Keeping COIN Simple: the Outhouse Strategy for Security Development
Issue Date: January 2009
File Size: 40KB
As US armed forces execute the Global War on Terror, varying strategies are required to facilitate victory within those sovereign states that are hesitant to permit a significant number of US personnel on their soil. The Philippines is an excellent example of how the US military can still achieve victory while under severe operational constraints imposed by a host government. US advisors working with the Armed Forces of the Philippines are developing creative and unconventional counter-insurgency (COIN) strategies to win the support of the local population and to sever their links to the indigenous Abu Sayyaf Group. The 'outhouse strategy' discussed herein is indicative of the peculiarities of unconventional warfare.

Scoring the Long War
Issue Date: January 2009
File Size: 393KB
The score for the Long War can look very different depending on which scorecard is used. Emphasis is currently placed on historically-based, quantifiable, state-versus-state measures which attempt to correlate what we are doing with how we are doing. But the current fight against al-Qaeda is not a state-versus-state war and requires a different metrics that more accurately depict who is winning and who is losing.

Next-Generation Strategic Communication: Building Influence through Online Social Networking
Issue Date: June 2009
File Size: 133KB
Sociologists and researchers have used the term social networks for over a century to describe complex sets of relationships between members of social systems at all levels. At its core, a social network-whether face-to-face or web-based-is a map of relevant ties among participants in the network. Within this social network map, individuals in a particular network may exhibit varying degrees of interconnectedness-ranging from tightly connected cliques to those with few connections within a single network-but nonetheless, they act as gateways to other networks. .