We need a critical strategic studies, or maybe a strategic peace studies. Critical security studies, of course, is a venerable research tradition that I sometimes identify with. There are also scattered references to the phrase...
We need a critical strategic studies, or maybe a strategic peace studies. Critical security studies, of course, is a venerable research tradition that I sometimes identify with. There are also scattered references to the phrase...
This week has seen a number of key events and crises in global politics that have made crystal clear once again the careening mess that is US foreign policy under the current administration. The...
Some weeks ago, Stephen Walt lamented the absence of realist commentators in the American media space. What was striking to me at the time was Walt’s claim that realism is a ‘well-known approach to...
In fall of 2014, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced his plan to maintain US superiority against rising powers (i.e. Russia and China). His claim was that the US cannot lose its...
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) new Cyber Strategy is a refinement of past attempts at codifying and understanding the “new terrain” of cybersecurity threats to the United States. While I actually applaud many of the acknowledgements in the new Strategy, I am still highly skeptical of the DoD’s ability to translate words to deeds. In particular, I am so because the entire Strategy is premised on the fact that the “DoD cannot defend every network and system against every kind of intrusion” because the “total network attack surface is too large to defend against all threats and too vast to...
Much ink has been spilled over the last few days concerning President Obama’s speech on Wednesday evening regarding ISIS, as well as how his strategy will face many challenges going forward. Some cite that he does not go far enough, others that he has not fully laid out what to do in Syria when he has to face a potential deal with Assad. I, however, would like to pause and ask about the motivations on each side of this conflict, and whether we have any indications about how the asymmetry of motivations may affect the efficacy of Obama’s campaign. Moreover, we ought to also look to how this...
Newsweek Korea asked me to participate in a debate on Obama’s strategic patience. A friend of mine wrote against it; I wrote in defense. Here is the Korean language text at the NWK website. Below is my original English language version. In brief I argue that North Korea is so hard to pin down, that big strategies never work with it, provoke it into lashing out, and raise impossible expectations on democratic decision-makers. So Obama is acting responsibly, IMO, by not promising more than he can deliver and by not giving a reason for NK to act out. After 20+ years of negotiating on more or...
You can’t win a counter-insurgency with a military like this The Duck has gotten into an excellent debate with Ackerman on the Empire’s blown opportunity to stamp out the Space Vietcong Rebellion at Hoth. Westmoreland spent 5 years trying to nail down the VC in set-piece battles where US firepower could be brought decisively to bear and end the war. Here was the Emperor’s similar chance, but Vader and Admiral Ozzel blew it (mostly because the Empire’s officer corps was filled with grandstanding self-promoters, as Ackerman rightly points out). But as the respondents noted, the larger...
Pakistani Taliban Leader Threatens Attack on WashingtonCompellence in its purest form: a threat to inflict pain if an adversary does not alter their current behavior. Is the threat credible? It's unclear at this time, although US officials are publicly dismissing it. Other threats of late seem more credible--although the FedEx strategy is an example of deterrence, not compellence.And no, I am not morally equating FedEx and Mehsud--just pointing out examples of strategy.I haven't actually seen a study which looks at the success rate of terrorist or non-state deterrent/compellent threats...