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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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Hoover Archives Poster collection: UK 3297, Britain's Land Offensive, Syria, The
Background Essay

U.S. Interests in Syria, Past and Present

by Mark Moyarvia Strategika
Monday, April 1, 2013
Hoover Archives Poster collection: UK 3297, Britain's Land Offensive, Syria, The
Featured Commentary

A Recipe for American Disaster

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Strategika
Monday, April 1, 2013
Click here to see a larger version.
Related Commentary

It’s Time to End Sanctions against North Korea

by Thomas H. Henriksenvia Hoover Digest
Friday, October 30, 1998

U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea have failed for forty years to bring down the regime. Hoover fellow Thomas H. Henriksen argues that it’s time for another approach.

Related Commentary

Preserve What We Inherited

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Strategika

There were various reasons why our grandparents sought to limit the availability of nuclear weapons in general and in particular among even our allies. I can think of three.

Related Commentary

A Clear-Eyed Assessment of ISIS

by Max Bootvia Commentary

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is certainly a growing menace–in fact the most immediate threat that we face in the Middle East.

Related Commentary

Who Possesses Nuclear Weapons, Not the Weapons, Is the Question

by Bruce Thorntonvia Strategika

Since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have attracted an apocalyptic glamour that has confused and distorted the strategic calculations that should determine their production and deployment. The same sort of irrational response greeted the development of bombers in the 20s and 30s, when lurid scenarios of the civilization-ending power of strategic bombing––popularized in novels like H.G. Wells’ Things to Come and exploited by pacifists––convinced British military planners and politicians that they should avoid war at all costs, for as Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin famously, and erroneously, proclaimed to the “man in the street,” “There is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed,” for “the bomber will always get through.”

Related Commentary

Sunni-stan Rising

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Library of Law and Liberty

Sunni fighters from around the Muslim world, having failed to conquer all of Syria from the Assad regime’s Alewites (a branch of Shia Islam) have been pushed eastward into majority-Sunni areas.

Related Commentary

Ever Less Bang for the Buck

by Ralph Petersvia Strategika

A pacifist administration and an irresponsible Congress have made an unholy bargain that cuts muscle to preserve fat. 

Related Commentary

Another Iraq war is coming – the only question is whether we want to win

by Max Bootvia The Spectator

A successful military intervention isn't just possible; it's essential

Related Commentary

Sect and Power in Syria and Iraq

by Angelo M. Codevillavia Library of Law and Liberty

Important as it is to keep in mind that sectarian socio-religious hate is what drives the vast bulk of the people engaged in today’s Muslim-world war, understanding that war requires taking into account those who provide the contending forces’ military organization.

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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.