Strategy & Tactics
What Is Statecraft? Meaning, Tools and Examples
What statecraft means and how diplomacy, economics, information and force fit into governing, with examples ranging from Bismarck to modern sanctions.
Strategy & Tactics
Manoeuvre, logistics, command and decision-making: how campaigns are actually won and lost.
Strategy & Tactics
Game Theory in War: Deterrence, Chicken and Schelling
How game theory frames war and deterrence through the prisoner's dilemma, chicken, Schelling's credible threats and the Cuban Missile Crisis, without maths.
Strategy & Tactics
Who decides to go to war? Elites and public opinion
Who decides to go to war, and why do peoples with no quarrel end up fighting? Elites and public opinion in 1914, Yugoslavia, the Falklands and Iraq in 2003.
Strategy & Tactics
What is A2/AD? Anti-access and area denial explained
What A2/AD means, the origins of anti-access and area denial, and debates about defensive bubbles in China, Kaliningrad and the Black Sea through known cases.
Strategy & Tactics
What is hasbara? Israel's public diplomacy explained
What hasbara means, how Israel's public diplomacy bodies and social media efforts work, and why their relationship with propaganda and influence is contested.
Strategy & Tactics
Dual-Use Civilian Infrastructure: Europe's Achilles' Heel
How bridges, tunnels and border bureaucracy constrain military mobility in Europe, and what EU and NATO efforts reveal about dual-use infrastructure challenges.
Strategy & Tactics
The world’s most important maritime straits explained
The world's most important maritime straits explained through trade, energy flows, naval power, international law and the history of strategic sea chokepoints.
Strategy & Tactics
Scorched earth and the historical myth of burning the boats
What scorched earth means, from Russia in 1812 to accounts of Cortés and Tariq ibn Ziyad, distinguishing documented events from legends about burning the boats.
Strategy & Tactics
Passive anti-tank defences: dragon's teeth and obstacles
How passive anti-tank defences such as dragon's teeth, hedgehogs and ditches obstruct movement, and why these obstacles have returned to today's front lines.
Strategy & Tactics
What Are Military Wargames? From Kriegsspiel to Today
What military wargames are, from Prussian Kriegsspiel to general staffs and think tanks, and their strengths and limitations as tools for military analysis.
Strategy & Tactics
War Economy I: Military Spending and Finance Explained
What defines a war economy, how military expenditure is measured, and how states finance the resources needed to sustain defence commitments and armed conflict.
Strategy & Tactics
The Wedge Breakthrough: A Military Tactic Explained
The wedge breakthrough military tactic explained through concentrated penetration, its principles, and historical examples from Leuctra to Sedan in 1940.
Strategy & Tactics
How Terrain Shapes War: Plains, Jungles, and Mountains
How terrain shapes warfare, comparing the European Plain, Vietnam's jungles and the mountains of Afghanistan and Iran to show geography's military constraints.
Strategy & Tactics
Double Tap and Triple Tap: Successive Airstrikes
What double-tap and triple-tap airstrikes mean, how they differ from other attacks, and cases in Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and Gaza under humanitarian law.
Strategy & Tactics
Show of Force: Military Deployment as a Political Signal
What a show of force means, why states deploy assets as political signals without fighting, and how documented examples reveal the limits of signalling.
Strategy & Tactics
Military Exercises and Diplomacy: War Games as Messages
What military exercises are, what large-scale drills are for, and how they work as political signaling between states, with the OSCE's transparency tools.
Strategy & Tactics
Sun Tzu and Clausewitz: Basic Military Doctrines
Sun Tzu and Clausewitz compared through their military doctrines, from deception and economy of force to friction, political purpose and centres of gravity.
Strategy & Tactics
The Alhucemas Landing (1925): A Brief Military Analysis
A military analysis of the 1925 Alhucemas landing, covering the Rif War context, Spanish-French planning, the operation's execution and its wider consequences.
Strategy & Tactics
Napoleon's Use of Artillery: The Grand Battery
How Napoleon used artillery, from the Gribeauval system and concentrated grand batteries to horse artillery, and the role these developments played in warfare.