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  Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces (Paperback and Kindle editions) (Mobipocket edition) by Lutz Unterseher with preface by Charles Knight and a chapter by Carl Conetta. Ryckschau, Berlin, June 2009. This book focuses on the most challenging set of tasks for today's military interventions: those required for the stabilization of countries seriously affected by civil war or insurgency. Primarily this is a mission for the ground forces and appropriate forces must be designed to be more robust than traditional peacekeepers and less aggressively violent than traditional war fighters.
A Few Thoughts on the Evolution of Infantry: Past, Present, Future by Lutz Unterseher, Guest Publication, Studiengruppe Alternative Sicherheitspolitik, Berlin, Germany, May 2006 (printable full text .pdf). Subduing resistance and guarding the peace in modern interventions requires high quality infantry, but it is erroneous to think the job could be done by elite SOF forces, because there can never be enough of these. The vast majority of the all-volunteer armies in the industrial West face a problem when it comes to attracting sufficient personnel: relatively few recruits are good enough to receive the more demanding training needed -- creating a dilemma that has rarely been addressed and one that certainly is yet to be solved by today's armies.
Mechanized Tube Artillery as an Integral Element of Expeditionary Forces by Lutz Unterseher, Guest Commentary, Studiengruppe Alternative Sicherheitspolitik, Berlin, Germany, May 2006 (printable full text .pdf). In seeking improved strategic mobility of indirect fire assets nations are advised to trade on tactical performance with care.
We Can See Clearly Now: The Limits of Foresight in the pre-World War II Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) (full text .html) (printable full text .pdf) by Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #12, 02 March 2006. Irresolvable uncertainty attends every military revolution. Reviewing the RMA that preceded the Second World War, the essay concludes that one quality distinguishing "early adopters" is their willingness to accept risk -- a trait often associated with a revisionist strategic agenda. Nothing can resolve "RMA uncertainty", but the best way to manage it is to develop capacities for rapid adaptation.
Arms Control in an Age of Strategic and Military Revolution (full text .html) (printable full text .pdf) by Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #11, 15 November 2005. Examines the impact of military transformation and US primacy on arms control and nonproliferation efforts. Advances in precision warfare, military robotics, directed energy weapons, and "less lethal" weapons are reviewed and their inplications for arms control explored.
Is There a New Warfare: America's Post 9/11 Wars by Carl Conetta, Security Studies Program Seminar, MIT, 15 September 2004.
Disappearing the Dead: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Idea of a "New Warfare" (full text .html) (executive summary .html) (printable full text .pdf) (printable executive summary .pdf) by Carl Conetta. PDA Research Monograph #9, 18 February 2004. Examines the Pentagon's treatment of the civilian casualty issue in the Iraq and Afghan wars, reviews the "spin" and "news frames" used by defense officials to shape the public debate over casualties, and critiques the concept of a "precision warfare" as misleading. Case studies include the Baghdad bombing campaign. An appendix provides a comprehensive Guide to Surveys and Reporting on Casualties in the Afghan and Iraq Wars.
Saving General Shinseki: on the future of wheeled armor (full text .html) (full text .pdf) by Lutz Unterseher. PDA Guest Publication, February 2004. Presents the specifications for a 'hybrid' combat vehicle featuring: considerable, versatile firepower (kinetic energy and fragmentation) without the weight penalty of a main gun system; a high degree of crew protection; better strategic mobility than current tracked armor; superior operational mobility; and acceptable tactical mobility.
Catastrophic Interdiction: Air Power and the Collapse of the Iraqi Field Army in the 2003 War by Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #30, 26 September 2003 (.pdf file). Examines how air power helped bring about the collapse of the Iraqi Republican Guard and regular army in the 2003 war. Compares the air campaigns of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Desert Storm, and estimates combatant casualties due to air interdiction in the 2003 war.
What Colin Powell Showed Us: The End of Arms Control and the Normalization of War by Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Report #14, 05 May 2003. An appreciation of the value and limits of arms control is necessary in order to understand how debasing the standards of proof leads ultimately to the demise of diplomacy and the unnecessary resort to war. A .pdf version is also available.
Prevention or Preemption?: towards a clarification of terminology by Volker Kroening, MdB, Project on Defense Alternatives Guest Commentary, March 2003.
First Strike Guidelines: the case of Iraq
by Charles Knight, PDA Briefing Memo #25, 16 September 2002 (revised and updated 10 March 2003, postscript added 01 March 2004). Assesses how the case of Iraq measures up within a set of guidelines for preemptive counterproliferation developed by the director of the Air Force Counterproliferation Center. Includes extensive notes with links to material relevant to making an informed decision about war.
The original 16 September 2002 edition is available in a PDF version and a HTML version.
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What Justifies Military Intervention? commentary by Charles Knight, 27 September 2001. Examines the problems for international security associated with U.S. military intervention abroad. Includes a Postscript on the "war on terrorism" (revised 01 March 2002) and Selected Readings on the doctrines of Just War, Total War, and Strategic Bombing (revised 01 March 2002).
Disengaged Warfare: Should we make a virtue of the Kosovo way of war? by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #21, May 2001. Offers a critical perspective on "strategic precision attack" in US warfighting plans and doctrine, tracing this tenet to "risk aversion" and America's diminished stake in distant conflicts. While the concept of "strategic precision attack" promises to avert battlefield risks, this memo argues that in the end it transplants the risk to the strategic level.
Rotocraft for War: Descending on a Military Dilemma by Dr. Lutz Unterseher, PDA Briefing Memo #19, May 2001. Offers a critical assessment of the value of combat helicopters in modern war with examination of the technical characteristics and limits of combat helicopters, the doctrine for their use, and issues of cost. Case studies include the Gulf War, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.
Wheels or Tracks? On the "Lightness" of Military Expeditions by Dr. Lutz Unterseher, PDA Briefing Memo #16, July 2000. Can the US Army hope to achieve its vision of a "full-spectrum" ground force riding entirely on wheeled vehicles? This paper examines the key technical and tactical issues and reviews the history of the "wheels vs. tracks" debate, looking both at operational experience and recent technological developments.
U.S. Military-Strategic Ambitions -- Expanding to Fill the post-Soviet Vacuum by Charles Knight, PDA Commentary, adapted from a panel presentation at the Council on Foreign Relations, N.Y.C, 14 June 2000. When seeking to explain why defense budgets are growing again, it is often said that U.S. policy-makers have not yet moved beyond the Cold War frame and are preparing for the proverbial "last war." Such a vantage glosses over an important change that has taken place in the last decade. The new national defense policy is not simply a lesser version of the old policy. Rather, its security goals are very much more ambitious than during the Cold War and these ambitions drive budgets higher.
Interventionism Reconsidered: Reconciling Military Action With Political Stability by Lutz Unterseher, September 1999. When troops trained, structured, and equipped for traditional peacekeeping are employed in missions such as the protection of humanitarian sanctuaries and convoys under acute threat they are not prepared for forceful measures sufficient to deal with and discourage military challenges. This paper discusses what would constitute "adequacy" of force that does not have a character or magnitude that compromises the primacy of political conflict resolution. A revised version of a paper was contributed to a 1999 workshop held at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Philosophy and Public Issues on the topic, The Ethics of Armed Intervention.
The Coming Transformation of the Muslim World by Dale F. Eickelman, July 1999. by permission of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), Philadelphia, PA, USA. This essay provides insight into forces of change in Muslim societies that contain seeds of reconciliation with Western culture and political practice. It is worth taking note of the opportunities therein for relations of respect and peace, and for avoidance of the great 'clash of civilizations' famously predicted by Samuel Huntington.
&  Post-Cold War US Military Expenditure in the Context of World Spending Trends by Carl Conetta and Charles Knight, PDA Briefing Memo #10, January 1997, ( executive summary available ). Based on a review of official data on world military spending, this study finds evidence that the strategic position of the US and its allies has improved immensely relative to the potential threat states. It also looks at regional trends and offers a perspective on the new and ambitious regional military strategy of the US.
Also available in print. $4.00 
Maneuver Warfare Principles and Terms by Carl Conetta, May 1994. A short primer originally published in Confidence-Building Defense: A Comprehensive Approach to Security & Stability in the New Era, Study Group on Alternative Security Policy and Project on Defense Alternatives.
Reflections on Information War, Casualty Aversion, and Military Research & Development after the Gulf War and the Demise of the Soviet Union by Charles Knight, Lutz Unterseher, and Carl Conetta, excerpted from "Military Research and Development after the Second Gulf War" in Smit, Grin, and Veronkov, Military Technological Innovation and Stability in a Changing World, VU University Press, Amsterdam, 1992. Internet publication by PDA, March, 2000. The Gulf War experience and the end of the Soviet Union have many implications for the future of military R&D. While the Gulf War showcased the superiority of U.S. technology and its application by well-trained soldiers, there is a real danger that in the aftermath of such one-sided conflicts the victorious industrial countries of the West will "unwittingly modernize toward increased vulnerability."
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