Go Ahead, Forget Center of Gravity…
Go Ahead, Forget Center of Gravity…but if you do, you had better understand joint maneuver. Is the Clausewitzian center of gravity (COG) still a useful concept? Lawrence Freedman thinks not. The future...
View ArticleRick Perry’s Dubious Foreign Policy Vision: 9 Sins
Texas Governor Rick Perry is back. The Central American child refugee crisis inflaming the immigration debate has provided this once and possibly future presidential aspirant with an opportunity to...
View ArticleStrategy: Renewing the Center of Gravity
The Center of Gravity is a troublesome and ultimately unsatisfying concept, as argued here by Professor Lawrence Freedman. But he is right for reasons beyond those that he elaboratedin his piece ....
View ArticleEyeless in Gaza — Are we blind to an enduring reality of war?
In this new century of war, Americans have lost their way. We have become existentially unmoored. The very language we use to describe war — with strangely disconnected words like “asymmetric” or...
View ArticleClausewitz: The Fighting Soldier
Donald Stoker, Clausewitz: His Life and Work (Oxford University Press, 2014) “One of the glories of history is that it can never be definitive; good history is history on which others can build.” So...
View ArticleISIL: Does the US understand the kind of war it is fighting?
Does the United States understand what kind of war it is getting into? Maybe not. When it comes to the type of war this is and the reasons America has for fighting it (and, for some, whether or not...
View ArticleWhat Truman’s Israel Policy Can Teach Obama about ISIL
In early 1948, Harry Truman’s policy of support for the partition of Palestine — and thereby the creation of the state of Israel — appeared dead in the water. As an Israeli defeat at the hands of joint...
View ArticleThe Heroic Difficulty: Matching Power and Purpose
Hal Brands, What Good is Grand Strategy: Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014. Colin Gray, the acclaimed...
View ArticleIraq, Syria, and the Islamic State: A Matter of Control
In the opening days of America’s ongoing air campaign in Iraq, many critics and pundits decried the admitted absence of a strategy guiding the Obama administration’s response to the emerging threat...
View ArticleFinding Strategic Man
Like any self-respecting thinker on strategy, I made a point of securing a copy of Lawrence Freedman’s Strategy: A History to consult throughout the year. Despite receiving notable plaudits, there is...
View ArticleUkraine and the Art of Limited War
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” -Rolling Stones, Let it Bleed album 1969 In a piece published in War on the Rocks last March, and in an extended version by the journal Survival in May, I...
View ArticleA Wargamer’s Response to Dave Anthony: Welcome!
It seems everyone is up in arms (virtual arms, of course) about Call of Duty: Black Ops’ writer Dave Anthony’s appointment as a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. His aim to help build a more...
View ArticleThe Master Strategist is Still a Myth
Where is the master strategist we have all been waiting for? In an article last week, Daniel Steed took issue with a point I made in my book Strategy: A History. The relevant chapter, entitled “The...
View ArticleThe Counterinsurgency Paradigm Shift
It has been a challenging year for the Department of Defense. For more than a decade, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan highlighted the need for a modern military to be...
View ArticleWeekend Reading: Post-Turkey Edition
Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! This year, we are thankful for you, our WOTR readers, and this week, a lot has been happening. So if you wish to tear yourself away from your leftovers, here are...
View ArticleOn Strategy and Strategists
Editor’s note: Recently, the Clements Center of the University of Texas at Austin and the King’s College London War Studies Department held an important conference on the “special relationship” between...
View ArticleExploring a New Offset Strategy: What the Experts Say
Editor’s Note: This article is another addition to our Beyond Offset series, a rich collaboration with the Center for a New America Security in Washington, DC. Read more about offset strategies here!...
View ArticleSaving Iraq and Destroying ISIL are Not the Same Thing
It has been reported that President Obama is revisiting his policy toward Syria. Perhaps he is now pausing to assess, before incautiously and unadvisedly wading into a conflict with no clear or...
View ArticleAmerica’s Strategic Position at the Dawn of 2015
Where will U.S. power and influence in the world stand at the beginning of 2015? In brief: While the United States is in relative decline, and will likely remain so, the suggestion that it is in...
View ArticleLocal Flavor: What Asia’s Hedging Trend Tells Us about Asia, and Strategy
When modern scholars and strategists discuss trends as a hook to some larger observation or policy argument, they typically do so with an eye to trends at the global level — the global diffusion of...
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