Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Arab

#Reviewing The Arab Bulletin

#Reviewing The Arab Bulletin

In The Arab Bulletin, the origins of many of the region’s current instabilities can be found in the reports about restive tribes, dynasties, and leaders. Even today, the content, methodology, analysis, and writing style of the Arab Bulletin are relevant. In essence the Bulletin is a fourteen volume master class in the use of intelligence and hybrid warfare in immediate and long term strategy. T.E. Lawrence was the only officer who wrote comprehensively about his work with the Arab Bureau, and some of his work is suspect.

Enhancing Strategic Education in the Middle East: Envisioning a Pan-Arab Security and Defence College

Enhancing Strategic Education in the Middle East: Envisioning a Pan-Arab Security and Defence College

National and multinational defence colleges have long provided a significant method of enhancing the strategic thinking skills and inter-cultural networks of national leaders, to better prepare them for developing and implementing national security doctrines and policies, and coordinating crisis management and informal diplomatic efforts. The creation of a pan-Arab security and defence college could provide a mutually-beneficial means for Arab nations to deliver coordinated, strategic-level education for a community of future Arab leaders and allied officers with regional influence.

#Reviewing Doomed to Succeed: Rethinking Middle East Assumptions

#Reviewing Doomed to Succeed: Rethinking Middle East Assumptions

Assumptions form the bedrock of any strategy. The choice of ways and means to achieve a particular outcome or objective is based on the assumption that those choices will lead to an expected result. Assumption is just one of many reasons flexibility is the key to good strategy - assumptions must be continuously analyzed for their efficacy. One major assumption at the root of the United States’ strategy in the Middle East has stood the test of time: the US needs Arab oil, or the continued flow of oil out of the Middle East, therefore it must remain on good terms with its oil-exporting Arab allies. It would follow that Arab disdain for Israel suggests the US should put distance between itself and Israel in favor of better relations with its Arab allies. Dennis Ross, in Doomed to Succeed: The US-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama, is rethinking this assumption and Middle East analysts, policy makers, and strategists should listen.