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

Ethics in Strategy: Making Strategy Rigorous and Ethics Honest

Ethics in Strategy: Making Strategy Rigorous and Ethics Honest

Without the tools of ethics and philosophy, strategists may go about their strategizing in an ad hoc manner characterized by frequent vague appeals to a crudely defined notion of political realism and a myopic conception of instrumental expediency. But ethics also must survive the formidable challenge of providing knowledge about and guidance for strategic choices. To paraphrase Dennett, ethics can make strategy rigorous, but strategy also makes ethics honest.Without the tools of ethics and philosophy, strategists may go about their strategizing in an ad hoc manner characterized by frequent vague appeals to a crudely defined notion of political realism and a myopic conception of instrumental expediency. But ethics also must survive the formidable challenge of providing knowledge about and guidance for strategic choices.

SOF and Surrogates: Rethinking the Ethical-Strategic Challenge of "Through, With, and By"

SOF and Surrogates: Rethinking the Ethical-Strategic Challenge of "Through, With, and By"

Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the effects-focused approach is that it conceives of surrogates as being more like weapon systems than moral agents. In addition to the strict ethical and legal responsibilities regarding the use of surrogates, there is also a general responsibility to evaluate the risk of working with (and thus potentially enabling) prospective surrogates. 

Ethics and Arms Sales: Operationalizing the Just War Tradition

Ethics and Arms Sales: Operationalizing the Just War Tradition

The ethical concerns surrounding international arms sales should meet the criteria outlined in the jus ad bellum framework whenever politically possible. The jus ad bellum framework encourages policymakers to take the long view by considering the broader strategic implications of the decision to export weapons. Though not a panacea, arms transfers that meet the jus ad bellum criteria provide policymakers with some assurance that the recipient state’s government will use the arms in question responsibly, and in a manner that aligns with broader American foreign policy goals.

Pragmatic Ethics

Pragmatic Ethics

Too often, strategy discussions are seen as dominated by pragmatism, while discussions about ethics are considered more abstract or theoretical. What is often missed by people who approach the Just War Tradition as an abstract theory, rather than as a true tradition, is that as part of this evolution, it has incorporated prudential calculations that acknowledge the crucial importance of context when determining a correct course of action.

Burning the Village to Save It: Moral Absolutism, Strategy, and the Challenge of the 21st Century

Burning the Village to Save It: Moral Absolutism, Strategy, and the Challenge of the 21st Century

Politicians, strategists, and tacticians need to discuss this problem. There is a group of experts who might help in this conversation, but they, sadly, are rarely invited to the sorts of parties that politicians, strategists, and tacticians attend. They are moral philosophers, and they could be our counsellors. If anything we might at least see the ethical elephant in the room, even if we can’t find him a new, more realistic, home.

Strategy and Ethics: Why Strategists Need Philosophical Back-Up

Strategy and Ethics: Why Strategists Need Philosophical Back-Up

The philosophical tradition in the West began with Socrates asking difficult, important, and sometimes annoying questions of those in power to explore ethical life and the nature of human society. He claimed to be a midwife of ideas—to help others in the painful process of giving birth—and to the extent that strategists are birthing strategy and creating means to achieve political ends of the State, a partner seems in order.

Introducing #StrategyAndEthics

This essay is part of the #StrategyAndEthics series, which asked a group of academics and national security professionals to provide their thoughts on the confluence of ethical considerations, the development of strategy, and the conduct of war. We hope this launches a debate that may one day shape policy.

When discussing ethics in a national security or military context, most people immediately think of the tradition of moral discourse about war, dominated by the Just War Tradition or Just War Theory. In this tradition, especially as it is taught in most civilian and professional military education largely based on the moral and legal principles first championed by Augustine and Aquinas, the only consideration of ethics in war involves either the morality of the choice to enter war in the first place or the ethical aspects of the tactical practices employed during the conflict.  

What of the ethical nature of choices made at the level of strategy and/or policy? Rarely are there discussions of the morality of the lessons passed down by strategists and war theorists such as Thucydides, Realists of various stripes, Clausewitz, and more contemporary figures such as B. Liddell Hart and Colin Gray who tend to root themselves in practical considerations and historical precedent. What role do ethical considerations play in the selection of policy goals, the approaches employed to meet them, and the level of resources dedicated to the wartime effort?

To address this lack of understanding of ethics across the spectrum of war, the Ethics and Strategy series is designed to explore some of the following questions about these two traditions and the lack of intersection and discourse between them:

  1. Why? What are the reasons for this lack of discourse and discussion between these strains of thought? 
  2. What are the points of intersection and common interest?
  3. Is there a moral obligation to have and maintain effective strategy? Why? What would be the moral grounds of such an obligation?
  4. What are the moral obligations that ought to contain or limit strategy? Are there any?
  5. What strategic considerations ought to constrain or inform moral discourse about war? 
  6. What of the role of moral theory in strategy education and training?
  7. What is the role of various aspects of strategy (history, psychology, political science, military science) in the training of military ethicists and others involved in moral discourse about war
  8. What are future directions and considerations for dialog?
  9. Are certain kinds of conflict (responsibility to protect, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency) more amenable to a moral/strategic intersection? Why?

We hope you enjoy this series as much as we did working on it. If the articles generated ideas or you want to join in the conversation, put it down on paper and send it our way.  Some submission guidelines to support your efforts can be found here.

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Header image: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, also known as Wanderer Above the Mist, an oil painting composed in 1818 by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich (Wikimedia)

Exercise Hamel 2016: A Case Study in the Military Use of Social Media

Exercise Hamel 2016: A Case Study in the Military Use of Social Media

This article describes how a multi-disciplinary team from the Australian Army integrated a communications plan into the design and execution of Exercise Hamel in 2016. We examine issues such as planning for public affairs and social media to be supporting elements of the exercise; workforce design; execution of a social media campaign, including tracking and adaptation; and finally, the results. Notably, this article also makes a contribution to emerging research regarding the role of new and social media as part of an integrated military public affairs strategy.     

Prevent Disease to Prevent War

Prevent Disease to Prevent War

Chronic, non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, and chronic respiratory disease are responsible for two-thirds of deaths worldwide each year. This staggering death toll of chronic diseases is almost as underappreciated as their security consequences. To promote international peace and security, the U.S. should combat chronic disease at home and abroad through a strategy of prevention in which civilian agencies and the military play instrumental roles.  

#Reviewing A Passion for Leadership

#Reviewing A Passion for Leadership

Truly visionary leaders challenge the way things have been done. They create unique ways to provide remarkable service, take thoughtful risks, and proactively implement new ideas. They implement change and move the organization forward. While some members of the organization will embrace the change, others will not. To navigate change the leader needs the support of key subordinate leaders in the organization. He or she needs a champion at all levels with the ability to see it through.

#Reviewing The Conduct of War, 1789-1961

#Reviewing The Conduct of War, 1789-1961

To get the most out of this book you need to get past the obvious prejudice that Fuller has, undoubtedly colored by his exasperation with the leaders who muddled through World War One and those who sidelined him during World War Two. If you can do this, The Conduct of War is an excellent historical introspection into the character of war and its utility for achieving political advantage.

Civil Aviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Governance, Security, and Safety Challenges

Civil Aviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Governance, Security, and Safety Challenges

Sub-Saharan Africa’s civil aviation industry represents a potential bright spot in a region facing several economic challenges...However, regional policymakers, airline carriers, and international aviation regulators must address numerous security, safety, and governance challenges if this potential is to be more fully realized.

#Reviewing The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought

#Reviewing The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought

In an impressive new book, Milevski argues that grand strategy is a conceptual nomad, an idea whose course has been driven solely by immediate historical contingency, with little theoretical grounding or guidance. Over the course of nearly two hundred years, writers on grand strategy have demonstrated a curious case of presentism in their approach to studying and refining the idea. Spurred by the necessity of solving immediate problems, grand strategy has been pushed in one direction after another, whipsawed by the emergence of new contingencies.