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

Logistics

The U.S. and Russia: Competing Proxy Strategies in the Russo-Ukrainian War

The U.S. and Russia: Competing Proxy Strategies in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Russian and U.S. use of proxy strategies complement one another to fuel a war of attrition. Russia’s human wave response to expensive and limited U.S. firepower is not unreasonable, despite perhaps being quite cynical and fatalistic. Russia’s human wave proxy strategy both protects conventional Russian army forces by redirecting combat to disposable proxies and frees the conventional army to reinforce territorial and political gains along the Sea of Azov. Simultaneously, the U.S. proxy strategy is a logical response to an undersized and outgunned Ukrainian military. The Ukrainians fighting at distance with U.S. artillery, missiles, and rockets while using urban terrain to offset Russian strength makes complete sense. But the interaction of these two proxy strategies, both logical in their own right, fuels a devastating war of attrition, depletes weapon stockpiles, and generates significant numbers of casualties.

Strategic Amnesia: The U.S. Army’s Stubborn Rush to Its Next War

Strategic Amnesia: The U.S. Army’s Stubborn Rush to Its Next War

In the headlong rush to move past Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army's preparation for near-peer conflict means failing to institutionalize the strategic lessons learned. By ignoring the last 20 years of fighting, the Army is failing to prepare appropriately for the more ambiguous battlefields of today. The Army has failed to fully develop a strategic understanding of counterinsurgency wars in its rush to fight the conventional war, instead focusing on tactical improvements.

#Reviewing War of Supply: World War II Allied Logistics in the Mediterranean

#Reviewing War of Supply: World War II Allied Logistics in the Mediterranean

In the historiography of the Second World War, scholars marvel at the wonders of Normandy and D-Day, followed by the famed Red Ball Express on the drive to Paris. Dworak makes the compelling case that the real support and logistics operation came from wartime experience further south. As a reader, it is delightful to see a simple and straightforward narrative play out. Dworak digs into all facets of logistics and stays on task. The author keeps his chapters fast-paced, focused on the big operations of Torch, Husky, Avalanche, Shingle, and Dragoon, while also describing fascinating tidbits along the way.

#Reviewing The Bridge to Airpower

#Reviewing The Bridge to Airpower

What books stand out in the field of logistics? Ask any officer or senior enlisted leader who has graduated from a professional military education course and they can tell you two things: a book about strategy they liked and many they did not. Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and even the much-maligned but desperately needed for his time Jomini, all fit the mold. Ask the same crowd to suggest the best book on military logistics and the answer is likely to be silence. Thus, in odd juxtaposition, logistics is so important in war that the most popular quotation about logistics is apocryphal and the vast majority of military leaders could not name one book on the subject.

The Logistics of Terror: The Islamic State’s Immigration & Logistics Committee

The Logistics of Terror: The Islamic State’s Immigration & Logistics Committee

Seemingly, the group was defeated after the Anbar Awakening and second Gulf War, but the organization waited patiently in the shadows for the right opportunity to strike back and regain relevance. During the interlude following the second Gulf War and the establishment of the caliphate, the group did what it has always done well—survive.

Managing World War: The Army Service Forces and General Somervell’s Rules for Getting Things Done

Managing World War: The Army Service Forces and General Somervell’s Rules for Getting Things Done

The activities of the Army Service Forces rarely garner attention in ongoing debates about warfare. Perhaps this is because modern conflict, unlike World War II, does not rely on massive firepower and highly centralized command structures. However, the management rules conceived by General Brehon Somervell are no less relevant and applicable to today’s military procurement and logistical challenges than they were over 75 years ago.

The Temptations of the Brown Box

The Temptations of the Brown Box

While harnessing technological improvements in the civilian sector to improve the capability of logistics, the U.S. military must proceed with caution. While many of the technologies––such as delivery drones and 3D printing––are in their nascent stages, asking important questions about the why, how, and in what context these technologies will be used might help alleviate future friction. U.S. strategists should be clear-eyed about what future logistics innovations can and cannot accomplish.

Fleet Maintenance and Sustainment for Naval Maneuver Warfare More Than Ship Salvage and Battle Damage Repair

Fleet Maintenance and Sustainment for Naval Maneuver Warfare More Than Ship Salvage and Battle Damage Repair

Fundamentally, naval maneuver is based on the ability of the naval forces to generate overwhelming operational tempo and a series of dilemmas for the enemy that shatters his cohesion through a multiplicity of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions. Generating and sustaining this necessary tempo requires keeping more ships in the fight longer, sustaining their maximum warfighting capacity, and delaying the fleet’s culminating point as long as possible. The logistical functions of supply and maintenance (to include salvage and repair capabilities) are critical to achieving this advantage.

Guadalcanal August 1942 - February 1943: Alpha and Omega of Airpower

Guadalcanal August 1942 - February 1943: Alpha and Omega of Airpower

Japanese efforts to wrest control of the airfield on Guadalcanal from the Americans failed due to their miscalculation of the preeminence of airpower and their refusal to understand that food was more important than soldiers or weapons. Although American victory was announced on February 9, 1943, in reality the Japanese Army had been starved from the air four months earlier. Airpower had come to legislate the movement of supplies by sea.

People, Posture, and Processes: U.S. Army Sustainment Options for the Joint Force in the Pacific

People, Posture, and Processes: U.S. Army Sustainment Options for the Joint Force in the Pacific

In the midst of unassuming jobs where sustainers pack the next container full of munitions, distribute fuel, police the streets, feed the force and perform an immeasurable amount of other invaluable support tasks—the importance of their craft often gets lost in the fog of plans and policy at the national level.

The American Way of War: And Why it Brings so Much Baggage

The American Way of War: And Why it Brings so Much Baggage

It is said that Germans after World War II stated that they did not like to fight the Americans, as they never stuck to their own doctrine or tactics. Russian doctrine too stated that U.S. forces were unpredictable because all their plans went to hell once a battle had begun. Perhaps that is why one of the great U.S. Army maxims is “No plan survives first contact.” It is true that we tend to bring some “innovations” to war, intentional or not. This could be termed the “tactical” American Way of War. Scholars have spent a lot of time, ink, and breath arguing what the “American Way of War” is, or even if one exists. Russel Weigley has argued that the American Way of War is to bring overwhelming force to bear on the enemy and crush them in absolute and total victory. For myself, hardly daring to even call myself a scholar, I will leave that argument to others with more money and time, but I do have a theory on what I like to call the “American Penchant of War.”