§ Insights
Perspectives on leader development, experimentation, and capability — and reviews of the books that shape how we think about leading and learning. Written by COL (Ret) Chris Willis.
The twenty-hour HISTORY Channel series as command education and a study in strategic communication — the map before the terrain walk of the campaign histories.
Book ReviewHow the postwar order was deliberately engineered — Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and the long-horizon leadership that built eighty years of peace on purpose.
Book ReviewWhy ubiquitous sensors and precision fires may have made twentieth-century maneuver doctrine obsolete — and a research agenda for the force that must replace it.
Concept AssessmentThe Marine Corps' human-centric framework for future ground forces — five pillars, a phased path to 2040, and the experimentation that will decide whether it holds.
Book ReviewThe OSS Operational Groups — immigrant soldiers who became the forerunners of Army Special Forces — and a founding case study in building capability from nothing.
Book ReviewA cavalry officer’s poems on service, loss, and the long ride home — and why a leader’s emotional honesty may be the most protective example he can set.
Book ReviewThe eight surrenders that ended the Second World War — and the case-study anthology in conflict termination that every leader who plans operations without planning endings should read.
Book ReviewThe War in the West, Vol. 2: how coalition machinery, operational research, and honest after-action learning turned the tide from 1941 to 1943.
Book ReviewThe War in the West, Vol. 1: why the Wehrmacht's early victories concealed fatal weakness — and what net assessment misses without the logistics ledger.
Book ReviewMonte Cassino, Anzio, and the liberation of Rome — the brutal conclusion of the Italian Campaign trilogy, and its lessons for sustained large-scale combat operations.
Book ReviewOperation Chastise as a case study in rapid capability development: from unproven concept to war-changing raid in under ten weeks — and the leadership that made it possible.
Book ReviewHow the Army and Marine Corps forged joint ground operations across five Central Pacific invasions — and why integration is forged by leaders, not declared by doctrine.
Article · I/ITSEC 2023Combining human-in-the-loop and closed-loop constructive simulation to capture the strengths of both — real-world applicability and statistical significance — in warfighting experiments.
Article · I/ITSEC 2021Who accredits your experiments? A cross-functional framework for accrediting the entire simulation experiment — models, scenario, environment, and analysis — not just the M&S.
Book ReviewThe Army's greatest soldier-statesman as a field manual for leader development: talent management as a weapon system, candor as a career strategy, selflessness as strategic capital.
Book ReviewThe story of the Maven Smart System, reviewed through a Battle Lab lens: what a decade of AI-warfare development teaches about experimentation, iteration, and fielding capability under friction.
Book ReviewOperation Husky and the first assault on Fortress Europe — timeless lessons on Joint Forcible Entry Operations, airborne fragility, and air and naval superiority.
Book ReviewSalerno and the battle for Italy, 1943 — what an infantry-centric slog against a determined defender teaches the modern student of large-scale combat operations.
Book ReviewThe Sherwood Rangers' transformation from horse cavalry to legendary tank regiment — and its lessons for the Army Transformation Initiative.