Professional Writing: A Collection of Stories from Military Journals

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the People's Republic of China appears intent on becoming a responsible great power. Beijing continues to insist-as it has for several decades-that "peace and development" are the key trends of the times. President Hu Jintao claims that China is focused on building a "harmonious" and "moderately prosperous society" at home and a "harmonious world" abroad. Beijing has taken great pains to stress that its growing power does not threaten any nation, and the world is witnessing China's "peaceful rise" or "peaceful development."

With less than one half of one percent of the U.S. population in the Armed Forces, it is not surprising that many Americans know little about their military or the sacrifices military members and their families make for the Nation. The professional military is often viewed as a breed apart, a closed hierarchal organization resembling a monastic order. Indeed, some scholars have identified not just a cloister wall, but a growing chasm between the military and American society as a whole. Meanwhile, the necessity for operations security and an institutional penchant for controlling information...

Today's complex, fluid, and unpredictable operational environment both demands more from the military in terms of mission requirements and exposes troops to more stressors and potential trauma than ever before. On the one hand, situational awareness, mental agility, and adaptability are characteristics that the military wants to cultivate to succeed in such complex environments. In part, this complexity comes from the number and nature of the different missions the military must concurrently fill. The military needs to be able to mix offensive, defensive, and stability operations conducted...

Gulf Arabs are increasingly taking measure of Iran's capabilities to wage war. Military power is relative, not absolute, and to gauge Iran's capabilities to wage war and threaten the Persian Gulf, one must compare Iran's power against that of its regional rivals. A rough net assessment of strategies and military forces in the Gulf needs to weigh Iranian conventional military power-both in its regular military and Revolutionary Guard forces-against the conventional militaries of Saudi Arabia, the other Arab Gulf states, and the United States. By this scale, Arab and American forces are heavier...