The Friday Formation
13 March 2026
🪖 The Friday Formation
This week’s dispatch on Army writing, leadership, and learning
Friday, 13 (spooky) March 2026
🗓️ Editor’s Note
March presses forward with urgency on every front — tactical, institutional, and strategic.
This week’s Formation brings a heavy slate: drone warfare lessons from Ukraine, the strategic dimension of the Iran conflict, ATAP strategy for officers and their units, a new Parameters issue, and a Clausewitzian moment for the profession.
The profession doesn’t wait for you to catch up. Get after it.
Chris
🏛️ Featured Leadership Essays
From Participation to Domination: How Units Can Win the Officer Army Talent Alignment Process (ATAP)
Edward Prueitt — From the Green Notebook
A practical playbook for units to move from passive ATAP participation to deliberate talent strategy — essential reading for any commander or leader with skin in the talent management game.
Budget Certainty Is Crucial to Maintaining Readiness
GEN Chris LaNeve — AUSA
The Army’s top officer makes the case for why fiscal predictability is a readiness issue, not just a budget issue.
⚔️ Warfighting
🤖 The Menace of Misunderstanding: Learning the Wrong Lessons from Ukraine’s Drone-Saturated Battlefields Charles S. Oliviero and Phil Halton — MWI
Challenges prevailing narratives about drone warfare, arguing that misreading Ukraine’s lessons risks catastrophic tactical and doctrinal miscalculation.
Officers Must Demonstrate Four Leadership Tenets by MAJ Justin Albrecht, AUSA
A framework for evaluating senior officer candidates across four disqualifying pillars: physical, medical, personal, and mental fitness.
🎙️ MWI Podcast: The Weapons Defining the Iran Conflict Host: John Amble; Guest: Tom Karako — MWI
Breaks down the missiles, drones, and air defense systems shaping the current Iran conflict and their implications for the joint force.
🚢 Sea Denial Deep Inside Russia: The Role of Special Operations Forces in Countering Warships on Inland Waters Helge Adrians — MWI
Examines how SOF can conduct sea denial against Russian naval assets on inland waterways — a capability with significant implications for future operations.
🤖 Networked for War: Lessons from Ukraine’s Ground Robots Jorge Rivero — MWI
Draws operational lessons from Ukraine’s use of ground-based robotic systems and the network requirements that make them effective.
🎙️ MWI Podcast: The Iran Conflict’s Strategic Dimension Host: John Amble; Guests: Jonathan Panikoff, Sydney Laite, and Rory Miller — MWI
Situates the Iran conflict within the broader strategic competition and examines what outcomes are actually achievable.
🛡️ A Worst-Case Scenario for the War with Iran Kerry Boyd Anderson — War on the Rocks
A sober assessment of how the Iran conflict could spiral beyond current assumptions and planning horizons.
🎙️ The Spear: Ranger Missions in Iraq and Afghanistan Host: Charles Faint; Guest: Marty Skovlund — MWI
A ground-level account of Ranger operations across two decades of war and what those missions demand of leaders and Soldiers.
🇮🇷 Iran’s Proxy Network Strategy Dr. Joe Funderburke — IWI
Maps Iran’s proxy architecture and the strategic logic behind building and sustaining distributed armed networks.
🇵🇸 Human in the Loop Khyati Singh — SWJ
Interrogates the doctrine of human oversight in autonomous weapons and where it risks becoming a hollow safeguard.
🇬🇦 Gaza and the Logic of High-Intensity Urban Warfare Danny Orbach, Jonathan Boxman, Yagil Henkin, and Jonathan Braverman — War on the Rocks
Analyzes the operational logic and constraints of high-intensity urban combat through the lens of Gaza.
🔭 Schrodinger’s Security Partner: The Paradox of Measuring Security Force Assistance Jahara Matisek — SWJ
Exposes the fundamental measurement problem in Security Force Assistance and what it means for program design and assessment.
🛡️ To What End: When Technology and Media Seduce Politicians Matthew Ford — SWJ
Examines how technological spectacle and media dynamics distort political decision-making in conflict.
🌍 From Hormuz to Harvest: The Strategic Clock of Modern Agriculture Alicia Ellis — SWJ
Links food security, maritime chokepoints, and strategic competition in a framework that reframes agriculture as a national security issue.
🎙️ Intelligence, Innovation, and Integration Andrew Evans and Tom Spahr — War Room
Explores how intelligence functions must evolve to integrate with emerging technologies and support faster decision cycles.
🔧 Delivering Ready Combat Power
📊 Army Builds Agile, More Responsive HR Enterprise AUSA with BG Greg Johnson
Details the Army’s effort to modernize human resources into a faster, more data-driven enterprise capable of supporting a dynamic force.
📊 Warrant Officers Foster Army Transformation CW5 Matt McDougall — AUSA
Makes the case for the warrant officer corps as a distinct and indispensable engine of Army modernization and technical mastery.
🎙️ Forging Ahead: AUSA Podcast on Industry Partnerships Hosts: LTG (Ret.) Leslie Smith and SMA (Ret.) Dan Dailey; Guests: Elizabeth O’Brien and Josh Fugate
Examines how Army-industry partnerships are accelerating capability delivery and what it takes to make them work.
🚛 Precision Sustainment: The Wrong Approach for Tactical Units MAJ Brian Mathews — Army Sustainment
A contrarian take arguing that precision sustainment models optimized for efficiency can fail tactical units in the friction of combat.
⚡ Data-Informed Decisions Enable Operational Energy CW2 James A. Frye — Army Sustainment
Shows how data-informed energy management can extend operational reach and reduce logistical vulnerability.
💻 All According to Plan: Digital Planning Tools and Tomorrow’s Battlefield Michael ‘Reggie’ Hammond, Earl Dean, and Ryan Delts — Army AL&T
Examines how digital planning tools being fielded today are shaping readiness for future high-end conflict.
💻 A Digital Dive Rachel Berry — Army AL&T
Explores the Army’s digital modernization journey and the acquisition challenges that come with it.
🚁 Innovate or Die: Our Fight to Stay Relevant MAJ Zachary D. Daker and MAJ Patrick J. Shaver Jr. — Aviation Digest
A call to action for Army aviation to adapt or cede relevance on the modern battlefield.
🩺 Clinical and Strategic Lessons from Syria: Evolving the Role of the Battalion Aid Station MAJ Cheryl L. Miller, CPT Thomas W. Graham III, and 1LT Aimee M. Feary — Pulse of Army Medicine
Draws clinical and doctrinal lessons from Syria to rethink how Battalion Aid Stations must evolve for LSCO.
🩺 Subterranean Role: Medical Operations Underground 1LT Leoniel O. Rodriguez Rosas, CPT Ryan C. Brown, and 1SG Sakeena Lites — Pulse of Army Medicine
Addresses the unique medical challenges of subterranean operations and how medical units must adapt their TTPs.
🎙️ LogStat: NTC Trends at the BDE & Below Host: CPT Garett Pyle; Guest: LTC Eric Shockley
Breaks down sustainment and logistics observations from NTC rotations, with actionable lessons for brigade-level leaders.
🎙️ Mops & Moes: Fitness Philosophy, Part 1 Hosts: Alex Morrow & Drew Hammond; Guest: Michael Blevins
Lays the philosophical foundation for how Soldiers should approach physical training — purpose-driven, not just program-driven.
🏋️ Train Like You Park Leg Tuck Nation — Mops & Moes
A sharp, memorable framework for approaching physical training with the same discipline and intentionality applied to occupation of terrain.
🔄 Continuous Transformation
🧠 Intelligence Risk: Prediction Markets Peter Burns — IWI
Explores prediction markets as a tool to improve intelligence risk assessment and reduce the systemic biases of traditional analytic methods.
📊 Shall I Play a Game? Wargaming in PME Keith Burkepile — War Room
Argues for integrating wargaming more deliberately into professional military education to build adaptive, creative leaders.
🔭 Text Without Context Is Pretext Dawn Hersey and Wendy MacKenzie Pease — SWJ
Examines how information divorced from context becomes a tool of manipulation — and what leaders must do to counter it.
🇰🇷 Katchi Kapshida C.B. Duncan — SWJ
An on-the-ground account of advisory operations and the hard cultural and institutional realities of building partner capacity.
🤐 We Were Right About Havana Syndrome Marc Polymeropoulos — War on the Rocks
A firsthand account of the Havana Syndrome fight and what it reveals about how institutions treat their people when confronting inconvenient truths.
🇷🇺 Ukraine’s Not-So-Whole-of-Society at War: Force Generation in Modern Developed Societies Host: Stephanie Crider; Guests: Antulio J. Echevarria II and Jan Willem Honig — SSI Podcast
Challenges the whole-of-society narrative for Ukraine and examines the real mechanics of force generation in modern states.
🚢 Russian Arctic Land Forces and Defense Trends Redefined by NATO and Ukraine Host: Stephanie Crider; Guests: Lester W. Grau and Troy J. Bouffard — SSI Podcast
Examines how Russia’s Arctic land forces have evolved in response to NATO expansion and lessons absorbed from Ukraine.
🛡️ Successful Large-Scale Combat Operations Require Artificially Intelligent Breaching Munitions Michael P. Carvelli — Parameters
Makes the technical and doctrinal case for AI-enabled breaching munitions as a prerequisite for success in LSCO.
🇪🇺 Imitating US Doctrine Cost Europe Its Heavy Combat Power Bence Nemeth — Parameters
A sobering analysis of how European armies that adopted U.S. doctrinal models shed the heavy combat power they now urgently need.
🇹🇼 Risk Decision Making and Intertemporal Choice: Lessons from the Taiwan Strait Rachel Downing — Parameters
Applies behavioral economics and decision science to the Taiwan Strait scenario to illuminate how risk and time horizons shape strategic choice.
🖏 Spezialpropaganda: The East German Military’s Covert Information-Warfare Program Joe Cheravitch — Parameters
Uncovers the East German military’s covert influence operations and draws parallels to modern information warfare.
🎯 Strategic Rivalries: How Are They Won? Antulio J. Echevarria II — Parameters
A strategic theory examination of what it actually takes to prevail in great power competition.
📜 Strengthening the Profession of Arms
📋 Approaching the Military as a Profession Through the Clausewitzian Trinity Adam T. Biggs — Parameters
Uses Clausewitz’s trinity as a lens to examine what it truly means to treat military service as a profession and not merely an occupation.
📋 Strategic Theory and Clausewitz’s Trinitarian Test Lukas Milevski — Parameters
Tests strategic theory against the Clausewitzian trinity and examines where contemporary thinking holds up and where it falls short.
📋 Legacies Worth Considering: (Re)examining the Assumptions Behind Denial Strategies Samuel Zilincik — Parameters
Revisits foundational assumptions behind denial strategies in light of contemporary strategic realities.
🛡️ Where Vision Meets Velocity: Rules for Field-Grade Officers MAJ Kevin R. Brensinger — Field Artillery Journal
Practical leadership rules for field-grade officers operating at the intersection of institutional vision and tactical execution.
🛡️ Forging Lethality: Integrating Fires and Maneuver for Decisive Operations MAJ Jay Logan & SFC Stuart David — Field Artillery Journal
Key fires integration observations from JMRC rotations with direct applicability for brigade combat teams.
🛡️ I Found What You’re Looking For: Why Company Grade Officers Should Fight to Come Teach at the Field Artillery School MAJ Destry ‘Sam’ Balch — Field Artillery Journal
A persuasive case for why talent should flow toward the schoolhouse — and what officers gain from teaching that they can’t get anywhere else.
🤖 On Deep Convolutional Neural Networks and Building Latent Violence in the Indo-Pacific MAJ Joseph Schmid — Field Artillery Journal
An intellectually ambitious piece connecting AI-enabled targeting to the broader strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific.
🪖 The Drone Battlefield CSM Jermaine Baldwin — NCO Journal
An NCO leader’s perspective on drone warfare and what it demands of small-unit leaders at the tip of the spear.
🪖 Judgment Day MSG Raymond T. Fain — NCO Journal
Examines the weight of judgment calls that NCOs face and the professional grounding required to make them well.
📚 Eyes Up MAJ Christopher Zaczyk — Military Review
Elevating situational awareness as a deliberate leadership discipline, not a passive habit.
📖 Resources & Calls
CSA Recommended Articles – Army University Press – The Chief’s reading list.
Call for Papers – Army Civilian Journal - Invitation to contribute.
Professional Writing Playlist (YouTube) – Talks and discussions on military writing.
Professional Military Writing – Military Review – Why writing matters.
🧰 TL;DR
· Quick Read: From Participation to Domination: How Units Can Win ATAP
· Deep Dive: The Menace of Misunderstanding: Learning the Wrong Lessons from Ukraine’s Drone-Saturated Battlefields
· Listen: MWI Podcast: The Iran Conflict’s Strategic Dimension
🧭 About the Harding Project
The Harding Project is Chief of Staff of the Army General Randy George’s initiative to strengthen the profession through professional writing and public discourse.
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 the rest of the force, 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.