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

Books

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.

A Year in #Reviewing

A Year in #Reviewing

Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have observed, “I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” As we do each year at The Strategy Bridge, we pause to reflect on our #Reviewing series, the books and movies and other work we’ve consumed as a community—the intellectual meal we’ve shared—and consider what they have helped us to make of ourselves, what they’ve helped us become.

Learning in Conflict #Reviewing Mars Adapting

Learning in Conflict #Reviewing Mars Adapting

In Mars Adapting, Frank Hoffman studies bottom-up adaptation through the lens of organizational learning theory to explain its dynamics. This theory states that business organizations must continuously evaluate their performance in a competitive and shifting environment to prosper and even survive. Hoffman states that this notion applies to militaries during wartime as they seek to gain an advantage over their adversaries.

A Year in #Reviewing

A Year in #Reviewing

How do you read? It’s a simple question, but it may not have a simple answer. In a time when we are seeing less of each other, whether because of a pandemic, increased telework as a result of the pandemic, or self-imposed technological isolation, how we read has the potential to vary as much as how we interact with others on a daily basis. Some of us have difficulty ingesting books that are not printed on dead trees while others embrace the freedom of having someone else read books to us while we drive, hike, or run on a treadmill. ‘To read’, like a book itself, holds many different meanings.

Science Fiction and the Strategist 3.0

Science Fiction and the Strategist 3.0

Reading widely in a professional capacity increases a person’s capacity for generating imaginative options to solve complex problems. Reading science fiction provides this variety. We hope this list provides additional variety in personal and professional reading programs, and guides readers through their journey to discover the insights that science fiction offers national security professionals.

A Year in #Reviewing

A Year in #Reviewing

It’s been a year of Zoom, but books endure. Books endure because we read them in isolation, wrote about them in lockdown, and read reviews about them in quarantine. It will take books—with their focus, length, use of evidence, ability to recreate events, and capacity to make sense of those events after the fact—on 2020 and all it entailed to make the light and shadow fall in ways that illuminate what lived experience alone cannot. And for that kind of long-term, sustained engagement with the contexts in which we read this year’s reviews, we’ll continue to need not just books, but writing about those books.

In a Time of Global Crisis, Lessons from an Unhappy Warrior: #Reviewing a Biography of Alanbrooke

In a Time of Global Crisis, Lessons from an Unhappy Warrior: #Reviewing a Biography of Alanbrooke

Alanbrooke’s six years at the apex of the British military, at a time when the nation faced its greatest crisis of modern history, tells a story of the inherent value of deep professional competence, a willingness to register dissent, and a commitment to an ideal greater than any single organization or individual. Alanbrooke proved the criticality of remaining unruffled by those things outside of his control, yet demanding the very best from those within his domain.

Predisposed to be Polarized: #Reviewing Whistleblowers’ Role in National Security

Predisposed to be Polarized: #Reviewing Whistleblowers’ Role in National Security

Whistleblowing has a long and predictably contentious history in America. What distinguishes essential whistleblowing from detrimental leaking? In assessing answers to that question, do the motivations of the individual revealing government secrets matter or should we focus primarily on the benefits and costs of their actions? Driving these tough questions is the considerable tension between the paramount need for secrecy to protect national security interests and the erosion of democratic governance that secrecy can abet.

#Reviewing Sir Antony Beevor’s The Battle of Arnhem

#Reviewing Sir Antony Beevor’s The Battle of Arnhem

Although much is written about victory in war, relatively little memorializes the lives lost for lost causes. Even after the mission fell to pieces, the men who fought in Arnhem showed remarkable determination, grit, bravery and sacrifice. The Allied defeat at Arnhem was as honorable as any victory, and Sir Beevor pays it a worthy tribute while weaving a human story about defeat and the inhumanity of war.

#Reviewing Land Warfare Since 1860: A Global History of Boots on the Ground

#Reviewing Land Warfare Since 1860: A Global History of Boots on the Ground

Professional military education needs tools to look at the past as a guide, as a way to learn the practice of discovering solutions that meet present needs by knowing enough to ask the right questions. History supplies these military professionals with the tools to shape models of the present and visions of the future.

#Reviewing Grand Strategy

#Reviewing Grand Strategy

The practice of grand strategy has been a staple of statesmanship since time immemorial. But only since the Napoleonic era has much ink been spilt analyzing and grappling with the grand strategic behavior of varied historical dynamos. Until now, scholars have largely demurred from trying to pin down the theoretical essence of what grand strategy actually is. By borrowing insights from fields as varied as strategic studies and cognitive theory, Layton has created an interpretation of how grand strategy could and should look in practice.

Science Fiction and the Strategist 2.0

Science Fiction and the Strategist 2.0

Reading science fiction nurtures hope that there is a better future. While conflict, catastrophe, and climate change feature in many of these novels and movies, much science fiction is highly optimistic in nature…However, reading science fiction also allows us to consider a variety of negative potential futures…it is the first step in ensuring that they do not come to pass.

Clausewitz’s Library: Strategy, Politics, and Poetry

Clausewitz’s Library: Strategy, Politics, and Poetry

Students of Clausewitz now have a new and exciting source of information. Scholars from his home town recently discovered Marie von Clausewitz’s last will and testament. One of the most remarkable finds is eleven pages containing a catalogue of the 380 volumes in the library of Carl and Marie.

#Reviewing Lincoln’s Lieutenants

#Reviewing Lincoln’s Lieutenants

Stephen W. Sears, author of twelve prior Civil War volumes, reassesses the Eastern Theater in Lincoln’s Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac. It explores two topics germane to the modern military. Strategists will note that the Army of the Potomac was the most important Northern force and fought in the preeminent theater. Russell F. Weigley claims that this area “offered the most promising opportunity for a short war and thereby the limitation of costs and destructive violence.” Students of civil-military relations will focus on the relative politicization of the officer corps and whether President Abraham Lincoln could impose his strategic vision on commanders.

#Reviewing Tomorrow It Will All Run Backwards

#Reviewing Tomorrow It Will All Run Backwards

In a quiet, quirky, and often quotable collection of poems spanning the late 1970s to present day, poet Michael Brett spins tales of bombs, bodies, and bureaucracies, echoing and updating European traditions of 20th century war poetry. He does so with a wonderfully plainspoken and honest tone of a mid-level political functionary or well-informed citizen—someone engaged in immediately observing conflict, but also intellectually apart from it.

#Reviewing Our Latest Longest War

#Reviewing Our Latest Longest War

This book is a must for any student, policymaker, or practitioner seeking to better understand America’s war in Afghanistan––even if that student disagrees with its conclusions. As America seems to be on the verge of stepping into the Afghan breech yet again, this book should serve as warning to the over-zealous or those prone to hubris. Moreover, Our Latest Longest War must be included in any pre-deployment reading list for any soldier, diplomat, or aid worker heading to Afghanistan.