Michael Ferguson

Status: PhD Student

Adviser: Wayne Lee and Michael Morgan

Graduate Email: mpferg@unc.edu

Education

B.S. (Criminal Justice/Management) University of Phoenix, 2013
M.S. (Homeland Security) San Diego State University, 2015
M.S. Thesis: "Institutionalizing Extremism: Ideological Warfare at the Crossroads of Soviet Revolution Theory and Islamic Feudalism," Master's Thesis (San Diego, CA: San Diego State University, 2015)

Research Interests

Modern US Military History, 20th Century US History, Defense Technology and Innovation, Cold War, Irregular Warfare and Information Operations, Strategy, Operations, and the influence cultural factors and ideologies have on national security priorities and modernization initiatives

Some Notable Publications

• The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2023), with Ian Worthington
• "Demoralizing Defeat: Assessing the Strategic Breakthrough, from Alexander the Great to the 2003 Invasion of Iraqi,"PRISM 10, No. 4 (forthcoming fall 2023)

"Misinformed: Implications of Foreign Influence on the Information Environment that Launched Operation Iraqi Freedom," Expeditions with Marine Corps University Press, 14 August 23.

• "America Needs Futurists and Traditionalists to Think Clearly About War," The National Interest, 17 November 2022.
• "Putin's Jedi Mind Trick in Ukraine: How Truth Decay Shapes the Operational Environment," The Strategy Bridge, 2nd Quarter 2022 (June)
• "Sun Tzu's Trap: The Illusion of Perpetual Competition," The Modern War Institute at West Point, 10 February 2022.
• "Strategic Imperative: A Competitive Framework for U.S.-Sino Relations," Strategic Studies Quarterly 15, No. 3 (Fall 2021): pp. 48-68.
• "America's High-Tech Problem in Low-Tech Wars," Small Wars Journal, 8 September 2021.
• "Irregular Warfare is Great Power Competition, Part II," U.S. Army War College - War Room, 20 August 2021.
• "Irregular Warfare is Great Power Competition, Part I," U.S. Army War College - War Room, 19 August 2021.
• "The Human Machine Paradox: A Balanced Approach to Finding and Fixing in 2035," Military Review (November-December 2020): pp. 38-47.
• "The Evolution of Disinformation: How Public Opinion Became Proxy," The Strategy Bridge, 14 January 2020.
• "The Digital Maginot Line: Autonomous Warfare and Strategic Incoherence," PRISM 8, No. 2 (October 2019): pp. 132-144.
• "Why 'Robot Wars' Might Not be Our Future," The National Interest, 17 November 2018.
• "Welcome to the Disinformation Game - You're Late," The Strategy Bridge, 29 August 2018.
• "Don't Shoot the Messenger: Demosthenes, Churchill, and the Consensus Delusion," Joint Force Quarterly 90, No. 4 (July-September 2018): pp. 78-85.
• "The Mission Command of Islamic State: Deconstructing the Myth of Lone Wolves in the Deep Fight," Military Review (September-October 2017): pp. 68-77.
• "Fighting Tigers with Sticks: Fehrenbach's Lessons on Military Readiness," Small Wars Journal, 29 September 2016.