About

War on the Rocks is a platform for analysis and debate on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. It features articles and podcasts produced by an array of writers with deep experience in these matters: top notch scholars who study war, those who have served or worked in war zones, and more than a few who have done it all.

This is what sets us apart from other publications: experience.

Among our regular contributors are people who have worked on every continent in the world. They have commanded ships, bargained with militias, led patrols, managed alliances, called for fires, and negotiated treaties. They include former diplomats, officers, NCOs, intelligence professionals, and some of the most reputable scholars in the world studying war and international politics. Our contributors include citizens of countries from around the world, members of all political parties and none. But they all converge on that one guiding principle for our project: experience.

We seek to teach people how to think about the world, rather than what to think about it. We do not impose conclusions on our authors or our readers. We reason forward to find answers, not backward from predetermined beliefs. We believe in the centrality of fear, honor, and interest as drivers of inter-state affairs. Politics is power. À la Morgenthau, we understand power as “anything that establishes and maintains the power of man over man …. from physical violence to the most subtle psychological ties by which one mind controls another.”  While armed force or the threat thereof is often central to our analyses, our writers also engage deeply with ideas and social control as mechanisms for power. No topic is off limits.

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War on the Rocks is owned and operated by Metamorphic Media LLC.

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