It is striking how much difficulty the United States has had converting its tactical advantages into clear strategic ‘Wins’ in the post-Cold War period The next Whiteboard tackles a thorny...
Theories of War and Strategy
This tag relates to all articles, podcast episodes, and features related to the resident program course Theories of War and Strategy, which covers both the theories and the key theorists of war and strategy (e.g., Clausewitz, Jomini, Sun Tzu, and so on). It excludes the implementation of the theories in matters of policy and national strategy (explored in National Security Policy and Strategy).
There is one thing for the event to occur; but the manner in which it was handled was more institutionally damning. In a follow-up to his article published in...
Instead of what the Melian dialogue tells us, which is that ‘Might Makes Right,’ … when it comes to Supreme Command, ‘Right Makes Might.’ Whoever has the superior decisions...
Films can bring to life war’s battles, leaders, examples of strategic decisions, and examples of less successful strategic decisions. As Mark Gagnon and Jacqueline E. Whitt show in this...
Iraqis came up to [COL Rick Schwartz] and said, ‘Thanks for getting rid of Saddam. What do we do now?’ Rick had no answer. That coalition forces were ill-prepared...
Do technologies drive our values, or do our values drive our technologies? “Officers take on immense responsibilities, again unlike anything in civilian life, for they have in their control...
Washington [will] realize early on that he is playing a losing hand and has to change how he plays that hand. This inaugural episode of the Great Captains series...
Greatness … should be judged by some combination of leaders’ political impact; strategic, operational, or tactical brilliance; and innovation and effects on subsequent military practice. What makes a military...
The 2017 release of a television series on Vietnam War from director Ken Burns has renewed interest and controversy surrounding the purpose of the war and its effects. In...
Democracies have the burden of legitimacy. They must prove that their actions are consistent with democratic values and international norms or be cast as pariahs. Louis XIV engraved on...
While there are no easy choices for what to do about North Korea, a preventive attack is a very bad idea. Is a revival of the Korean War necessary?...
In this fourth episode of War Room’s special series on Great Strategists, Patrick Bratton explores Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Seapower upon History and its relevance to the...
In this third episode of War Room’s special series on Great Strategists, Larry Goodson presents the writings of Kautilya, who is lesser known to military audiences that Clausewitz or...
Imposing an artificial simplicity on Thucydides’s work makes it harder to understand the full range of warnings that his history gives. Great works of human pathos rarely distill to...
In “Sun Tzu and the Art of War,” Paul Kan explains the impacts of Sun Tzu’s famed treatise on war. Although little is known about Sun Tzu, The Art...
This podcast is the first episode of a War Room special series featuring some of history’s greatest strategists. Featured is Carl von Clausewitz, famed for his book On War...
No strategic model is a perfect representation of war, but some … offer valuable insights that justify their costs. What good is a “model” of strategy when every model...
In this War Room podcast, “Time as a Dimension of Strategy,” Joe Brooks and Doug Douds take a critical look at concepts that may too often be taken for...
The real challenge with black swan events is not accurate anticipation, but timely recognition. It is useful to remind ourselves regularly of the capacity of human beings to persist...