"The purpose of this thesis is to address the current need for a unified or sub-unified military egional combatant command headquarters within Africa. The United States needs such a command in order to protect U.S. national interests, provide a proactive forward deployed stance against the Global War On Terrorism (GWOT), and better execute crisis resource contingency operations throughout the entire continent of Africa. Thus, this thesis will argue that given the continued focus on the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), the United States should consider establishing a future political-military organization such as a unified or sub-unified African Regional Combatant Command (ARCC) and a Regional African Special Operations Command (RA-SOC) to both promote democratic initiatives and regional stability within the region, and to better assist and support U.S. national security interests by deterring and defeating international and regional terrorist networks well away from US borders. This newly proposed organization, at a minimum, should have a forward deployed political-military element positioned and located somewhere within the region of Sub-Saharan African. Specifically, this thesis will recommend that this proposed forward deployed regional headquarters should strategically be located within the sub-region of West Africa or East Africa."--p.i.

Immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001, a small number of U.S. Army Special Forces (USSF) invaded the Al Qaeda safe haven of Afghanistan. USSF A-teams, operating with almost total independence, conducted highly successful Unconventional Warfare "through, with, and by" the indigenous Afghan militias of the Northern Alliance. The USSF and their indigenous Afghan armies rapidly deposed the Taliban regime and denied the Al Qaeda terrorists their training and support areas within Afghanistan. The momentum of the initial success achieved by USSF during 2001-2002, however, has been dramatically overshadowed by the inability of follow-on U.S. forces to establish long-term stability in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. Since 2002, the conventional U.S./Coalition forces, which replaced Army USSF as the main U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) forces, have thus far failed to defeat the re-emerging Taliban/Al Qaeda threat. In fact, 2005 has been the most violent year-to-date for U.S./Coalition forces serving in Afghanistan with 239 U.S. casualties, and President Hamid Karzai's central Afghan government exhibiting little control outside its major cities. This trend continues in 2006. In this thesis we question the current U.S./Coalition campaign plan, which places emphasis on conventional military forces, not USSF, as the main effort COIN force in Operation Enduring Freedom. We propose an alternative Unconventional COIN model which focuses on population control instead of "clear and sweep operations", Afghan constabulary-style forces instead of conventional Afghan National Army troops, the importance of "grassroots" intelligence collection at the village level, and the employment of USSF advisors instead of conventional U.S. infantry troops. / US Army (USA) author. updated aq 06/29/2011.

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Gordon McCormick, George Lober. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-80). Also available online.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Gaye Christoffersen, Douglas J. MacKinon. Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-85). Also available online.

Thesis (MSocSc) -- University of South Australia, 1994

Thesis (M.S. in in Securities Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2007. / Thesis Advisor(s): Brannan, David. "September 2007." Description based on title screen as viewed on February 15, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-132). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S. in Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2008. / Thesis Advisor(s): Doyle, Richard. "December 2008." Description based on title screen as viewed on February 6, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-60). Also available in print.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M.S. in Systems Technology (Command, Control, and Communications) and M.S. in Space Systems Operations)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Pfeiffer, Karl D. ; Bursch, Dan W. "June 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on July 13, 2009. DTIC Identifiers: Energy change detection, ECD (Energy Change Detection), SIGINT (Signals Intelligence), Global War on Terror, information theory. Author(s) subject terms: Tactical Intelligence, Leavitt's Diamond, OODA Loop, Kendall's Notation, Global War on Terror (GWOT), Energy Change Detection, Information Theory, Information Entropy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-80). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S.S. (Political Sciences)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008.