Modern War Institute at West Point

"NCOs teach junior soldiers how to conduct battlefield medicine, fire artillery, conduct tank gunnery, and do rifle marksmanship. It is difficult to understand the argument that fitness programming is somehow more complex than these disciplines." If physical fitness is vital to the Army, then the service's fitness culture must also be vital. Outsourcing the creating of fitness programs will inevitably have an impact on that culture.

"These status-based fraternization rules create unintended implications that contradict the message of strength in unity from the new secretary of defense." The Army's strict rules barring personal relationships between service members in different rank categories not only haven't had the effect they were intended to have, but have produced several other deleterious impacts. It's time to rethink them.

"If the default is to keep everything unless units can argue away specific requirements, then all the vested interests and proponents of those requirements need to do is dig in, defend their turf, and wait out the next movement cycle." Administrative requirements cut deeply into the time Army commanders and staffs have to build their units' lethality. What if we could truly evaluate how many of those requirements are actually necessary?

"While these small and specialized groups of experts equipped with abundant resources (e.g., a well-funded arsenal of zero-day exploits) are effective during limited conflicts, they would likely be overloaded in a full-scale cyberwar scenario." A total war would likely overwhelm the cyber manpower of militaries. That's why a cyber reserve is essential, explains Aybars Tuncdogan.

"Our unit went into this operation as the fittest battalion in our division based on ACFT scores, no small achievement. We learned this was not the preparation needed to meet this mission." Last summer, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment became the first US Army unit to conduct a combat training center rotation forward in the Indo-Pacific region. Here's what they learned.

"The thousands of unexploded bombs and artillery shells dropped on Gaza provided Hamas with a virtually endless supply of explosive material, which its engineers repurposed into new weapons." From sustainment to adversary intelligence penetration to political constraints, these are the factors that have shaped the outcomes of Israel's two-front war against Hamas and Hezbollah.

"The Kremlin sought a rapid victory in the form of an assault on Kyiv that would have served as a coup de main, after which the entire country’s defenses would have crumbled and Russia would have been able to declare victory." If the Battle of Kyiv had ended differently—and the outcome hung in the balance at key moments—the war in Ukraine would have been over almost as soon as it started. Here's why it didn't.

"This paradigm favors the defender; it punishes decisive battle and humbles tactical leaders who believe they can simply suppress, breach, and seize their way to victory." The war in Ukraine is giving a us a glimpse of a new era of ground combat. These are steps the US Army can take to adapt to it.

"Putin continues this unsustainable push to present a picture of inevitable victory to scare the West into forcing Ukraine to accept a ceasefire before his economy collapses." The war in Ukraine might be brought to an end by negotiations. But it would be a mistake not to take every step to negotiate from a position of battlefield strength.

"Two of the world’s most powerful militaries have signaled their intent to establish strategic, diplomatic, and economic dominance of the world’s smallest ocean. Can the United States really afford to simply monitor and respond?" From reconcentrating cold-weather assets in Alaska to a new Arctic combatant command, these big ideas are aimed at rapidly improving the United States' competitive posture in the high north.