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 Imperfect Patriot

#Reviewing Imperfect Patriot

This is a work that succeeds at examining the broad impacts, both good and bad, of a career public servant with an emphasis more on the latter than the former. The author sheds light and places blame on the central figure, although it can be assumed that blame does not solely rest with Powell alone and also resides with others outside the scope of this work. Matthews provides a warning to all that even those most admired are not infallible. This work should be read by all national security professionals, uniformed service members, or any other governmental agency including the department of state and the intelligence community.

#Reviewing It's My Country Too

#Reviewing It's My Country Too

As two women veterans who have taken on this project to elevate the voices of other women like them, Bell and Crow are taking an active role in shaping and preserving not only their own legacy but also that of the many undercounted women who have joined them in military service. The pages feel alive with agency and pride. This is a volume with more of a mission statement than a thesis statement. The unmistakable message of this book is: we are here, we have been here, and we have a voice. There are a lot of people who need to hear that.

#Reviewing The Bomb

#Reviewing The Bomb

Kaplan does a wonderful job of historically tracing many of the interactions and viewpoints of presidents and key military officers, but he does not make a serious attempt to theorize how certain sets of interactions, personalities, and/or experiences will conditionally affect nuclear deterrence. Still, The Bomb is both timely and classic, a joy to read, and rich in information for students of military history, American political bargaining, and nuclear strategy.

Getting Past the Civil War: The Morality of Renaming U.S. Army Bases Named After Confederate Generals

Getting Past the Civil War: The Morality of Renaming U.S. Army Bases Named After Confederate Generals

One hundred-and-fifty-five years after the end of the Civil War, as the growing movement to remove memorials and monuments to Confederacy suggest, it appears Lee was right in his opposition. Moreover, whatever one believes about Lee’s decision to fight for the Confederacy, it is well past time to take his advice.

#Reviewing Jet Girl

#Reviewing Jet Girl

While Jet Girl illuminates the ways in which that fraternity still works to exclude women in uniform, it does so on an individual rather than collective level. The reason why Johnson’s shift in focus to the problems servicewomen face is jarring is because for so much of the book, it’s not evident that she faced many problems as a result of being a woman. Jet Girl succeeds most when Johnson shares her experiences honestly, and when she rightly celebrates her accomplishments in naval aviation.

An Alternative/Alternate History of the U.S. Response to COVID-19

An Alternative/Alternate History of the U.S. Response to COVID-19

Still, in our alternate history, Americans and their leaders learned important lessons. First, the cost of letting finance dictate the structure of the U.S. economy was too great, especially for a nation that aspired to play a role of global leadership. Allowing firms to offshore production to exploit low wages for cheaper goods, but unfettered capital mobility was a crippling handicap for a nation beset by a pandemic. Second, skilled labor, particularly in manufacturing and in other industries, takes time to develop—it is not a resource that one can reconstitute with a finger snap or a problem at which one can throw money.

Distributable Platforms and Determined Marines: The Necessity of Operational Art in a 21st Century Marine Corps

Distributable Platforms and Determined Marines: The Necessity of Operational Art in a 21st Century Marine Corps

As the Marine Corps continues to posture itself for a challenging, uncertain future, it is crucial that the organization uses this transformation process as an opportunity to revisit its foundational doctrine and adjust where needed to carry the service forward into the 21st century. Although strings of operational thinking already exist within the service’s doctrine and culture, the concept of operational art remains strangely excluded. As with the incorporation of any new idea into doctrine, it will require deliberate development, creative implementation, thoughtful application, and education to harvest a worthwhile return on investment.

#Reviewing an Incipient Mutiny

#Reviewing an Incipient Mutiny

All of the author’s evidence and contextual explanations surrounding the Goodier court martial make this case clearly and effectively. Messimer’s work also sheds light on why flying training and flight duty pay are so thoroughly regulated in the military today. And over one hundred years later, it reminds us how military organizations in our country must be accountable for their responsibilities to the public, to the Press, and to Congress.

Balance with the Political End State: Case Studies from Korea and Vietnam

Balance with the Political End State: Case Studies from Korea and Vietnam

In conclusion, war is not limited nor is it total. War, and by extension, warfare, is situationally unique. Each instance is shaped through internal and external political factors, as it always has been. Understanding those factors and successfully balancing them with the appropriate means and ways to prosecute war is the defining characteristic of successful warfare.

Sun Tzu’s Fighting Words

Sun Tzu’s Fighting Words

These twin issues of ambiguous translation and lack of historical context combine to create an environment ripe for distortion. Nowhere is this problem more prevalent than in our amorphous belief that Sun Tzu emphasized non-violent competition through the iconic goal of winning without fighting. A close examination of the actual terminology used in The Art of War, coupled with an examination of the historical record supporting the text’s meaning, suggests that while engaging in pitched battles was certainly discouraged, killing the enemy in combat was far from a disfavored practice.

#Reviewing Churchill’s Phoney War

#Reviewing Churchill’s Phoney War

Clews’ book certainly fills a void in the study of Churchill during the Second World War. His analysis does provide a useful study in the difficulty of crafting a strategy that serves multiple constituencies and solves multiple problems. Modern students of strategy should take heart that they are in good company when they seek solutions to no-win scenarios.

A Modern Deterrence Theory Case Study: America’s Failure to Deter Japan

A Modern Deterrence Theory Case Study: America’s Failure to Deter Japan

Historic examples of states attempting to deter unprofitable conflict with their peers are found as far back as 5th century B.C. in Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War,” when Athens and Sparta exchanged a series of envoys to convince each other that continued violations of a tenuous peace agreement would inevitably lead to war. Today, theories for convincing adversaries to voluntarily limit their pursuit of strategic interests line bookshelves globally.

It’s Not the Plane, it’s the Payload: A 21st-Century Solution for Armed Overwatch

It’s Not the Plane, it’s the Payload: A 21st-Century Solution for Armed Overwatch

The rapid changes in aerial attack caused by loitering munitions pose a challenge to U.S. Special Operations Command as it embarks upon an acquisition program to provide armed overwatch for the next twenty to thirty years. The development of a common air-launched system for loitering munitions would give U.S. Special Operations Command increased flexibility in the key areas of covert light attack capability, partner forces training, and security assistance competition.

#Reviewing From Kites to Cold War

#Reviewing From Kites to Cold War

With meticulous source citations and an impressive bibliography, Morton has produced a succinct, yet informative examination of the evolution of manned aerial reconnaissance from its earliest beginnings to the conclusion of the Vietnam War. In his introduction, the author expresses his intention to not only offer an historical analysis of manned aerial reconnaissance but to fill a “considerable historiographical gap.” In this, he may well have succeeded.

Don’t Bring a Knife to a Gunfight with China

Don’t Bring a Knife to a Gunfight with China

Given China’s existing strategy, military thought, and fears of rebellion, renewed state support for insurgents is far from certain. Instead, China is more likely to employ economic and informational tools to achieve its aims, while focusing on partnerships with state actors and striving to remain below the threshold of armed conflict. While this does not mean we can afford to disregard counterinsurgency entirely, as China is not our only competitor and could always adopt new stratagems, it does suggest a different set of defense priorities for countering China.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Geopolitics

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Geopolitics

Because the pandemic is still evolving, its final impact will remain unknown for months, if not years, in terms of how resulting changes may fundamentally transform the balance of global influence and resulting equilibrium. The responses by major and regional powers to the pandemic and how they are interpreted domestically and internationally are already having and will continue to have significant geopolitical implications. Those responses will prove to be highly consequential in the long term, especially when it comes to how nations manage the central levers of geopolitical power.

#Reviewing Places and Names

#Reviewing Places and Names

Ackerman can be intensely precise about what he did in war. We’ve already seen that with his gloss of his own citation. By setting his scenes off the battlefield, by both showing the moment-by-moment of war as well as by showing its runup, aftermath and fallout, and by using language to describe experiences that torque speech Ackerman writes of his own distinctive and highly personal war, but in a way that is vividly broad and encompassing.

Putin’s Playbook: #Reviewing Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics

Putin’s Playbook: #Reviewing Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics

A single book, written in 1997, signalled every significant foreign policy move of the Russian Federation over the following two decades. The United States, Europe, and every nation intertwined with Russia failed to see the signs. From the annexation of Crimea to Britain’s exit from the European Union, the grand strategy laid out in Aleksandr Dugin’s Foundation of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia has unfolded beautifully in a disastrous manner for the western rules-based international order. Perhaps, his words also telegraph the belligerent Putin’s future intentions.

#Reviewing The Dragons and the Snakes

#Reviewing The Dragons and the Snakes

Kilcullen’s book is of value, especially for readers who are new to today’s complex battlefield. His use of Snakes and Dragons as a heuristic model is pithy, and his exploration of the evolution of insurgent and terrorist groups is fascinating. David Kilcullen is an erudite, multi-disciplinary scholar with astute observations. Nevertheless, Dragons and Snakes is not on the same level as his earlier books.