From the editors

It is a truism that war becomes more complex and that strategists are now presented with a wider range of instruments and domains (land, sea, air, space, cyber) to operate in and manage. What is less obvious is how they should cope with the additional complexity and uncertainty of more ways and means to project force and signal to adversaries. The first essay in this issue by Jon R. Lindsay of the University of Toronto and Erik Gartzke of the University of California, San Diego, addresses this key theoretical and practical problem of contemporary conflict. While they do not claim to offer a complete answer, they do argue that each operational domain has a distinct political dimension that provide the operational building blocks to military strategy and strategic theory.¹

The complexity and uncertainty that Lindsay and Gartzke raise are well illustrated in the next essay by Spencer D. Bakich of the Virginia Military Institute. He analyses why in 2017 the Trump administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ failed to denuclearize of North Korea and explains that failure in terms of a deficit in ‘signalling capacity’.² According to the author, signalling capacity consists of three distinct but interrelated components: intelligence portfolio diversification, diplomatic-military integration, and military doctrinal and planning flexibility. In 2017, US strategy failed because American officials did not understand that Kim Jong-Un equated assured nuclear retaliation with regime survival, were unable to marry credible signals of threat with assurance and were hampered with an inflexible AirSea Battle doctrine. Bakich argues states that a high signalling capacity will produce much more effective strategic action.

The next two papers by Theo Farrell of the University of Wollongong and Lene Ekhaugen of the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS) draw out lessons from the last two decades of conflict in Afghanistan. Ferrell examines the competitive dynamic between Afghan Taliban and the British Army and discovers a degree of convergence in modes of operation or organizational form between those two foes as the war unfolded.³ This surprising finding challenges existing theories about how to adapt and innovate in war. Ekhaugen’s analysis of the Norway’s whole-of-government approach to its involvement in the Afghanistan conflict.⁴ She finds that the approach produced some meagre results in improving communication across the state, but it certainly did not produce an overall effective strategy. Nonetheless, the approach persisted as Norway’s policy because despite the apparent lack of success it offered symbolic evidence of the government’s desire to achieve inter-ministerial coordination and engagement.

Finally, this issue includes a review essay of by Mark Harrison of Anand Toprani’s Oil and the Great Powers: Britain and Germany, 1914 to 1945. As Harrison points out, Toprani’s historical study offers telling insights into contemporary energy and raw material competition and humanity’s need to address the climate crisis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ For recent related articles see Hew Strachan, ‘Michael Howard and Clausewitz’, Journal of Strategic Studies 45/1 (2022), 143–60; Richard J. Harknett and Max Smeets, ‘Cyber Campaigns and Strategic Outcomes’, Journal of Strategic Studies 45/4 (2022), 534–67; Rupal N. Mehta, ‘Extended Deterrence and Assurance in an Emerging Technology Environment’, Journal of Strategic Studies 44/7 (2021), 958–82; Erik Gartzke, ‘Blood and Robots: How Remotely Piloted Vehicles and Related Technologies Affect the Politics of Violence’, Journal of Strategic Studies 44/7 (2021), 983–1013; Bleddyn E. Bowen, ‘From the Sea to Outer Space: The Command of Space as the Foundation of Spacepower Theory’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/3–4 (2019), 532–556.

² Also on the topic of crisis diplomacy, strategy and coercion see John Logan Mitton, ‘Lessons in Deterrence: Evaluating Coercive Diplomacy in Syria, 2012–2019’, Journal of Strategic Studies 45/3 (2022), 411–38; Stephan Haggard and Tai Ming Cheung, ‘North Korea’s Nuclear and Missile Programs: Foreign Absorption and Domestic Innovation’, Journal of Strategic Studies 44/6 (2021), 802–29; Rebecca Davis Gibbons and Keir Lieber, ‘How Durable is the Nuclear Weapons Taboo?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 42/1 (2019), 29–54; Travis Sharp, ‘Theorizing Cyber Coercion: The 2014 North Korean Operation Against Sony’, Journal of Strategic Studies 40/7 (2017), 898–926.

³ For other similar recent articles, see Olivier Schmitt, ‘French Military Adaptation in the Afghan War: Looking Inward or Outward?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 40/4 (2017), 577–99; Daniel Fiott, ‘A Revolution Too Far? US Defence Innovation, Europe and NATO’s Military-Technological Gap’, Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 417–437.

⁴ On Norway also see Mats Berdal and Astri Suhrke, ‘A Good Ally – Norway and International Statebuilding in Afghanistan, 2001–2014’, Journal of Strategic Studies 41/1–2 (2018), 61–88.