Clash of Strategies: Capability or Capacity, Today or Tomorrow? By Marc Cancian, Breaking Defense: “As the Pentagon finishes its strategic review, the stage is set for another struggle over whether to ready for a high-end war with Russia or China or just manage the current, much lower intensity battles around the world.” The President's Decision For Afghanistan Matters
By Carlos Oroza, Proceedings Magazine: “Elevating military objectives over the assessment of the politically acceptable magnitude of effort for a given strategic political goal can be a slippery slope. The literature about escalation is filled with examples of cognitive biases that encourage leaders to continue throwing good money after bad.” The Intelligence Cycle Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It.
By Nicholas Krohley, Modern War Institute: “What accounts for our twenty-first-century inability to translate tactical excellence, technological dominance, and near-boundless resources into durable strategic outcomes in our post-9/11 “long war”?” The Iran Nuclear Deal: A Strategy of Hope?
By Malcolm Davis, The Strategist (ASPI): “The deal, as it stands, is probably the best option at the moment to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon in the next 15 years, but it shouldn’t be seen as a panacea to all the challenges posed by Iran, and it most certainly doesn’t prevent a future Iranian regime from emulating North Korea’s actions to test the resolve of the U.S. and its partners.” We Must Listen to Clausewitz By Daniel DePetris, RealClearDefense: “As the foreign policy establishment in Washington should have learned over the last 16 years, nothing in the Middle East is straightforward or clean. There simply isn't a black-and-white, good vs. evil paradigm that Americans can use to navigate the treacherous and complicated politics of the region.” Killing in War and the Just War Tradition
By Paul Vicars, Strategy Bridge: “When philosophers removed divine authority as a basis for moral reasoning during the 17th and 18th centuries, the principles lost their transcendence and what was divine ought became simply ought.” The Red Queen Problem: Innovation in DoD and Intelligence Community
By Steve Blank, War on the Rocks: “Our defense department and intelligence community owned proprietary advanced tools and technology. We and our contractors had the best technology domain experts. We could design and manufacture the best systems. We used these tools to keep pace with the Soviet threats and eventually used silicon, semiconductors and stealth to create an offset strategy to leapfrog their military.” How to Reform Counterintelligence Outreach to Industry
By Darren E. Tromblay, ITIF: “It’s time for a new approach to counterintelligence outreach to the commercial sector—one that focuses more on recognizing and responding to threat indicators, less on turning to investigators once damage has already been done.” The Legacy of Unfinished Revolutions
By James Holmes, Proceedings Magazine: “Thinkers from Machiavelli to John Boyd tell us that keeping in tune with the times is the foremost act of statecraft and generalship.” The Nature of Strategy: Pericles and the Peloponnesian War By Ash Graham, Strategy Bridge: “State survival and the pursuit of power are profoundly influenced by the strategic and military culture of the state. An exploration of the nature of Athens strategy and military culture of Athens can be achieved through a deep dive into Pericles’s funeral oration, given at the completion of the first year of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE.” A Larger, More Capable U.S. Amphibious Warfare Fleet
By Daniel Gouré, RealClearDefense: “For more than seventy-five years, amphibious assaults against hostile shores have had a successful record. Even when subjected to intense and protracted naval and air defenses and the nominal forerunner of today’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) threat, these landings were never turned back.” The Trojan Horse of Military Intermarium
By Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, War on the Rocks: ““Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.” Every scholar of international relations knows this formula uttered by the geopolitics pioneer Halford Mackinder almost a century ago.” Special Operations Support to Conflict Prevention
By Assad Raza, Small Wars Journal: “Soon after the end of the Cold War, political expert Samuel P. Huntington wrote an article titled “The Clash of Civilizations” in 1993. Huntington emphasized how globalization contributed to the increased tensions between different cultures, as societies feared their values and identities were threatened. ” Crimea Isn't the End of Russia's Black Sea Ambitions
By James Stavridis, Bloomberg: “Having successfully concluded this real world “object lesson” in Eastern Europe largely for NATO’s benefit, look for the Russians to shift their attention to the south and the most strategically important sea on their periphery: the Black Sea.” SYRIA: Al Qaeda Rising From the Ashes in Syria
By Stephen Loosley, The Strategist (ASPI): “One of the most worrisome trend lines in the Syrian civil war has been the accelerated growth of al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which seized control of Syria’s northwestern Idlib province over the summer and has transformed into the de facto face of the country’s anti-Assad campaign.” Command of the Littorals—Insights From Mahan By B.A. Friedman, Strategy Bridge: “As the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps effort to modernize littoral operations proceeds, leaders in both services would do well to return to the insights of famed naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan.” Integration in Warfare
By Nathan Finney, The Strategist (ASPI): “With the recognition by most defence thinkers and senior military leaders that potential future adversaries have created and employed capabilities that will negate U.S. and ally advantages, different approaches to contemporary warfare will be required. Enter ‘multi-domain battle’, a concept designed to address the diminishing ability of commanders to wage a joint fight effectively on the future battlefield.” CLOSING THE CREDIBILITY GAP: U.S. CIVIL MILITARY RELATIONS EMERGES & WHEN MARSHALL MEET PERSHING10/3/2017 Cosmic Decisions: A Ptolemaic View of Military Decisions By Daniel Sukman, Strategy Bridge: “One of the more complicated aspects of war is how military commanders and civilian policymakers arrive at decisions. At each level of warfare, from the tactical to the strategic, and including the cross-cutting institutional level of war, speed and consequences in decisions vary. Building Trust in the Strategic Dialogue By Jim Golby, Strategy Bridge: “Over the last three U.S. presidential administrations, questions about the appropriate level of military autonomy have dominated the practice of civil-military relations at the strategic level. These tensions have caused pundits and armchair generals—along with serving and retired generals and admirals —to ask questions about the relationship between methods of civilian control and effective national strategy.” When Marshall Met Pershing
By Benjamin Runkle, War on the Rocks: “Oct. 3, 1917, is the centennial of General John J. Pershing’s inspection of the 1st Infantry Division at Gondrecourt, France. This obscure event would not only have significant repercussions for the American effort in the next world war, but also offer lessons for leadership development in the U.S. military a century later. China’s Djibouti Military Base: Platform for Geopolitical Ambitions?
By Sarah Zheng, South China Morning Post: “Beijing has described its military outpost as a logistics facility for resupplying Chinese vessels on peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. But satellite imagery and unofficial reports show the base has military infrastructure, including barracks and storage and maintenance units, and docking facilities that can handle most vessels in its naval fleet.” |
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September 2023
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