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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Featured Commentary

The Main Obstacle

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Strategika
Monday, November 10, 2014

As in previous millennia of history, China’s objective for its periphery—the East Asia/Western Pacific region—is subordination of some kind or degree. Japan, being the only indigenous major power in the region, and allied formally with the United States (Russia having ceased to be an Asian power), is the main obstacle to that desired suzerainty.

Background Essay

Chinese-Japanese Tensions and Its Strategic Logic

by Miles Maochun Yuvia Strategika
Monday, November 10, 2014

The recent tensions between China and Japan are threatening to bring the world’s top three economies—the United States, China, and Japan—into a major armed confrontation.

Related Commentary

The Trajectory of North Pacific Tensions

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Strategika
Monday, November 10, 2014

Korea is the ever-sharpening focus of the growing tensions between China and Japan because moving Korea out of the security alliance led by the U.S. and Japan is the proximate objective of China’s grand design for the North Pacific.

Related Commentary

The Ultimate Trajectory of Chinese-Japanese Tensions

by Miles Maochun Yuvia Strategika
Monday, November 10, 2014

Chinese-Japanese tensions are partly a corollary to the century-old bilateral animosity beginning with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894.

Strategika: “Reasons for Hope: How Arab Countries Can Advance the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process” with Kori Schake

interview with Kori Schakevia Strategika
Friday, October 10, 2014

Why there is still hope for progress despite recent violence

Strategika: “Mowing the Grass: Why Half-Measures Won’t Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” with Thomas Henriksen

interview with Thomas H. Henriksenvia Strategika
Friday, October 10, 2014

Why Israel’s current approach to Palestinian violence can never lead to peace.

Strategika: “The Long Conflict: Why the Israeli-Palestinian Question Won’t Be Settled Anytime Soon” with Andrew Roberts

interview with Andrew Robertsvia Strategika
Friday, October 10, 2014

Why turmoil in the Middle East will likely continue for generations to come.

Poster Collection, IQ 2, Hoover Institution Archives.

Strategika: “The Quest for a Caliphate” with Edward Luttwak

by Edward N. Luttwak via Strategika
Wednesday, October 1, 2014

What historical trends inform ISIS’s pursuit of a caliphate? And what do they mean for the future of Islamism?

Jerusalem
Related Commentary

What Israel Won in Gaza and What Diplomacy Must Now Gain

by Peter Berkowitzvia Real Clear Markets
Tuesday, September 16, 2014

TEL AVIV -- For the time being, people are going about their business. Hamas is not raining rockets down on residents here, daily ear-piercing air-raid warning sirens are not sending everyone running for cover, and the city has returned to its bustling self.

Related Commentary

The Middle East’s Maze of Alliances

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review Online
Thursday, September 11, 2014

Try figuring out the maze of enemies, allies, and neutrals in the Middle East.

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