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.
It is only at the end, perhaps, that the two authors diverge on the true lessons of the fight against ISIS, to include the tenuous gains resulting from the application of overwhelming military force. The mantra to “Kill ISIS” perhaps comes at a cost at all levels of war—strategically, operationally, and tactically. Read critically, Pittard and Bryant’s first-hand accounts provide a starting point for wrestling with the true costs of war on humanity and the limits of hunting.
Giglio laments that Americans, who still claim to be at war, have made little effort to understand the Islamic State beyond their high-profile attacks. Part memoir, part commentary, and part war story, Shatter the Nations is an accessible, engaging primer on the Islamic State and the challenges facing the region that hopefully serves as an antidote to the war weariness and lack of interest Giglio observes in the American public.
Whistleblowing has a long and predictably contentious history in America. What distinguishes essential whistleblowing from detrimental leaking? In assessing answers to that question, do the motivations of the individual revealing government secrets matter or should we focus primarily on the benefits and costs of their actions? Driving these tough questions is the considerable tension between the paramount need for secrecy to protect national security interests and the erosion of democratic governance that secrecy can abet.
As the name suggests, great power competition—the newest focus of the U.S. Department of Defense—is about power. However, despite the recent fetishization of great power competition within the defense community, few people give serious thought to what power is and how great powers wield it to compete. In today’s great power competition with the People’s Republic of China, American strategists appear stuck focusing on archaic instruments of power and power projection to the detriment of national security. The Department of Defense spends billions on military hardware while rhetoric and neglect undermine the political partnerships and economic integration on which American power is based. Strategists pay lip service to strengthening alliances, then trumpet a foreign policy of “America first.” They highlight creating new partnerships, but fail to consider the economic and financial tools that establish genuine interdependence and influence. China is using a variety of initiatives to make advances across the globe while the United States is missing the boat.
What is the goal of intelligence? There are two possible schools of thought in response to this question. The one familiar to every military or government analyst is that intelligence should tell truth to power regardless of consequences. This aloof philosophy regards the objectivity of intelligence as paramount given the professional duty to the national security of the nation it serves. In business, though, a different school of thought is much more pervasive.
Marketing of the U.S. Army going forward should focus less on recruiting young Americans and more on promoting the Army as a critical component of national defense, necessary to support the country’s international interests. The focus, then, would turn from marketing the U.S. Army to high-school students and toward shaping a narrative appropriate for key decision-makers in Congress.
Srivastava provides an excellent work on the legal and policy challenges American companies face if they want to innovate in the national security environment, but she does not offer a compelling vision for improving the situation. Anyone who wishes to improve this situation will need a solution and the support of a movement that is good for Congress, good for business, good for the defense and national security customers, and good for innovators. And that is the conundrum of innovating for national security.
Most national security discourse concerned with the High North centers around icebreakers, shipping lanes, and so on. However, combat in Arctic conditions offers little new stimulus to naval and airpower practitioners because of the relative global uniformity of their domains. The changing Arctic will have far greater impacts on ground combat by restricting the mobility of units across already-difficult terrain and by exacerbating the logistical and life support needs of these formations.
We do need to accept that grand strategy has no definitive or stable meaning, and that the term does not describe activities which are defined by similarity of equivalence. Understandings of strategy were given coherence through their connection to the enduring nature of war. Grand strategy has no such anchor. Thus, the terminology of grand strategy is a relatively recent, Anglophone attempt to describe and explain the evolution of a much more long-term and varied set of activities, traditionally located in the realm of policy or statecraft. As such, to account for the myriad differences and changes that have characterised how polities have pursued security across time, we must move towards a more flexible approach.
In the United States, Congress passed the 2017 Women, Peace, and Security Act with bipartisan support, and the 2019 Strategy notionally indicates White House support. The intent is to begin to hold organizations accountable for implementation, especially in the Department of Defense. Only accountability at all levels of all relevant organizations will assure implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda—with all of its clear benefits—becomes a reality.
Perhaps the most challenging consequence of a non-repetitive history is that the future is mostly undetermined, a mystery revealed only by the unfolding of particular events. This uncertainty puts the onus of decision and responsibility squarely on the shoulders of political, diplomatic, and military leadership, who must navigate this challenging terrain with incomplete knowledge of its features. A Sino-U.S. war is not preordained, nor is it an impossibility. If it ever does happen, it will be the result of the particular choices, words, and deeds of particular leaders, not a pattern embedded in the structure of history.
Although much is written about victory in war, relatively little memorializes the lives lost for lost causes. Even after the mission fell to pieces, the men who fought in Arnhem showed remarkable determination, grit, bravery and sacrifice. The Allied defeat at Arnhem was as honorable as any victory, and Sir Beevor pays it a worthy tribute while weaving a human story about defeat and the inhumanity of war.
Israel faces a challenge it has so far proven unable to solve. After successfully innovating against powerful conventional enemies, it has struggled to utilize its numerical and technological advantages against violent non-state organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. While the Israel Defense Force continues to develop new methods and weaponry, it does not revisit the value it places on the development of platforms, led by the services.
Most books about the final phase of the Pacific War detail the firebombing of Japanese cities, raise questions concerning dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or participate in a debate whether U.S. actions or Soviet intervention forced the Japanese to surrender…The approach Wukovits employs tells the reader about the air operations of a single air group on a single aircraft carrier. At the same time there are very few macro studies of the immediate aftermath of the Japanese surrender in August 1945.
We live in an era of great geopolitical change. From the way groups compete to the diffusion of power among state and non-state actors, the upcoming geopolitical shifts will bear little resemblance to those of the past. Many people have studied how artificial intelligence, global markets, social media, and hypersonic weapons will affect the way states compete in the future. Another major factor in future geopolitical competition, especially between the reigning hegemonic power of the U.S. and rising regional ambition of China, will be climate change.
Defining defeat is important, and a more useful definition will strengthen each of the crucial linkages from tactical task to strategy. Policy does not stand still, conditions change on the perspective of success or failure, and the use of force remains an extension of policy. In order to provide more precision in crafting strategy and design to attain strategic and policy objectives we must have a commonly accepted military lexicon and a better definition of defeat.
An unseen, unspecified tension lurks throughout the entire book, leaving the reader with a sense of enduring consternation. For aspiring leaders, this novel presents a complex dilemma about human nature and war—or the blessed lack of it. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the challenge of maintaining a mission-focused mindset in an austere environment where all hope seems lost.
