Articles
Students of the Long War: What the Taliban Learned in 20 Years of Conflict
by Caleb D. King III While the Taliban’s unopposed takeover of the Afghan government in August 2021 caught most of the world by surprise, many Afghans knew this day was coming since the first U.S. forces arrived in October 2001. The students, or...
Learning in a Restricted Environment
by Benjamin Phocas Since May 2020, the Army has been forced to radically modify the way it conducts training. At that time, Cadet Command announced that Cadet Summer Training (CST) would not take place as usual. CST is the Army’s largest annual...
S3,Ep2: Command Sergeant Major Bill Thetford- The Art of Leading Up
CSM (ret) Bill Thetford shares lessons from his career that spanned almost four decades in the United States Army. Bill shares his thoughts on the role of the noncommissioned officer (NCO) in the military and shares advice on how NCOs can lead up...
Suicide is a Battle, I Could Not Fight It Alone
By Danita Darby On 25 May 2019, in Bagram, Afghanistan, I had reached the end of my rope. I was suspended from my command in February 2019, but that single situation is not why I am writing this. What I am writing about today is the fight I had...
Surprises are for Birthdays
by Ryan Cornell-d’Echert Leaders should not wait until they are serving at the strategic level before they start thinking strategically. Even at the tactical or organizational levels, it’s critical for leaders to practice strategic thinking, widen...
S3, Ep1: Kim Scott- How to Give People Feedback that Doesn’t Suck
Click here to listen to the episode About Kim Scott (@kimballscott) Kim Scott is the author of Just Work: Get Sh*t Done Fast and Fair and Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and co-founder of the company...
Sunset in Kajaki
by Ryan W. Pallas The fading light of the setting sun in Afghanistan marks the end of each day and the recent official close of a two-decade war along with it. The announcement of U.S. forces withdrawing from Afghanistan fosters feelings of solace...
How AFVentures Cultivates Innovation: Investing in Airmen
by Jenn Walters What is AFVentures? Andreesen Horowtiz. Alpha Bridge. Lux. Expanse. Structure Capital. Atomic. Welcome to the small, exclusive enclave of venture capital (VC) nestled along the California coastline. MBA students and...
Pay Heed to the Enlisted: Reading Recommendations for Lieutenants
Summer is a season of transition for newly commissioned officers. The new lieutenants and ensigns attend their officer basic courses and arrive at their first units of assignment. They are empowered to lead, train, and fight alongside some of the...
Lessons Learned in Large Scale ACFT Testing
by Sarah Ferreira Since 2018, my unit has been executing the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) on a large scale, meaning that we test large groups of Soldiers continuously throughout a single duty day. We found that we can test a battalion size...
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#DAweek Somebody…Anybody…Revise the TACSOP
By: Jeff Meinders One of the few documents a unit uses to help describe how they fight is their tactical standard operating procedure (TACSOP) book. The Army’s manual on how to write an SOP, ATP 3-90.90, lists 32 questions to help guide the...
#DAweek Winning the Fight To See
By Alan Hastings Our Cavalry formations have a maneuver problem. Somewhere between the line of departure and the reconnaissance objective, our reconnaissance stops. In our efforts to conduct reconnaissance, we find ourselves falling well short of...
#DAweek: The Survivability Mix
By: Remy Hemez In today’s rapidly evolving security environment, and after years of COIN operations, our armies are shifting their focus towards combined-arms maneuvers, which enables them to better prepare for combat against a wider array of...
#DAweek: Preparing For Decisive Action
By: Jim Greer For 55 years after World War II the U.S. VII Corps prepared to defend the rolling hills, forests and villages of Germany against attack by the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces. Then, in early November of 1990 they were ordered to deploy...
#DAweek Anticipating Transitions to Seize and Maintain the Initiative
By Gary Klein As an observer-coach trainer at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), a recurring after action review comment during decisive action rotations was the training unit’s ability to handle transitions.[1] The hybrid threat...
#DAweek: The Principles and Art of Sustaining Decisive Action
By David Beaumont ‘In war, mistakes and normal; errors are usual; information is seldom complete, often inaccurate, and frequently misleading. Success is won, not by personnel and materiel in prime condition, but by the debris of an organisation...
Decision Point Tactics and Decisive Action
By Ryan Kranc In my 2 years at the National Training Center two things separated good rotational units from great rotational units and opposing forces focused on these differences to achieve the upper hand. Whether mission rehearsal exercise...
#DAweek: How Will We Train for a Hybrid War
By Peter Apps Should tensions with Russia ever “go hot” in Eastern Europe or the Baltic states, the potential consequences could be catastrophic. For all the attention that will inevitably be paid to hotline diplomacy and presidential, however, it...
#DAweek: How Will We Train to Fight and Win in a Complex World?
By: General David Perkins “Military failures are a result of three things: failure to learn, failure to adapt, and a failure to anticipate.” The strength of the United States military – in fact, our asymmetric advantage – is...
My Bid Farewell to the Army Blue
By Daniel Hodne This past November, my family and I returned to West Point, New York, for my Class’ 25th Reunion. While I stood alongside my classmates on “The Plain,” and watched the Corps of Cadets execute a...
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