Beyond guns and steel: reviving the nonmilitary: instruments of American power.Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates; The secretary of defense says the U.S. must develop a cadre of deployable civilians to strengthen the Nation's "soft" power in today's national security environment.

U.S. Africa command: a new strategic paradigm?. Sean McFate; The tenth and newest unified command, AFRICOM, stands up in October 2008. Civilian-heavy and with a security-development focus on Africa, this hybrid will not look like its brethren.

Operation Mountain Lion: CJTF-76 in Afghanistan: Spring 2006. Colonel Michael A. Coss, U.S. Army; The "clear-hold-build-engage" strategy used by Combined Joint Task Force-76 during Operation Mountain Lion (April-June 2006) could be a template for future counterinsurgency efforts.

Protection of arts and antiquities during wartime: examining the past and preparing for the future. Major James B. Cogbill, U.S. Army; Well before D-Day, America planned to protect European art and cultural treasures. Failure to do the same in Iraq suggests we need a permanent DOD structure to ensure we don't repeat our mistake.

Northern Ireland: a balanced approach to amnesty, Reconciliation, and Reintegration. Major John Clark, British Army; The political, economic, and security dimensions of societal reconstruction are ineluctably symbiotic. A veteran of the Northern Ireland "troubles" analyzes how that conflict has been brought to the brink of resolution.

The rule of law for commanders. Captain Christopher M. Ford, U.S. Army; Without rule of law there is no chance for civil society and little likelihood of stabilizing a conflict. Iraq is a case in point.

International law and slavery. Mark D. Welton, J.D.; Human trafficking remains a problem throughout the world -- one that often arises in areas of armed conflict and, thus, is of concern to military professionals.

Monitoring and evaluation of Department of Defense humanitarian assistance programs. Colonel Eugene V. Bonventre, U.S. Air Force; Measures of effectiveness, normally ubiquitous throughout DOD, do not exist for monitoring and evaluating military humanitarian assistance activities. Making efforts to gauge these programs can pay dividends in stability operations.

Threat analysis: organized crime and narco-terrorism in northern Mexico. Gordon James Knowles, Ph.D.; Below America's southern border, conditions are ripe for spawning potential mechanisms of terrorism directed at United States citizens. Awareness and cooperation with Mexican authorities are essential for controlling the threat.

Contest winners

2007 General DePuy Competition
3rd Place. The new legs race: critical perspectives on biometrics in Iraq. Andrew R. Hom; Biometric technology (retinal scans, gait analysis, voice recognition, etc.) is inherently invasive. Using it to map the Iraqi people could alienate those whose hearts and minds we claim to covet.
4th Place. Finding America's role in a collapsed North Korean state. Captain Jonathan Stafford, U.S. Army; Instead of fighting every battle in the War on Terrorism ourselves, we should help better positioned allies prepare for possible flashpoints. One such flashpoint could well be North Korea.

2007 MacArthur Contest
3rd Place. On luck and leadership. Major David Cummings, Jamaica Defense Force; How many times in our careers as professional Soldiers have we heard individual officers described as being lucky? What is this thing called luck?

2007 IO Contest
2nd Place. Merging information operations and psychological operations. Lieutenant Colonel Fredric W. Rohm Jr., U.S. Army, Retired; Merging the IO functional area and the Psychological Operations branch into one specialty may be cost effective. Combining resources, training, and functions can only help improve our effort in the information war.

INSIGHTS.
Iraq: the way ahead. Mitchell M. Zais, Ph.D.;Security in Iraq has clearly improved over the last year, but the Iraqi Government has made little progress on the political end. "Soft-partitioning" seems to be the best solution to the government's paralysis.
Redefining insurgency. Lieutenant Colonel Chris North, U.S. Army, Retired; The current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are more complex than the word "insurgency" suggests. A new definition may be in order.

Book Reviews: contemporary readings for the professional.

Letters.

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