Strategic Blind Spots in Modern Conflict

TOPIC SPONSOR: JSOU

Blind spots, or the inability to see something clearly despite evidence, can be caused by a wide variety of factors, from inherent or learned biases to preconceived notions and “mirror imaging” (seeing ourselves in the “other”).  Are there useful methods of blind spot analysis that could be utilized to uncover obsolete, incomplete, or incorrect assumptions? What role do historical case studies play in overcoming blind spots? How can the study of lessons learned from recent operations provide valuable insights to help the DoD avoid these pitfalls?

• Acuna, Maj. Fernando Suito, "The Missing Link: A Path Forward for Integrating Remotely Piloted Aircraft within Joint All-Domain Operations," AFGC thesis, 2025, 43 pgs. 

  • Acuna uses the historical case study of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) to highlight how the Air Force developed a severe institutional blind spot regarding RPA survivability. Because RPAs operated almost exclusively in permissive, uncontested airspace during counterinsurgency missions, the military fell into a "competency trap"—optimizing the platforms for long-loiter persistence rather than survivability. He warns that these obsolete assumptions regarding predictable flight orbits and guaranteed communication links have left the current RPA enterprise wholly unprepared for modern A2/AD threat environments.

• Bonnet, Yann, "The Atomic Bomb Was the Only Thing That Saved My Life: How US Museums Present the End of the Pacific War," SAASS thesis, 2025, 108 pgs.

  • Bonnet uses the historical case study of Japan's surrender in the Pacific War to expose and correct a massive strategic blind spot: the pervasive belief that atomic bombs independently end and win wars. Through a comprehensive literature review, he demonstrates that Japan's capitulation was actually a multicausal event driven by conventional airpower, the naval blockade, the Soviet declaration of war, fears of a mainland invasion, and domestic regime considerations—not just the atomic strikes. Bonnet warns that relying on the mythical "knock-out punch" narrative leaves US strategists with a fundamentally flawed historical analogy for how conflicts terminate, and he insists that overcoming this blind spot through accurate historical education is critical to making sound, unbiased foreign policy and military decisions in the future.

• Caudill, Dylan Lyle, "Blood in the Boondocks: American Counterinsurgency Strategy in the Philippine War, 1899-1902," SAASS thesis, 2025, 110 pgs.

  • Caudill uses the historical case study of the Philippine-American War to highlight and overcome the US military's strategic blind spots in modern interventions like Iraq and Afghanistan. He argues that the Department of Defense suffers from a "persistent flaw" and institutional memory failure where it tends to prioritize overwhelming firepower, force protection, and short-term objectives over the granular, long-term civilian control needed to defeat an insurgency. By studying the lessons of the Philippine campaign, Caudill shows that counterinsurgency success requires a willingness to accept operational risk, decentralize command, and maintain a sustained, localized presence. He asserts that forgetting these historical lessons ensures that the military will painfully and expensively relearn them, making this historical case study vital for avoiding the pitfall of relying on firepower over persistent engagement.

• Hedberg, Maj. Anders, "The Dieppe Raid: Foundation for Combined Operations in WWII," ACSC Elective Paper (WWII and the Operational Art), 2020, 21 pgs. 

• Higgins, Christopher J., "Strategic Planning for Refugee Integration into the United States: Lessons Learned from Afghan Resettlement Post 2021," SAASS thesis, 2025, 77 pgs. 

  • Higgins uses the historical case study of the 2021 Afghan resettlement (Operation Allies Welcome), comparatively evaluated alongside the post-1975 Vietnamese, Iraqi, and Syrian refugee waves, to identify and overcome massive strategic blind spots in U.S. interagency planning. He demonstrates that the U.S. government suffered from a reactive, ad hoc approach during the Afghan Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO), leading to severe blind spots regarding legal ambiguity (humanitarian parole status), housing shortages, and underemployment. To avoid these pitfalls in future operations, Higgins applies Step Two of the Joint Planning Process (Mission Analysis) and the Theory of Planned Behavior to these lessons learned, asserting that the U.S. must preemptively coordinate federal, state, and local authorities. By establishing a National Refugee Integration Strategy and pre-staging legislative frameworks like an Afghan Adjustment Act, he shows how historical lessons provide a blueprint to transform chaotic crisis management into a sustainable, structured integration system that anticipates rather than reacts to problems.

• Isom, Joshua M., "2022 Russian Ukrainian War: Analysis Using Three Deterrence Models," SAASS thesis, 2025, 77 pgs. 

  • Isom answers this by arguing that an oversimplified, deductive approach to deterrence creates dangerous blind spots, leading defenders to overestimate their own credibility or misunderstand the adversary's true risk calculus. To uncover and mitigate these blind spots, Isom advocates for utilizing a combination of three structured deterrence models to reduce analytical biases. He suggests that George and Smoke's model forces strategists to confront subjective assumptions about an adversary's mindset, while Huth and Russett's objective metrics (such as local military balances and trade ratios) prevent strategists from relying on overly optimistic or idealistic opinions of their own deterrence posture. By applying these structured models together, strategists can slow down, conduct deeper analyses, and avoid the blind spots that contributed to the U.S. failure to deter Russia in 2022.

• Kearney-Kurt, Christine, "Overcoming Strategic Blind Spots in Airlift Operations," AFGC thesis, 2025, 35 pgs.

  • Kearney-Kurt uses historical case studies of airlift missions—including the Berlin Airlift, Operation DESERT SHIELD, and Operation ALLIES REFUGE—to identify consistent blind spots that have plagued planners for 75 years. She notes that planners frequently make obsolete or incorrect assumptions regarding environmental factors, damaged infrastructure, dynamic security threats, and aging aircraft availability. To eliminate these blind spots, she recommends abandoning inflexible, pre-developed plans in favor of standardized, synchronized checklists that allow aircrews and ground personnel to make real-time adjustments based on actual mission conditions.

• Litz, Lt. Col. Nathan A., "Avoiding Accepted Blind Spots in Strategic Assessment," GCPME thesis, 2023, 40 pgs. 

• McBride, Maj. Lukhma, "The Chadian Way of War: Implications for Operations in the Sahel," SAASS thesis, 2025, 138 pgs.

  • McBride uses historical case studies of Chadian military campaigns to expose and correct a major Western strategic blind spot: the pervasive assumption that technological arms races guarantee victory and that modern conflicts should default to short, constrained, and risk-averse frameworks. Through his analysis of Chad's operational art, he highlights that Western strategists often impose cognitive barriers on themselves by predefining what is rational or proportionate, which leads them to reject the role of friction and forfeit battlefield initiative to the adversary. By studying the "Chadian Way of War," McBride argues that the DoD can avoid these pitfalls by recognizing that decisive victory in austere environments like the Sahel requires extreme logistical minimalism, operational endurance, and commanders who are willing to take calculated, aggressive risks rather than relying solely on technological overmatch.

• McFarlane, Maj. Brandon L, "Precision vs. Strategy: Evaluating the Joint Targeting Enterprise's Role in Achieving U.S. Long-Term Objectives," AFGC thesis, 2025, 42 pgs. 

  • McFarlane relies heavily on historical case studies—spanning the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—to expose a massive strategic blind spot in modern U.S. military doctrine: the incorrect assumption that "tactical precision equals strategic success." His analysis uncovers that despite technological advancements, the Joint Targeting Enterprise (JTE) repeatedly fell into the same historical pitfalls, such as relying on presence-based profiling that defaults to treating all military-aged males in a strike zone as combatants. To help the DoD avoid repeating these mistakes, McFarlane recommends that historical targeting failures be formally integrated into professional military education and targeting schoolhouses to reinforce ethical awareness and strategic foresight.

• Nelson, Maj. Erik C., "The Short War Expectation: German Perceptions and Cognitive Mechanisms Leading into World War I," SAASS thesis, 2023, 96 pgs. 

• Raudy, Maj. Kristine Anne Laughlin, "Extreme Heat and Military Operations: Evaluating Health Risks and Mitigation Strategies," AFGC thesis, 2025, 60 pgs. 

  • Raudy's health surveillance data uncovers a major strategic blind spot regarding the military's obsolete assumptions about heat risk. She reveals that current military doctrine is flawed because it relies strictly on high ambient temperatures to trigger heat stress measures. Her research proves this assumption incorrect, showing that 84% of heat exhaustion and heat stroke incidents occur on days without black flag conditions, and 20% happen when conditions don't even meet military thresholds. She also exposes a massive blind spot in medical surveillance, noting that up to 62% of outpatient heat exhaustion cases and 45% of outpatient heat stroke cases go entirely unreported in the military's DRSI system. To fix this, she recommends recalibrating heat stress thresholds to account for moderate conditions and mandating real-time.