Thu, 15 Oct 2026
Welcome back to Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute at West Point. This series features specially selected cadet hosts who are given an incredible professional development […]
Inside a bunker, a pilot operates a first-person-view drone, unable to see the aircraft directly. A navigator plots a grid and helps search a degraded video feed. Somewhere in the […]
General George S. Patton reminds us that a good plan, violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week. Doctrine agrees. Field Manual 5-0, Planning and Orders Production […]
The US military is set to change how it selects general and flag officers. Going forward, it will incorporate a “Joint Warfighter Evaluation (JWE)” into the selection process. Each service […]
A specter looms over the US Army: the threat of positional warfare. For four years, we have watched with growing concern as the Ukraine conflict—our clearest lens into future interstate […]
Russian occupying forces have long used highways like the M14 to drive to Crimea. Trucks flowed along the highway, beyond the reach of the drones that made movement near the […]
In this episode, Colonel Mike Rosol joins MWI’s Charlie Faint in the West Point Class of 1974 Recording Studio to reflect on a career spanning armored warfare, multiple deployments to […]
In mid-September, the commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps confirmed that his unit was in the midst of a major offensive in Donetsk Oblast: Operation Vivaldi. It was the first […]
In August 2009, my Ranger platoon was twenty hours into a twenty-seven-hour firefight in the Khowst mountains of Afghanistan. Three platoons inserted onto a high ridgeline in darkness, hunting enemy […]
A faraway counterinsurgency fight. Trying terrain. Elusive intelligence. Self-deceiving higher headquarters. And those caught in the middle of it all. These are the ingredients of what one venerable critic called […]
Welcome back to Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute at West Point. This series features specially selected cadet hosts who are given an incredible professional development […]
The modern battlefield is transparent. A soldier moving without understanding aerial observation, electronic signatures, and enemy sensing operates at a fatal disadvantage. Conversely, soldiers employing unmanned systems extend their reach, […]
Attend any drone warfare conference, and you will likely hear the same refrain: There is no silver bullet when it comes to drone defense. This is often followed by presentations […]
The brigade commander watched the icons representing his lead battalion move toward the enemy’s defensive belt. Somewhere ahead were minefields, observation posts, unmanned aircraft, and artillery waiting for the formation […]
During a year on the staff of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command in 2023, I never asked an American counterpart the question behind much of our work: Would the United […]
For twenty months, Russia’s 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies ground toward Lyman, a small city in eastern Ukraine that sits on a critical road and railway juncture. By seizing […]
In this episode with host Dr. Charlie Faint, retired Colonel Pat Howell reflects on a career that took him from the 82nd Airborne Division and conventional engineer units to the […]
The increasing use of drones on the modern battlefield has sparked a great debate about their impact on the ever-changing character of warfare. Whether framed as evolutionary drivers of that […]
The 2025 National Security Strategy called for a “military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain.” During 2026, MWI focused its research efforts on understanding how the […]
At a federal technology summit earlier this year, a senior Pentagon official described a moment his office was proud of. Facing a congressional reporting deadline, and with a workforce hollowed […]
