The Friday Formation
Friday, 31 July 2026
This week’s dispatch on Army writing, leadership, and learning
🗓️ Editor’s Note
Late July, and the formation doesn’t slow down for summer. The branch journals are proof — record-breaking viewership across the publications!
This week’s best writing comes from people thinking hard about problems nobody handed them. I want to point you first to CPT Tanner Cook’s piece in From the Green Notebook on Nathanael Greene — a Rhode Island businessman made a brigadier general overnight, drowning in a job he had no business holding, who decided that watchfulness and industry would have to cover for the experience he lacked. Cook is a company-grade officer writing about the exact problem most of us feel and few of us name. That’s the work this project exists to encourage: see the problem, think it through, put it on paper.
There’s a real argument running underneath the rest of the issue, too. Justin Hardy says stop debating whether we need a Cyber Force and start answering who owns cyberspace. Howard Wang and Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga show China rehearsing cognitive attacks on Taipei. Different domains, same lesson — structure follows purpose, not the other way around.
Plenty here. Read what’s most relevant first.
Chris
🏛️ Featured Leadership Essays
⭐ Before a Cyber Force, Fix Cyber Governance
By Justin Hardy — War on the Rocks
The push for a Cyber Force keeps gaining momentum, but Hardy argues the debate has its priorities backward. Before deciding whether to stand up a new service, the Department has to answer who actually owns cyberspace — the governance question everyone keeps skipping.
⭐ Total War on Taipei: China Explores Elevating Cognitive Effects into Its Vision of Warfare
By Howard Wang and Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga — War on the Rocks
Chinese military writing is increasingly treating cognitive effects — perception, will, and psychological dominance — as a central line of effort against Taiwan. A close look at how Beijing is thinking about winning before the first shot is fired.
⭐ Watchfulness and Industry: How a Revolutionary War General Conquered Imposter Syndrome
By Tanner Cook — From the Green Notebook
Nathanael Greene went from militia private to brigadier general with no military experience and a heavy case of self-doubt. Cook draws out how “watchfulness and industry” became Greene’s enduring blueprint — and why it still works for anyone thrust into a job they don’t feel ready for.
📚 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: Watchfulness and Industry: How a Revolutionary War General Conquered Imposter Syndrome
● Deep Dive: Before a Cyber Force, Fix Cyber Governance
● Listen: The Death of Periodization (MOPs & MOEs)
● For the Formation: The Importance of the Invasion of Sicily
⚔️ Warfighting
🛸 Survive to Fight: Operationalize the Drone Fight in Modern Field Artillery Operations
By CPT Richard Hiler - Field Artillery
Examines how drone threats are reshaping Field Artillery operations and what must change to keep artillery lethal and survivable in contested environments.
☣️ CBRN Company Task Organization for Persistent and Nonpersistent Threat Environments
By CPT Anthony J. Diaz - Protection
Offers a clear framework for task-organizing brigade hazard response companies based on whether chemical threats are persistent or nonpersistent in LSCO.
⭐ Total War on Taipei: China Explores Elevating Cognitive Effects into Its Vision of Warfare
By Howard Wang and Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga — War on the Rocks
How Chinese strategists are folding cognitive effects into their theory of victory against Taiwan — and what it means for deterrence when the target is a population’s will.
🌊 Gray Zone Contestation Between North and South Korea in the Yellow Sea
By Michael MacArthur Bosack — Irregular Warfare Initiative
With attention fixed on the Middle East and Ukraine, Bosack warns the Yellow Sea is fertile ground for opportunistic gray-zone contestation between the two Koreas — and maps where the real escalation risk sits.
🏴 Kurdish Underground Resistance and Civil Disobedience Against the Iranian Security State
By Pierre-Yves Baillet — Irregular Warfare Initiative
When Tehran met the early-2026 uprising with the usual repression and internet blackouts, it expected to smother it. Drawing on IWI interviews, Baillet examines how Kurdish underground resistance endured instead.
📡 The Silent Battlefield: Information Warfare Maneuver in the Era of Strategic Competition
By MAJ Scott Hall - Military Review
The authors argue Army formations must treat nonlethal effects and nonkinetic activities as coequal elements of maneuver — not supporting enablers — to achieve information advantage and decision dominance.
🔧 Delivering Ready Combat Power
By CW3 Heidi-Ann T. Holmes - Army Sustainment
Highlights how a dedicated tactical field readiness training center multiplies combat power by improving sustainment proficiency and unit readiness.
❄️ Thin Margins, Strategic Effects: Irregular Warfare and Contested Logistics in the Arctic
By Stephen Gagnon — Irregular Warfare Initiative
Alaska’s concentrated, thin logistics network is a soft target for below-threshold pressure from Russia and China. Gagnon makes the case for dispersing supply capacity and building civil-military resilience before a crisis forces the issue.
MOPs & MOEs (podcast)
The MOPs & MOEs team takes on one of the sacred cows of physical-training programming and asks whether traditional periodization still holds up for building and sustaining ready, resilient soldiers.
🔥 Accurate and Responsive Fires: How FA BOLC Adapted to the Changes at Ranger School
By CPT Erin O’Hara and LTC Richard Wilson – Field Artillery
The Field Artillery Basic Officer Leader Course adapts its fires training to changes at Ranger School, keeping new lieutenants ready to deliver accurate, responsive fires.
🔌 The Enduring Signaleer: Building a Resilient Network Through People and Data
By CW4 Gairie M. High — Army Communicator
The Army’s most valuable network isn’t hardware — it’s the Signal warrant officer cohort. High shows how the Signal School uses enterprise data tools like Vantage and Power BI to map expertise across the force, connecting people who have solved a problem to the people who need the answer.
🔄 Continuous Transformation
🛸 To Infinity and Beyond: A Future For The U.S. Army Cavalry
By MAJ R. Atticus Blair - Armor
Argues that the Army needs institutional ownership (branch, school, career field, and doctrine) for the rapid expansion of small UAS and unmanned effects instead of ad-hoc experimentation.
📡 Resilience Through Redundancy: Closing the Company-Level Communications Gap
By MAJ Jonathan Steel - Army Communicator
Uses JRTC lessons under heavy EW/cyber attack to recommend proliferated LEO terminals and other resilient transport options at company level.
⭐ Before a Cyber Force, Fix Cyber Governance
By Justin Hardy — War on the Rocks
Force generation is a real problem, but Hardy argues it isn’t the first one. Congress is inching toward naming a single accountable official for cyber — the governance move that should precede, not follow, any decision to build a new service.
🚩 Learning How to Try Harder: How Capture the Flag Competitions Teach Essential Cyber Skills
By CPT Jared Fritz - Gray Space
Capture the Flag competitions teach cyber professionals how to learn rather than what to learn — building self-directed learning, resourcefulness, and a fail-forward mindset.
📜 Strengthening the Profession of Arms
🧠 The Humanized Arena: Strategic Leadership, Decision Making, and the Socio-Emotional Environment
By Dennis Eger, EdD - Army Civilian Journal
Argues that effective strategic leadership and decision-making succeed only when leaders integrate self-awareness, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence—the often-overlooked socio-emotional environment—alongside traditional approaches.
⭐ Watchfulness and Industry: How a Revolutionary War General Conquered Imposter Syndrome
By Tanner Cook — From the Green Notebook
A company-grade officer’s study of Nathanael Greene, imposter syndrome, and the two virtues that carried an inexperienced leader through a job that terrified him.
🗺️ The Importance of the Invasion of Sicily
By Steven T. Barry — War on the Rocks
Barry revisits Operation Husky and why the 1943 invasion of Sicily still rewards close study — a campaign of hard-won lessons in joint planning, amphibious assault, and coalition warfare.
🎓 Institutional Options for Teaching and Training R&S
By CPT Francis Ambrogio - Infantry
Examines better ways to institutionalize reconnaissance and security training so the force develops the necessary expertise for large-scale combat operations.
🧭 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.
 | A guest post by
|