ICYMI: The War of the Gray Wars Continues
Noted scholar and strategic thinker Hal Brands has fired the latest volley in the War of the Gray Wars with an E-Note at FPRI. The origins of this war are hazy, but its most recent battles were sparked...
View ArticleNo Replacement for Military Engagement and Forward Presence
In recent years, the Obama administration’s foreign policy has emphasized precision strike stand-off capabilities, especially drones, as well as a policy of surging American military might from the...
View ArticleA Clear-Eyed Focus on Our Interests: A Guide for the Next President
Today’s principal foreign policy challenge is distraction. Take a look at what the next occupant of the White House needs to focus on. The 2016 presidential campaigns have touched a nerve — we live in...
View ArticleFour Key Leaders in Munich on the State of the World
The Munich Security Conference brings together leaders from all around the world to discuss defense, foreign policy, and strategy – the bread and butter of War on the Rocks. It has been called the...
View ArticleThe Hard Thing About Strategy
Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things (HarperBusiness, 2014). In his magisterial history of strategy, Lawrence Freedman argues that the most interesting strategists of the past 50 years have...
View ArticleThe Long Shadow of the Gulf War
Twenty-five years ago this month, the conclusion of the First Gulf War inaugurated the post-Cold War global order. Militarily, U.S. forces dramatically outperformed pre-war expectations....
View ArticleBeyond Iron and Blood: The Complex History of Realpolitik
John Bew, Realpolitik: A History (Oxford University Press, 2015). “It is never a waste of time to study the history of words.” — Lucien Lefebvre “No modern nation has ever constructed a...
View ArticleManning the Frontier: Allies and the Unraveling of the World Order
The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power, by Jakub J. Grygiel and A. Wess Mitchell (Princeton University Press, 2016) Speaking at the Munich Security...
View ArticleThe Weight of the Punch: British Ambition and Power
In the winter of 2015, as Britain released its latest statement of its national orientation, there was every sign that the wishes that had underpinned its statecraft were being blown away. The Middle...
View ArticleLessons in Statecraft Still to Be Learned 5 Years After the Libya Intervention
Five years after the United States, France, and Britain intervened to protect civilians in Libya, the country is in chaos. When Gaddafi’s regime collapsed, the state was picked apart and destroyed....
View ArticleTime for Washington to Amp up the Power to Coerce
For the United States, the mounting costs and risks of waging war are increasing the importance of its ability to thwart hostile states without attacking them — what we call the “power to coerce.”...
View ArticleGetting the Law Right on Carpet Bombing and Civilian Casualties
Officials, politicos and the media can debate what they believe the term “carpet bombing” means, but the American public and the leaders shouldn’t let that distract them from the fact that a more...
View ArticleRead My Mind: Why It’s Hard to See Things from the Enemy’s Point of View
Earlier this year, we marked the 25th anniversary of the Gulf War and the beginning of 25 years of continuous U.S. military operations in the Middle East. Many forget the beginning of this involvement:...
View ArticleUnder my Umbrella: The No-Fly Zone Fallacy
Be wary when the military says no to a policy, but candidates for president say yes. It invariably means the policy was either half-baked, politically expedient, or hatched by some millennial-age...
View ArticleWargaming in the Classroom: An Odyssey
Several years ago, as a new professor at the Marine Corps War College, I spent a huge amount of time putting together the best presentation on Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War ever presented at any...
View ArticleNever Alone: Let’s Retire the Word “Isolationism”
Warning that withdrawal from the European Union could threaten the peace of Europe, Prime Minister David Cameron claimed “Isolationism has never served this country well.” This echoes an old theme that...
View ArticleGo Big or Go Home: Applying the Full Force of the U.S. National Security...
Eye in the Sky, a new movie starring Academy Award winner Helen Mirren, seeks to shed more light on the relatively new ethical dilemmas of drone warfare, notions of proportionality and sovereignty....
View ArticleThe Price of Perpetual War
The United States has entered an era of perpetual war. The U.S. military has been at war for 15 straight years with no end in sight, and President Obama will soon have the dubious distinction of being...
View ArticleAu Revoir QDR
Whatever version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) emerges from the House-Senate conference process later this year, it seems likely that the 20-year old Quadrennial Defense Review...
View ArticleCivilian Lives and the Fate of Campaigns
Do civilian lives matter in war? Critics argue that any restrictions on the use of force beyond the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) are self-defeating and result in more American military deaths. Some...
View ArticleThe Long Game: How Will Obama’s Foreign Policies Be Judged By History?
Is Barack Obama’s foreign policy “failing at nearly every turn,” as Speaker Paul Ryan and many other Republicans contend? Or has the president actually crafted a wiser, more effective approach to...
View ArticleHe Who Lets Slip the Dogs of War
Michael C. Horowitz, Allan C. Stam and Cali M. Ellis, Why Leaders Fight (Cambridge University Press, 2015). This is a book that should have been unnecessary. Its main argument is that leaders,...
View ArticleLessons from the Winter War: Frozen Grit and Finland’s Fabian Defense
Whether on the soccer pitch or the field of battle, humans have a natural tendency to root for the underdog. Our sacred texts, medieval ballads, and regimental histories are filled with gut-wrenching...
View ArticleTo Study Modern War, There Is No Substitute for Going
West Point is going to war. There was a time when West Pointers regularly marched the globe, outside American combat, to learn from world military affairs as reconnaissance for our own future fights....
View ArticleThe Story of the War on the Rocks Membership and You
What do you want from us? Yes, that’s right: You. That is a fundamental question every media outlet, online or otherwise, should constantly be asking its readers, listeners, and viewers. In that sense,...
View ArticleUnspoken Legacy: The Perils of Letting Obama Off the Hook for Executive...
Many Americans were fond of Barack Obama. He left office with some of the highest approval ratings of his entire term. On foreign policy, as in most matters, he seemed reflective, deliberate, and...
View ArticleWhere’s the Best #NatSec Conversation Today?
We’ve suspended our normal publishing schedule today to highlight where the real, deep conversation on national security and defense is happening: in the War Hall and our weekly WarCasts. These are...
View ArticleWhat Thucydides Teaches Us About War, Politics, and the Human Condition
Thucydides is on a roll these days. The ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, who lived almost 2,500 years ago, makes the title of Graham Allison’s prominent new volume, Destined for War:...
View ArticleHow to Think Like an Officer: A Prospectus
“I’ve got (x) years (or months) to get you thinking like an officer.” I said this line frequently to my students during my years in the Commandant’s Department at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. The...
View ArticleAre You Enough? Our Speech to the PME Class of 2019
It’s back-to-school time! If we could give an opening address to the military leaders attending every mid-level and senior service college class this year, here’s what we’d say. Congratulations to each...
View ArticleHeed the Grail Knight: Can the Air Force Choose Wisely?
Editor’s Note: This article was submitted in response to our call for papers on “roles and missions.” Previously, I outlined what I perceived to be the erosion of mission-based culture in the Air...
View Article‘A Record of Exploded Ideas’: History and Strategic Commentary in the 21st...
The centenary of World War I has brought that conflict back into the popular imagination in a way which would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Whether public attitudes to the conflict have altered...
View ArticleToward a Progressive Theory of Security
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from “Policy Roundtable: The Future of Progressive Foreign Policy” from our sister publication, the Texas National Security Review. Be sure to check out the full...
View ArticleGeorge H.W. Bush: American Radical
Since his death, George H.W. Bush has been praised for his steady and prudent statesmanship at a time of global turbulence. This view isn’t wrong, but it is incomplete: Bush’s conduct may have been...
View ArticleStill the One and Only School of Statesmanship
Sir John Seeley was the Regius professor of modern history at the University of Cambridge and is best known as the author of the 1883 masterwork The Expansion of England. Yet 13 years prior to the...
View ArticleCHINA’S RISE AND (UNDER?) BALANCING IN THE INDO-PACIFIC: Putting Realist...
Editor’s Note: This is the fifth installment in a special series published in collaboration with the Raisina Dialogue, which kicks off on Jan. 8 in New Delhi. It is adapted from the author’s latest...
View ArticleIs There a New Foreign Policy Consensus Forming?
Recently, the Texas National Security Review published two roundtables on the future of conservative and progressive foreign policy, featuring essays by some of the leading figures on both sides of the...
View ArticleDo Great Nations Fight Endless Wars? Against the Islamic State, They Might
In his State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump declared that “Great nations do not fight endless wars.” It was a memorable line, met with bipartisan applause that provided the backdrop for...
View ArticleHow We Do Strategy as Performance up at Newport
There has been no shortage of recent criticisms directed at professional military education, with some asking the question, “What is it good for?” The 2018 National Defense Strategy claimed...
View ArticleThe Great Game Moves to Sea: Tripolar Competition in the Indian Ocean Region
Editor’s Note: This is the 25th installment of “Southern (Dis)Comfort,” a series from War on the Rocks and the Stimson Center. The series seeks to unpack the dynamics of intensifying competition —...
View ArticleFrom Athens to AI: The Return of History, the Revenge of Rivalry, and the...
Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is time to admit a controversial truth: great power competition is back. The U.S. foreign policy establishment resists this new reality, preferring to...
View ArticlePreparing for China’s Rapid Rise and Decline
China’s rise, one of the defining U.S. national security challenges of our time, has deservedly received attention in each of the last decades-worth of unclassified U.S. government strategies....
View ArticleThe Hidden Costs of Strategy by Special Operations
As Libya descended anew into violence, the United States withdrew its small contingent of special operations forces from Tripoli on Apr. 7. Most Americans had little idea U.S. forces were ever in Libya...
View ArticleHow Does the Next Great Power Conflict Play Out? Lessons from a Wargame
The United States can win World War III, but it’s going to be ugly and it better end quick, or everyone starts looking for the nuclear trigger. That is the verdict of a Marine Corps War College wargame...
View ArticleThe New Age of Propaganda: Understanding Influence Operations in the Digital Age
Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published by The Interpreter, which is published by the Lowy Institute, an independent, nonpartisan think tank based in Sydney. War on the Rocks...
View ArticleOil and the Future of U.S. Strategy in the Persian Gulf
Will the so-called “shale revolution” allow the United States to disengage from the Persian Gulf? A rich body of scholarship argues that since the United States no longer depends on imports of Gulf...
View ArticleIn Statecraft, What is Tragedy Good For?
Hal Brands and Charles Edel, The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order (Yale University Press, 2019). In January 405 BCE, Athens was in a desperate situation. The city had somehow weathered...
View ArticleThe Reaganesque Approach to Iran? Embrace the Moderates
In a moment hardly imaginable just a few years earlier, Ronald Reagan, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mikhail Gorbachev during a 1988 visit to Moscow’s Red Square, warmly embraced the communist...
View ArticleOn Will and War
Wayne Michael Hall, The Power of Will in International Conflict: How to Think Critically in Complex Environments (Praeger Security International, 2018). “Will” may be the most underexamined term of...
View ArticleDo Generals Matter?
Editor’s Note: War on the Rocks is proud to announce its first Distinguished Book Award. Three times a year, we will recognize a book that we view as essential for the professional development of...
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