Book Review: Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare

Author: Nathaniel L. Moir Reviewed by John A. Nagl, professor of warfighting studies, US Army War College Counterinsurgency expert John A. Nagl reviews the “long-overdue” biography of the American political scientist Bernard Fall who, as Nagl writes, was “always a couple years ahead of informed US public opinion” about the Vietnam War. Author Nathaniel L. Moir’s experience as an Afghanistan War veteran informs this examination of one of the most “contentious” topics in American history, and the intersection here of Dr. Nagl’s, Moir’s, and Fall’s expertise provides powerful insights about the persistent question of how best to approach counterinsurgency.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters_bookshelf/1034/thumbnail.jp

Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars

Since achieving victory in World War II, the United States military has a less than enviable combat record in irregular warfare. Through a detailed historical analysis, this article provides perspective on where past decisions and doctrines have led to defeat and where they may have succeeded if given more time or executed differently. In doing so, it provides lessons for future Army engagements and argues that until America becomes proficient in irregular warfare, our enemies will continue to fight us at the lower levels of the spectrum of conflict, where they have a good chance of exhausting our will to fight

A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force

Fifty years ago, the US Army faced a strategic inflection point after a failed counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam. In response to lessons learned from the Yom Kippur War, the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command was created to reorient thinking and doctrine around the conventional Soviet threat. Today’s Army must embrace the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as an opportunity to reorient the force into one as forward-thinking and formidable as the Army that won Operation Desert Storm. This article suggests changes the Army should make to enable success in multidomain large-scale combat operations at today’s strategic inflection point

Review and Reply: On “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars” (part 2)

This commentary responds to John A. Nagl’s article, “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars,” published in the Autumn 2022 issue of Parameters (vol. 52, no. 3)

A Long, Hard Year: Russia-Ukraine War Lessons Learned 2023

This special commentary summarizes the major findings and lessons taken from the Russia-Ukraine War integrated research project conducted by members of the US Army War College class of 2024—all subject matter experts on their topics. It outlines seven lessons covering doctrinal, operational, technological, strategic, and political issues related to the second year of the war, including Russia’s use of mercenaries, the need to create a culture of mission command, ways to deal with a transparent battlefield because of persistent, ubiquitous surveillance, air superiority as a prerequisite for successful combined arms ground offensives, and changes to the intelligence and information domains

Review and Reply: On “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars” (part 1)

This commentary responds to John A. Nagl’s article, “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars,” published in the Autumn 2022 issue of Parameters (vol. 52, no. 3)

Army Professionalism, the Military Ethic, and Officership in the 21st Century

The authors address what they—and many others—perceived to be a decline in military professionalism in the Army officer corps. The authors first describe the ethical, technical, and political components of military professionalism and then address the causes for the decline. They conclude by proposing a set of principles which, if adhered to, will reinvigorate the vision of the officer corps and motivate the corps to selfless service.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1145/thumbnail.jp

Military maladaptation : counterinsurgency and the politics of failure

Tactical learning is critical to battlefield success, especially in a counterinsurgency. This article tests the existing model of military adaption against a ‘most-likely’ case: the British Army’s counterinsurgency in the Southern Cameroons (1960–61). Despite meeting all preconditions thought to enable adaptation – decentralization, leadership turnover, supportive leadership, poor organizational memory, feedback loops, and a clear threat – the British still failed to adapt. Archival evidence suggests politicians subverted bottom-up adaptation, because winning came at too high a price in terms of Britain’s broader strategic imperatives. Our finding identifies an important gap in the extant adaptation literature: it ignores politics.PostprintPeer reviewe

Parent-of-origin-specific allelic associations among 106 genomic loci for age at menarche.

Age at menarche is a marker of timing of puberty in females. It varies widely between individuals, is a heritable trait and is associated with risks for obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and all-cause mortality. Studies of rare human disorders of puberty and animal models point to a complex hypothalamic-pituitary-hormonal regulation, but the mechanisms that determine pubertal timing and underlie its links to disease risk remain unclear. Here, using genome-wide and custom-genotyping arrays in up to 182,416 women of European descent from 57 studies, we found robust evidence (P < 5 × 10(-8)) for 123 signals at 106 genomic loci associated with age at menarche. Many loci were associated with other pubertal traits in both sexes, and there was substantial overlap with genes implicated in body mass index and various diseases, including rare disorders of puberty. Menarche signals were enriched in imprinted regions, with three loci (DLK1-WDR25, MKRN3-MAGEL2 and KCNK9) demonstrating parent-of-origin-specific associations concordant with known parental expression patterns. Pathway analyses implicated nuclear hormone receptors, particularly retinoic acid and γ-aminobutyric acid-B2 receptor signalling, among novel mechanisms that regulate pubertal timing in humans. Our findings suggest a genetic architecture involving at least hundreds of common variants in the coordinated timing of the pubertal transition