The Strange Debates of Strategy
The recent explosion of interest in gray zone tactics and techniques has spurred an interesting discussion of history and terminology. Writers such as Adam Elkus, writing here at War on the Rocks, have...
View ArticleThe Urgent Need for Real National Strategy
Strategy is an act of imagination. Strategic planning is important because it forces government bureaucracies to think imaginatively about how the world works and what the nation can achieve. Strategic...
View ArticleFrom the First Gulf War to Islamic State: How America Was Seduced by the...
As the premier military power since the Cold War, the United States, like hegemonic powers of the past, is held captive by the dangerous myth of the “easy war.” While terms like “network-centric...
View ArticlePreparing for the Next Big War
“For almost twenty years we had all of the time and almost none of the money; today we have all of the money and no time.” Those words were spoken by Army Chief of Staff George Marshall in 1940 as he...
View ArticleSmall States Have Options Too: Competitive Strategies Against Aggressors
Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from an essay that first appeared in Frontline Allies: War and Change in Central Europe, published by the Center for European Policy and Analysis. Looking back...
View ArticleCarnage and Connectivity: How Our Pursuit of Fun Wars Brought the Wars Home
Editor’s Note: This essay is based upon David Betz’s recent book Carnage and Connectivity: Landmarks in the Decline of Conventional Military Power (Hurst & Co/Oxford University Press) as well as a...
View ArticleICYMI: 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 ArticleISIL’s Small Ball Warfare: An Effective Way to Get Back into a Ballgame.
Der Spiegel recently published a blockbuster article that chronicles the activities and personal papers of Haji Bakr, a high ranking member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who led...
View ArticleThe Fog of Peace: Defense and Uncertainty
Editor’s Note: I was honored to attend Professor Patrick Porter’s inaugural lecture, celebrating his appointment at the University of Exeter as the academic director of the Strategy and Security...
View ArticleA Realist Manifesto?
Colin Dueck, The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Do not be fooled by the title. This book is focused more on the horizon than the present and...
View ArticlePushing Back Against China’s Strategy: Ten Steps for the United States
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth installment in Patrick Cronin’s series on China’s strategy for dominance in the Asia-Pacific. Check out the first three, “Chinese Regional Hegemony in Slow Motion,”...
View ArticleThe Myth of Entangling Alliances
For the first 165 years of its history, the United States did not form any alliances besides the one it signed with France during the Revolutionary War. Instead, U.S. leaders followed George...
View ArticleThe War Against ISIL: In Search of a Viable Strategy
Recent gains by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria mark major setbacks in the nearly year-old campaign against the group. These developments undermine Obama administration...
View ArticleThe Real Fog of Cyberwar: Operational Cyber Planning
Cyber operations and strategies are assumed to be critically important to national security strategies. The United States has gone to great lengths to implement cyber planning at the national level, as...
View ArticleThe Brutal Realities of Naval Strategy
Peter D. Haynes, Toward a New Maritime Strategy: American Naval Thinking in the Post-Cold War Era, (Naval Institute Press, 2015). Why does the U.S. Navy struggle with strategy? Or does it? In January...
View ArticleUkraine and the Art of Exhaustion
Russia’s war against Ukraine is now well into its second year. The contested area in East Ukraine is still marked by regular exchanges of fire and equally regular losses of life. At the end of June,...
View ArticleBlack Swans and Pink Flamingos: Five Principles for Force Design
What key lessons should U.S. policymakers and defense planners take away from the last 14 years of conflict? How relevant is the recent past? What does our strategic and operational performance suggest...
View ArticleIs America an Empire?
An historian and a policymaker walk into a bar. On one screen, a journalist is reporting a coup on a South Pacific island. The historian looks at the policymaker and says, “Just another example of...
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