The Friday Formation
Friday, 07 August 2026
This week’s dispatch on Army writing, leadership, and learning.
🗓️ Editor’s Note
The battlefield is getting harder to hide on, and this week the branch journals are wrestling with what that means for the oldest job in the Army: finding the enemy before he finds you.
Armor’s Summer 2026 edition is built around that question, and it’s worth your time. I want to specifically call your attention for the second week in a row to MAJ Atticus Blair’s “To Infinity and Beyond,” which makes the case for standing up a Cavalry Branch to own reconnaissance and unmanned systems together. Agree or disagree, Blair is doing what this project exists to encourage — taking a structural problem the Army keeps rediscovering, and keeps deferring, and putting a hard argument on paper. So is Sarah Adams in “No Place to Hide” at the Modern War Institute, and so is LTC Dave Chen in “Innovation Is a Command Problem.” The through-line: the institution has to choose deliberately, before the next war chooses for it.
The sustainment community turned out in force this week, too — the Army Sustainment summer issue alone could carry a Formation. Plenty here. Get after it.
Chris
🏛️ Featured Leadership Essays
🐎 To Infinity and Beyond: A Future For The U.S. Army Cavalry
MAJ R. Atticus Blair — Armor
Blair argues the Army should stand up a Cavalry Branch to own reconnaissance and unmanned systems together, citing Ukraine’s drone war, ARSTRUC squadron cuts, and the precedents that created Aviation, Cyber, and Special Forces. The week’s biggest institutional argument.
🛰️ No Place to Hide: Warfare in the Age of Persistent Observation
Sarah Adams — Modern War Institute
Persistent sensors are erasing the ability to hide on the modern battlefield. Adams lays out what that means for how formations move, mass, and survive — a problem for the company and battalion right now.
🧠 Innovation Is a Command Problem
LTC Yu-Sheng (Dave) Chen — From the Green Notebook
Innovation competes for the same finite resources as today’s readiness and tomorrow’s modernization. Chen argues the commander’s job is to govern innovation, not merely encourage it.
📚 Resources & Calls
● Recommended Articles – Army University Press
● Professional Writing Playlist (YouTube) – Talks and discussions on military writing.
● Professional Military Writing – Military Review – Why writing matters.
● Army FAO Association Podcasts – FAO professional development listening.
🧰 TL;DR
● Quick Read: Teach Junior Officers How to Negotiate
● Deep Dive: To Infinity and Beyond: A Future For The U.S. Army Cavalry
● Listen: MWI Podcast: How Commanders Win Wars
● For the Formation: Think Different: The Leadership Mindset That Drives Innovation
⚔️ Warfighting
🐴 Inform, Protect, and Fight: A Cavalry Prospectus
LTC Matthew B. Schardt — Armor
A companion to the Summer 2026 cavalry debate: how reconnaissance formations should inform, protect, and fight on a transparent battlefield.
🐎 To Infinity and Beyond: A Future For The U.S. Army Cavalry
MAJ R. Atticus Blair — Armor
Blair argues the Army should stand up a Cavalry Branch to own reconnaissance and unmanned systems together, citing Ukraine’s drone war, ARSTRUC squadron cuts, and the precedents that created Aviation, Cyber, and Special Forces. The week’s biggest institutional argument.
🛰️ No Place to Hide: Warfare in the Age of Persistent Observation
Sarah Adams — Modern War Institute
Persistent sensors are erasing the ability to hide on the modern battlefield. Adams lays out what that means for how formations move, mass, and survive — a problem for the company and battalion right now.
🥋 DINOCAVE: Train Forms of Contact to Build Combined Arms and Multi-Domain Warfighters
LTG Gary M. Klein — Armor
Using the forms of contact as a training framework to build combined-arms and multidomain warfighters.
🔍 From Collection to Decision: Reimagining Tactical Intelligence
George Gurrola and Martayn Van de Wall — Modern War Institute
Rethinking how tactical intelligence turns raw collection into timely decisions at the edge of the fight.
🕵️ From Indicators to Action: Reforming Army Intelligence for Future Conflict
LTC George Fust — Military Intelligence (MIPB)
Fust argues Army MI remains bound by legacy, maneuver-centric models, and offers a roadmap for reform toward technical proficiency and realistic threat emulation.
☢️ What Makes a Weapon Too Horrific to Use?
Lauren Sukin, David M. Allison, and Stephen Herzog — Irregular Warfare Initiative
The norms that make some weapons taboo — and what they mean for deterrence and escalation.
🚢 Floating Liabilities: Aircraft Carriers in the Age of Precision Strike and Irregular Warfare
Tahir Mahmood Azad — Irregular Warfare Initiative
Are carriers becoming liabilities as precision strike and irregular threats proliferate? A provocative case for rethinking the capital ship.
💣 Possible Is Not Plausible: How Nightmare Scenarios Hijack Unconventional Weapons Policy
April Arnold and Al Mauroni — War on the Rocks
Worst-case thinking distorts CBRN policy. The authors argue for grounding decisions in plausibility, not just possibility.
Christopher Lee — Small Wars Journal
How China could target the seams in allied warfighting networks across the first island chain — and what resilience requires.
🎯 Nickel and DIMEd: Trading DIME’s “Participation Awards” for Mutually Reinforcing Capabilities
Matt Armstrong — Small Wars Journal
A critique of how the U.S. wields the instruments of national power — and a call to make them actually reinforce one another.
📜 The Real Stakes of Great Power Competition: Politics of Frustration (Dusty Shelves)
Thomas Bruscino — War Room (USAWC)
Bruscino mines a century-old study of German war plans to show great power competition is a profound, enduring problem.
📡 The Silent Battlefield: Information Warfare Maneuver in the Era of Strategic Competition
MAJ Scott C. Hall – Military Review — Online Exclusive
Treating information warfare as a form of maneuver in its own right during strategic competition.
🔧 Delivering Ready Combat Power
🌊 Combat Water Survival: Critical Training for Large-Scale Combat Operations
CPT Travis B. Smith and 1LT Samuel K. Wishon — Infantry
How Blackhorse Company prepared for a complex wet-gap crossing of the Imjin River during Freedom Shield 25 by integrating combat water survival, egress, and boat training.
⚔️ Restoring the Offense in Contemporary Combat (Podcast)
Erick Buckner, Kevin Krupski, Michael Moore, and Tom Galvin — War Room (USAWC)
Is maneuver warfare dead? Carlisle scholars push back on the growing belief that the defense now dominates modern combat.
LTC James I. Vansandt III — Infantry
A pitch to captains on why commanding an Infantry OSUT company at Benning is a demanding, high-impact leadership assignment — and dispelling the myths around it.
🍽️ Closing the Gap: Making Sustainment as Agile as the Fight It Feeds
1LT Alexis LeBlanc — Army Sustainment
The case for lighter, more survivable sustainment kit — Tactical Light Fuelers, lightweight water purification, lighter vehicles — to keep pace in INDOPACOM.
📦 Property Accountability Through a Withdrawal: Effectively Retrograding and Reposturing Forces
CPT Hunter A. Everett — Army Sustainment
A case study in accounting for $90M-plus in equipment during retrograde and reposturing under Operation Inherent Resolve — without loss.
CW3 Heidi-Ann T. Holmes — Army Sustainment
How the Tactical Field Readiness Training Center bridges institutional training and battlefield realism to make field feeding a genuine combat multiplier.
CPT Nicholas Maule – Military Police
The case for rebuilding MP survivability and relevance for large-scale combat operations.
⚕️ Preserving Combat Power: Executing Combat and Operational Stress Control in LSCO
CPT Sarah Duff – Pulse of Army Medicine
How combat and operational stress control preserves combat power across a large-scale fight.
🛡️ CBRN Company Task Organization for Persistent and Nonpersistent Threat Environments
CPT Anthony J. Diaz – Protection
Task-organizing the CBRN company for both persistent and nonpersistent threat environments.
🏗️ By Engineers, For Engineers: Reflecting on 20 Years of JEOC
Michelle Kokoski and Ed Lefler – Engineer
Two decades of the Joint Engineer Operations Course, and lessons for the regiment.
🔄 Continuous Transformation
🧠 Innovation Is a Command Problem
LTC Yu-Sheng (Dave) Chen — From the Green Notebook
Innovation competes for the same finite resources as today’s readiness and tomorrow’s modernization. Chen argues the commander’s job is to govern innovation, not merely encourage it.
🔄 The Revolution of Army Sustainment: Strengthening the Sustainment Warfighter Profession
LTC Xeon Simpson — Army Sustainment
Simpson argues sustainment is undergoing a revolution, not an evolution: converging AI, cyber, space, and drone threats have made logistics a contested warfighting system.
💻 Can Cyber Operations Be Deterred? What Wargames Reveal
Ruby Booth and Andrew W. Reddie — War on the Rocks
What repeated wargames actually reveal about whether cyber operations can be deterred.
🎲 One Game Can’t Answer the Arctic Question: Inside NATO’s Bet on Multi-Level Wargaming
Stephen L. Nelson and Eleanor Ross — Small Wars Journal
NATO is betting on AI-enabled, multi-level wargaming to wrestle with Arctic security. What that approach can — and can’t — deliver.
🐎 Enabling Maneuver – Imagining the Next Chapter in Armored Warfare
Joshua Suthoff — Small Wars Journal
How AI, autonomy, and evolving doctrine could reshape armored maneuver in the next fight.
📜 Strengthening the Profession of Arms
📊 Forging the Sustainment Functional Data Analyst
MAJ Kyle Weinerth — Army Sustainment
Institutionalizing analytics in sustainment through the new L9 Skill Identifier, formal talent management, and a phased billet plan.
🤝 Teach Junior Officers How to Negotiate
Jason Ruggieri — From the Green Notebook
Negotiation isn’t just for business — it’s a core leadership skill junior officers use every day, and one we rarely teach.
🎬 The Long Way Home: Moral Injury and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
Patrick Sullivan — Modern War Institute
Using Homer and Nolan to think through moral injury and the long road home for those who fight.
📖 MWI Book Club: Defeat Into Victory
Theo Lipsky and John Amble — Modern War Institute
A discussion of Field Marshal Slim’s classic on leadership, learning, and turning defeat into victory.
🎧 MWI Podcast: How Commanders Win Wars
John Amble — Modern War Institute
What separates commanders who win from those who don’t — drawing on Washington’s desperate 1776 campaign and beyond.
💡 Think Different: The Leadership Mindset That Drives Innovation
Zach Fisher — Military Mentors
A Growler pilot on how leaders shape culture by challenging assumptions and creating room for teams to think differently.
🎓 Exploring Ways to Improve the Civilian Education System (CES) Through Program Evaluation
David T. Culkin, PhD – Army Civilian Journal (ACPJ)
Applying program evaluation to strengthen the Army’s Civilian Education System.
🧭 About the Harding Project Substack
The Harding Project Substack is the volunteer-run platform to support professional writing for the US Army.
The one-stop shop for all branch journal articles is the Line of Departure website – check it out to get your daily dose of Army professional development! If you have good ideas or lessons to share with our network, please pen them and send them our way at submissions@hardingproject.com.
We’re renewing professional writing across the force—one Friday at a time. Read. Reflect. Act. The profession doesn’t stand still, and neither should we.
⭐Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this Substack are the authors’ personal perspectives as private individuals. They do not represent the official views, policies, or positions of the U.S. Government, the U.S. Army, or any other government agency or military organization.
Any references to military topics, doctrine, history, or current events are for informational, educational, or discussion purposes only and should not be interpreted as official guidance, strategy, or representation of U.S. Army or Department of War positions.
Readers are encouraged to consult official sources for authoritative information.
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