Aerospace power in urban warfare beware the hornet's nest

Aerospace power in urban warfare beware the hornet's nest
Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2001
Genre:
ISBN: 1428990305

This is the 39th volume in the Occasional Paper series of the U.S. Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Aerospace power has emerged as a primary military instrument of choice in pursuing national objectives within the complex international security environment entering the 21st century. Changes in the security landscape, the dynamics of sub-theater conflicts, and coalition imperatives combine to place new requirements on aerospace operational planning and the conduct of aerospace operations themselves. Occasional Papers 38 and 39 address, in turn, both political and operational dimensions of aerospace power application today. They are presented both for informational and educational purposes to offer informed perspectives on important aspects of contemporary aerospace operations, to generate informed discussion and to bound productive debate on aerospace power in both supported and supporting roles. In Occasional Paper 38, "Constraints, Restraints, and the Role of Aerospace Power in the 21st Century," Jeffrey Beene presents a comprehensive examination of the use of aerospace power within tightly restrained conflicts and suggests improvements in doctrine, training, and tools to more effectively employ such power within that environment. In this Occasional Paper, "Aerospace Power in Urban Warfare: Beware the Hornet's Nest," Peter Hunt examines the employment of aerospace power in the increasingly important urban operational environment. Aerospace technologies and systems offer alternatives and important adjuncts to surface forces in the urban arena, but significant obstacles and critical considerations must be brought into planning for such operations. Each of these aspects of aerospace power demands greater thought and analysis, and these two occasional papers are presented to help focus that attention.

Aerospace Power in Urban Warfare: Beware the Hornet's Nest

Aerospace Power in Urban Warfare: Beware the Hornet's Nest
Author: Usaf Institute USAF Institute for National Security Studies
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 54
Release: 2014-12-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9781505393439

As the U.S. Armed Forces continue to debate post-Cold War roles and missions, a significant intellectual divide has developed concerning the approach to operations in urban environments. The bulk of professional literature on this subject deals with methods to improve the capabilities of the infantryman, around whom an urban force would best be structured. New technologies and experiments seek to provide the foot soldier with better communications, improved ability to fire and maneuver through the urban jungle, and protection from a variety of threats. An alternative approach to the challenge of urban environments emphasizes joint operational concepts that achieve operational and strategic objectives with minimum risk to friendly forces. This perspective "steps back" from a pure infantry fight and seeks the best means to influence the urban environment from the pre-crisis phase through conflict termination and transition. New technologies and procedures provide friendly commanders with improved intelligence, enabling him to understand and shape the crisis in consonance with strategic goals. Based on the improved situational awareness, commanders can orchestrate precision strikes that use a wide variety of lethal and non-lethal munitions appropriate for the situation.

Northeast Asia Regional Security and the United States Military

Northeast Asia Regional Security and the United States Military
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2002
Genre: East Asia
ISBN:

This is the 47th volume in the Occasional Paper series of the United States Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Among its many contributions to United States security, two noted repositories of strategic expertise within the United States Army are its foreign area officer cadre and the Department of Social Sciences faculty at the United States Military Academy. This collection of papers on Northeast Asian regional security taps the combined strength of both; its authors are four Army officers with demonstrated regional expertise, all currently or formerly assigned to West Point's Department of Social Sciences. The combined set of papers covers a broad and relevant swath of territory, both geographic and conceptual. The first paper, by Jay Parker, addresses the regional security context with special emphasis on that strategic landscape as viewed from the perspective of Japanese security and the United States' role both in Japanese security and within the broader region. Sue Bryant then fits the Korean peninsula into that regional security context, adding special emphasis on the Korean road toward unification and on the continuing U.S. military presence in Korea both for peninsular and regional security reasons. Finally, Russ Howard and Al Wilner add China to the mix and also add the third level of analysis -- their focus is on post September 11, 2001 issues and opportunities, and the specific military-to-military dimension of the United States' overall military presence and policy. Together, the papers cover the region as well as policy recommendations from macro U.S. security and military policy, to force presence, to the significant roles of individual service members.

Strategic Culture and Violent Non-state Actors

Strategic Culture and Violent Non-state Actors
Author: James M. Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2008
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

This paper combines three separate threads of analysis on culture and violent nonstate actors as a launching pad to spur further research into this critical arena of culture and security. Jim Smith lays out a series of templates for guiding analysis of culture and violent nonstate actors. Mark Long applies cultural analysis of radical Islam and alQaida in discussing the influences involved in the core al Qaida group's WMD decisions. Tom Johnson, in examining a tribal insurgent psychological campaign in Afghanistan, demonstrates that behavioral influences can be manipulated for significant effect in countering our efforts to gain stability and legitimacy for the Afghan government. James M. Smith, PhD, is the Director, USAF Institute for National Security Studies and Professor, Military Strategic Studies at the US Air Force Academy.Jerry Mark Long, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director, Middle East Studies, Honors College, Baylor University. Thomas H. Johnson is Research Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Violent Systems

Violent Systems
Author: Troy S. Thomas
Publisher:
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2004
Genre: Counterinsurgency
ISBN:

"All Our Tomorrows"

Author: James M. Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2002
Genre: Arms control
ISBN:

This is the 44th volume in the Occasional Paper series of the United States Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This report summarizes a three-phase research project undertaken by the USAF Institute for National Security Studies on behalf of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to forecast long-range global trends affecting arms control technologies. The report projects the international political, economic, and scientific environments to the year 2015. It posits economic and technological drivers as shaping the system, including its military and political dimensions. The result will be a two-tiered system, with great danger arising from significant proliferation in the second tier and the transition zone between tiers. The report next draws conclusions from this likely future for the scope, value, and practice of arms control. Arms control will be focused less on limitation and reduction of existing weapons, although the endgame between the United States and Russia will remain a significant effort. The focus will shift to the less well-defined realm of counterproliferation, and to marginal, failing, and failed states as well as nontraditional and non-state actors. New dimensions will be added, including control efforts toward small arms, advanced conventional weapons, military space, and information operations. The report then extrapolates from this future to assess the likely arms control technology requirements in cooperative, noncooperative, intrusive, and nonintrusive regimes. The projection here is continuing requirements for each of these specialized sets of technologies, with particular emphasis on multiple-use technologies for remote arms control compliance and verification monitoring as well as for intelligence detection and collection.

View from the East

View from the East
Author: Brent J. Talbot
Publisher:
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2003
Genre: Arab countries
ISBN:

This is the 48th volume in the Occasional Paper series of the U.S. Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This timely and insightful set of papers written by two USAF area specialists provides complementary -- and together comprehensive -- coverage of the critical topic of Arab perceptions of United States policy. Further, the papers expand that coverage to address in detail some of the implications of those perceptions for U.S. military presence and policy in the region. Brent Talbot focuses his analysis on the key segment of the region's population that stands between the totally dispossessed and deprived radical base and some entrenched, corrupt regimes. This Arab majority, he argues, can reshape the region's states into culturally compatible and accountable (if not purely democratic by western standards) revisionist Arab and Islamic political and economic states that are much more compatible with U.S. values and presence. This is a significant message in terms of the longer-term strategic postscript to the current U.S.-Iraq conflict. Mike Meyer focuses his analysis at the more operational level of U.S. military personnel on the ground in the region, but comes to complementary conclusions as to U.S. public diplomacy and presence. He argues that American military personnel and programs must purposefully shape the relationships -- and through them perceptions and attitudes -- with the emerging military and political leaders in this region of transition. This approach also provides a key element to the state-building exercise that will likely soon present itself. Together, the two papers suggest a wisdom of experience -- academic and practical -- that is essential to the high-stakes endgame that lies before us.

Carrot, Stick, Or Sledgehammer

Carrot, Stick, Or Sledgehammer
Author: Daniel J. Orcutt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2004
Genre: Korea (North)
ISBN:

This thesis evaluates three U.S. policy options for North Korean nuclear weapons: incentive-based diplomacy, coercive diplomacy, or military force. It analyzes them according to four criteria: the impact on North Korea's nuclear weapons, the impact on its neighbors (China, Japan, and South Korea), U.S. policy costs, and the precedent for future proliferation. This thesis shows that diplomacy will fail to achieve U.S. objectives for three reasons: lack of trust, DPRK reluctance to permit transparency, and the difficulty of conducting multilateral coercive diplomacy. Ultimately, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's question must be answered: "What price is the United States willing to pay to disarm North Korean nuclear weapons?" If Washington is unwilling to back a threat of military force, it should not risk coercive diplomacy. Likewise, U.S. leaders may need to decide between maintaining the U.S.-ROK alliance and eliminating North Korean nuclear weapons.