Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

On Crossing Bridges: 10 Years of The Strategy Bridge Journal

On Crossing Bridges: 10 Years of The Strategy Bridge Journal

For over a decade, The Strategy Bridge has helped to lead a conversation among practitioners, scholars, and students about strategy, national security, and military affairs. Written early in 2013 our guiding principles reflect what we have always tried to do here. We believe these principles to be as true today as they were when written a decade ago. The Strategy Bridge built an amazing community and helped shape an online publication world that looks remarkably different. We hold great faith in the next generation of strategy thinkers and practitioners. While we fervently believe that there remains much work to be done, we also believe that the time is right for that work to occur elsewhere.

A Year in #Reviewing

A Year in #Reviewing

Michael Howard, the great British historian, once advised that military officer who wish to avoid the pitfalls of military history should study in width, depth, and context—studying the great sweep of military history to see what changes and what does not; studying a single campaign in all its complexity to “get beyond the order created by the historian;” and studying the nature of the societies that fight the wars we seek to understand. Here at The Strategy Bridge, we feel very much the same way about the study of strategy, and we work hard to realize this width, depth, and context in the books we review each week.

Civil-Military Relations in Multinational Organizations

Civil-Military Relations in Multinational Organizations

How can civil-military relations be used as a lens for us to understand the outcomes of wars in which multinational organizations are involved? This piece uses civil-military relations as a guide (rather than a strict framework) and the specific case of NATO to show the benefit of applying this approach. It shows, using the example of NATO in Afghanistan, how civil-military dynamics within the organization itself structured the campaign and impacted the alliance’s strategy and operations.

Beyond the Neutral Card: From Civil-Military Relations to Military Politics

Beyond the Neutral Card: From Civil-Military Relations to Military Politics

How should senior military officers in democratic states influence their domestic political environments? The flippant answer is that they should not: they should do as they’re told. The American civil-military relations literature, written largely in the shadow of Samuel P. Huntington’s myth of an apolitical military, has consistently downplayed the positive role officers play in politics, to such a degree that we have only a dim outline of what constitutes appropriate and effective political influence by officers Thus, in practice, we fear that too many officers find that their professional military education fails to prepare them for the realities of being a commander.

Finding a New Big Picture: Reintroducing the American People to Their Armed Forces

Finding a New Big Picture: Reintroducing the American People to Their Armed Forces

Given the size of the military is not likely to grow and old bases are not going to come back, the volume of storytellers and their reach will continue to diminish. To repair its relationship with the American public, the military needs to do more to leverage traditional and new media to amplify the stories of servicemembers and communicate better both what life in the military is like and what it does. This should not be a recruitment campaign, but rather a reintroduction.

Guardianship and Resentment in Precarious Civil-Military Relations

Guardianship and Resentment in Precarious Civil-Military Relations

The recent coups in sub-Saharan Africa have ushered in a new era in civil-military relations in the Francophone states of the continent. While military intervention and insurgency have long been a feature of politics in the region since decolonization, the quick succession of regime change and the seizure of power by a new generation of juntas against long standing personalist dictatorships suggests a break in previous political patterns.

Against Complacency in Civil-Military Relations: Lessons from Romania

Against Complacency in Civil-Military Relations: Lessons from Romania

Discussions about civilian control of the military tend to generate mental images of tanks in the streets and coups d’états. Thankfully in Romania this is not a relevant fear. But a close examination of the situation on the ground underscores the need to avoid complacency in evaluating civil-military relations, even countries that are like Romania—staunch NATO allies, EU members, and consolidated democracies. Here, a combination of political consensus, institutional structures, and limited civilian expertise has afforded the Romanian military the autonomy to execute major aspects of defense policy with little in the way of contested democratic oversight.

Legislative Oversight Over the Armed Forces Is Overrated

Legislative Oversight Over the Armed Forces Is Overrated

In most democracies, legislatures have far less oversight power over their militaries than we might expect. The U.S. Congress and its relationship with the American armed forces is the exception, rather than the rule. Indeed, many legislatures around the world lack some of the basic instruments required to understand what their armed forces are doing, notably security clearances, subpoena power, and adequate staffing.

The State of Civil-Military Relations: A Strategy Bridge Series

The State of Civil-Military Relations: A Strategy Bridge Series

Taken together, the articles in this quarterly series guide the reader through three continents to offer multiple perspectives on civil-military relations. They do so while touching on multiple intersections of Clausewitz’s trinity of the government, military, and society, an arguably more useful and timeless perspective than Samuel Huntington’s increasingly dated ideas.

#Reviewing The Future of Decline: Anglo-American Culture at its Limits

#Reviewing The Future of Decline: Anglo-American Culture at its Limits

Esty’s slim book charts what he terms “declinism” to powerful effect, distinguishing declinism from decline: “Decline is a fact; declinism is a problem. American decline is happening, slowly but inevitably. It is a structural and material process. Declinism is a problem of rhetoric or belief.” This story of America on a downhill slide that Esty tells is not self-consciously set in opposition to today’s national security concerns—whether they are framed as integrated deterrence, multi-domain operations, or large-scale combat operations—but the implications of Esty’s account are profound for what America might look like on the backside of decline.

#Reviewing: On the Initiative of Subordinate Leaders in War

#Reviewing: On the Initiative of Subordinate Leaders in War

In pre-nineteenth century wars with linear tactics, initiative existed but was not necessary in the same ways. From the Napoleonic Wars onwards, initiative became imperative, mainly due to the increase in the size of armies. The third chapter examines how we should interpret the principle of initiative. Woide believes that it should be made obligatory for the entire army, its implementation should be formalized and it should be considered a professional duty.

#Reviewing Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences

#Reviewing Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences

Military leaders and policy makers would be foolish to believe that war with a peer adversary would not involve some form of retreat or retrograde. Retreats can lead to routs, or they can provide critical time to rally forces for new campaigns or counteroffensives. Routs must be avoided, but such disaster may befall those who fail to study the history of armies in retreat.

#Reviewing A Republic in the Ranks

#Reviewing A Republic in the Ranks

Zachery A. Fry reimagines the camps and battlegrounds of the Army of the Potomac as focal points of ideological debate. Enlisted men not only reflected partisan divides of the broader Northern public but directly engaged in the political process through correspondence, voting, and political resolutions. This book sheds light upon mobilization within the ranks to reframe notions of political space and activity during the Civil War. 

#Reviewing Grand Delusion: A New Book Takes Aim at American Foreign Policy in the Middle East, With Limited Results

#Reviewing Grand Delusion: A New Book Takes Aim at American Foreign Policy in the Middle East, With Limited Results

Simon reviews more than four decades of American endeavors in the region from the perspective of eight presidential administrations ranging from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden. The book’s chapters illuminate cabinet-level thinking on vexing national security issues: Iranian influence in the Levant in the 1980s, the response to the U.S. Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut, the Persian Gulf War, the unsolvable Israel-Palestine quandary, and the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein and the resultant chaos in Iraq and Syria.

#Reviewing Writing Wars

#Reviewing Writing Wars

Simply put, Writing Wars is necessary reading for scholars and writers working at the intersections of literary, military, and American studies. The interdisciplinary nature of the book also makes it well suited for a variety of classes. In addition to American Literature and History courses, select chapters on higher education’s influence on the genre and the ethics of authorship would make for insightful reading in creative writing classes that consider the history of writing programs or how identity politics figures into the ethos of storytelling. This potential widespread readership of Writing Wars is timely. With the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine and the reverberating effects of the U.S. campaigns in the Middle East, there is a need for a new wave of war fiction and, perhaps more importantly, a diverse collection of voices to tell such stories. Eisler’s book emphasizes the critical importance of this need and illuminates how those diverse voices can effectively address it.

Past and Present: The Strategy Bridge, Ten Years On

Past and Present: The Strategy Bridge, Ten Years On

It is with sincere gratitude that The Strategy Bridge team offers thanks to our entire community. To those who have contributed to our archive, to those who have participated in our events, and to those who have given of their time and their skills to further our endeavor we say, “Thank you for ten wonderful years!” We hope that as members of this community, each of you has gained by the experience some small fraction of the benefit you have bestowed upon us by your participation.

#Reviewing The Big Picture: The Cold War on the Small Screen

#Reviewing The Big Picture: The Cold War on the Small Screen

The subject of John W. Lemza’s scholarly study The Big Picture: The Cold War on the Small Screen is a U.S. Army-produced documentary television series called The Big Picture that ran from 1951-1971 on network, local, and educational stations, as well as on the Armed Forces Network of overseas stations. Lemza’s study is relevant to our own era in which a gaping civil-military divide separates the American public from the military, and in which the military largely fails to communicate a compelling appreciation of its goals, virtues, and activities.

#Reviewing To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond

#Reviewing To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond

Drawing on a universe of science fiction franchises including The Expanse, Star Wars, Star Trek, Ender’s Game, Starship Troopers, Dune, Earthseed, The Murderbot Diaries, and many more, a wonderful array of authors, who are strategic thinkers in their own right, offer fresh perspectives in 35 chapters that span 6 major themes: leadership and command; military strategy and decision making; ethics, culture, and diversity; cooperation, competition, and conflict; the human relationship with technology; and toxic leaders.

#Reviewing The Peacemaker

#Reviewing The Peacemaker

The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink takes up the banner of attributing the end of the Cold War to the foreign policy acumen and foresight of Ronald Reagan. Indeed, it suggests that Reagan possessed a remarkable perspicacity that allowed him to perceive the world's historic changes on the horizon well before others did, and that this, plus his innate optimism, helped him lead the United States toward a better future.