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  GNSI Decision Brief: Critical Resources for National Security

  Sarah Brown and Heather Ward

  Natural resources consist of any raw material, whether biological, mineral, or environmental, that nature provides without human intervention, but which humans can utilize for their benefit (both material and immaterial).i These resources play a crucial role in a country’s economic prosperity and influence various aspects of domestic and military operations as these materials are used in manufacturing and infrastructure projects. Natural resources have always played a critical role in national security – from the grain basins of Egypt to feed the armies of Romeii to the oil-rich Dutch West Indies required for Imperial Japan’s Navy in the Pacific War.iii In fact, U.S. oil reserves and production proved a critical enabler to winning World War II.iv As military technology has evolved, so has the type of resources which prove critical. Both fossil fuels and iron appear a constant requirement for modern warfare, as demonstrated by the Russian/Ukraine conflict.v Yet, other resources, like rare earth minerals, appear to hold predominance in exquisite capabilities, including fifth- generation fighter aircraft. What are the most important materials for today’s strategic competition? In case of war, can the U.S. meet its natural resource requirements to feed its military-industrial complex domestically? Is self-reliance required or can the U.S. leverage its allies and partners for some of these resources? Beyond production and extraction, does the U.S. have access to resources within secure logistic lines? This brief identifies some of the essential critical resources for U.S. national security, their domestic availability, and strategic considerations for securing U.S. grand strategy in the 21st Century.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Should Congress Designate Mexican Cartels as Terrorists?

  Robert S. Burrell and Manuel Carranza

  In 2023, Senators Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) reintroduced the Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act, proposed the previous year, aimed at empowering the State Department to formally designate Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). The FTO designation in the proposed Senate legislation would apply to four transnational criminal organizations – Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Cártel del Golfo, and Cártel del Noreste. As Republicans have majority control of Congress in 2025, the issue of designating Mexican cartels as terrorists will likely surface again, and President Donald Trump has issued an executive order that he plans to consider the issue.

  The current USG FTO list consists primarily of groups akin to Al Queda and Islamic State. This allows the Treasury Department to target financial aspects of the organizations and the State Department to curtail associated members’ travel. However, a terrorist designation also opens the aperture for the Department of Defense to combat terrorism, and this idea has Mexico City apprehensive.

  In January 2025, we published a detailed analysis of Mexico’s central government's resiliency and domestic resistance it faces. This framework proves critical in understanding how unilateral U.S. action taken against Mexican cartels could affect the domestic legitimacy of the new left-wing populist party Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) and how Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, would react to such pressure.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: The United States Military Recruiting Crisis

  Guido Rossi

  Recent news stories reported that the U.S. military is currently experiencing an unprecedented recruiting crisis. In fact, between 2022-2023, the U.S. armed forces (the Army in particular) failed to meet their numbers by a large margin: against goals of 232,021 accessions for 2022 and 244,533 for 2023, the branches collectively missed their targets by 40,369 and 41,336 accessions respectively. Even though the branches proved able to meet their recruitment goals – although barely – in fiscal year 2024, concerns continue to linger.

  Although military recruitment is usually not a significant issue for voters, it became a central promise for the new Trump administration. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is following through with his promise to take action, beginning with policy changes related to diversity initiatives in the military, which he argues have dampened recruitment enthusiasm.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Keeping Allies in the Fight: Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq

  Tad Schnaufer II and Yoan Hermida

  Winston Churchill famously quipped, “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” Today, the U.S. has the largest network of alliances of any nation. America’s allies provide it with a marked advantage over its adversaries including basing rights, transit points, and a forward presence. Compared to going it alone in a conflict, allies bring legitimacy and help share the burden. Following the Cold War, U.S. allies, particularly NATO members, have deployed troops in support of operations that have lasted years — even decades. Why did they stay engaged for so long? Would they be willing to do the same in future wars, especially if they appear to be unpopular non-existential conflicts like Iraq? How can the U.S. provide political cover to allied decision-makers so that they are better able to justify participation in US-led operations to their domestic audiences? Once a conflict is underway, a perceived lack of progress along with the increasing human and material costs often erode domestic support leading to an early allied withdrawal. U.S. leaders must understand how different domestic factors influence an ally’s behavior in order to cultivate and sustain allied support for conflict participation.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Repression Without Borders: How Nations Silence Critics Abroad

  Sarah Brown and Amy K. Mitchell

  Introduction

  Transnational Repression (TNR) – the act of a government, or authorized group, coercing, repressing, or retaliating against individuals outside its sovereign territory – has significantly increased in recent years. Transnational repression often targets human rights defenders, activists, critics, journalists, and political opponents. Despite its insidious spread, the international community continues to grapple with applying a standard definition, as well as accountability and enforcement.

  Transnational repression knows no borders. TNR can take many forms ranging from physical attacks such as the brazen murder of American citizen and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, coercion by proxy (e.g., the threatening of family members) to the use of technology to monitor and harass. Governments who engage in transnational repression to silence those who speak against its policies do so with impunity under current international law. Their disregard for international norms and human rights fosters fear in ethnic and marginalized communities around the world.

  Furthermore, studies have shown repression, both domestic and abroad, is an essential tool for the longevity of authoritarian regimes. A 2023 study conducted by Dukalskis, Furstenberg et. al, states the “interaction between domestic repression and diplomatic representation is positive and statistically significant. Domestic repression is more likely to translate into TR [transnational repression] if a state is well represented abroad, granting it the logistical means to execute TR.”

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Creating Sun Tsu: Instituting a Master’s Degree in Irregular Warfare

  Robert Burrell and John Collision

  In the words of Sun Tsu, arguably the father of irregular warfare, war is like water, and water has no constant form, and there are no constant conditions in war.i Nowhere in the history of U.S. military doctrine has conflict been described in this theoretical and inclusive way. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the U.S.’s preference for technological solutions, increased firepower, and lethality on the battlefield neglects to account for leveraging irregular and asymmetric forms of conflict to advance its interests and counter its adversaries. The Consortium to Study Irregular Warfare Act of 2021 addressed the gap in irregular warfare doctrine with the requirement to professionalize irreg- ular warfare education in the Department of Defense (DoD).ii Currently, such education mostly comprises electives at Service Colleges, which already have far too many Congressional and Service-mandated requirements to implement irregular warfare education to the degree required to create a modern-day Sun Tsu. Instead, the DoD should institute a master’s degree in irregular warfare to fill critical billets in the Joint Force.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Free Venezuela! The Opportunity for a Return to Democracy

  Robert S. Burrell and Homer Harkins

  Nicolás Maduro remains a weak and unpopular dictator, only retaining power in Venezuela through internal violent repression, nefarious international support, and paramilitary assistance from violent transnational criminal organizations. Limited, targeted sanctions designed to discourage political repression and criminal cooperation remain ineffective as they have been evaded and ignored. The Venezuelan regime has effectively countered multinational diplomatic efforts by using approximately $28 billion in regional economic support to undermine the will of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations push for a return to democracy in Venezuela.i A full-spectrum national resistance campaign including, if necessary, the use of targeted violence in compliance with international humanitarian law, coupled with international diplomatic, economic, informational, and, if necessary, external military intervention will bring about the return of legitimate governance to Venezuela.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Did We Miss the Golden Hour? Foreign Assistance and the Collapse of Afghanistan

  Alexious Butler and Guido Rossi

  James Stephenson former country director for Iraq for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), explains in his book Losing the Golden Hour that there is a short window of time – usually a year or so – immediately following the cessation of hostilities in a country during which any assistance efforts will prove successful, or not, in the long term. This time frame is known as “the golden hour,” a lease from the medical field referring to the few precious minutes after a traumatic injury when proper first aid can make the difference between life or death.

  An argument can be made on the existence and importance of the golden hour in the field of foreign assistance, and that Afghanistan, rather than Iraq, as Stephenson suggests in his book, perhaps truly represented the loss of the golden hour. If we accept the proposition that the golden hour exists and matters in determining a country’s best chance at stability after conflict, then Afghanistan more than Iraq showcased the failure by the United States at seizing the opportunity to provide foreign assistance within that timeframe.

  To better understand the events around the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the closing of the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan in 2021, a review of early U.S. engagement can highlight missed opportunities to foster Afghanistan’s legendary sense of independence, help the U.S. carry out more efficient interventions during crises and better plan for effort reductions and disengagements.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Maritime Resiliency in the Red Sea: Lessons from the Persian Gulf and Strait of Malacca

  Arman Mahmoudian

  From natural disasters to geopolitical conflicts, the world’s critical infrastructures face constant threats. Yet, it is not the absence of disruptions that ensures stability, but a system’s ability to absorb shocks, recover, and adapt—a quality known as resiliency.

  In the context of macro-systems, like nation-states, resiliency is a vital trait that guarantees stability and continued functionality and serves as a key factor in preserving the state's existence.

  In the maritime domain, resiliency refers to the capacity of supporting maritime infrastructure-- shipping lanes, ports, naval forces--to withstand and adapt to disruptions while maintaining operations. Maritime resilience is critical to the infrastructure supporting global trade, as approximately 90% of all trade relies on sea routes, making these networks essential lifelines for transporting oil, food, and manufactured goods.

  Disruptions within crucial maritime routes, whether from conflict, piracy, environmental challenges, or economic fluctuations, have far-reaching global consequences, leading to price surges, supply shortages, and heightened diplomatic tensions. Ensuring the continuity of global trade networks not only stabilizes economies but reinforces global security, underscoring the need for robust governance and resilient maritime infrastructure to uphold the maritime economy and broader global stability. One such vital artery is the Red Sea, which allows access to the Suez Canal, and whose instability has increasingly drawn the international community's attention.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Educate as You Operate: Developing National Security Practitioners for Strategic Competition

  David Oakley and David H. Ucko

  Amid a “rapidly changing world,” shaped by “strategic competition” and “shared challenges,” the 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) set out a U.S. vision for a global environment “that is free, open, secure, and prosperous.” Achieving this vision, it acknowledged, will “demand increased global cooperation,” not only across the United States Government but with its partners and allies.i In similar terms, the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) recognized the novel threats of near-peer competitors and emphasized the need to work “seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, all instruments of U.S. national power and our networks of alliances and partners.” It seems the NDS and NSS authors believe good strategy is important, but integration is key to its implementation.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: A Covert Competition and a Competition Over Covert Action

  Jeff Rogg

  The U.S. is entering an era of global competition that is drawing comparisons to the Cold War. Similarly, the U.S. is again facing key problems in one of the most secret and sensitive areas of national security: covert action. This decision brief will scrutinize the shortcomings in the existing architecture for covert action and identify questions facing policymakers who would use this crucial, yet controversial, instrument of statecraft to provide an advantage in strategic competition.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Beyond Intervention: Sustainable Solutions for Haiti’s Security Needs

  Heather Ward and Sarah Brown

  Current Political Climate in Haiti

  Events are rapidly evolving in Haiti with each week bringing a new crisis and leading some to say the country is at risk of state failure. Haiti held its last presidential election in 2016 and its parliament last voted in 2019. At the start of this year, the remaining democratically elected government officials formally vacated their positions as their terms ended. After President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in 2021 and the resignation of the unelected and unpopular de facto prime minister Ariel Henry, Fritz Bélizaire was chosen as the new prime minister by a transitional council at the end of April--meaning the Haitian populace has had no part in selecting its current government.

  With doubts concerning the state’s credibility and the legitimacy of its leaders, there are estimates of over 200 gangs vying for territory and power within Haiti. Some gangs are hoping to set up their own governing council to rule the country and have signaled they will not recognize the appointed coalition established by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) international partners.

  In recent months, armed gangs united to carry out coordinated attacks on ports, airports, and government buildings. In early March, gangs stormed two of Haiti’s largest prisons, releasing thousands of prisoners and sending the country into a state of emergency. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that 1,436 non-violent actors were killed between January and March 20245 and this surge of violence led to over 360,000 displaced people nationwide. Now 4.35 million people, nearly half the population, are facing food insecurity, and 1.4 million are facing emergency levels of hunger.7

  In early May, the Biden administration approved a 60-million- dollar military aid package attempting to curb some of the gang violence by equipping the Haitian National Police with weapons and equipment.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Olympic Diplomacy: The Endurance of Soft Power

  Heather Ward and Sarah Brown

  Sporting events have an inherent ability to foster connections, build relationships, and unify groups around a shared objective. Athletes have historically used these events as platforms to impact political movements beyond the sports arena. Mega- sporting events, such as the Olympics, provide a venue for host nations to utilize soft power strategies to project their political values, cultivate their national image, and broadcast their status to billions of viewers across the globe. Soft power, when pertaining to international relations, refers to the ability to influence and shape perceptions through the appeal of cultural and political values rather than through coercion. In today’s competitive era of strategic competition, where every international platform helps nations gain an advantage, soft power tactics are equally as important as hard power and coercive strategies.

  The International Olympic Committee (IOC), a not-for-profit independent organization that oversees all individual National Olympic Committees, has developed rules and governing principles to help facilitate the Olympic Games. Rule 50 in the Olympic charter prevents athletes from demonstrating any political, religious, or racial propaganda at any Olympic sites and venues. Additionally, the IOC’s President, Thoms Bach, claims the Olympic games are not supposed to be political and the games and athletes participating in the event should not be used as political tools. However, since its inception in ancient Greece, the Olympic games—and its athletes—have been political and served as displays of national soft power and for public diplomacy.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Cracks in our Foundation: How Neglected Bridges Threaten National Security

  Heather Ward and Kathleen Curp

  The poor condition of U.S. infrastructure merits wider discussion, as its implications go beyond public safety and economic operations. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identified four critical infrastructure areas—energy and water, facilities, information and communication technology, and transportation—as lifeline systems essential for ensuring public safety, economic security, and national security.

  The U.S. interstate highway system, created by the 1956 National Interstate and Defense Highways Act under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, has been vital for national security.ii It facilitates troop movements and aids in the evacuation of large cities during emergencies. Additionally, Military Power Projection Platforms (PPP) rely on roads and bridges for movement to their designated sea or aerial ports of embarkation.iii Yet, despite their recognized importance in national security, the U.S. has allowed its transportation lifelines to degrade.

  Alongside roads, bridges fall under the transportation lifeline function. With over 600,000 bridges spanning across the United States, and 167 million vehicles crossing them daily, they are a vital component of the nation’s infrastructure. In today’s globally interconnected society, an accidental channel blockage due to a downed bridge or intentional attack could have ripple effects that go well beyond the impacted area. Bridges deserve a deeper focus because of their critical role in both national security and economic operations as these structures connect cities, act as evacuation routes, provide faster transportation of goods, and support troop movements.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: The Future of the Abraham Accords

  Diane M. Zorri

  In 2020, the United States facilitated a series of landmark accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan, marking a historic shift in Middle Eastern and North African geopolitics. The first milestone occurred in August 2020, when the UAE and Israel announced the normalization of relations, followed by an official signing ceremony at the White House. This was quickly followed by similar agreements between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The Abraham Accords included the exchange of ambassadors, the opening of embassies, and collaboration across various economic and security sectors, symbolizing a strategic realignment in regional relationships. These accords paved the way for enhanced economic, cultural, and strategic partnerships.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: A Lasting Peace to the Russo-Ukraine War: Obstacles and Considerations

  Golfo Alexopolous and Tad Schnaufer

  When the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia started in 2014, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support of separatists in the Donbas, negotiated settlements failed to bring peace. Both Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 did little to return to pre-war conditions and instead created a frozen conflict that reignited with Russia’s invasion in February of 2022. With that recent failure, how will opposing Russian and Ukrainian perspectives limit the success of any settlement to the conflict? Each of the belligerents in the current war in Ukraine has a distinct perspective regarding their nation’s origins, historical experiences, and national identity. These perspectives will influence the peace process and shape the post-war order while largely determining whether this war ends definitively or simply pauses for a time before breaking out again. A lasting peace would be in the interest of the US and its allies in Europe. The obstacles that could block a negotiated settlement and how the key players might overcome them for a lasting peace will be examined below.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Who Will Rebuild Ukraine's Public Health and Disease Research Laboratories?

  Kelli L. Barr, Eric Bortz, Anton Gerilovych, and Oleksii Solodiankin

  Amid the devastating war in Ukraine, a parallel battle rages on – that against infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic starkly underlined the vital importance of global health surveillance for emerging and re-emerging human and animal pathogens. This challenge has become even more acute in war-torn regions like Ukraine, where healthcare infrastructure is under siege. For viruses with pandemic potential, such as the influenza virus, worldwide surveillance initiatives are essential in tracking the virus’s movement and spread among both animals and humans. Such monitoring serves dual purposes. Firstly, it guides the formulation of the yearly vaccine, ensuring it remains effective against prevailing strains. Secondly, it alerts livestock farmers in advance, enabling the timely rollout of mitigation measures. Moreover, discerning whether a disease outbreak is of natural origin, or an intentional release becomes critical. To achieve this, the global community must share transparent and timely information through a robust network of laboratories with cutting-edge biotechnological capabilities. The war’s ramifications have severely impacted these efforts. Yet, the stakes are too high to let these facilities fade away. This situation leads to the ultimate question: Who will step up to rebuild Ukraine’s public health and disease research laboratories?

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  GNSI Decision Brief: What Keeps the US in the Middle East?

  Arman Mahmoudian and Tad Schnaufer II

  In early August the United States sent “More than 3,000 Marines and Sailors [to the Middle East] in a deployment meant to deter Iran from seizing and harassing merchant ships near the Strait of Hormuz.” The decision likely caught many off guard, considering that just two years prior, the US had finalized its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet, this isn't the first instance of the United States oscillating in its engagement with the Middle East. Historically, a range of factors have consistently drawn America into the region. The US had minimal involvement in the Middle East until the compounding interests of oil, great power competition, fighting terrorism, and the resource needs of allies fully engaged it.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: China’s Energy Insecurity

  Tad Schnaufer

  Overview

  Scholars and policymakers alike have used energy production and consumption as a measure of a state’s power and influence.i A state’s energy sector indicates the potential for use in the production of war materials or as an export to use as leverage over other nations. China produces and consumes more energy than any other country in the world and has done so since 2006 and 2009 respectively. Chinese consumption continues to outpace its production as its demand for energy grows.ii China’s large, aging population (around 1.41 billion people) and fast-growing economy have pushed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to look for ways to secure energy resources and the land or sea routes that deliver them.iii Understanding the Chinese domestic demand for energy and the need to secure energy resources will provide insights into the CCP’s foreign policy objectives.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Integrated Deterrence: What is it Good For?

  Tad Schnaufer

  The Biden administration introduced the concept of Integrated Deterrence (ID) in its 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS). As the report, No I in Team, states, “Integrated deterrence seeks to integrate all tools of national power across domains, geography, and spectrum of conflict, while working with allies and partners.” The Department of Defense’s (DoD) National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s National Military Strategy (NMS) further defined the military’s role in this concept. Critics have noted deficiencies with the whole-of- government approach that ID demands while failing to specify coordination methods across agencies. That same report notes, “what integrated deterrence entails in practical terms remains unclear... This ambiguity raises the risk that integrated deterrence may find itself dead on arrival.” Could this new initiative fail before ever getting off the ground? Another analyst declared, “Integrated Deterrence...is not a bad idea. In fact, it is a good one. But it’s not a strategy.” With these concerns in mind, this brief will explore what ID entails and assess its possible effectiveness.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Nuclear Weapons on the Battlefield: Arriving sooner rather than later?

  Tad Schnaufer II

  Imagine a Russian Colonel receiving an order from Moscow to deploy a tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) on the Ukrainian frontline. His next order – “Nuke ‘em” – rapidly changes the battlespace and in fact, the world. Since the inception of nuclear weapons in 1945, the threat of nuclear war has loomed over the globe. J. R. Oppenheimer, after the first successful test of an atomic bomb, recalled the Hindi scripture Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." The power of nuclear weapons, along with the possibility of their use has only escalated since then. Starting in 1947, the threat of nuclear annihilation has been measured in part by the renowned “Doomsday Clock.” Today, the clock reads the closest to global catastrophe than at any other time in its history. As the war in Ukraine drags on, and the frontlines stagnate, global decision makers fear that President Vladimir Putin’s Russia may look to turn the tide or gain a domestic win by making good on his threats to use nuclear weapons. In 2022, Putin made it clear that, “To defend Russia and our people, we doubtlessly will use all weapons [and] resources at our disposal...This is not a bluff.”

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Strategic Competition in the Arctic: Sooner or Later?

  Tad Schnaufer

  The Arctic has a reputation for being dark, cold, and inhospitable but melting sea ice has made natural resources more accessible and opened shipping lanes, drawing the attention of the great powers. In 1996, to deal with competing interests the eight Arctic nations (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) signed the Ottawa Treaty creating the Arctic Council. This council is an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation in the region and involves 13 non-Arctic nations including China, France, India, Japan, and Poland. Most of the Arctic nations are U.S. Allies. Once Sweden joins NATO, Russia will be the only Arctic nation not in the alliance. Even with its allies, American capabilities in the region are challenged by Russia. Comparatively, Russia has extensive infrastructure and military bases in the region and has amassed the largest icebreaker fleet in the world with 46 ships. The United States has five and China only three. Even if the United States and its allies combined assets, it would number only 40 icebreakers. Icebreakers alone do not indicate a nation’s Arctic capability, but provide one indicator to be considered along with military bases, regional infrastructure, and air forces. Considering this situation, three main factors have pulled the great powers to the region. (1) The year-on-year reduction of sea ice has allowed greater access to shipping lanes and natural resources. (2) New technologies have made the region more accessible. This includes modern icebreakers, all-weather airstrips, drones, floating nuclear power plants, regional infrastructure improvements, and remote- sensing equipment. (3) The Arctic could provide alternative sources of oil and Rare Earth Elements (REE). With this purported opening of the Arctic, how should the United States and its allies respond?

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  GNSI Decision Brief: The National Guard's State Partnership Program in Strategic Competition

  Tad Schnaufer

  Both the National Security (NSS) and National Defense Strategies (NDS) make it clear that the US is "in the midst of a strategic competition" with Russia and China. Both documents highlight the strengths the US has in this competitive environment, notably its allies and partners. The NSS states, "The United States' unrivaled network of allies and partners protects and advances our interests around the world--and is the envy of our adversaries." The US employs a variety of methods to maintain this invaluable network. One expanding method is the National Guard's State Partnership Program (SPP). The SPP establishes formal relationships between State National Guard units and foreign militaries to share experiences and skills to address security challenges. Created in 1993 to support the new democracies emerging in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the SPP has expanded to include every US state and territory, who have entered into 88 partnerships with 100 nations (Some having multiple partners). For example, Texas is the only state with three partners: Egypt, Chile, and a shared partnership with Nebraska and Czechia.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Hunger as a Weapon

  Tad Schnaufer and David Himmelgreen

  Overview

  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places physiological needs as the foundation of all others.i The needs of food, water, and shelter are referred to as objects indispensable to survival (OIS). A person will think of little else until these basic needs are met, hence the power OIS have over populations. The concept of hunger as a weapon dates to the beginning of written history with Homer’s Iliad describing the siege of Troy. In war, military leaders often consider foodstuffs as it relates to their war effort while analyzing ways to use this basic need against their foe. As the quote attributed to Napoleon goes, “an army marches on its stomach.” Russian’s scorched earth policy during Napoleon’s 1812 invasion would lead to his Grande Armée’s defeat from lacking access to provisions from the countryside. This brief will examine the methods of starvation that militaries have used and continue to use in warfare. It will also explore how the United States and its allies can build resilient food supply chains to withstand crises and conflict.