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

Iraq

#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 The Inheritance

#Reviewing The Inheritance

Mara E. Karlin’s new book, The Inheritance: America’s Military After Two Decades of War is a sobering yet necessary read. In looking at the effects of the post-9/11 wars on the U.S. military, she asks—and proposes answers to—two questions. First, “[h]ow did the most capable military in U.S. history—indeed in the history of the world—fight to, at best, a draw in its longest contemporary conflict?” And second, “why has this not been the subject of greater reflection and debate.”

# Reviewing Intelligence and the State

# Reviewing Intelligence and the State

For a relatively short volume, Intelligence and the State manages to fill a range of gaps in the existing literature on the intelligence community. First and foremost, it provides a timely look at the issues confronting both policy makers and intelligence analysts that will only grow more relevant as technological advances increase the volume of raw information available to the intelligence community. Second, it offers the reader a condensed history of the European and American experiences with developing intelligence communities that would otherwise require combing through a range of academic literature. Finally, author Jonathan House leverages his decades of experience as a U.S. Army intelligence officer with valuable advice that can alleviate some of the pressures on the intelligence community and help the national security establishment avoid missing warning signs in the current environment.

#Reviewing Soldiers of End-Times: Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State

#Reviewing Soldiers of End-Times: Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State

Soldiers of End-Times: Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State is a timely study of the effectiveness of the military tactics and strategy of the Islamic State (IS) from 2014 to 2019. Throughout his study, Levy examines how IS fought their form of an effective conventional war. In examining the effectiveness of IS military operations, Levy is one of the first to attempt to create a larger study on IS. Levy is restricted in his study by the novelty of his subject. The fall of IS is still very recent at the time of publication and many of the U.S. defense sources are still restricted to the general public.

Sanctuary as a Concept in the Cold War and the Global War on Terror: #Reviewing Streets Without Joy

Sanctuary as a Concept in the Cold War and the Global War on Terror: #Reviewing Streets Without Joy

Innes’ work is an important starting place for any scholar or practitioner seeking to understand the significance of sanctuary as a guiding concept as well as the evolution of Cold War thinking through the era of globalization and the U.S. Global War on Terror. His book is a superb example of blending real world experience with in-depth research and analysis. Its insightful examination of the shifting definitions and uses of the concept of sanctuary offers important cautions for the present as it reveals the blind spots of the past.

#Reviewing First Platoon

#Reviewing First Platoon

Annie Jacobsen shows the reality of the concept of identity dominance over a population in First Platoon. She weaves together her main themes through four questions—what are the boundaries of a persistent surveillance state enabled by advances in biometrics; who should own and have access to biometric data of a population; how has the face of battle changed in an identity dominance environment; and what is justice in this new environment?

#Reviewing A Bridge in Babylon

#Reviewing A Bridge in Babylon

Short, accessible, and relatively inexpensive, with an appealing cover, the paperback could easily serve as the basis for a discussion group, such as a church Bible study or a chaplains’ support group. Individually or collectively, it will be read profitably by chaplains and other service members looking for the words to describe their feelings; by policymakers and other stakeholders seeking insights into the recent lived experiences of military chaplains; and by the wider public, including future historians and other scholars of the chaplaincy and of the Iraq War.

#Reviewing Shatter the Nations

#Reviewing Shatter the Nations

Giglio laments that Americans, who still claim to be at war, have made little effort to understand the Islamic State beyond their high-profile attacks. Part memoir, part commentary, and part war story, Shatter the Nations is an accessible, engaging primer on the Islamic State and the challenges facing the region that hopefully serves as an antidote to the war weariness and lack of interest Giglio observes in the American public.

#Reviewing The Fighters

#Reviewing The Fighters

This book reveals very little about national strategy or defense policy, or even about the effectiveness of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it is a worthwhile read for those interested in the ground-level experience of war and Americans who want to know more about the actions committed overseas in their name.

Dissecting Strategic Decision Making: #Reviewing Leap of Faith

Dissecting Strategic Decision Making: #Reviewing Leap of Faith

In theory, policy, and strategy are the product of extensive analysis, detailed cost-benefit calculations, and rational criteria for decision-making. In practice, good strategy development is also about compromise and consensus building, resolving problems, mitigating uncertainty and constraints, and steering downstream through the fluid dynamics of international and domestic politics.

#Reviewing After Combat

#Reviewing After Combat

The experiences of American soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes over and over again, are central to this story, including consideration of the lasting impact of their time abroad. American culture is already rife with conversations about post-traumatic stress, veterans’ services, and treatments following deployments. Unfortunately, the voice of the veterans themselves is seldom heard with clarity in these conversations.

#Reviewing Welcome to FOB Haiku

#Reviewing Welcome to FOB Haiku

An interesting read, but it will not be sharing space on my shelf of favorites, alongside other war poets such as Brian Turner, Marvin Bell, and Wilfred Owens. The book may, however,  appeal to the casual poetry reader or to those trying a cross sample of the writing generated by individuals who fought this century’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Intelligence Sharing and Returning Foreign Fighters: Are European Systems up to the Challenge?

Intelligence Sharing and Returning Foreign Fighters: Are European Systems up to the Challenge?

There are several bilateral and multilateral agreements among nations to support inter-intra agency coordination and cooperation. There are also global security institutions such as United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre and its sister agencies such as United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force. However, many of these agencies continue to operate independently. This is apparent in the case of the United Nations Security Council designated Counter Terrorism Directorate and the United Nations Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate that have few operational partners within the European Union and yet to begin meaningful interactions with NATO.

The question that must be faced is this: Can the EU manage its vast resources to maximise its information sharing with partner agencies and tighten its grip around radical Islamic factions returning to Europe? To answer this question and provide an appropriate response to various other underlying questions, we must better understand foreign fighter factions, their agenda, and their operational mechanism.

#Reviewing Does My Suicide Vest Make Me Look Fat?

#Reviewing Does My Suicide Vest Make Me Look Fat?

Ready offers a necessary antidote to the lionization of American military service, as well as an honest picture of the challenges of coming home to normal life. This is a book that will speak to anyone who’s worked in a large, complex bureaucracy, anyone who had to explain to their guys that they were taking an ‘operational pause’ because somebody forgot to pack enough batteries, and anyone who’s had a useless boss in any job, not just the military.

Post-ISIS Antagonists and the Looming Struggle

Post-ISIS Antagonists and the Looming Struggle

While future insurgencies may be inevitable, they can be marginalized. It is incumbent upon the international coalition to commit to a sustained presence in Iraq and the freed areas of Syria for years to come. This presence must include substantive improvements to security forces, reconstruction of decimated communities, and reconciliation of Sunni populations at the national level. This effort may take up to a decade, if not longer, the United States must leverage members of the coalition to the greatest extent possible, and policy makers must be made aware of the sobering timeline and costs required.

#Reviewing Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening Story

#Reviewing Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening Story

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced a litany of innovative ideas and programs: Provincial Reconstruction Teams, Agricultural Development Teams, Cultural Support Teams, and Village Stability Operations, to name just a few. The Anbar Awakening is arguably the most successful of all of the population-centric counterinsurgency movements. It helped spur the marginally successful Afghan Local Police (ALP) program. Despite its success in beating back Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in Anbar and helping spur the Iraq-wide Sons of Iraq (SOI) program, there has been a long debate over the Anbar Awakening narrative.

Changing Calculus and Learning from our Enemies

Changing Calculus and Learning from our Enemies

Suicide Bombing has been the subject of scholarly works and studies in multiple campaigns. For the U.S. military, suicide tactics have been an integral part of the threat environment for well over a decade. Familiarity with the concept generates a bit of complacency, but this is a false familiarity obscuring the reality that suicide bombing has changed in the last decade.

Modern Tragedy: How the Sicilian Expedition and the Iraq Campaign Exhibit Strategic Effects

Modern Tragedy: How the Sicilian Expedition and the Iraq Campaign Exhibit Strategic Effects

Thucydides, who authored the definitive account of the Peloponnesian War, started writing as soon as the conflict began, “...believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.” His account has also proved valuable for evaluating ensuing conflicts through to the present day. As Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote, the Peloponnesian War showed that “strategic problems remain the same, though affected by tactical difficulties peculiar to each age.” The Athenian invasion of Sicily and the American experience in Iraq were not identical, but no two wars ever are. Instead, we must look at the overarching effects the military campaigns had on political objectives.

Typos on the Skin of Men: The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

Typos on the Skin of Men: The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

Given their worldview and resources, the Coalition Provisional Authority did about as well as one could hope. But the next time the United States finds itself in the nation-building business, our policies should be guided less by ideology, and more by humility, historical understanding, and simple respect for the dignity of our foreign partners.