Recent Publications
Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy
By Frederick W. Kagan
AEI resident scholar Frederick W. Kagan's focus is the post-Vietnam development of America's armed forces--not merely in policy contexts, as his book title modestly states, but also in structure and mentality. With unusual clarity and understanding, Kagan describes the individual and collective dynamics of the four armed services in the two decades after Vietnam, when the military saw a series of definable threats demanding specific responses.
Information on a book forum with the author

Working Papers
The Future of Land Power: A European Perspective
By Lieutenant General Christian Delanghe
In this new century, the post-cold war world remains violent, uncertain and dangerous, and the presence of stable poles is more important than ever. In this context, the land power dimension of our military capabilities, the only one capable of operating continuously in direct contact with the human, historic and geographic realities of the world, has a renewed political, strategic, and decisive role in crisis prevention and conflict resolution. In Europe, as well as in the US, land forces have to take the measure of this reality and engage in an important overhaul of their volume size, doctrine, organization, training and ability to operate closely with all non-military dimensions of our overall power.

The U.S. military is fighting two major counterinsurgencies, even as the Bush administration continues its efforts to transform the armed forces to meet future threats. The stress of these missions has fallen particularly heavily on the land power services--the U.S. Army and the Marines--because of the commitment of those forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. These services are not adequately resourced or organized for the current conflict, nor are they making the necessary preparations for future conflicts. Without a serious reevaluation of the role, composition, organization, and doctrine of U.S. land power, the United States may find itself without the military force needed to meet the challenges it is facing today and will face tomorrow.

The AEI Land Power Project will offer a series of recommendations about the present organization and future orientation of the land power services within the overall defense context. The two-year project began in March 2005 and will culminate in a monograph titled The Future of U.S. Land Power, which will offer proposals for redefining the role of land power in U.S. national security, for restructuring the land power services, and for changing the course of military transformation in those services.