Icarus Meets Mars

The chapter argues that strategic-level military education should be updated to confront the increasingly complex and multifarious environment of modern conflicts. Strategic theory based on the familiar trinity of ends (policy), ways (strategy) and means (tactics) adapted to traditional wars between state actors is insufficient to tackle modern battlespaces such as Syria and Libya, fraught with non-state entities, transnational issues and delicate alliances. Modern counterinsurgency operations and the highly fluctuating globalized political arena demands greater flexibility and adaptability both at a national and international level and in the associated education programs for leaders being prepared to operate in these environments.