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

The Language of Mission Command and the Necessity of an Historical Approach

The Language of Mission Command and the Necessity of an Historical Approach

 It is time to drag out the old historical concepts and put them into a contemporary framework in a readable fashion. History is unbeatable in teaching lessons. The U.S. Army needs to understand the struggle the Prussian/German Army went through to introduce this superior command culture to avoid the old mistakes and repeat the successes. Only then is there a chance in the future that once American officers will face the enemy not with a superior budget, gadgets, fire power, or electronics but with a superior mind and command culture. The language of mission command is like the command culture itself: brief, uncompromising, focused, and ruthless.

Political Warfare as Grand Strategy

Political Warfare as Grand Strategy

Australia is faced with many strategic challenges. On one hand there is the rise of non-state actors, such as Islamist extremists, who aim to overhaul the Westphalian international system. Without the rule book of western nations, they combine conventional and unconventional military tactics ignoring the distinction of soldier and civilian. These non-state actors, enabled by the networked age, combine propaganda, conventional military tactics and guerrilla asymmetry, along with financial and governance structures. Whether it is Hezbollah, the Taleban, or Daesh, they utilise the entire spectrum of warfare and multiple methods to achieve their desired political ends.

#Reviewing Tribe

#Reviewing Tribe

Though [Tribe] is brief, in this enjoyable book readers—whether veteran or not—will walk away with a greater appreciation for the challenges facing those weary from war at their homecoming. Those who study war will also uncover profound wisdom, both in the conduct of war and the care of its combatants. If it is incomplete in the defense of its underlying ideology, it does, however, succeed as a warning, a reminder of the cost of war and a challenge to society cultivate the solidarity that brought us “to this extraordinary moment in our history.” If, as Junger implies, solidarity brought us this crossroads in our history, “it may also be the only thing that allows us to survive it.”

Why ISIS Remains a Threat

Why ISIS Remains a Threat

To be successful in the long term against the threat of the Islamic State, the United States should focus its power on undermining the organization’s core appeal. The United States must recognize the sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict, which enhances the attraction to the Islamic State as the best Sunni Army in Syria. All U.S. policy decisions must be informed by the need to guarantee the rights and future of Syrian Sunnis, while anticipating increased threats from the growth of jihadi organizations within Syria.

#Reviewing A War

#Reviewing A War

Ultimately, this film is about many things. Stale and hollow storytelling is not one of them. A War is ripe with the chaos that is war. Watching it, one is struck by courage, tragedy, death, grief, and the circumstantial bureaucracy of war. One has thrust upon them the impact of deployment on family, the demands of brotherhood, and its connections beyond the blurred lines of battle.

Into the Greasy Grass—The Importance of the Tank in War Today and in the Future

Into the Greasy Grass—The Importance of the Tank in War Today and in the Future

The future of the tank is secure. Men first mastered animals to move faster on the battlefield than their foes afoot, and it continues today. Men build machines that are faster, but more importantly to protect them from weapons on the field, and enable them to carry more devastating firepower than they could if on foot. This is the magical combination of mobility, firepower, and protection that all armored vehicles balance in some way, shape, or form.

Reflections on #Leadership: Character | Presence | Intellect: Can we get there?

Reflections on #Leadership: Character | Presence | Intellect: Can we get there?

In the end, getting leadership development and retention correct actually saves lives. Young Americans are placed in the capable hands of junior and senior leaders in almost every part of the U.S. Government on a daily basis. We must meet these development goals. The future will demand that our leaders at every level be mentally agile, sound in judgment, and resilient, building upon their strong foundational character.

The Objective Value of Clausewitz

The Objective Value of Clausewitz

The reality is that we value considering war in a certain way: the Clausewitzian way. Just like other values, people can disagree, but they should recognize that they are disagreeing based on value and not fact...Arguments about the definition of war are always, in some sense, efforts to shape, constrain, or channel violence and power, but this makes it all the more important to consider whether we should think of the nature of war as Clausewitz does. To which I answer, most definitively, yes, because if not Clausewitz, then whom?

Reflections on #Leadership: Investing in People

Reflections on #Leadership: Investing in People

That next generation of leaders who will decide the fate of thousands on the battlefield almost certainly stands in our ranks today. The most valuable thing we can do now is to invest our lives in them, mentor, develop, and counsel them so that when history calls, they will stand ready to do their duty. If we expect to have Eisenhowers and Pattons on tomorrow’s battlefields, we must begin by creating a cadre of Fox Conners today from the leaders currently in our ranks.

Max Weber & Groucho Marx Walk Into A Bar: #Reviewing Victor in the Rubble

Max Weber & Groucho Marx Walk Into A Bar: #Reviewing Victor in the Rubble

Simply, Victor in the Rubble is a delight. It produces that same sense of glee that comes from opening an MRE to find a pop tart perfectly whole rather than smashed into a gazillion crumbles. Alex Finley, a former CIA officer, has crafted a magical satire of the Intelligence Community post-9/11, Iraq, and the 2004 intelligence reforms.

ISIS and the Thirty Years' War

ISIS and the Thirty Years' War

Raqaa is not Munster, Obama is not Waldeck, and the Sunni-Shia face-off is not the Thirty Years’ War. But the comparisons are seductive for a reason, as they help explain a highly complex set of events (like the Arab Spring, the rise of ISIS, the fight in Iraq and Syria and the execution of a Shia cleric) in terms that we know—or think we know. Put another way, historical analogies are useful (and the Thirty Years’ War analogy is particularly useful), but only so long as we get the history right—when we understand that the Thirty Years’ War had nothing to do with God. It was about power. And that’s true today, in the Middle East.

Reflections on #Leadership: Mission Command in the Information Age

Reflections on #Leadership: Mission Command in the Information Age

Leaders must accustom themselves to the uncertain and the ambiguous. They must train themselves and their subordinates to fight equally well across the entire spectrum of conflict. They must be prepared to dominate any battlefield through decisive action at the critical point, even without the benefit of technology or constant oversight. Leaders at all levels must honestly and deliberately exercise mission command at all times or they, their units, and the mission will pay the price when it truly counts

The Institutional Level of War

The Institutional Level of War

The capacity of the United States military to fund and field an institutional force is an asymmetric advantage over enemies and adversaries around the globe...The development and advancement of knowledge necessary to improve the force is not a distraction from the operational elements in the current fight. By recognizing the value of the institutional level of war and the contributions of leaders practicing the institutional art, the United States will maintain this asymmetric advantage for decades to come.