David Brown, Donette Murray, Malte Riemann and Norma Rossi, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst has been educating, training and inspiring members of the British Army since 1947. The Sandhurst series is a cutting edge forum and platform for original thought and debate on military and security matters within the contemporary international security environment.

After decades of development and myriad silent successes that the general population will likely never hear about, SOF's value has been proven repeatedly (and more publicly) since 9/11 than ever before. In the years ahead, the future of SOF is likely to look less like Act of Valor and more like Rudyard Kipling’s Kim.

One of the most beautiful yet least-known places on earth, the Bamyan Valley, is primarily remembered for the tragedy that befell the region in early 2001. Eight months before the September 11 attacks, the Taliban destroyed the two colossal sandstone Buddha statues that had stood as sentinels over the central Afghan valley of Bamyan since the 6th century.

As the United States continues to withdraw troops and materiel from Afghanistan, the rhetoric from President Hamid Karzai's administration wavers between being fairly pro-American and caustically anti-American, and speculation about reconciliatory negotiations with the Taliban and other insurgent groups abound, it is difficult to remain optimistic about the durability of institutions America has helped build in Afghanistan. However, there is one institution that stands out amongst its peers as a clear success story. ..

Much as the international development and community health paradigm preaches that “you have to get healthy before you can get wealthy,” the same goes for the well-being of states. A country lacking a stable rule of law and robust civil society also wants for social and economic infrastructure that is hospitable to viable long-term development.

U.S. military and international aid infrastructures grew in recent decades and their identities have diverged in the public eye but in practice are increasingly intertwined.

Recent events in Mali illustrate how ideological radicals attempt to disassemble a cultural identity step by step, first through objects and then beliefs. The vision of the Buddhas of Bamyan crumbling to the valley floor at the hands of the Taliban was a foreshadowing of the crippled Twin Towers collapsing onto themselves.

The activities of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in armed conflicts have traditionally drawn minimal attention when compared to their historic presence and importance. Such entrepreneurs have played a role in wars from ancient times through present conflicts, though the media paid only peripheral coverage to their modern practices until scandals of the past decade.

The last decade of international engagements marks a shift in the way that the American military fights wars and mitigates conflict overseas. Although America has long had an affinity for creative destruction and cycles of force buildup and tear down, it is increasingly apparent that such an approach is not a viable option for the U.S. military’s path ahead. After a decade of costly conflict with large conventional forces and an abundance of direct action operations, the American way of war is evolving towards less muscle, more mind. To this end, the specialized training, mentoring, and capacity building skills that Special Operations Forces (SOF) receive must remain a priority in an era of fiscal austerity and streamlined resources. It is easier to strengthen security forces than to strengthen governance and the drivers that combat instability. As SOF returns to a focus on partner capacity building programs rather than direct action missions, the lessons learned of the last twelve years of international security assistance programs must be embraced and codified rather than allowed to atrophy, as is often the case when the United States military reorients its attention to new policy priorities. Reliance on external nations and allied partners, coupled with the strategic direction to employ innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint indirect approaches to prevent conflict, have made SOF a resource of choice for both Combatant Commanders and military strategists.

In 2017, in the course of PhD field research I travelled to Afghanistan — a country I had worked in back in 2010–11 as part of a NATO Combined Security Transition Command (CSTSC-A) military capacity-building programme. At the time of my research travel th

Although stability operations and contingency contracting may not be the biggest industry in the world, “You’d have a hard time finding another industry that has a greater impact in places that matter.”. This observation, offered by a former commander of U.S. The events of 9/11 resulted in the rapid reorientation of American foreign engagement in Afghanistan, and later Iraq.

Nestled in the Piedmont foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, lying about 120 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., is the storied town of Charlottesville, Virginia. Charlottesville was chartered in 1762 by the Virginia General Assembly at a spot central to Albemarle County’s boundaries, and lying along a key 71-mile trade route called Three Notch’d Road, which led westward from Richmond to the Shenandoah Valley.

Take a visual tour of Bala Hissar, or the "High Fort" of Kabul, an ancient fortress that has housed Afghan rulers for centuries and is still in use today.

Given the rise of Boko Haram’s activity in the last decade, as well as events of the preceding years in Mali, including the surge driven by Ansar Al Dine, it would be wise to examine areas of nascent activity from which future threats may emanate. In addition to current host countries such as Nigeria and Mali, it is important that the international community look at other states in West Africa where these movements are gaining tenuous—but important—toeholds.

In an effort to safeguard national security, the United States has undertaken a few select, high profile interventions that have challenged the sovereignty of other nations in years past. Some of these unilateral military actions have been criticized as aggressive attempts to demonstrate the United States’ global superpower status, including last October’s well-reported raids in Libya and Somalia.

This is the sixth article in an ongoing series examining the role of UAVs—commonly called "drones"—exploring the uses of unmanned aerial technology outside of traditional or well-publicized wartime uses. Read the first , second , third , fourth , and fifth articles. Regulations imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are perhaps the largest barrier to overcome before UAVs can be flown in the National Air Space (NAS), yet the FAA is making great strides to accommodate the integration of unmanned systems.