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Τhe United States is facing unprecedented challenges in the cognitive domain. While democracies struggle to develop frameworks that promote collective understanding, adversaries are employing gray zone tactics—those that never rise to the level of war—as a form of cognitive warfare against the United States and other democratic societies. François du Cluzel, head of innovative projects at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s Allied Command Transformation Innovation Hub, describes the key distinctions of the emerging cognitive domain.

Ιn an era of geopolitical competition among major powers, a large-scale war could last longer and result in more casualties than anything the United States has experienced since World War II. It is unclear whether the all-volunteer force (AVF) that the United States has relied on for the past 50 years, with extraordinary and unexpected success, can meet the manpower requirements in quality and quantity and in time to win the large-scale combat operations that the Department of Defense (DOD) is preparing for.

Joint Force Quarterly recently moved the modern Web-based platform Digital Commons (https://digitalcommons. ndu.edu), to provide better access to its collection of cutting-edge and historical work on the joint force and more. Check out JFQ 114, and provide NDU Press with your feedback!

Ιn “Balancing Nonresident Joint Professional Military Education with Military Life,” Commander Doug Morea makes the salient point that the current joint professional military education (JPME) process fails the individual joint warfighter in preparing for the challenges of serving in combatant commands and other joint forces. As joint educators, we agree with Commander Morea’s premise and offer that the current JPME model not only fails the individual joint warfighter but is also wholly inadequate for what the joint force requires both today and in an uncertain future.

Graduation ceremonies for the NDU Class of 2024 were held at the Washington, D.C. campus on 13 June for CIC, CISA, ES and NWC; at the Norfolk, Va. campus on 7 June for JFSC; and the Fort Liberty, N.C. campus for CISA JSOMA on 31 May. Congratulations graduates!

One of the driving factors in the publishing world since the widespread use of the Internet is digital content delivery. Joint Force Quarterly readers will note that JFQ—the journal of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—has been available digitally since summer 1997, with JFQ 16.

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) recognized the achievement of its 2024 Winter Quarter graduates during the school’s latest commencement ceremony in King Hall Auditorium, Mar. 29. U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael T. Plehn, 17th President of the National Defense University, served as the keynote speaker for 206 graduates, including 19 international students from 12 countries.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Washington to rethink its fundamental assumptions about Moscow. Every U.S. president from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden had sought some degree of engagement with Russia. As late as 2021, Biden expressed hope that Russia and the United States could arrive at “a stable, predictable relationship.” But Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine has radically altered that assessment. It is now clear that the two countries will remain antagonists for years to come. The Kremlin possesses immense disruptive global power and is willing to take great risks to advance its geopolitical agenda. Coping with Russia will demand a long-term strategy, one that echoes containment, which guided the United States through the Cold War, or what President John F. Kennedy called a “long, twilight struggle” against the Soviet Union.