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

Art of War

Who was Sun Tzu’s Napoleon?

Who was Sun Tzu’s Napoleon?

We know that Thucydides was not only the chronicler, but a general in the Peloponnesian War, Julius Caesar the architect of the Gallic War, and Machiavelli an active participant in Florentine diplomatic and martial affairs. Maurice de Saxe waded through the bloody fields of Malplaquet and Fontenoy, while both Jomini and Clausewitz kept their own formative experiences fighting in the Napoleonic Wars firmly in mind as they composed their respective theoretical works. But what motivated Sun Tzu (or its anonymous authors) to compose The Art of War? What were its historical precedents?

#Reviewing a New Sun Tzu Translation: Is There Any Blood Left in This Old Stone?

#Reviewing a New Sun Tzu Translation: Is There Any Blood Left in This Old Stone?

Rather than piling on more translations, we would be better served by exerting greater effort reevaluating the text in a manner that recognizes that many of its arguments were based on unique historical factors which may not directly apply to modern strategic thought yet allows for the identification of carefully derived tenets which still maintain their relevance. Establishing a more judicious interpretation of The Art of War is a worthwhile and achievable goal, but we must be willing to follow the circuitous route to reach it.