DR CHRISTOPHER SIMS Christopher Sims is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point. The muscular force posture articulated in the United States 2017National Security Strategy emphasizes a return to symmetrical military confrontation. Some important historical clues as to the future trajectory and priorities involved in facing a return to great power rivalry can be found… Read More The Misdirection of Military Keynesianism
DR GERAINT HUGHES At the end of last month The Economist published a special report on ‘The Future of War’ by Matthew Symonds. Symonds’ report is well-researched and addresses a wide array of contemporary issues and conceptual challenges, ranging from the renewed relevance of Article 5 for NATO to the likely implications of introducing AI… Read More Predicting future trends in warfare
DR MIKE FINCH One of the most salient features of warfare during the present decade appears to be breakdown of the barrier between the state of war and the state of peace. As Chief of the General Staff Sir Nick Carter noted in his foreword to Army Doctrine Publication: Operations: ‘No longer is there a… Read More French Revolutionary War Theory: Conflict Between War and Peace
TYSON SARA is a senior official with the Australian Defence Department and is a 2017 graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies. The post is based on his MA dissertation. All views expressed in it are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Defence Department or the Royal… Read More How do states without defence forces defend themselves? An examination of security and sovereignty in small states
DR CHRISTIAN TRIPODI In September 2015 I accompanied the Headquarters of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) to Sicily, a trip which I’ve described in a previous post. My role, in concert with my colleague Professor Niall Barr, was to act as an historical advisor to the assorted gathering of senior officers, civil servants and… Read More Strategy, Theory, and History
DR CHRIS TUCK Why does hybrid war cast such a long shadow over Western conceptions of future threats? The ubiquity of the idea of hybrid war is interesting given the many serious problems with the concept. Hybrid war has, for example, little intellectual coherence, since different commentators define hybrid war in different ways. For Frank… Read More Hybrid War: The Perfect Enemy
DR JONATHAN BOFF Jonathan is a Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Birmingham. His first book, Winning and Losing on the Western Front: The British Third Army and the Defeat of Germany in 1918 was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012. An audio recording of a paper detailing some of his new research on… Read More When Learning Goes Bad
DR STUART GRIFFIN As Defence-in-Depth once again spends time exploring the concepts of the operational level and operational art, it seems an appropriate time to relate my previous contribution on the subject to the other research strand that I have previously blogged about: military innovation. Though the popular focus of military innovation tends to be… Read More The Operational Level as Military Innovation: Past, Present and Future
DR. TIM BENBOW The recurrent debate over whether or not the operational level of war exists can sometimes feel like the land component talking to itself. The vast majority of what is written about the operational level, and operational art, focusses predominantly on land operations. It is rare to find an acknowledgement of the significance… Read More The operational level of war and maritime forces
By Dr. Rod Thornton Russian military thinking seems to have reached the point now where the idea of using force intentionally in conflicts with peer-state adversaries has been almost completely ruled out. This seems a radical move. But there has been a clear recognition within this military that better strategic outcomes for Russia will result… Read More The Russian military’s view on the utility of force: the adoption of a strategy of non-violent asymmetric warfare
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