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

Drones in Counterterrorism: The Primacy of Politics Over Technology

Drones in Counterterrorism: The Primacy of Politics Over Technology

Waging counterterrorism operations is not just about having the right inventory of weaponry and the latest technical tools. Neither is simply marshaling the political will of the American population sufficient for undertaking counterterrorism. Wherever the US government wants to wage sustained campaigns with drones, it needs the buy-in of local actors but the interests of many of the actors fundamentally do not align with those of the US. This inevitably boils down to constant bargaining and deal-making with local actors. Politics, thus, retains the final say on how counterterrorism campaigns unfold.

The Human Factor in the “Unmanned” Systems of the People's Liberation Army

The Human Factor in the “Unmanned” Systems of the People's Liberation Army

What does the PLA’s approach so far to the humans behind their unmanned systems reveal about its potential engagement with the challenges associated with the highly automated and autonomous systems it is currently developing? Despite the myth that such systems tend to replace humans, requiring smaller numbers of combatants with lower levels of expertise, there is clear evidence to date that the human challenges of such systems are considerable, often requiring higher levels of specialized training. In this regard, PLA’s active focus on the development of personnel to operate UAVs could constitute an early case that demonstrates that the PLA will likely confront considerable challenges in the process of learning to use such high-tech systems more effectively.

Red Robots Rising: Behind the Rapid Development of Russian Unmanned Military Systems

Red Robots Rising: Behind the Rapid Development of Russian Unmanned Military Systems

It is clear Russian development of military unmanned systems, in conjunction with ongoing modernization of its armed forces, will result in a qualitatively different and capable force. Should Russia’s ongoing successes in Syria embolden it to act elsewhere  in a similar fashion, then U.S. and Western planners may not be the only ones flying a constellation of unmanned systems or directing swarms of ground vehicles and high-tech weapons. This calls for a re-evaluation of the current defense posture and review of technology development and acquisition cycles, a process that has been ongoing in the United States for some time.

Building a Future: Integrated Human-Machine Military Organization

Building a Future: Integrated Human-Machine Military Organization

At some point in the future, historians may look back on the current era as the dawn of a human-machine revolution or perhaps even the beginnings of the sixth revolution in military affairs. Williamson Murray notes in The Dynamics of Military Revolution that such things are rarely apparent in advance, and only obvious in retrospect and in the wake of remarkable battlefield success. While certainly the societal, technological, political, and military ingredients of such a revolution are present, whether this consists of a revolution in military affairs will be left to future historical debate.

Looking Back to the Future: The Beginnings of Drones and Manned Aerial Warfare

Looking Back to the Future: The Beginnings of Drones and Manned Aerial Warfare

Making predictions about the future is an impossible task, in particular when the focus is on technologies at their beginning. History is riddled with false prophecies, be they either exaggerations or understatements: from predictions that a technology will end war once and for all—like the telegraph or nuclear weapons—to such understatements as Watson’s famous prediction that there was a global market for only five computers. It is tough to judge whether changes are ground-breaking, or only appear so from the close proximity of a contemporary. At the same time, people throughout history have ignored fundamental changes happening before their eyes, as changes took time to unfold or initially only concerned a limited area.

Autonomous Weapons: Man’s Best Friend

Autonomous Weapons: Man’s Best Friend

As early as 1599, Shakespeare’s turn of phrase for Anthony in his play Julius Caesar tacitly acknowledged a 200-year-old human acceptance of autonomous war machines. As modern-day ethicists agonize over the autonomy’s ascendance, they ignore 2,600 years of wartime employment of autonomous, self-replicating killing machines that are by popular opinion still our best friend.

Introducing #WarBots

Introducing #WarBots

While it took centuries to move from Da Vinci’s vision to the Wright Brothers’ reality, the flash to bang on drones and beyond is rapidly shrinking. Whether we are still on the cusp or already tumbling down the rabbit hole, such technology will continue to combine in wonderful and terrible ways. We hope you enjoy this series as much as we enjoyed putting it together. More importantly, we hope it forces us to think about the future of warfare in new and uncomfortable ways.

Changing Calculus and Learning from our Enemies

Changing Calculus and Learning from our Enemies

Suicide Bombing has been the subject of scholarly works and studies in multiple campaigns. For the U.S. military, suicide tactics have been an integral part of the threat environment for well over a decade. Familiarity with the concept generates a bit of complacency, but this is a false familiarity obscuring the reality that suicide bombing has changed in the last decade.

Q-Boats and Chaos: Hybrid War on the High Seas

Q-Boats and Chaos: Hybrid War on the High Seas

Maritime hybrid warfare has the potential to become a major issue across all the levels of warfare. Its methods are numerous, but will likely involve autonomous systems, drones, Q-boats, little blue sailors, cyber-attacks, and propaganda. Ultimately, these methods will be hard to combat, but their effects can be reduced.

Multi-Domain Battle: The Need for Integration with National Strategy

Multi-Domain Battle: The Need for Integration with National Strategy

Multi-Domain Battle has many flaws, but its most fatal is that as presently envisioned it risks being an underachiever. The United States, if it is to re-exert its global position, needs a military strategic concept that is more than just an iterative update of Air/Land Battle. It needs one that is great, if not revolutionary. Those designing Multi-Domain Battle are right in seeking a land force able to contest and win the fight in and across all domains, and which takes advantage of technological advances in connectivity, visibility, and lethality. This is a good start, but only if it nests Multi-Domain Battle within a military and national strategy.

#Reviewing The Qur’an: A Chronological Modern English Interpretation

#Reviewing The Qur’an: A Chronological Modern English Interpretation

This volume accomplishes precisely what its author intended by providing those with sufficient intellectual curiosity a means of seeking deeper understanding of Islam and forming their own opinion of the Qur’an. This mission is both inspirational and aspirational. The gap we must close in modern society to achieve lasting international stability is vast. It is an intellectual divide that is multi-dimensional, layered, nuanced, complex, and sometimes maddening. Howk’s refreshed interpretation of the Qur’an is a noteworthy step in bridging this divide through respect and acceptance.

Examining War's Economic Incentives and Sanctions

Examining War's Economic Incentives and Sanctions

Over the past 100 years economics has been transformed from a prime motivator for war, through the imperialist ideals of national prestige and territorial expansion, to a tool best used as a means to try and avoid war. Additionally through the establishment of the rules based global order that emerged after the Second World War the economic motivation for war has not only been diminished but has effectively been rendered illegal and immoral. While economic considerations may be enshrined in the architecture of the current global order and serve to provide a means for modern nations to collectively pursue peace through mutual prosperity (as demonstrated by the EU), economic considerations do nothing to deter an irrational actor motivated by non-material means.

Is Iron Dome a Poisoned Chalice? Strategic Risks From Tactical Success

Is Iron Dome a Poisoned Chalice? Strategic Risks From Tactical Success

While Iron Dome’s past success makes it a tempting solution to future challenges, a careful look at the system’s success to date should engender caution. The system has performed well against an adversary with a limited arsenal of rockets, targeting relatively sparsely inhabited areas. However, even there, it has produced unexpected negative political consequences, feeding international perception of Israel as disproportionately aggressive and attenuating strategic ends to be less decisive. In future conflicts, even this mixed outcome may not be achieved.

Military Command as Moral Prudence: Examples from History and Literature

Military Command as Moral Prudence: Examples from History and Literature

Thomas Aquinas devotes a small section of his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica, to the question of whether military command is a form of moral prudence, concluding it is. Military command may resemble art, and it requires fortitude, but the exercise of command calls for prudence, which is unique among the Aristotelian virtues as cataloged by Aquinas in that it is both moral and intellectual. For the soldier, moral prudence involves a balancing act of ends and means, a golden mean of victory and its cost.

#Reviewing Soldiers and Civilization

#Reviewing Soldiers and Civilization

What do the ideas of narrative as doctrine, Stoicism, defeat, chivalry, and fighting for pay tell us about the development of military professionalism in the West? In his new volume, Soldiers and Civilization: How the Profession of Arms Thought and Fought the Modern World into Existence, Reed Robert Bonadonna addresses the role these and other developments in military history played in the development of military professionalism. His book is a fascinating and deep journey through military and intellectual history, which seeks to bring a historical and literary focus to a topic that tends to be dominated by social scientists such as Samuel Huntington or by ethicists rooted in the military practice such as Anthony Hartle. This volume appears unique in its focus and brings an important voice to the debate over the sources and nature of military professionalism in the West.

Chinese State Sponsored Hacking: It’s Time To Reach an Effective and Lasting Bilateral Agreement on Cyberwarfare

Chinese State Sponsored Hacking: It’s Time To Reach an Effective and Lasting Bilateral Agreement on Cyberwarfare

It remains to be seen whether or not the current administration’s approach to  China will bring further progress in terms of limiting cyber attacks. Ultimately, extending the terms of the 2015 agreement to explicitly ban attacks, to encourage co-operation in hardening financial institutions against them, and perhaps even mandate bi-lateral responses should they occur, would be in the mutual interest of both the U.S. and China.

On the Business Models of War

On the Business Models of War

The ultimate question begged by these musings is to consider what effect more than fifty years of trying to implement business management models into the American military has had? Are we more efficient and monetarily lean than ever before? It doesn’t seem so. We have the world’s most expensive military, with the costliest equipment and highest operating margins. It is difficult to  draw a direct causal argument, despite the apparent correlation in time, and beyond the scope of this article to do so. The  argument is simply that military effectiveness is a matter that ought not to be judged by monetary value (profit or cost-savings efficiency) of the services performed, and it is thus not appropriate for business management models. More bluntly, whenever a public organization (as opposed to a private one) is so conceived the result will be unavoidably perverse.

The Failure of Joint Integration During the 1943 Sicily Campaign

The Failure of Joint Integration During the 1943 Sicily Campaign

The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation HUSKY, was the first combined amphibious invasion of Axis territory involving both British and U.S. forces. Poor planning and a weak operational command structure resulted in mediocre command and control of the air, land, and sea components throughout the operation. If measured by current U.S. joint doctrine, the integration of joint functions by the Allies during the Sicily Campaign was below par, leading to missed opportunities and increased costs. While Operation HUSKY still resulted in the Allied conquest of Sicily, the failures of the Allies in command and control and joint function integration during the campaign would result in greater combat losses than necessary and diminished returns during the Sicily invasion, as well as substandard operations on the Italian peninsula. The failures of integration during the HUSKY campaign illustrate why mission command and joint operations are critical components of current U.S. defense doctrine.

#Reviewing Exporting Security: America’s Shift from Confrontation to Cooperation

#Reviewing Exporting Security: America’s Shift from Confrontation to Cooperation

The security challenges America faces in the twenty-first century are so geographically dispersed and so politically complex they can only be solved in partnership with American allies. Reveron believes that over the past two decades U.S. commanders quietly came to recognize this reality and transformed the military from a force of confrontation to one of cooperation.