General Officer Education and Generalship: Organizational Change

Crane, Conrad C., Michael E Lynch, and Shane P. Reilly. (Carlisle, PA: US Army Heritage and Education Center, Historical Services Division, 2019).
“The establishment of Army Futures Command (AFC) in August 2018 was the most significant change to the Institutional Army in a generation, and it signaled the value the Army placed on studying the future. While the establishment of a new four star headquarters might be seen as a bold move, it was in reality the culmination of 30 years of future development in the Army. Those three decades saw the development of numerous structures designed to examine the potential for future concepts and technology, with uneven success. The processes were good, but technological overreach, and over 20 years of war in the Middle East, doomed most efforts to put useful concepts into practice. Army visionaries such as Generals William E. DePuy and Donn A. Starry had planned for the future as early as the 1970s with an eye on the past, and initiated the programs and doctrine necessary to transform and modernize the Army following Vietnam.”

Hajjar, Remi M. Armed Forces & Society 40, no. 1 (2014): 118-145.

Grissom, Adam. Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 5 (2006): 905-934.

Hill, Andrew. Parameters: U.S. Army War College 45, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 85-98.

Mark F. Cancian, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2018).
“Surprise has always been an element of warfare, but the return of great power competition—and the high-level threat that it poses—gives urgency to thinking about surprise now. Because the future is highly uncertain, and great powers have not fought each other for over 70 years, surprise is highly likely in a future great power conflict. This study, therefore, examines potential surprises in a great power conflict, particularly in a conflict’s initial stages when the interaction of adversaries’ technologies, prewar plans, and military doctrines first becomes manifest. It is not an attempt to project the future. Rather, it seeks to do the opposite: explore the range of possible future conflicts to see where surprises might lurk.”

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