No COIN for You? The Most Stagnant Debate in Strategic Studies
Counterinsurgency remains the most controversial topic of debate in the U.S. military and strategic studies community. While AirSea Battle and the so-called “rebalance” to Asia raises the temperature in the room, counterinsurgency still blows the roof off the building. But, the debate on that topic has stagnated well beyond the point of diminishing returns. It …
Weekend Reading: January 10
Happy Friday, everyone! We hope you all stayed warm this week. We’re wishing ourselves a happy birthday – War on the Rocks launched 6 months ago and it’s been a great half-year. What are you drinking this weekend to celebrate the end of the ‘polar vortex,’ our birthday, or just the arrival of Friday? Tell …
Top 25 from our first year
Since we launched War on the Rocks on 8 July 2013, we have gone from strength to strength, exceeding our expectations by orders of magnitude. Here are our 25 most-read articles from 2013: Benjamin Runkle: “The Lost Lessons of Black Hawk Down” Matthew Hipple: “99 Red Balloons: How War with China Would Start” David Maxwell: …
Weekend Reading: Thanksgiving Edition
Happy Black Friday from all of us here at War on the Rocks! We hope those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday are recovering nicely from your food comas/in-laws/etc. Whether you’re waiting in line at the mall, taking a long plane flight or scouring your parents’ fridge for leftovers, you’ll need something to read this …
Weekend Reading: November 15
It’s Friday again! We hope you’re as excited for the weekend as we are. Here’s what our team has been reading this week. Have a great weekend! New this week: We were excited to see some great content in POLITICO Magazine, the new venture launched this week with former Foreign Policy editor-in-chief Susan Glasser at the …
Weekend Reading: Halloween Edition
Happy Friday, happy November, and happy All Hallows’ Day from War on the Rocks, where we’re more frightened about this than anything we saw on Halloween. Here’s what we’re reading this weekend. Remember, if you want to be included in our weekly roundup, tweet us your articl esuggestions @WarOnTheRocks. From all of us at WOTR, have …
Bad Idea for the Pentagon’s Idea Shop
Imagine that you were a general in some country that “must not be named,” thinking about your enemies and, in turn, what you might want as a gift for some random holiday, like for example Halloween or 春节. In your hope of hopes, what would you wish for? You might wish for a potential rival …
1000 Paper Tigers: China’s Conventional Missile Forces
The supposed threat of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Second Artillery Corps (SAC) and its “capability” to bring about capitulation by way of devastating conventional bombardment is a topic of concern among policy makers and military experts. But how does this affect the strategic dynamics of the region? Tan Weihong, commander of the SAC believes …
5 Questions on Future War in the Pacific
In my last article, I discussed the U.S. Pacific submarine offensive during World War II. The “Silent Service”—as our submarine force came to be known as–did a great job of learning and adapting under fire to unexpected demands. This case study is not merely of historical interest. There are lessons here relevant to the arguments …
Talkin’ World War II: Blockades & Subs in the Pacific
Tom Hone recently wrote a marvelous depiction of the Battle of Midway right here on WOTR. As he pointed out, our intrepid pilots and the carrier fleet, supported by great intelligence work, turned the tide in the Pacific. The U.S. had been forced onto the defensive by Pearl Harbor and by pre-war planning delusions. In fact, …
Blockading China: A Guide
Earlier this year, a Chinese frigate locked weapon-targeting radar on a Japanese destroyer near the Senkaku Islands. Both Japan and China lay territorial claims to these uninhabited islands, which are close to both Okinawa and Taiwan. This is one of many territorial disputes that China has in the South and East China Seas. Needless to …
The Asia-Pacific rebalance cannot be “strategy”
In a recent article in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, Rear Admiral Michael E. Smith lays out what he calls a “framework” for the “detailed roadmap” that he believes the Navy must develop to effectively support the presidentially-directed “rebalance to the Asia-Pacific.” Admiral Smith, the director of the Navy’s staff section for policy and strategy, …
Weekend Reading: Second Edition
It’s Friday again and we’ve rounded up the most interesting content about foreign affairs and national security from around the Web. Here are this week’s picks of what our editorial team will be reading over the weekend. Be sure to send us your recommendations for the weekend reading list every Thursday by emailing us at …
McGrath: What kind of Navy should we have?
WOTR Contributor Bryan McGrath, who wrote a provocative myth-busting piece on AirSea Battle for us, spoke last night at the Navy Warfare Development Command in Norfolk. Not only is it very much worth watching, but it should get you excited about next week, when WOTR is featuring a counter-attack to some of Bryan’s broadsides in …
Thank you to our readers, Welcome to new contributors
Our first week was a successful one and that is thanks to all of you: our readers, supporters, and Kickstarter funders – many of whom were able to join us at our launch party last Friday here in Washington, DC. What sets us apart from similar platforms and publications? Experience. In fact, I am confident …
