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

Command Culture

#Reviewing Against All Tides

#Reviewing Against All Tides

The “Kitty Hawk Race Riot'” holds an important place in American naval history. An illustration of the deep and unavoidable connections between the sailors and officers of the Navy and the society they served during the Civil Rights era, it is often mentioned in passing but rarely examined in detail. Marv Truhe’s new book sets out to rectify that oversight and to help readers dive deeply into both the details of the history and the important questions it raises about the Navy of the 1970s as well as the Navy of the 21st century.

U.S. Army Mission Command at a Crossroads

U.S. Army Mission Command at a Crossroads

The fundamental challenge will be how the organization balances increasing possibilities of control within a culture of trust. Without transparent institutional action to counteract these forces, unit-level leaders will continue to face the burden alone, reducing trust in the philosophy and by extension, operational effectiveness.

Six Convergent Paths to Victory: #Reviewing Corps Commanders of the Bulge

Six Convergent Paths to Victory: #Reviewing Corps Commanders of the Bulge

World War II is not without its exemplars of leadership across all levels of war. Volumes of text have examined the command styles of Eisenhower, Patton, Macarthur, and Bradley at the theater and field army command levels. Likewise, historians have tracked the experiences of companies of infantry soldiers and their non-commissioned officers, lieutenants, and captains. In between is the Army corps, and Dr. Harold R. Winton’s Corps Commanders of the Bulge, which covers with great detail the training, development, and battlefield execution of the six integral operational-level leaders who shaped the path to victory in this pivotal battle of World War II.

The Language of Mission Command and the Necessity of an Historical Approach

The Language of Mission Command and the Necessity of an Historical Approach

 It is time to drag out the old historical concepts and put them into a contemporary framework in a readable fashion. History is unbeatable in teaching lessons. The U.S. Army needs to understand the struggle the Prussian/German Army went through to introduce this superior command culture to avoid the old mistakes and repeat the successes. Only then is there a chance in the future that once American officers will face the enemy not with a superior budget, gadgets, fire power, or electronics but with a superior mind and command culture. The language of mission command is like the command culture itself: brief, uncompromising, focused, and ruthless.