Small Wars Journal

The Small Wars Journal (SWJ) facilitates and supports the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field. SWJ attempts to advance the practice and effectiveness of those forces prosecuting Small Wars in the interest of self-determination, freedom, and prosperity for the population in the area of operations. SWJ includes an online Journal, the SWJ blog and the Small Wars Council (discussion board). Other site features include an online reference library, recommended reading and event listings.

Contributing authors to the SWJ blog include Gary Anderson, Matt Armstrong, Robert Bunker, Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell

William B. Caldwell

William B. Caldwell, IV is a United States Army Lieutenant General who is serving as the Commander, NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan, as well as, Commanding General, Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan....

, General Martin Dempsey

Martin Dempsey

General Martin E. Dempsey, USA is the 18th and current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He previously served 149 days as the 37th Chief of Staff of the Army from April 11, 2011 to September 7, 2011. Prior to that, he served as Commanding General, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command from...

, Thomas Hammes

Thomas Hammes

Colonel Thomas X. Hammes is a retired U.S. Marine officer who is considered a specialist in counter-insurgency warfare.Hammes' first paper on fourth generation warfare appeared in the Marine Corps Gazette in 1989; he developed a book-length treatment while a senior Marine fellow in the Institute...

, Jim Gant, Gian Gentile

Gian Gentile

Colonel Gian P. Gentile is a US army officer and a history professor at the United States Military Academy.Gentile is a prominent critic of the US military's approach to counterinsurgency...

, Robert Haddick, Frank Hoffman, David Kilcullen

David Kilcullen

David John Kilcullen F.R.G.S is an Australian author and consultant who is a leading theorist on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. In 2007 he served as the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser to the Commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq responsible for planning and executing the Joint...

, Robert Killebrew, Peter Mansoor, William "Mac" McCallister, John Nagl

John Nagl

John A. Nagl is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army who is regarded as an influential expert in counterinsurgency....

, Malcolm Nance, John Sullivan, Bing West

Bing West

Francis J. "Bing" West is an author and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during the Reagan Administration. His 2004 book The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the First Marine Division, written with United States Marine Corps General Ray L...

, Paul Yingling

Paul Yingling

Colonel Paul Yingling is an officer in the United States Army currently serving as a professor of security studies at the George C. Marshall Center in Germany...

and Michael Yon

Michael Yon

Michael Yon is an American writer and photographer. He served in the Special Forces in the early-1980s, and he became a general freelance writer in the mid-1990s. He focused on military writing after the invasion of Iraq...

among others.

Small Wars

“Small Wars” is a term used to describe a broad spectrum of spirited "continuation of politics by other means", falling between feisty diplomatic words and global thermonuclear war.

The term “Small War” either encompasses or overlaps with a number of familiar terms such as counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense

Foreign internal defense

Foreign internal defense is a term used by a number of Western militaries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, to describe an approach to combating actual or threatened insurgency in a foreign state called the Host Nation . The term counter-insurgency is more commonly used...

, stability and support operations

Stability and support operations

Stability and support operations is a US military term for operations involve military forces providing safety and support to friendly noncombatants while suppressing threatening forces....

, peacemaking

Peacemaking

Peacemaking is a form of conflict resolution which focuses on establishing equal power relationships that will be robust enough to forestall future conflict, and establishing some means of agreeing on ethical decisions within a community that has previously had conflict. In order to do so there...

, peacekeeping

Peacekeeping

Peacekeeping is an activity that aims to create the conditions for lasting peace. It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....

, and many flavors of intervention. Operations such as noncombatant evacuation, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance will often either be a part of a Small War, or have a Small Wars feel to them. Small Wars involve a wide spectrum of specialized tactical, technical, social, and cultural skills and expertise, requiring great ingenuity from their practitioners. The Small Wars Manual

Small Wars Manual

The Small Wars Manual is a United States Marine Corps manual on tactics and strategies for engaging in certain types of military operations....

notes that:

Small Wars demand the highest type of leadership directed by intelligence, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. Small Wars are conceived in uncertainty, are conducted often with precarious responsibility and doubtful authority, under indeterminate orders lacking specific instructions.

The “three block war

Three Block War

The Three Block War is a concept described by U.S. Marine General Charles Krulak in the late 1990s to illustrate the complex spectrum of challenges likely to be faced by soldiers on the modern battlefield. In Krulak's example, soldiers may be required to conduct full scale military action,...

” construct employed by former Marine Corps Commandant General Charles Krulak is exceptionally useful in describing the tactical and operational challenges of a Small War and of many urban operations. Its only shortcoming is that is so useful that it is often mistaken as a definition or as a type of operation.

Small Wars Journal is run by Small Wars Foundation, a non-profit corporation, for the benefit of the Small Wars community of interest and practice.

The Small Wars Journal is an evolution of the MOUT Homepage, Urban Operations Journal, and urbanoperations.com, all formerly run by SWJ's Editor-in-Chief Dave Dilegge. Other SWJ principals include Publisher Bill Nagle, Managing Editor Robert Haddick, and Editor Mike Few. Haddick writes a weekly SWJ column for Foreign Policy's online magazine. All four share responsibilities in the day-to-day operation of SWJ. Nagle also serves as Chairman of the Small Wars Foundation and Dilegge as the Vice Chairman. Dan Kelly serves as the third member of the Small Wars Foundation Board of Directors.

Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

magazine recognized SWJ in their 2009 "Hot List" edition. SWJ has been cited in many "mainstream" and "new media" publications - both in print and online - to include The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel.Originally, the magazine was a quarterly...

, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, Christian Science Monitor, British Broadcasting Corporation, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

, Weekly Standard, Armed Forces Journal
Armed Forces Journal
Armed Forces Journal is a monthly journal for American military officers and leaders in government and industry.Founded in 1863 as a weekly newspaper, AFJ is published today by Gannett Government Media, part of Gannett Company ....

, Marine Corps Gazette
Marine Corps Gazette
Marine Corps Gazette is a professional journal for U.S. Marines founded in 1916 at Marine Corps Base Quantico for members of the United States Marine Corps. Begun by then Col John A. Lejeune as the vehicle to launch the Marine Corps Association , the journal is known as "The Professional Journal...

, National Public Radio, Wired Magazine, The Politico

The Politico

The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...

, Real Clear Politics, Abu Muqawama (Center for a New American Security), The Long War Journal, The Belmont Club, Blackfive, Mudville Gazette, Abu Aardvark, The Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....

), the US Army Combined Arms Center CAC and Counterinsurgency blogs, the United States Naval Institute

United States Naval Institute

The United States Naval Institute , based at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is a private, non-profit, professional military association that seeks to offer independent, nonpartisan forums for debate of national defense issues...

USNI blog, and Information Dissemination - to name but a few.

Recent books that have cited or otherwise acknowledged SWJ include The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by Dr. David Kilcullen, Lifting the Fog of Peace: How Americans Learned to Fight Modern War by Dr. Janine Davidson, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by Thomas E. Ricks, and War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age by Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker. Kilcullen's latest book, Counterinsurgency, is dedicated to Dilegge and Nagle in recognition of their work at SWJ:

For Dave Dilegge and Bill Nagle, founders and editors of Small Wars Journal. They gave the counterguerrilla underground a home, at a time when misguided leaders banned even the word “insurgency,” though busily losing to one. Scholars, warriors, and agitators, Dave and Bill laid the foundation for battlefield success; our generation owes them a debt of gratitude.

Small Wars Foundation

Small Wars Foundation is a 501(c)(3) exempt nonprofit whose purpose is to facilitate the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of small wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field; to assist in the creation, capture, sharing, and application of knowledge of small wars; and ultimately to advance self-determination, freedom, and prosperity for those populations effected by the conduct of small wars. Small Wars Foundation's primary current activity is operating the website Small Wars Journal, publishing articles in Small Wars Journal and commentary via SWJ Blog, and managing the other interactive and reference features of the site in support of the small wars community of interest.

On March 24th and 25th, 2010, Small Wars Foundation conducted its first major event: a Tribal Engagement Workshop in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The workshop was cosponsored by the Small Wars Foundation, the U.S. Joint Forces Command Joint Irregular Warfare Center, the U.S. Marine Corps Center for Irregular Warfare, the U.S. Army / U.S. Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, and Noetic Group. The objectives of the Tribal Engagement Workshop were to evaluate the value and feasibility of a tribal engagement approach in Afghanistan, assess the secondary effects adoption of a tribal engagement strategy would have on the political and military situation and to identify the operational components of a tribal engagement approach in Afghanistan.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Small Wars