Addressing the Fog of COG

Addressing the Fog of COG

Author: Celestino Perez

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 9780985587949

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A collection of analyses on the concept and application of center of gravity. As military professionals set out to do their work, the planning done prior to beginning operations is crucial; and, if that planning hinges on identifying the center of gravity, how the concept is used, or not, could be paramount.


The New Art of War

The New Art of War

Author: Geoffrey F. Weiss

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-09-02

Total Pages: 890

ISBN-13: 1108943810

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Many of war's lethal failures are attributable to ignorance caused by a dearth of contemporary, accessible theory to inform warfighting, strategy, and policy. To remedy this problem, Colonel Geoffrey F. Weiss offers an ambitious new survey of war's nature, character, and future in the tradition of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. He begins by melding philosophical and military concepts to reveal war's origins and to analyze war theory's foundational ideas. Then, leveraging science, philosophy, and the wisdom of war's master theorists, Colonel Weiss presents a genuinely original framework and lexicon that characterizes and clarifies the relationships between humanity, politics, strategy, and combat; explains how and why war changes form; offers a methodology for forecasting future war; and ponders the permanence of war as a human activity. The New Art of War is an indispensable guide for understanding human conflict that will change how we think and communicate about war.


The 71F Advantage

The 71F Advantage

Author: National Defense University Press

Publisher: NDU Press

Published: 2010-09

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 1907521658

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Includes a foreword by Major General David A. Rubenstein. From the editor: "71F, or "71 Foxtrot," is the AOC (area of concentration) code assigned by the U.S. Army to the specialty of Research Psychology. Qualifying as an Army research psychologist requires, first of all, a Ph.D. from a research (not clinical) intensive graduate psychology program. Due to their advanced education, research psychologists receive a direct commission as Army officers in the Medical Service Corps at the rank of captain. In terms of numbers, the 71F AOC is a small one, with only 25 to 30 officers serving in any given year. However, the 71F impact is much bigger than this small cadre suggests. Army research psychologists apply their extensive training and expertise in the science of psychology and social behavior toward understanding, preserving, and enhancing the health, well being, morale, and performance of Soldiers and military families. As is clear throughout the pages of this book, they do this in many ways and in many areas, but always with a scientific approach. This is the 71F advantage: applying the science of psychology to understand the human dimension, and developing programs, policies, and products to benefit the person in military operations. This book grew out of the April 2008 biennial conference of U.S. Army Research Psychologists, held in Bethesda, Maryland. This meeting was to be my last as Consultant to the Surgeon General for Research Psychology, and I thought it would be a good idea to publish proceedings, which had not been done before. As Consultant, I'd often wished for such a document to help explain to people what it is that Army Research Psychologists "do for a living." In addition to our core group of 71Fs, at the Bethesda 2008 meeting we had several brand-new members, and a number of distinguished retirees, the "grey-beards" of the 71F clan. Together with longtime 71F colleagues Ross Pastel and Mark Vaitkus, I also saw an unusual opportunity to capture some of the history of the Army Research Psychology specialty while providing a representative sample of current 71F research and activities. It seemed to us especially important to do this at a time when the operational demands on the Army and the total force were reaching unprecedented levels, with no sign of easing, and with the Army in turn relying more heavily on research psychology to inform its programs for protecting the health, well being, and performance of Soldiers and their families."


Implications of Modern Decision Science for Military Decision-support Systems

Implications of Modern Decision Science for Military Decision-support Systems

Author: Paul K. Davis

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 0833038087

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A selective review of modern decision science and implications for decision-support systems. The study suggests ways to synthesize lessons from research on heuristics and biases with those from "naturalistic research." It also discusses modern tools, such as increasingly realistic simulations, multiresolution modeling, and exploratory analysis, which can assist decisionmakers in choosing strategies that are flexible, adaptive, and robust.


Airpower against an Army: Challenge and Response in CENTAF's Duel with the Republican Guard

Airpower against an Army: Challenge and Response in CENTAF's Duel with the Republican Guard

Author: William F. Andrews

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published:

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 1428912568

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For nearly two decades the United States Air Force (USAF) oriented the bulk of its thinking, acquisition, planning, and training on the threat of a Soviet blitzkrieg across the inter German border. The Air Force fielded a powerful conventional arm well rehearsed in the tactics required to operate over a central European battlefield. Then, in a matter of days, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait altered key assumptions that had been developed over the previous decade and a half. The USAF faced a different foe employing a different military doctrine in an unexpected environment. Instead of disrupting a fast paced land offensive, the combat wings of the United States Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) were ordered to attack a large, well fortified, and dispersed Iraqi ground force. The heart of that ground force was the Republican Guard Forces Command (RGFC). CENTAF's mission dictated the need to develop an unfamiliar repertoire of tactics and procedures to meet theater objectives. How effectively did CENTAF adjust air operations against the Republican Guard to the changing realities of combat? Answering that question is central to this study, and the answer resides in evaluation of the innovations developed by CENTAF to improve its operational and tactical performance against the Republican Guard. Effectiveness and timeliness are the primary criteria used for evaluating innovations.


Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Author:

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1428910336

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Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."


Piercing the Fog

Piercing the Fog

Author: John F. Kreis

Publisher: Military Bookshop

Published: 2013-05

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9781782663812

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From the foreword: WHEN JAPAN ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR on December 7, 1941, and Germany and Italy joined Japan four days later in declaring war against the United States, intelligence essential for the Army Air Forces to conduct effective warfare in the European and Pacific theaters did not exist. Piercing the Fog tells the intriguing story of how airmen built intelligence organizations to collect and process information about the enemy and to produce and disseminate intelligence to decisionmakers and warfighters in the bloody, horrific crucible of war. Because the problems confronting and confounding air intelligence officers, planners, and operators fifty years ago still resonate, Piercing the Fog is particularly valuable for intelligence officers, planners, and operators today and for anyone concerned with acquiring and exploiting intelligence for successful air warfare. More than organizational history, this book reveals the indispensable and necessarily secret role intelligence plays in effectively waging war. It examines how World War II was a watershed period for Air Force Intelligence and for the acquisition and use of signals intelligence, photo reconnaissance intelligence, human resources intelligence, and scientific and technical intelligence. Piercing the Fog discusses the development of new sources and methods of intelligence collection; requirements for intelligence at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of warfare; intelligence to support missions for air superiority, interdiction, strategic bombardment, and air defense; the sharing of intelligence in a coalition and joint service environment; the acquisition of intelligence to assess bomb damage on a target-by-target basis and to measure progress in achieving campaign and war objecti ves; and the ability of military leaders to understand the intentions and capabilities of the enemy and to appreciate the pressures on intelligence officers to sometimes tell commanders what they think the commanders want to hear instead of what the intelligence discloses. The complex problems associated with intelligence to support strategic bombardment in the 1940s will strike some readers as uncannily prescient to global Air Force operations in the 1990s.," Illustrated.