Maghreb and 

Sahel 

governments’ 

pursuit of regime 

stability and 

legitimacy over 

security or wellbeing of their 

population

III

EMP Unemployment II I

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Issue

Category I

(Immediate 

Action)

Category 

II

(No 

Immediate 

Action)

Category 

III

(No 

Action; 

Monitor)

VC

Increased violent 

competition for 

resources

II I 

POP

Dramatic 

population 

growth and 

increased 

migrations

III

WI Widening 

inequalities III

IT

Increased tech 

connection to 

diaspora 

populations

III

Figure 10 plots these issues along 

Molitor’s Life Cycle curve, which places each 

of the issues in terms of the magnitude of 

signals indicating the importance of the issue 

and the timing of the issue in the policy cycle. 

Several of the issues identified by this study are 

also covered in the 2015 U.S. National Security 

Strategy—including increased instability (IN), 

radicalizing ideologies (RI), world health 

problems (WH), enduring corruption (EC), 

Maghreb and Sahel governments’ pursuit of 

regime stability and legitimacy over security or 

well-being of their population (RSL), 

unemployment (EMP), and widening 

inequalities (WI)—indicating that these issues 

are well into the policy formalization portion of 

the U.S. policy cycle.43 Three other issues—

VEO desire for a Salafist Islamic Caliphate (IC), 

U.S. cost cuts to defense and foreign aid ($D), 

and increased French CT activity (FCT)—have 

strong signals but are not mentioned in the 2015 

National Security Strategy, indicating that they 

are important issues on the policy agenda but 

have not yet resulted in formalized policies. The 

final three issues—increased violent 

competition for resources (VC), dramatic 

population growth and increased migrations 

(POP), and increased tech connection to 

diaspora populations (IT)—have weaker signals 

and do not yet appear to have entered the U.S. 

policy cycle. Because it is often easier and less 

expensive to solve a problem earlier in its life 

cycle, the Anticipatory Management analysis 

indicates that U.S. policymakers should place 

their attention on formalizing and implementing 

policies for the three issues identified in the 

policy agenda portion of the life cycle curve, 

while monitoring the three issues in the societal 

expectations part of the curve. 

Figure 10. Anticipatory Management: Issue Life Cycle

VI. Conclusions and 

Recommendations. We can draw several 

conclusions from the strategic foresight and 

systems-thinking methods applied to the 

question of whether the United States should 

continue to support French CT and COIN 

activities in the Maghreb and Sahel. The system 

model analysis identified shared U.S. interests 

with France in security in the Maghreb-Sahel 

region, global security, the NATO alliance, and 

an open international economic system. The 

system model also identified the economy as a 

key leverage variable in the system and noted a 

causal loop in the Maghreb-Sahel system 

relating the economy, security, and the local 

governments. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 61
The global trends analysis identified 

trends in the future environment which will 

drive the Maghreb-Sahel region into a future 

that fails to achieve U.S. interests without 

external intervention to counter Islamic 

extremism and improve regional economic 

conditions. Achieving a future of improved 

regional security, economic growth and 

development, and reduced corruption and 

violent extremism requires assisting the 

governments and populations in leveraging 

growing populations and the increase in access 

to mobile phones and the Internet to increase 

civil society through better access to 

information, increased electronic banking, and 

increased employment opportunities. The 

global trends analysis also indicates the 

importance if improving the effectiveness and 

inclusiveness of the local governments to reduce 

the impact of the geographic misalignment of 

state boundaries and national or tribal 

boundaries, and to counteract the attractiveness 

of the VEOs’ proposed alternative to the current 

local governments.

The social change theory analysis 

indicates that the U.S. and French approach to 

change must positively resonate with the 

regional governments and populations through a 

Culture Theory lens, which means that actions 

and messages must value and align with local 

cultures and traditions. Social change theory 

also indicates that many of the VEOs, who view 

change through a zero-sum Conflict Theory, 

will need to be captured or killed to improve 

security and reduce VEO messaging, as many in 

these groups are irreconcilable and will not join 

a society whose goals are anything other than a 

Salafist Islamic Caliphate. 

Finally, the anticipatory management 

analysis recommends that U.S. policymakers 

address key issues early in their life cycle, when 

they are often more economical to address than 

when the issues have matured. This means 

policymakers should focus now on VEO desire 

for a Salafist Islamic Caliphate in the MaghrebSahel region and on balancing potential cuts to 

U.S. defense and foreign aid budgets with 

increased French CT activity in the region. 

 Based on the conclusions from these 

strategic foresight and system-thinking analyses, 

the study team recommends that the United 

States continue to support French CT and COIN 

activities in the Maghreb and Sahel, 

synchronizing these activities with direct U.S. 

security, governance, and economic assistance 

to the governments in this region. This policy 

approach considers the dynamics of the system, 

the likely future environment, and the differing 

actors’ perceptions of change, while 

recommending steps that can achieve U.S. 

interests in the region at a lower overall cost and 

effort by tackling them earlier in the issue life 

cycle, before these issues become crises. 

Supporting French efforts in the region further 

contributes to reducing direct costs on the 

United States to achieve its interests in the 

region, while also reinforcing relations with 

France, a U.S. ally which is important to the 

strength of the NATO alliance and to other 

actions the Unites States desires to conduct 

around the world with allies and partners to 

improve global security and maintain an open 

international economic system. 

The study team’s recommended U.S. 

policy for the Maghreb-Sahel region can be 

depicted as five synchronized lines of effort 

(LOE), as shown in Figure 11. Each LOE in this 

figure depicts U.S., French, and local 

government actions and shows a shifting weight 

of effort over time, with direct U.S. and French 

actions in the near and mid-term shifting to 

predominately local government actions in the 

Campaigning Fall 2015 62
far term as the U.S. and France assist the local 

governments in building indigenous capacity in 

each of these areas. The United States should 

ensure that actions in each LOE are properly 

calibrated to achieve the desired results and are 

synchronized and deconflicted with France’s 

efforts in the region so both the United States 

and France can achieve their shared national 

interests in the most economical manner.

Figure 11. Recommended Lines of Effort to Achieve U.S. Interests 

in the Maghreb-Sahel Region. “DIME” refers to the diplomatic, 

informational, military, and economic instruments of national 

power, respectively, with the large letters indicating the 

predominant element(s) involved in each line of effort.

The first two LOEs—intelligence and 

airlift—represent the support the United States 

currently provides to French CT and COIN 

efforts in the region under legal authorities 

which are currently set to expire in early 2015. 

In the intelligence LOE, the United States 

should continue to provide tactical intelligence 

support and regional intelligence coordination to 

France and should build counter-VEO 

intelligence capacity within the Sahel-Maghreb 

governments. In the airlift LOE, the United 

States should, in the near-term, continue to 

provide inter- and intratheater lift in support of 

French CT and COIN activities, while building 

both French and Maghreb-Sahel government 

capability to take on this role in the mid- to 

long-term. The White House should request 

renewal of the enabling legal authorities so the 

Department of Defense can continue these 

programs. 

The third LOE is military training. In 

this LOE, the United States should use security 

cooperation authorities to improve French and 

Maghreb-Sahel government capability to 

capture and kill irreconcilable VEOs and 

counter VEO messaging and other capabilities. 

The Department of Defense already has several 

security cooperation legal authorities and 

funding streams to conduct such assistance, but 

these authorities and programs could be better 

synchronized with the other LOEs to improve 

the likelihood of achieving the desired U.S. 

outcome in the region. 

The fourth and fifth LOEs—governance 

and economic development—fall outside of the 

Department of Defense and are the respective 

responsibilities of the State Department and the 

U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID). In the governance the United States 

should contribute to civil-society development 

and strengthening of local government 

institutions. The pace of these governance 

development activities must be synchronized 

with the pace of development in the local 

security sectors to reduce the likelihood that a 

well-developed military will conduct a coup 

against a poorly-developed local government—a 

very real concern in this region. Finally, in the 

economic development LOE, the study team’s 

analysis indicates that the United States should 

focus on assistance programs that contribute to 

electronic banking, microloans, and increased 

employment opportunities. 

Campaigning Fall 2015 63
Properly targeted and synchronized, the 

United States and France stand a very real 

chance of achieving their national interests in 

this region without significant increase in 

funding, since nearly all of the actions in these 

five LOEs are currently underway. However, 

decoupling U.S. and French efforts, or 

permitting the Department of Defense, State 

Department, and USAID to conduct isolated 

efforts, or efforts focused on short-term goals 

rather than calibrated to the long-term global 

trends and system dynamics, will decrease the 

chances of achieving U.S. policy goals in the 

region. 

Team Biographies 

Colonel Robert S. Pope, USAF, is currently serving as 

the chief of the Program Integration Division in the 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program at the Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency. He was commissioned 

through the Air Force ROTC at Michigan State University 

in 1991. Col Pope earned a BS in Physics from Michigan 

State University in 1991, an MS in Physics from the Air 

Force Institute of Technology in 1993, a PhD in Physics 

from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1999, and a 

Master of Military Operational Art and Science from the

Air Command and Staff College in 2004. Col Pope was a 

National Defense Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy 

School’s Belfer Center for Science and International 

Affairs, where he wrote the book U.S. Interagency 

Regional Foreign Policy Implementation: A Survey of

Current Practice and an Analysis of Options for 

Improvement. Prior to his current assignment, Col Pope 

served as the deputy chief of the Security Cooperation 

Division at the United States Central Command.

1 White House, National Security Strategy (NSS) (Washington, 

D.C., May 2010).

2 Dan McCauley, The Practitioner’s Guide to Strategic Foresight, 

(Norfolk, VA: Joint Forces Staff College, Jan 2015), 11.

3 Ibid.

4 Republique Francaise, French White Paper: Defence and 

National Security,(Ministère de la Défense / SGA / SPAC., 2013).

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey J. Fair, USA, is currently 

assigned to 525th Military Intelligence Brigade, Fort 

Bragg, NC. He was commissioned through ROTC at 

Georgetown University in 1997. LTC Fair has a BA in 

International Relations from the George Washington 

University, an MBA from Hawaii Pacific University in 

2001, a MPA from the University of Washington's Evans 

School in 2009, and a MS in Strategic Intelligence from 

the National Intelligence University in 2012. Prior to his 

current assignment, LTC Fair served as the Chief of 

Ground Analysis, J2, United States Forces Korea.

Major Dale R. Fenton, USMC, is currently serving as 

Branch Chief, Joint Multi-Tactical Data Link School, at 

the Joint Staff, J7 Joint Interoperability Division. He was 

commissioned upon completing the Officer Candidates 

Course in 2001. Maj Fenton earned a Bachelor of Music 

degree from the University of Akron in 1997 and a Master 

of Business Administration from National University in 

2014. Prior to his current assignment, Maj Fenton served 

as Unmanned Aircraft Commander and Assistant 

Operations Officer at Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 

Squadron 2 (VMU-2).

Campaigning Fall 2015 64
5 International Monetary Fund (IMF), Niger: Poverty Reduction 

Strategy Paper, Economic and Social Development Plan 2012-

2015, (IMF Country Report No. 13/105, April 2013), 

http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/Niger/Niger_PRSP_2012-

2015.pdf (accessed February 12, 2015). United Nations 

Development Programme (UNDP), Chad vows to eradicate hunger, 

boost community resilience, (Press release, September 16, 2013), 

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressrelease

s/2013/09/16/chad-vows-to-eradicate-hunger-boost-communityresilience-/ (accessed February 12, 2015). Rural Poverty Portal, 

Rural poverty approaches, policies and strategies in Chad, (no 

date), 

http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/approaches/tags/chad 

(accessed February 12, 2015).

6 United States Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs, Fact 

Sheet: U.S. Relations with Chad, (May 21, 2014), 

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/37992.htm (accessed February 12, 

2015). United States Department of State, Bureau of African 

Affairs, Fact Sheet: U.S. Relations with Libya, (January 15, 2013), 

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5425.htm (accessed February 12, 

2015). United States Department of State, Bureau of African 

Affairs, Fact Sheet: U.S. Relations with Mali, (April 30, 2013), 

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2828.htm (accessed February 12, 

2015). United States Department of State, Bureau of African 

Affairs, Fact Sheet: U.S. Relations with Niger (June 12, 2013), 

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5474.htm (accessed February 12, 

2015).

7 Peter Tinty, “Mali 2.0,” Foreign Policy, (September 23, 2013),

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/23/mali-2-0/ (accessed February 

12, 2015). Library of Congress Federal Research Division, Mali 

Country Profile (Washington, D.C., January 2005). Sebastian 

Elischer, “After Mali Comes Niger,” Foreign Affairs

(January/February 2013), 

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138931/sebastianelischer/after-mali-comes-niger (accessed February 12, 2015). 

Samuel Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa, (Yale University 

Press, 1990). Foreign Relations of Chad, (no date), 

https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/ 

docs/Foreign_relations_of_Chad.html (accessed February 12, 2015). 

8 Jon Lee Anderson, “Libya on Edge,” The New Yorker, (January 

30, 2015), http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/libya-edge 

(accessed February 12, 2015). 9 Joint Publication 3-26, Counterterrorism (October 24, 2014). 

United States Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism., 

Country Reports on Terrorism 2013, (Washington, D.C., April 

2014).

10 McCauley, The Practitioner’s Guide to Strategic Foresight, 15. 11 United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, Strategic Trends 

Programme: Global Strategic Trends – Out to 2045, 5th Edition, 

(DCDC, MOD, SWINDON, Wiltshire, UK, SN6 8RF, 2014), 133.

12 Ibid., 133. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 134. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.

Campaigning Fall 2015 65
17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 135. 20 Ibid., 131. 21 Ibid., 135. 22 Ibid., 130. 23 Ibid., 131. 24 Ibid., 135. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., 135-136. 29 Ibid., 136. 30 Ibid., 129. 31 Ibid., 137. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 137-138. 34 Google Public Data, 

http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory (accessed March 1, 

2015).

35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 McCauley, The Practitioner’s Guide to Strategic Foresight, 

16.

38 Peter C. Bishop and Andy Hines, “Social Change,” in 

Teaching about the Future, (New York, NY: Palgrave 

Macmillan, 2012), 119.

39 Ibid., 120. 40 Ibid., 133. 41 Ibid., 126. 42 Dan McCauley, “Joint Professional Military Education: 

Anticipating at the Speed of the Environment,” Small Wars 

Journal, (April 3, 2014), n.p. 43 White House, National Security Strategy, (Washington, D.C., 

February 2015), 9, 10, 13, 18, and 24.

Campaigning Fall 2015 66
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