The Death of American Conventional Warfare
By Jahara Matisek & Ian Bertram, Strategy Bridge: “Conventional warfare is officially dead. This has become an obvious trend with innumerable adversaries engaging the American military and its allies in unconventional ways with unconventional means. The long-held notion of the decisive battle that brings the combat power of two nations against each other for a winner-take-all slugfest lies in the next grave.” How Is China Bolstering Its Military Diplomatic Relations? From China Power, CSIS: “In the case of China, its ongoing military modernization has enhanced the frequency and complexity of these activities. In general, military diplomatic activities provide China with opportunities to improve its global image and support its broader diplomatic agenda, while simultaneously enhancing its military operational capabilities.” In the U.S.-China Relationship, Time Is Not on Our Side. Or Is It? By Albert Wolf, Modern War Institute: “Most undergraduate political science majors are familiar with Thucydides’s quote about power shifts and war: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.” This oft-cited quote echoes in debates over the rise of China, from the “pivot” to “rebalancing” to the Trump Administration’s promises to “get tough” with Beijing.” Prospect Theory and the Problem of Strategy:
Lessons from Sicily and Dien Bien Phu By Gabriel White, Strategy Bridge: “While the broader implications are troubling, two specific dimensions of the intersection of strategy and prospect theory—risk aversion and risk acceptance—are particularly interesting, but how both behaviors manifest themselves in the context of military operations varies significantly.”
The DPRK Dilemmas
By Norman Friedman, The Strategist (ASPI): “Now that the DPRK has developed long-range missiles and what appears to be a hydrogen bomb, what next? Does Kim Jung-un plan to incinerate a U.S. city in the near future? Until now, nuclear powers have avoided war due to deterrence; it sometimes seems that a two-sided nuclear standoff, as in India–Pakistan, considerably reduces the risk of even conventional war. Is that likely to be the case in Korea?” Failures of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq
By Jay Herndon, Strategy Bridge: “According to Toby Dodge, perhaps the West’s foremost Iraq scholar, the Defense Department saw reforming Iraq’s economy as essential to the wider reform of a corrupt and invasive state that had used Iraq’s economy to enrich its corrupt elite.” China Takes an Expansionist View of Geopolitics
By Zhixing Zhang, Stratfor: “Former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski managed to capture thousands of years of Chinese history in about 10 words. In his seminal work, The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski characterized China's geopolitics through the ages as "cycles of reunifications and expansions, followed by decay and fragmentations."” Theory, Strategy, Context, and Execution
By Michael Trimble, Strategy Bridge: “While sound military theory is a good starting point for strategy, context and execution matter. The positive impacts of theory upon strategy are often limited by the context in which theoretical principles are applied, and by the commander’s judgment and skill in applying them.” 3 Strategic Takeaways from the Guadalcanal Campaign By James Holmes, The National Interest: “This year marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. The battle is one of seven naval engagements that—together with hard-ground fighting on the part of the U.S. Marines and Army—make up a six-month bloodletting known to history as Guadalcanal. It’s a struggle replete with insights into martial strategy and operations.” |
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