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

A Year in #Reviewing

A Year in #Reviewing

Francis Bacon once wrote, "Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man." Reading was the beginning of study for Bacon, and the reading he advised in the pursuit of knowledge ranged widely. But we must also think, discuss, and write about the knowledge we pursue. We've taken this advice to heart here at The Strategy Bridge, and the #Reviewing series is one monument to our belief in its truth. The interested reader will find here a collection of our reading, thinking, and writing—of our #Reviewing—for 2016. The interested reader will also find a group of authors nailing their whispers to the wall making themselves and our community stronger. We're proud to be a part of such a community.

Tactical and Strategic Interdependence

Tactical and Strategic Interdependence

Only by understanding the proper framework and context within which to place and employ the means towards the ends can tactical victories and strategic successes possibly be achieved. Strategy and tactics are absorbed and coextensive in the mind of the commander, within the plan of war, which decides combat, the crucial key connecting and explaining strategy, tactics, and their relationship.

The Myth of Total War

The Myth of Total War

It is not useful to define wars by measures such as size, scale, or commitment because these are subjective and thus cloud analysis. This is particularly true in regard to such things as cost and casualties. How much a war costs, how many people it kills, and what it consumes and destroys are certainly important issues—no one disputes this—but these are not bases for critical analysis because they fail to generate solid, tangible, universal foundations for discussion, which is exactly what writing on such subjects should provide.

The Myth of Russian Aggression and NATO Expansion

The Myth of Russian Aggression and NATO Expansion

Russian aggression has resulted from a combination of many different factors that created a situation where the benefits of aggression significantly outweighed their costs. While Russians certainly like using NATO expansion to justify aggression, this article describes facts suggesting Russia’s motives have little to do with fears over NATO expansion or military forces.

What the Super Hornet Decision Reveals about Canadian Strategic Thinking

What the Super Hornet Decision Reveals about Canadian Strategic Thinking

The question that confronts Canada in this environment is not which is the right fighter for our interests. The question is, “Does Canada realise that the strategic environment is no longer what it was?” The elephant may choose to roll over on the mouse just to make a point. The house might be firebombed from within, again, just to make a point. Canada’s careful, cold-nosed policies on “how little is enough” have become decidedly more difficult.

How Cicero Molds a Virtuous Leader out of Plato: Ancient Lessons in Moral Education and Duty

How Cicero Molds a Virtuous Leader out of Plato: Ancient Lessons in Moral Education and Duty

Military leaders must continue to uphold public confidence with exemplary behavior. This requires renewed commitment to education, self-improvement, reason, and duty. Placing blanket ethics training aside, we can start to relearn virtuous living by picking up copies of Republic and De Officiis. Indeed as professionals, we have an obligation to self-train on these classic works and groom our own moral excellence, for the trust of the society we serve depends on it.

Conceptualizing Emerging Strategic Challenges in the Cyber Age

Conceptualizing Emerging Strategic Challenges in the Cyber Age

Few at CyConUS were optimistic about the future of cyber restraint among states. Rather, it was the assertiveness of nation-states that featured prominently in many of the keynotes and panel discussions.  Whether the U.S. and its allies can respond effectively to these challenges, and the many others likely to follow, remains an open question. The cyber era is one of asymmetric conflict. For all of the billions of dollars the U.S. spends on cybersecurity through the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, determined attackers can find success for a minuscule fraction of that cost. Bending that cost-curve in a more favorable direction must be a top priority for the U.S. and its global partners.

#Reviewing What is the Worst That Could Happen?

#Reviewing What is the Worst That Could Happen?

Let us not turn away in the face of unattainable limits. Instead, we should push those limits and make our best attempt to imagine the unthinkable and prepare accordingly. That being said, there is no free lunch. How much time and money ought the U.S. government allocate to wargaming worst cases, or on a smaller scale, ought you devote to reading this book? The first question is too large for this review, but I will say that What Is The Worst That Could Happen? was well worth my $37.95 and an afternoon’s time, and I am confident that any reader of The Bridge will feel the same.

#Reviewing Decoding Al-Qaeda's Strategy

#Reviewing Decoding Al-Qaeda's Strategy

It is worth reviewing Al Qaeda’s strategic DNA for insights into what the group and its various factions would seek to achieve if given the opportunity. This leads the author to a prescription to contest Al Qaeda’s Salafist ideology by pointing out their extensive references to Maoist and Western strategists. I am skeptical that this would be a beneficial approach from agencies within the U.S. at least.  But, the value of this book is its message that the flea remains vigorously at work against the dog, even if we would like to ignore that itch from time to time.

The Strategic Calculus of Mass Murder: Why Genocide?

The Strategic Calculus of Mass Murder: Why Genocide?

To understand mass violence and devise effective interventions, one must break from the popular notion that mass slaughter is purposeless barbarity. The next time the Islamic State or some other actor perpetrates an act of mass violence during a military campaign, we must ask ourselves what the leadership might hope to gain or achieve, and why decision-makers would allow such insanity. There may be a method to their madness, or an underlying strategic rationality being masked by their barbarity.  

A Case for Providence: #Reviewing Destiny and Power

A Case for Providence: #Reviewing Destiny and Power

Lying beneath this humanity is the unrelenting belief that each day of tedium, each crippling struggle, progresses one toward that individual peak. It’s the foundation that built Bush into a steward that led the U.S. through shifting times, though he scarcely heaped much praise from it in the moment. Rather, he bore through it, finding solace in the records he took on paper and in dictation: his journals. The ones with which Meacham has used to fill the pages of Destiny and Power, and in doing so, craft a legacy in a time with even less certainty and even more fear than the one George H.W. Bush occupied.

#Reviewing Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory

#Reviewing Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory

Just War Reconsidered is an absolute and urgent must-read for scholars of Just War, ethics, and strategy, as well as anyone involved in the enterprise of war—military and civilian alike. And after reading it, an energetic dialogue needs to develop and be sustained as the implications of this important contribution are gradually worked out.

Geronimo: Strategy Lessons from History’s Periphery

Geronimo: Strategy Lessons from History’s Periphery

On the surface, 4 December 1966, appears inconsequential. In the context of the 1960s, a decade rife with major milestones for humanity, 4 December 1966, exists on history’s periphery. Yet upon closer examination, this date is representative of what was until recently America’s longest war. Small events shape history, yet do so subtly. In that vein, Operation Geronimo revealed both the effectiveness and limitations of combating low intensity warfare with highly mobile forces. Deeper still, Operation Geronimo demonstrated that operational successes were not trustworthy indicators of progress towards victory during the Vietnam War.

Teaching Practical Strategy: The Contemporary War and Warfare Course at King’s College London

Teaching Practical Strategy: The Contemporary War and Warfare Course at King’s College London

What follows is a contribution to the debate on improving education in strategy and military affairs for potential leaders facing the major global issues of the 21st century. As it covers a single postgraduate course at a single university in the United Kingdom, it presents a way of teaching the subject, rather than the way, and is emphatically not a definitive guide on how to teach strategy. Rather, it is intended as a "think piece" and intended to provoke further discussion and give food for thought for others engaged in teaching in these fields, be they in military, government, or academic environments.