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

Vietnam

Reviewing: Clear, Hold, and Destroy: Pacification in Phú Yên and the American War in Vietnam

Reviewing: Clear, Hold, and Destroy: Pacification in Phú Yên and the American War in Vietnam

The American response to the dilemma of creating a democratic society while waging a guerilla war was pacification, a European concept born out of colonization that was relatively new to Americans. In Clear, Hold, and Destroy, Army University Press historian Robert J. Thompson III closely analyzes Phu Yen, a mountainous and agricultural coastal province in Vietnam’s central highlands, to understand the gestation of American pacification, how it was implemented, and why it ultimately failed. In this study of the American commitment in Vietnam, Thompson underscores the centrality of conventional military forces in the implementation of pacification.

What Comes After COVID-19? Political Psychology, Strategic Outcomes, and Options for the Asia-Pacific “Quad-Plus"

What Comes After COVID-19? Political Psychology, Strategic Outcomes, and Options for the Asia-Pacific “Quad-Plus"

The novel coronavirus pandemic has built the foundation for an unexpected pax epidemica between the U.S. and China. The pandemic has inflicted significant damages on all the great and middle powers to the extent that none would be in a position to win a war anytime in the near future. Most importantly, policymakers’ pessimistic considerations about their own country’s military capabilities and readiness for war would make them risk-averse and unwilling to undertake any major military campaign, therefore calling off the risk of interstate war altogether.

#Reviewing Imperfect Patriot

#Reviewing Imperfect Patriot

This is a work that succeeds at examining the broad impacts, both good and bad, of a career public servant with an emphasis more on the latter than the former. The author sheds light and places blame on the central figure, although it can be assumed that blame does not solely rest with Powell alone and also resides with others outside the scope of this work. Matthews provides a warning to all that even those most admired are not infallible. This work should be read by all national security professionals, uniformed service members, or any other governmental agency including the department of state and the intelligence community.

#Reviewing In the Year of the Tiger

#Reviewing In the Year of the Tiger

In the Year of the Tiger still deserves serious consideration by scholars as a worthwhile book in the growing field of academic investigation into the First Indochina War. Despite shortfalls in commission and omission at points, Waddell provides a cogent and useful analysis on which others may usefully build. That should, after all, be the goal among those who seek to understand how the First Indochina War conditioned the disaster the United States chose to pursue after final French defeat in 1954.

North Korea: Time for a "Normal" Strategy?

North Korea: Time for a "Normal" Strategy?

The agenda for normalizing U.S.-Pyongyang relations should be modeled after the incremental U.S.-Hanoi approach, yet also take advantage of the momentum created by the April 27 summit between President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un. While the summit produced few detailed plans, both leaders agreed in principle to pursue a permanent peace treaty. This now presents a natural opportunity for the U.S. to support South Korea by setting aside previous ambitions for regime change and championing efforts to turn the 1953 armistice into a peace agreement. Progressive steps would then follow a similar multi-year process used with Vietnam. Pursuing this methodology offers a viable conduit for changing the dynamics on the peninsula and in the region, while Kim Jong Un is provided security as well as access to the resources needed to lead his desired modernization efforts.

#Reviewing The Road Not Taken

#Reviewing The Road Not Taken

Lansdale was a colorful figure, who revealed in his maverick status and his disdain for the sprawling national security apparatus. Perhaps if Lansdale had been a bit more of an adept bureaucratic knife fighter he would have been more successful. Yet, if he had, it is likely that he would never have been the agile advisor who helped Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay defeat the Hukbalahap rebellion.

#Reviewing Nine Days In May

#Reviewing Nine Days In May

Battles like Ia Drang, Con Tien, Khe Sanh, and Hue standout in the history of the American war in South Vietnam. While hardly typical, those clashes resonate well in popular histories and documentaries. On the other hand, transpiring on tracks of land away from large urban areas and not on some named, fortified hilltop—and at a time when multiple larger American military operations occurred across South Vietnam—nine May battles took place that lacked the consistent intensity of the aforementioned engagements, but typified the experience of many in Vietnam. Although these May battles were both remote physically and mentally for those not involved, participants experienced the savagery that came with the few, intense instances of contact with the enemy.

Military Incidents: Not the Edge of the Abyss

Military Incidents: Not the Edge of the Abyss

Recent provocations concerning Iran and North Korea raise concerns about the U.S. fighting another war. The U.S. Navy’s history with challenging Iranian actions in the Strait of Hormuz and the perceived escalation of North Korean provocations via ballistic missile development conjure thoughts of a third world war. Yet history offers lessons on the U.S. responding to foreign aggression far away from America’s territorial borders.

Vietnamization and the Advisory Crisis

Vietnamization and the Advisory Crisis

A key element of the United States’ endgame during the Vietnam War entailed leaving the Republic of Vietnam in a position of self-reliance. Called Vietnamization, the process focused on shifting the responsibility for security squarely onto the shoulders of the South Vietnamese, permitting the return of American personnel to the U.S. What transpired in Phu Yen during 1970 proved Vietnamization impervious to indicators of an unready South Vietnamese state. Largely forgotten since the Vietnam War, the Advisory Crisis, as it became known, damaged the partnership between American and South Vietnamese forces.

Tet à Tête: Vietnamese Exploitation of American Misapprehension

Tet à Tête: Vietnamese Exploitation of American Misapprehension

The Tet Offensive was a shock and a surprise for the Americans, where despite the high death toll the Americans inflicted on the Vietnamese, the Americans still lost. The Americans did not understand the restrictions and limitations they placed on themselves: the ideology of anti-Communism and exceptionalist pro-Democracy. But the Vietnamese did.

Lessons Not Learned: Viet Cong Infrastructure and the War in South Vietnam

Lessons Not Learned: Viet Cong Infrastructure and the War in South Vietnam

Defeating the enemy’s ability to organize and operate is fundamental to pacification. During the War on Terror and the Vietnam War, complex enemy organizations posed a serious challenge to the United States. Highlighting difficulties in pacification for both the Republic of Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia serves as a lesson underscoring the limits of American power to defeat clandestine networks.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Since World War I, powerful nations victorious on the field of battle struggled to achieve political objectives because their post war settlements set conditions that facilitated future conflicts instead of ensuring lasting peace. The victorious strategist must not only ensure their pre-war political objectives are codified in the post war settlement, but the emissaries must also take great care and vigilance to end the war with strategic foresight that translates the military victory into lasting peace.

The Battle of Cung Son

The Battle of Cung Son

Bloodying the enemy at Cung Son occurred at the cost of advancing pacification. Instead of focusing resources on intensifying the Saigon government’s control in Son Hoa District, efforts were directed towards rebuilding the hamlets and the people’s trust in the GVN to protect them. For the aforementioned reasons, what transpired at Cung Son functions as lesson that battlefield triumphs do not always equate to winning a war.

#Reviewing Through the Valley: My Captivity in Vietnam

#Reviewing Through the Valley: My Captivity in Vietnam

As the United States finds itself once again providing special operations and fire support to a host nation fighting an enemy bent on its destruction, the same psychological pressures and realities faced by Reeder are being confronted by both coalition personnel as well as all manner of people either captured or occupied by the Islamic State. New craters. Old volcanos. And as we continue to pour support into this fight, there comes with it the same human costs that responsible decision makers and leaders would do well to understand.

#Reviewing The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam

#Reviewing The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam

The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam is a must read for policy-makers, and is extremely worthwhile for the military and other governmental agencies. It contains lessons that may assist in stopping a conflict before it starts, or to help manage it once conflict has begun.

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

Strategic performance is strongly affected by the state’s information management capabilities. Top policymakers must have the ability to understand the environment in which they are acting (outside information) and how their national security organizations are behaving in that strategic environment (inside information). Strategic risk assessment is based on an understanding of the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, the challenges and opportunities present in the international environment, and the capability of the state to act in a purposeful way along multiple lines. Without sound outside and inside information, risk assessments will suffer, as will the quality of strategy.

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

#Reviewing Success and Failure in Limited War

In the Information Institution Approach, Bakich gives critical importance to whether or not key decision makers have access to multi-sourced information and whether the information institutions themselves have the ability to communicate laterally. When information is multi-sourced and there is good coordination across the diplomatic and military lines of effort, Bakich predicts success. When information is stove piped and there is poor coordination, he predicts failure. Where the systems are moderately truncated, Bakich expects various degrees of failure depending on the scope and location within the state’s information institutions.

A Millennial’s Perspective on the Legacy of Vietnam

A Millennial’s Perspective on the Legacy of Vietnam

The last American combat troops left Vietnam in 1973, twelve years before I was born and 42 years ago as I write this. No millennials, as my generation is called, lived through the Vietnam War. For most of us even the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union happened too early in our lives to resonate politically. My generation’s perspective on Vietnam is shaped entirely through textbooks and movies. Through those lenses, the Vietnam War seems to be one of the most costly political and strategic blunders in United States history.

We Can’t Be Overrun: The Legacy of Khe Sanh

We Can’t Be Overrun: The Legacy of Khe Sanh

Khe Sanh taught we can’t be overrun as an enduring strategic narrative, a belief, and a guide. The great battle provides an important litmus test for force planning and a lesson that is often obscured by a selective understanding of U.S. military history. That is, what ground we choose to fight for is insignificant in relation to why and how we fight for it.