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

#Reviewing

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.

#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: Understanding Peacekeeping, 3rd Edition.

#Reviewing: Understanding Peacekeeping, 3rd Edition.

In the midst of ongoing armed conflicts in Yemen, Ethiopia, and myriad other locations, understanding potential tools for mitigating these crises is necessary. Paul Williams and Alex Bellamy’s third edition of Understanding Peacekeeping is timely. In this volume, Williams and Bellamy continue to build out their original 2004 release by evaluating and providing in-depth discussions of the changes in the international landscape and the drivers of peace operations over time. This is a textbook of peace operations centered on those endeavors that incorporate military personnel, which provides students and scholars in-depth analysis. For academics and students interested in peace operations, this book is a necessary research edition that could be used as a primary text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses.

#Reviewing Sid Meier’s! Lessons in Game Design: Civilization and Wargames

#Reviewing Sid Meier’s! Lessons in Game Design: Civilization and Wargames

Constructing open worlds and the freedom to develop innovative strategies that incubate strategic minds or threaten authoritarian societies are the unexplored frontiers. The lessons in game design that Civilization offers are important for the developing wargame research community to understand as decision-making games become a critical part of the military education process.

#Reviewing: Battle Tested!: Gettysburg Leadership Lessons for 21st Century Leaders

#Reviewing: Battle Tested!: Gettysburg Leadership Lessons for 21st Century Leaders

Battle Tested! focuses on the three decisive days of battle—July 1 to 3, 1863—between George Meade’s Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia near the sleepy town of Gettysburg. The chapters provide historical and biographical background and then present a “Leadership Moment” for the reader, asking what they would do in a particular commander’s shoes at that point. Then the authors present several leadership qualities at play in the scenario, explain the importance of each, and provide modern examples to supplement their analysis.

#Reviewing Hoarding Memory

#Reviewing Hoarding Memory

Overall, Hubbell’s work illustrates how literature, history, and art refract the memory of the Algerian War. These memories are multiple, varied, and ultimately accretive, which impedes healing and progress for both French and Algerians across both sides of the Mediterranean. Hubbell’s book will be of great interest not only to scholars of France and Algeria, but also to anyone examining memory, trauma, and contested historical narratives.

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.

#Reviewing Dodgebomb: Outside the Wire in the Second Iraq War

#Reviewing Dodgebomb: Outside the Wire in the Second Iraq War

Dodgebomb works as a story of an Iraq deployment. For those who have deployed, the stories and characters ring true. For someone with no military experience, the stories are relatable, funny, heart-wrenching, and effectively convey that experience. Pepple’s treatment of the hard decisions leaders face in combat is equally effective, leaving the reader understanding them, but not always liking them.

#Reviewing Speed: The Life of a Test Pilot and Birth of an American Icon

#Reviewing Speed: The Life of a Test Pilot and Birth of an American Icon

This book is a testament both to the courage of Bob Gilliland and the ingenuity of Skunk Works at its height. Aviation historians and engineers will appreciate the story while the general public can respect a man’s mark on aviation. The book could have improved if it were more accessible to general readers and if it questioned why there hasn’t been a jet that was as groundbreaking since the SR-71. Nevertheless, the book provides a glimpse of the can-do attitude of the military-industrial complex leaving its readers to wonder whether we can once again scrape the heavens and push the limits of aerospace as Gilliland did nearly 60 years ago.

#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 The Folly of Generals: How Eisenhower’s Broad Front Strategy Lengthened World War II

#Reviewing The Folly of Generals: How Eisenhower’s Broad Front Strategy Lengthened World War II

Writing counterfactual history is always of tremendous difficulty, reminding me of astronomer Carl Sagan’s quip that history could only be a science if one possessed a time machine with which to run hypothesis-testing experiments. One can neither prove nor falsify the claims on offer here, but only guess at their plausibility. Such analytical exercises are welcome, and occasionally fruitful. The Folly of Generals will and should be welcomed by military enthusiasts, and is worthy of debate in staff colleges and other institutions of military education.

#Reviewing The Afghanistan Papers

#Reviewing The Afghanistan Papers

Craig Whitlock’s The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War is essential reading for national security scholars, and anyone interested in a bureaucratic history of America’s longest war. His research illustrates some truly dispiriting failures of American foreign policy formulation, military planning, and program execution. The book also serves as a bitter reminder that the state will lie to the public and often for less than noble purposes.

#Reviewing War at the Speed of Light

#Reviewing War at the Speed of Light

Del Monte’s latest book War at the Speed of Light: Directed-Energy Weapons and the Future of Twenty-First Century Warfare explores how lasers, electromagnetic weapons, and other energy-based or -driven weapons could change how future wars are fought. Del Monte argues that these technologies will accelerate the pace of war. The use of directed-energy weapons will mean a faster time to kill resulting in smaller windows for decision making at all levels of conflict. Taken together with artificial intelligence and cyber weapons, Del Monte argues that these changes will upend strategic stability as we understand it today.

#Reviewing Bitskrieg

#Reviewing Bitskrieg

In Bitskrieg, John Arquilla distills much from his three decades of advocacy about networked warfare into a compact volume accessible to a wide audience. He displays a continuing ability to produce provocative arguments and engaging books. The tenets of Bitskrieg are consistent with many of Arquilla’s previous writings. These include the point that networked warfare or netwar encompasses cyber conflict but extends beyond it.

#Reviewing No Conquest, No Defeat

#Reviewing No Conquest, No Defeat

No Conquest, No Defeat: Iran’s National Security Strategy by political scientist Ariane Tabatabai is an ambitious study that situates the security policies and practices of the Islamic Republic in the context of Iranian history. The book’s central claim is that important lines of continuity connect Iran’s current approach to security to the policies of past regimes. This refutes the oft-made claim that the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979 constituted a major break in Iran’s foreign policy.

#Reviewing The Inevitability of Tragedy

#Reviewing The Inevitability of Tragedy

The modern world is no less dangerous than the one Kissinger faced. In fact, the emergence of a multipolar order demands now more than ever that policymakers have pragmatic and, in many cases, sensibly pessimistic approaches. Barry Gewen’s book makes a lasting contribution to that end, and will help all readers understand the value, as Henry Kissinger so powerfully put it, of living “with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.”

#Reviewing The Character Gap

#Reviewing The Character Gap

If you are looking for an accessible, practical introduction to moral psychology and ethics for undergraduate, Professional Military Education classes, or the general interest reader, look no further. Philosopher and psychology researcher Christian Miller’s The Character Gap distills much of his own scholarly work, as well as the thoughts and writing of others, into a readable, accessible volume with practical examples, citations from important studies, and popular culture references that bring alive questions of moral character and development. This volume asks us not just to consider others’ moral character, but also reflect upon our own, the gaps in it, and how we can improve it.

#Reviewing The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in WWI

#Reviewing The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in WWI

William C. Meadows is the accomplished author of six distinctive books on Native Americans. Meadows' newest book, The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in World War I is an academic text that argues for recognition of the Choctaw Code Talkers during the First World War. Many are familiar with the Navajo Code Talkers from the Second World War, but few know of the Choctaw Nation Code Talkers of the First World War.

#Reviewing Freedom

#Reviewing Freedom

For the past two decades, Sebastian Junger has been one of the more insightful writers and filmmakers of historical and contemporary events. His new book is part travelogue, part political and philosophical musing. Junger dissects and contemplates the meanings of freedom, and how such meanings shape individuals and the societies in which they are both running from and/or dependent on.

#Reviewing How to Think Like an Officer

#Reviewing How to Think Like an Officer

The ideas that Bonadonna espouses for improving officer education and for widening the lenses that get used to examine problems have much to commend them. His arguments that there are elements of military culture that need to be re-examined and changed will certainly raise questions, but this is a good thing…Investing in the time to examine how officers think, and considering how we can improve upon the status quo, is an investment worth making. Arguably, doing so is a requirement of anyone belonging to the military profession.