It's quite possible that in the near future, Small Wars Journal will be in a position to sponsor a writing contest with a significant cash award.

We are looking for some good topics that strike to effectiveness across the community of Small Wars practitioners, don't re-hash ground that's been adequately covered, and ideally have a collateral benefit of raising interest and participation in our community from some of the important but under-represented groups.

At this point, we're thinking that we'll probably run 3 or 4 topics that complement each other somehow, probably concurrent, maybe time phased. We will publish special editions of SWJ Magazine with the entries, and maybe some additional publishing with select partners.

Seeking your suggestions here for essay topics, or a family of topics. Not the topic of YOUR paper, but the question(s) in the Call for Papers that we put out. +/- any suggestions on contest ROE, logistics, etc.

For now, I'll just sit back and listen. I don't want to over-influence the brainstorming in this thread. But believe me, I'll be watching intently.