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

Gerasimov

#Reviewing Three Dangerous Men

#Reviewing Three Dangerous Men

Three Dangerous Men is a fast read that is also full of details and insights into the lives of Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, the late Iranian Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, and Vice Chair Zhang Youxia of China’s Central Military Commission. Jones presents the reader with formative experiences in the life and professional development of the three military leaders and how they each contributed to shaping the 21st century military and foreign policies of their respective countries.

Nuclear Constraints and Concepts of Future Warfare

Nuclear Constraints and Concepts of Future Warfare

Since the United States’ near-peer adversaries possess nuclear weapons, the U.S. Army needs to prepare for small, politically constrained, ambiguous, limited conflict. Without a reorientation on the future, the U.S. Army doctrine and concepts are not useful and potentially limit policymakers’ options, or worse, risk accidental nuclear escalation.

Influence Campaigns and the Future of International Competition

Influence Campaigns and the Future of International Competition

The international system is at the onset of a new period of transformation brought about by the interaction of two forces: increased democratization and the revolution in information technologies. There are more democracies than ever before, and there are more tools to easily influence public opinion. Even beyond Russia, there is little doubt other states will see its success and seek to mimic its capabilities. This will be true particularly in authoritarian states, whose bastioned societies ensure asymmetry and shield them from reciprocity. The more that democracies spread and the more their citizens connect online, the more vulnerable they will become to outside influence, subtly shifting international competition into the theater of public opinion.

American Discontent: Unhappy Military Outcomes of the Post-Second World War Era

American Discontent: Unhappy Military Outcomes of the Post-Second World War Era

The dramatic title of a 2015 magazine article in The Atlantic by Dominic Tierney, “Why has America Stopped Winning Wars?,” underscored a portrayal of the final military deaths in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq as both remarkable and poignant. A better question and the focus here is: Why do U.S. military outcomes after 1945 so often fail to achieve the policy objectives for which they are begun?

Fellow Travelers: Managing Savagery and The Gerasimov Doctrine

Fellow Travelers: Managing Savagery and The Gerasimov Doctrine

Both ISIS and Russia seek to present themselves as a solution to unbearable problems. If they are simultaneously the cause of those problems, or seek to exacerbate them, that is irrelevant. Especially in the case of ISIS, they believe that if they make life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short enough, a given population will accept even draconian masters in exchange for peace and stability.