Collins Center Update, Volume 14, Issue 2 (Spring 2012)

Author: Multiple
The Collins Center Update is quarterly newsletter detailing the activities of the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College. Articles in this issue include: "Strategic Decision Making Exercise (SDME) 2012", "The Romanian Armed Forces and Joint Staff Planning", "The Senior Leader Seminar (SLS): Senior Leader Development Course 12-1", and "Teaching Strategy at the Baltic Defense College." Click here for more information.

    The Hybrid Threat: Crime, Terrorism and Insurgency in Mexico

Author(s): Multiple
Within the North American community the hybrid threat of crime, terrorism and insurgency is an understudied area in terms of policy, strategy, and doctrine. In an effort to begin to address this area, and exploring those ideas in the particular context of Mexico, The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) together with the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership co-convened a symposium on the subject in Washington D.C. last October. The report on the symposium is a compilation of those proceedings, featuring the presentations that helped inform and generate the discussion that followed. We hope, through this symposium and this publication, that we can begin a substantial conversation on how best to tackle these difficult conceptual issues, ones that pose important national security implications. Click here for more information.

    Sustainability and National Security

Author(s): Jim Hartman, Ph.D.
With the importance of sustainability and its impact on the Department of Defense, CSL's National Security Issues Branch has collected works from subject matter experts who cover the topic in a variety of ways in everything from sustainability and national security to sustainability of installations. In particular, Dr. Jim Hartman's chapter, "Sustainability and National Security" in the newly published book of the same name, examines the evolution of the Army's sustainability program and its contributions to the national strategic security objectives. The growing world population and imbalance of natural resources are expected to affect US, as well as Army, interests. Dr. Hartman asserts sustainability is the nexus to ensure future security, which can only be achieved through the development and implementation of sound business practices. Dr. Hartman opines the Army, as a large institution, is well suited to lead a whole of government approach to sustainability. Click here for more information.

    Mexico and the Triple Threat

Author(s): Sharon L. Cardash, Frank J. Cilluffo, and Bert B. Tussing
On October 21st, 2011, the U.S. Army War College Center for Strategic Leadership and the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) released an issue brief on Mexico and the triple challenge of crime, terrorist tactics, and narco-insurgency. Reviewing the extent of the triple threat and efforts to respond to it, both individually and jointly on the part of the Government of Mexico and the United States Government, co-authors Sharon L. Cardash, Frank J. Cilluffo, and Bert B. Tussing write: "The question remains...whether strategy and doctrine in Mexico, in the United States, and in the region can and will keep pace with the triple threat...that is at once adaptive, lethal, and determined." Noting the "complex multidimensional" nature of the challenge, and acknowledging that "facts on the ground will continue to mutate," the authors conclude: "In addition to...careful, patient work that supports operations, we must also do the hard strategic thinking to... Click here for more information.

    The Strategic Importance of Shale Gas

Author: Cadet Nathaniel Freeland
Fuel powers the industrial production that strengthens the economy and provides the means to project national power. Reliable sources of energy are imperative to the security of the United States. Energy security is the primary theme in discussing why increased domestic production of fuel is important in both geopolitical and international relations theory. The energy market within the scope of twenty-first-century globalization is increasingly affected by global interdependence. One only has to look back to 2009 when Russia cut off gas to Ukraine to note how potentially detrimental globalization of fuel supply is to a nation's energy security. Click here for more information.