Built on the principle that open competition improves the quality of ideas, WAR ROOM features innovative and provocative articles and podcasts that explore significant challenges in national security and defense. WAR ROOM is the online journal of the U.S. Army War College, created through the support of the Army War College Foundation. WAR ROOM is not just for the Army community, but seeks a broad audience of well-informed readers and listeners interested in national security and defense.

WAR ROOM’s content reflects the views of the authors and other contributors. These views are not necessarily those of the United States Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Established in 1993 initially as the “Peacekeeping Institute”(PKI), with the challenge of developing a doctrinal base for peacekeeping operations, PKSOI has grown in both size and outreach. Today, PKSOI is a regular partner at the UN in association with the UN DPKO and interacts across many UDG agencies (e.g.USAID), NGOs, and IOs with a peacekeeping/stability operations focus to address both the military and non-military aspects of peacekeeping.

PKSOI has continued to evolve as the US Army’s Center of Excellence for Peace and Stability Operations at the strategic and operational levels. In 2013 PKSOI assumed its newly designated role as the Lead Agent for Joint Proponency for Peace and Stability Operations. For the foreseeable future, PKSOI will be the pre-eminent trainers of US forces preparing to conduct multinational peacekeeping operations. PKSOI and its partners will also focus on collecting the key lessons learned over the last Decade of War, ensuring that key peacekeeping capabilities are adequately documented so that they can be rapidly re-generated to respond to US national requirements in the years to come. In addition to PKSOI’s mission to enable the success of ongoing and future Peace and Stability Operations activities and missions, we are a specified institute within the U.S. Army War College (AWC). In our role as an institute of USAWC, PKSOI participates actively with the War College to provide the Army’s future senior leader with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to plan, conduct and assess P&SO missions and to integrate P&SO doctrine, concepts and policy into Army strategy and operational missions. PKSOI achieves this by participating within the USAWC Core Curriculum and by providing multiple P&SO-related elective courses for the USAWC student body.

Postdoctoral fellows serve in the capacity of junior faculty and contribute to research and teaching at the U.S. Army War College. Principal duties of these positions include conducting research on issues related to the fellow’s area of expertise under the guidance of a senior faculty member; publishing articles; assisting in the planning and conducting of student-faculty research activities; teach selected lessons in the core curriculum or co-teach an elective under the guidance of a faculty member; conduct lectures and present research findings at academic conferences or other professional venues.