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 Pershing’s Tankers

#Reviewing Pershing’s Tankers

Kaplan has provided a window into the thoughts, struggles, fears, and triumphs of these soldiers from a century ago as they fought the Germans while mastering the most advanced technologies of their modern world. They were not much different that those who soldier on today in the face of fast-paced change and an evolving character of war. These personal reminiscences of service in the tanks illustrate the fortitude required to fight the enemy, bureaucracy, and non-believers in fielding the capabilities needed to win on the modern battlefield.

#Reviewing Blood in the Forest

#Reviewing Blood in the Forest

Hunt has written a book that challenges the modern strategist to process how we end our wars and how we deal with their excesses. Furthermore, Hunt challenges how we, as a whole society, commemorate these wars and their participants through the morally complicated saga of the Latvian Legion. The book’s moral weight is palpable as we attempt to answer some of those questions in the modern era.

#Reviewing Permanent Change of Station: More Than Boxes Unpacked

#Reviewing Permanent Change of Station: More Than Boxes Unpacked

While Permanent Change of Station speaks to the unstable ground that must be trod as a spouse and caregiver, there is an underlying maternal theme that strikes at the core of this collection. A mother-daughter dynamic seems to be intertwined with the military spouse narrative throughout the collection, adding a touch of realism that forces your heart to twinge with empathy.

#Reviewing The Burning Shores

#Reviewing The Burning Shores

This is not a book about war. It is a book about humanity interacting with chaos, some directed, and some without direction. War is just a part of the social collapse and momentous struggle of rebuilding Libyan society described in the book. In not letting the reader’s vision narrow to the battles and materiel, Wehrey highlights the importance of context to strategy.

#Reviewing The Future of Strategy

#Reviewing The Future of Strategy

Through Gray’s definition of strategy, the timeless application of Thucydidean motives, and an understanding of the immutable influences of geography and politics, any prospective student of strategy is well equipped to enter any debate on the future direction of the national interest.

The Tale of the Tail that Wagged the Dog: #Reviewing Integrating the U.S. Military

The Tale of the Tail that Wagged the Dog: #Reviewing Integrating the U.S. Military

Integrating the US Military is not a state-of-the-field type of book. It is, rather, a challenge to those of us who ply our trade in this profession to make the connections necessary to the larger issue of the role the American armed forces play as a reluctant social reform apparatus. In their insightful conclusion, the editors of the volume recognize the traditionally conservative organization has always been at the forefront of change—whether racial, gender, or sexual.

#Reviewing The Battle of Arginusae

#Reviewing The Battle of Arginusae

In the end, Arginusae was important not just because it was the last Athenian victory in the war, or because it was a shameful event in the history of Athens, but because of the hostility it caused towards Athenian democracy. The book closes with a brief look at the end of the Peloponnesian War and the damage done by Arginusae to the reputation of Athens in the millennia since the battle was fought. This book makes it eminently understandable how great that tragedy was.

#Reviewing The Psychology of Strategy & Strategy, Evolution, and War

#Reviewing The Psychology of Strategy & Strategy, Evolution, and War

A new science of human behavior has emerged over the past two decades. This new science has linked together the research of neuroscientists, cognitive and evolutionary anthropologists, decision theorists, social and cross cultural psychologists, cognitive scientists, ethnologists, linguists, endocrinologists, and behavioral economists into a cohesive body of research on why humans do what they do. Research in this field rests on two propositions about the human mind. The first, that the mind is embodied; the second, that it is evolved.

#Reviewing 21st Century Power: Strategic Superiority for the Modern Era

#Reviewing 21st Century Power: Strategic Superiority for the Modern Era

The adversaries of today are still human, and the threats of today may not be so conceptually different from those of the Cold War. By looking back at how a previous generation of strategists considered and communicated their strategic challenges in context, we may be able to gain insights into how to address these modern threats. 21st Century Power: Strategic Superiority for the Modern Era is a useful resource toward that end.

#Reviewing Us vs. Them: The Failures of Globalism

#Reviewing Us vs. Them: The Failures of Globalism

For many years, the world hummed a sweet, optimistic tune about the benefits of globalization. Pundits like the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted the cascading advantages of an increasingly interconnected world with little appreciation for its uneven benefits. Despite living in a world evermore interwoven, the growing divides between globalization’s winners and losers are expanding. These so-called losers are becoming more vocal. They’re asking, “What about us? What about all the plans that ended in disaster?”

#Reviewing Always at War

#Reviewing Always at War

Deaile weaves a rich tapestry that incorporates doctrine, technology, and daily life in a way that previous authors in this crowded field have not fully explored. He has crafted one of the best single-volume treatments of SAC and its culture, and it should be required reading for anyone studying either Air Force history or Cold War military issues.

#Reviewing The Fate of Rome

#Reviewing The Fate of Rome

Professor Harper has produced a wonderful case study that demands a general rethinking of how we view the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It turns much of the earlier views on Rome’s decline into surface explanations and places the chance happenings of nature in a driver’s seat that we can barely comprehend. It should also give us pause in how we think about the future.

#Reviewing Oceans Ventured

#Reviewing Oceans Ventured

Secretary Lehman, awaiting the declassification of several key Cold War documents, recently published Oceans Ventured, meticulously documenting the Navy’s aggressive operations in the 1980s. Secretary Lehman’s readily accessible book tells the story as if you were having a casual conversation at the Black Pearl, listening to the reminiscences and sea stories of a well-traveled naval officer.

#Reviewing Strategy Strikes Back

#Reviewing Strategy Strikes Back

Even without a lifelong appreciation for all things Star Wars, anyone with a basic understanding of the movies and their stories and an interest in better understanding modern military conflict will benefit greatly from reading Strategy Strikes Back. I have not found another collection of essays where the authors use their superior imaginations to explain and simplify complex topics so well.

#Reviewing Strategy and the Sea: Essays in Honour of John B. Hattendorf

#Reviewing Strategy and the Sea: Essays in Honour of John B. Hattendorf

To say there is something here for everyone would be something of an understatement. There is more than enough in the volume for naval strategists and historians in terms of scope, geographical region, and topic. But for a popular strategy audience this collection will be a hard slog, if not intimidating. This is a shame, because these essays have much to offer. So, if one can afford it, purchase the anthology, peruse the topics, and read. Otherwise, for the everyman strategist out there, go to your nearest college library and get it there. You will still be rewarded.