Research & Commentary Archive

Sep 7, 2021

By Professor Nathan Freier

September 2001 was Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) season in the Pentagon. The QDR was the Bush-Rumsfeld DoD’s first crack at publicly reshaping the post–Cold War military. The DPG was the classified instrument by which the Rumsfeld team was to reprioritize military planning and resources to meet the QDR’s public-facing, transformational vision. Thousands of civilian and military staffers entered the Pentagon through the old Metro entrance on September 11, 2001, ...

Aug 31, 2021

By Dr. Chris Mason

The Taliban have retaken control of Afghanistan. The quixotic, United States-led, 20-year nation-building project in Afghanistan is over. “I . . . don’t think anyone thought Afghanistan would turn so badly so quick,” a US official is quoted as saying recently. If that is true, then no one read my book, The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: Why the Afghan National Security Forces Will Not Hold, which in fact predicted these events in detail six years ago. As I watched yet another foreign country imagined by the United States collapse and another foreign military built by the US Army disintegrate ...

Aug 31, 2021

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I stopped by the post office on my way to the newsroom of the Washington, DC–based newspaper where I worked as an editorial writer. I wanted to mail a postcard of the World Trade Center, where I had just been for an interview with a foreign dignitary a few days before. “This no longer exists,” the postal employee said as he looked at the postcard I had shoved into his hand. “Word is, next plane is headed for the Capitol,” he said, cranking up the radio. A few short minutes later, I watched plumes of smoke from the Pentagon clog up the horizon as I drove ...

Aug 31, 2021

By Colonel Matthew W. Lawrence

The 9/11 attacks’ effects on the United States and its foreign policies cannot be understated. The United States, in essence, lost its innocence that day and has never been the same. The attacks spurred changes in the way the United States handles national security, secures air transportation, and shares intelligence. The attacks also resulted in, directly and indirectly, two major armed conflicts that lasted the next two decades. These conflicts served as the catalyst for the most significant strategic shift in the US Army Reserve’s history—the organization’s transformation from ...

Jun 24, 2020

By COL Matt Lawrence

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will have significant implications for the military and the US Army. Some experts have suggested that massive budget cuts are likely and will force the Army to increase the size of the reserve components. After all, the reserve components have performed the majority of the military’s work during the pandemic, and have argued for years that they are a low-cost alternative to active forces. However, there are several reasons this should not happen—at least not without a major shift in America’s global military presence and a significant revision of our National Security Strategy.

Jun 1, 2020

By Conrad C. Crane, Michael E. Lynch, Jessica J. Sheets, Douglas I. Bell, Shane P. Reilly

After the 9/11 attacks, Americans yearned for a “return to normal.” The normal they longed for was