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

The “Strategic Counterinsurgency” Model: Escaping a One-Dimensional Strategic Worldview

The “Strategic Counterinsurgency” Model: Escaping a One-Dimensional Strategic Worldview

When the term “great power competition” (GPC) appeared in the 2017 National Security Strategy, it served as a wakeup call to many in the U.S. defense establishment. It signaled a sudden rhetorical shift which produced two positive developments. First, it prompted the military to embrace innovation with a newfound sense of urgency. Second, it helped to alert the American public to the strategic challenges presented by China’s newly aggressive foreign policy. But although its handy acronym is still alive and well in some sectors of government, “GPC” has fallen into disfavor, and for good reason.

Fear, Honour, and AUKUS in the Indo-Pacific

Fear, Honour, and AUKUS in the Indo-Pacific

To date, Australia has enjoyed the benefit of a hedging strategy that embraces the economic prosperity of a close trading relationship with China while maintaining a close security alliance with the U.S. This strategy has been tested recently and the tension between values and interests requires focused attention. If there was previously any doubt on where that pendulum would swing, it is now firmly answered in the announcement of AUKUS, an Australian, U.K. and U.S. security partnership.

A Friend in Need: A Call for Rejuvenating U.S.-South African Defense Relations

A Friend in Need: A Call for Rejuvenating U.S.-South African Defense Relations

With its emerging emphasis on strategic competition, the United States must focus on renewing its engagement with potential allies on the African continent. The rise of insurgencies in West and East Africa, the geostrategic importance of natural resources from the continent, and the ability to provide a credible alternative to China that offers African countries the freedom to self-determine their economic futures necessitates a new approach towards African countries as vital and enduring economic and security partners.

The Roots of Stalemate: A Case Study on the Conflict in Western Sahara

The Roots of Stalemate: A Case Study on the Conflict in Western Sahara

There are myriad reasons for the protracted nature of the dispute for Western Sahara. The Western Sahara’s utility as a nationalist tool since 1975 gives the Moroccan monarchy virtually no choice but to maintain its historical discourse. Other parties in the international community have not contributed to any prospect of resolution. The U.N. has failed to complete its mission to hold a referendum, Algeria continues to support the Polisario to maintain the regional balance of power, and major powers like the U. S. have put the expediency of their own priorities over neutrality or balanced mediation. One of the most frustrating aspects of the conflict’s international dimension to Sahrawis is its continued low profile.

A Gnawing Hunger: Food Policy and Great Power Conflict, A U.S.-China Case Study

A Gnawing Hunger: Food Policy and Great Power Conflict, A U.S.-China Case Study

While much analysis has focused on how fishing and other related maritime resource disputes play into great power competition and the national security implications for the U.S., comparatively little analysis has focused on the impacts of any disruption of not only the Chinese fishing fleet but China’s international food imports in the event of a Pacific conflict. Although China remains more vulnerable than the U.S. to food disruption in such a scenario, the ripple effects of a Pacific war will force China, regional actors, and even the U.S. to carefully manage national food policies, with drastic consequences should their attempts fail. In a future Pacific conflict, food policy and management by all parties is, to paraphrase Sir Michael Howard, a likely root of either victory or defeat for any unprepared participants.

Bulls, Bears, and Trolls: Social Media Influence Operations and Financial Market Risk

Bulls, Bears, and Trolls: Social Media Influence Operations and Financial Market Risk

Financial markets present unique and evolving risks as states compete through the economic and information instruments of power. States have proven their ability and interest in manipulating both financial and political markets, and amplified through social media. While there are limited military options for response to these challenges, financial and economic markets present an unusual battlefield as states attempt to gain influence on the geopolitical stage.

The Roots of Victory

The Roots of Victory

Our fourth quarterly series for 2021 begins with Sir Michael Howard's observation that the "roots of victory and defeat often have to be sought far from the battlefield." We have selected a wide-ranging collection of responses to flesh out this remark…As we wrap up this year of transformation on The Strategy Bridge, we are grateful for each and every submission and for each and every member of our community. We have relished the creative and diverse approaches to answering our calls for submissions throughout 2021, and we look forward to more engagement with our community—with you—in the coming year.

Science Fiction and the Strategist 3.0

Science Fiction and the Strategist 3.0

Reading widely in a professional capacity increases a person’s capacity for generating imaginative options to solve complex problems. Reading science fiction provides this variety. We hope this list provides additional variety in personal and professional reading programs, and guides readers through their journey to discover the insights that science fiction offers national security professionals.

#Reviewing The Afghanistan Papers

#Reviewing The Afghanistan Papers

Craig Whitlock’s The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War is essential reading for national security scholars, and anyone interested in a bureaucratic history of America’s longest war. His research illustrates some truly dispiriting failures of American foreign policy formulation, military planning, and program execution. The book also serves as a bitter reminder that the state will lie to the public and often for less than noble purposes.

#Reviewing War at the Speed of Light

#Reviewing War at the Speed of Light

Del Monte’s latest book War at the Speed of Light: Directed-Energy Weapons and the Future of Twenty-First Century Warfare explores how lasers, electromagnetic weapons, and other energy-based or -driven weapons could change how future wars are fought. Del Monte argues that these technologies will accelerate the pace of war. The use of directed-energy weapons will mean a faster time to kill resulting in smaller windows for decision making at all levels of conflict. Taken together with artificial intelligence and cyber weapons, Del Monte argues that these changes will upend strategic stability as we understand it today.

#Reviewing Bitskrieg

#Reviewing Bitskrieg

In Bitskrieg, John Arquilla distills much from his three decades of advocacy about networked warfare into a compact volume accessible to a wide audience. He displays a continuing ability to produce provocative arguments and engaging books. The tenets of Bitskrieg are consistent with many of Arquilla’s previous writings. These include the point that networked warfare or netwar encompasses cyber conflict but extends beyond it.

#Reviewing No Conquest, No Defeat

#Reviewing No Conquest, No Defeat

No Conquest, No Defeat: Iran’s National Security Strategy by political scientist Ariane Tabatabai is an ambitious study that situates the security policies and practices of the Islamic Republic in the context of Iranian history. The book’s central claim is that important lines of continuity connect Iran’s current approach to security to the policies of past regimes. This refutes the oft-made claim that the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979 constituted a major break in Iran’s foreign policy.

#Reviewing The Inevitability of Tragedy

#Reviewing The Inevitability of Tragedy

The modern world is no less dangerous than the one Kissinger faced. In fact, the emergence of a multipolar order demands now more than ever that policymakers have pragmatic and, in many cases, sensibly pessimistic approaches. Barry Gewen’s book makes a lasting contribution to that end, and will help all readers understand the value, as Henry Kissinger so powerfully put it, of living “with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.”

#Reviewing The Character Gap

#Reviewing The Character Gap

If you are looking for an accessible, practical introduction to moral psychology and ethics for undergraduate, Professional Military Education classes, or the general interest reader, look no further. Philosopher and psychology researcher Christian Miller’s The Character Gap distills much of his own scholarly work, as well as the thoughts and writing of others, into a readable, accessible volume with practical examples, citations from important studies, and popular culture references that bring alive questions of moral character and development. This volume asks us not just to consider others’ moral character, but also reflect upon our own, the gaps in it, and how we can improve it.

#Reviewing The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in WWI

#Reviewing The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in WWI

William C. Meadows is the accomplished author of six distinctive books on Native Americans. Meadows' newest book, The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in World War I is an academic text that argues for recognition of the Choctaw Code Talkers during the First World War. Many are familiar with the Navajo Code Talkers from the Second World War, but few know of the Choctaw Nation Code Talkers of the First World War.

#Reviewing Freedom

#Reviewing Freedom

For the past two decades, Sebastian Junger has been one of the more insightful writers and filmmakers of historical and contemporary events. His new book is part travelogue, part political and philosophical musing. Junger dissects and contemplates the meanings of freedom, and how such meanings shape individuals and the societies in which they are both running from and/or dependent on.

#Reviewing How to Think Like an Officer

#Reviewing How to Think Like an Officer

The ideas that Bonadonna espouses for improving officer education and for widening the lenses that get used to examine problems have much to commend them. His arguments that there are elements of military culture that need to be re-examined and changed will certainly raise questions, but this is a good thing…Investing in the time to examine how officers think, and considering how we can improve upon the status quo, is an investment worth making. Arguably, doing so is a requirement of anyone belonging to the military profession.

#Reviewing Blood, Guts, and Grease

#Reviewing Blood, Guts, and Grease

Through historical research, Mikolashek captures the early experiences of the soldier and the lessons he learned during the Great War that influenced his character and leadership twenty years later during his World War II campaigning. In addition to descriptions of Patton’s early battlefield exploits, Mikolashek writes of the birth of tank warfare and the creation of the Army’s Tank Corps. From early success at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point to the transition to the newly formed Tank Corps, Patton made informed and deliberate decisions as a young officer that steered his career to the ground floor of tank warfare.

#Reviewing The Other Face of Battle

#Reviewing The Other Face of Battle

Military history and its practitioners were long derided for their obsession with battle. The bugles and banners style of operational history, the standard approach of the discipline until the mid-1970s, has cast a long shadow of exclusion and dismissal upon military historians and their purpose. That all changed when John Keegan’s The Face of Battle was released in 1976. Wayne Lee, Anthony Carlson, David Preston, and David Silbey come together in The Other Face of Battle to present the next step in Keegan’s cause while highlighting a serious flaw in his objective. This book and its four authors, all of outstanding reputation and pedigree, stand on the 40-year foundation set by the cultural turn. In a masterful homage to Keegan and with eyes to the future, Lee, Carlson, Preston, and Silbey take the iconic work and its framework into the present by asking questions that are as difficult as they are important.

Michelangelos of Strategy: Linguistic Chisels, Sculptural Forms, and the Art of Strategy

Michelangelos of Strategy: Linguistic Chisels, Sculptural Forms, and the Art of Strategy

Strategy, like art, requires a unique talent and disposition, an eye for both minute detail and overall composition, time, training, and the uninhibited opportunity to create. There is no lack of talent, artistry, or creativity in the guild of American strategists. When given a block of marble and the latitude to truly innovate, the results can be astounding works of art. American strategy attempts to present a contrapposto, the relaxed confidence of a superpower with the slight twist of dynamic responsiveness to external actors or new challenges.