Strategika

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Friday, September 24, 2021

Issue 75

America After Afghanistan
Background Essay
Background Essay

Our Revels Now Are Ended

by Ralph Petersvia Strategika
Friday, September 24, 2021

It’s hard to win a war when you refuse to understand your enemy. It’s harder still when you cannot realistically define your strategic mission. You lame yourself further when you reduce a complex history to a single inaccurate cliché; i.e., “Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.”

Featured Commentary
Featured Commentary

Afghanistan Post-Mortem

by Peter R. Mansoorvia Strategika
Friday, September 24, 2021

The United States has lost its longest war. After twenty years of conflict and nation building in Afghanistan, the U.S.-backed Afghan regime collapsed like a house of cards in just a few weeks after the announced departure of American and NATO troops from the country. A final flurry of activity by the U.S. military managed to rescue 123,000 people from Kabul, but as Winston Churchill once said of Dunkirk, “Wars are not won by evacuations.”

Featured Commentary

Dented, Not Damaged: The American Empire After Afghanistan

by Josef Joffevia Strategika
Friday, September 24, 2021

When small, even middle-sized powers make grievous mistakes like fighting a losing war or ignoring deadly threats, they risk their place in the global hierarchy or, worse, their existence. Thus did France and Britain when they failed to fight Nazi Germany in the Thirties while still in position of strategic superiority. 

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Related Commentary

The Limitations of Drone Warfare

by Peter R. Mansoorvia Strategika
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Related Commentary

Whom Shall We Drone?

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Strategika
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Hoover Institution Archives Poster Collection, RU/SU 205
Featured Commentary

Turkey's Struggles Point to the Need for Allies

by Walter Russell Mead via Strategika
Sunday, December 1, 2013

The Republic of Turkey is geographically, politically, and culturally, an odd-looking member in an alliance known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Turkey has a long coastline washed by the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean, but it is hundreds of miles from the Atlantic. Turkish democracy for most of NATO’s history could best be described as an aspiration rather than a reality.

Is Russia now an enemy, neutral, irrelevant to US strategic interests, or a poss

Russia, the United States, and the Middle East

by Kiron K. Skinnervia Strategika
Monday, November 25, 2013

Kiron Skinner discusses how the relationship between the United States and Russia bears on the future of foreign policy in the Middle East.

Is Russia now an enemy, neutral, irrelevant to US strategic interests, or a poss

Russia and the United States—the Role of National Character

by Ralph Petersvia Strategika
Friday, November 22, 2013

Ralph Peters discusses how cultural sensibilities have shaped Russia’s posture in international relations and explain Vladimir Putin’s leadership style.

Is Russia now an enemy, neutral, irrelevant to US strategic interests, or a poss

Russia and the United States—an Ahistorical Relationship

by Edward N. Luttwak via Strategika
Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Edward Luttwak examines the unusual dynamics of US-Russian relations and how they could change in the future.

Related Commentary

Language is Ataturk’s cultural anchor

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Strategika
Monday, November 18, 2013
Related Commentary

Ineffectual Turkey

by Edward N. Luttwak via Strategika
Monday, November 18, 2013

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The Working Group on the Role of Military History in Contemporary Conflict strives to reaffirm the Hoover Institution's dedication to historical research in light of contemporary challenges, and in particular, reinvigorating the national study of military history as an asset to foster and enhance our national security. Read more.

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Strategika is an online journal that analyzes ongoing issues of national security in light of conflicts of the past—the efforts of the Military History Working Group of historians, analysts, and military personnel focusing on military history and contemporary conflict.

Our board of scholars shares no ideological consensus other than a general acknowledgment that human nature is largely unchanging. Consequently, the study of past wars can offer us tragic guidance about present conflicts—a preferable approach to the more popular therapeutic assumption that contemporary efforts to ensure the perfectibility of mankind eventually will lead to eternal peace. New technologies, methodologies, and protocols come and go; the larger tactical and strategic assumptions that guide them remain mostly the same—a fact discernable only through the study of history.

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