Forcibly removing Saddam Hussein from power was arguably the most momentous act of the Bush administration, its effects profound and far-reaching.

In 1994, after serving as an organizational consultant for General Gordon Sullivan, then U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Margaret Wheatley wrote an article about the U.S. Army becoming a learning organization.

Over the last eight years, one question has repeatedly come up in regard to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: How many soldiers are enough?

As of 2008, nearly 200,000 private contractors supported or supplemented military operations in Iraq, with about 30,000 of them providing security services.

Hybrid war may not yet be reducible to a pristine, doctrine-ready definition. Continued efforts by Hoffman and others to describe it, how¬ever, remain invaluable.2 This trend is admittedly unsatisfying to concept developers and doctrine writers.

The U.S. Army has made significant investments in its future, especially in its leadership. In particular, the Army has devoted billions of dollars to officer undergraduate-level education, world class training, and developmental experiences. Since the late 1980s, however, prospects for the Officer Corps' future have been darkened by an ever-diminishing return on this investment, as evidenced by plummeting company-grade officer retention rates. Significantly, this leakage includes a large share of high-performing officers, many of them developed via a fully-funded undergraduate education.

On Oct. 1, 2009, U.S. Army Africa, formerly the U.S. Army Southern European Task Force (SETAF) became the Army Service Component Command (ASCC) for U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM). That designation reflects some modest, but significant, good news; a year earlier, USAFRICOM had no dedicated Army Service Component Command. Today, U.S. Army Africa embodies the U.S. Army's commitment to the full spectrum of military operations.

Economic activities are the most central of all human endeavors. Although rich in human and geographic diversity, Africa has fallen behind the rest of the world in its economic development, adversely impacting African aspirations. This paper explains why economic development and good governance need to be the basis of security and stability in Africa, and why both should be a main focus for U. S. military engagement on the continent.

Africa's profile rose sharply during the George W. Bush administration. President Bush expressed the strategic change in unequivocal terms: "Africa is increasingly vital to our strategic interests. We have seen that conditions on the other side of the world can have a direct impact on our own security." Bush more than quadrupled the aid sent to Africa.

In 2000, the Zambezi River experienced significant flooding, and the nation of Mozambique was ill equipped to deal with the humanitarian disaster that followed. Homes were swept away, thousands of people were displaced, and 700 perished, leading to the deployment of a U.S. civilian disaster assistance response team and U.S. military forces to provide medical assistance and security to help Mozambique stabilize the situation.