September, 2015 - Classics of Strategy and Diplomacy

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U.S. Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual (1940)

September 22, 2015

The American military and the U.S. Marine Corps in particular had been fighting and analyzing counterinsurgency operations decades before their boots marked the sands of the Middle East and South Asia. Sadly, many of the lessons from these experiences languished on the shelfs of war colleges even as they became vitally important in the field. A handful of forward thinking officers cried for their reconsideration and modernization, and these efforts ultimately led to The U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual No. 3-24. However, long before General David Petraeus blended the wisdom of soldiers and scholars to produce his manual, an earlier effort already chronicled many of the central considerations for fighting against insurgencies. The Marine Corps Small Wars Manual, published in 1936 and updated in 1940, remains an important document for understanding the historical development of American counterinsurgency strategy and tactics.

Henry Luce, The American Century (1941)

Joshua Boucher

September 16, 2015

In February 1941, Henry Luce, the editor, publisher, and creator of Time and Life magazines, proclaimed to the readers of Life that America was in the war. To many of his readers, such a bold assertion probably came off as perplexing. After all, World War II, at this point ravaging Europe for about a year and half, did not involve American blood. For at least some Americans, it was unclear that the war would ever involve American blood—arguments in favor of isolation were still strong, and many Americans were unwilling to believe that the problems of Europeans could ever become their own. So how, then, could Luce make such a claim?

Structure and Contingency: the Causes of the Peloponnesian War

Patrick J. Garrity +

September 16, 2015

The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) was “a war like no other.” It was a 27 year conflict that brought an end to the fifth century Athenian Golden Age, killed more Greeks in one year than the Persians killed in ten, and, in the end, seemed to solve nothing.

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (1952)

Joshua Boucher

September 01, 2015

In writing The Irony of American History, Niebuhr provides a framework through which we can interpret, organize, and create patterns out of the facts of history. In order to do so, Niebuhr points us towards three broad categories: pathos, tragedy, and most importantly for Niebuhr, irony. The Cold War conflict between liberalism and communism, and in particular America’s role, is Niebuhr’s case study for understanding those categories of history.

Giulio Douhet, The Command of The Air (1921/1927)

Nicholas Morrow

September 01, 2015

Giulio Douhet, an Italian army officer who never learnt to fly, first published one of military theory’s most recognized and controversial works on airpower, The Command of The Air, in 1921. Just three years after the end of the First World War and the first widespread use of airplanes in warfare, this new technology had yet to be fully integrated into military strategy. Douhet advocated a new strategic application for what he identified as the airplane’s superior capabilities in order to avoid the destructive stalemate of the First World War in future wars. Promising a quick and decisive end to war, The Command of The Air synthesized concepts, namely strategic bombing, an independent air force, the dominance of an offensive strategy, and breaking the will of the civilian population, among others, which contributed to the development of the modern air force.