Strategika

Subscribe to receive Strategika. Subscribe »

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. 

E.g., 12 / 5 / 2021
E.g., 12 / 5 / 2021

No issues were found in that date range. Please expand your range and try again.

Pages

Explore Research

Filter By:

Topic

Type

Author

Section

Enter comma-separated IDs of authors
Enter comma-separated IDs of contributors

Support the Hoover Institution

Join the Hoover Institution's community of supporters in advancing ideas defining a free society.

Support Hoover

Poster Collection, US 06780, Hoover Institution Archives.

Strategika: “Cultural Decline and the Military” with Andrew Roberts

interview with Andrew Robertsvia Strategika
Friday, August 14, 2015

How political correctness is weakening the armed forces.

Poster Collection, US 06628, Hoover Institution Archives.

Strategika: “How the Military Has Resisted Political Correctness,” with Thomas Donnelly

interview with Thomas Donnellyvia Strategika
Friday, August 14, 2015

Why PC culture has failed to penetrate the armed services.

Related Commentary

Obama’s Intentionally Divisive Iran Nuclear Deal Rhetoric

by Max Bootvia Commentary
Monday, August 10, 2015

Last week Senator Chuck Schumer, the presumptive next leader of the Democrats in the Senate, announced that he was going to vote against the Iran nuclear deal.

Related Commentary

Conflicting Identities In the U.S. Armed Forces

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Strategika
Monday, July 27, 2015

My time on Navy active duty being long past, my insights into how the social changes imposed on the armed forces impact their capacity for combat flow from my acquaintance with former students who are now serving

Related Commentary

Mission Unclear

by Bing Westvia Strategika
Monday, July 27, 2015

It is manifest of our crazy times that the editorial board of Strategika has even posed this question (“Are there new dangers of the military bifurcating along ideological grounds, between traditionalists and those who wish to update military protocols to accommodate social and political agendas?”).

Related Commentary

Political Battles

by Mark Moyarvia Strategika
Monday, July 27, 2015

Since the 1970s, the U.S. military has experienced intense conflicts between traditionalists and individuals intent on reshaping the military for ideological reasons.

Related Commentary

Reflections on the Military and Society

by Josiah Bunting IIIvia Strategika
Monday, July 27, 2015

The question, “Are there new dangers of the military bifurcating along ideological grounds, between traditionalists and those who wish to update military protocols to accommodate social and political agendas?” interests me because I have spent much of my life as a member of the military establishment—and also as a student, writer and biographer, professor and critic, of its members past and present.

Poster Collection, US 06628, Hoover Institution Archives.
Featured Commentary

The Real Danger Of Political Correctness

by Thomas Donnellyvia Strategika
Monday, July 27, 2015

The corrosive effects of “political correctness” in modern American society are unlikely to divide “traditionalists” from “accommodationists” among the ranks, but they are all but certain to widen the gap between soldiers and statesmen.

Poster Collection, US 06780, Hoover Institution Archives.
Featured Commentary

Surgical Strike

by Andrew Robertsvia Strategika
Monday, July 27, 2015

A series of recent controversies have brought to the fore the central question of how much military protocols need to be updated, on both sides of the Atlantic, to accommodate social and political agendas.

Poster Collection, US 06031, Hoover Institution Archives.
Background Essay

Political Correctness And The American Military

by Williamson Murrayvia Strategika
Monday, July 27, 2015

One of the major worries that confronts those who study the American military at present is the question as to whether the accommodation of its units to the social and political agendas of a portion of America’s elite might not in the long run damage what has been for the past thirty years the most competent combat organization in the world.

Pages


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.

Is there a military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Stay Up To Date!

Be notified when an new issue is available.

Subscriptions »

RSS Feed Subscription

subscribe and listen on iTunes

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.

To stay up to date when new issues are released, sign up here to be notified when a new Strategika is available.

Subscriptions »

 

The opinions expressed in Strategika are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.