From the Editors

This issue inaugurates the 37th volume of The Journal of Strategic Studies.

The topic of armed unmanned aerial vehicles, or ‘drones’, has aroused growing interest among both scholars and policymakers. Javier Jordan’s ‘The Effectiveness of the Drone Campaign Against Al Qa’eda Central: A Case Study’ examines the effects of the US drone strike campaign in Pakistan on Al-Qa’eda’s leadership. Jordan, who teaches at the University of Granada, offers a theoretical framework for thinking about the use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles as part of a counterinsurgency strategy. In addition, he argues that the drone campaign has degraded Al-Qa’eda through its effect on the organization’s hierarchical leadership, its limited human resources, and key material resources.

Military innovation and adaptation remains a lively subject of discussion and debate in scholarly and policymaking circles. Sergio Catignani’s ‘Coping with Knowledge: Organizational Learning in the British Army?’ joins the debate.¹ Catignani, who teaches with the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter, explores how both formal and informal learning mechanisms have affected organizational learning within the British Army in Afghanistan. He argues that although the Army has adopted new formal learning systems, these have not led to a reconceptualization of how to conduct counterinsurgency. Moreover, informal learning systems have created their own barriers to higher-level learning. We expect that we have not heard the end of this debate, and look forward to publishing additional perspectives in forthcoming issues of the Journal.

The Israeli approach to irregular warfare has attracted considerable attention.² In ‘“Mowing the Grass”: Israel’s Strategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict’, Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University argue that the Israeli approach is substantively different from contemporary Western thinking on non-state military challenges in that the Israeli approach is premised upon the assumption of a protracted, intractable conflict. As a result, the Israeli use of force is not intended to achieve a decisive outcome, but rather follows a strategy of attrition designed to debilitate the adversary.

Nuclear weapons remain an important element of military power.³ Indeed, countries such as Russia are relying increasingly on nuclear weapons for their security.⁴ Dmitry Adamsky’s ‘Nuclear Incoherence: Deterrence Theory and Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Russia’ explores this important and under-examined topic. Adamsky, who teaches at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, examined Russian thoughts and deeds about regional nuclear deterrence and the role of non-strategic nuclear weapons. He argues that Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons have no defined mission and that no deterrence framework has been elaborated for them. He further argues that establishing a coherent theater nuclear posture and aligning it with national deterrence strategy is a challenging task and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, both for Russia and for prospective nuclear powers.

Eight years ago we founded the Amos Perlmutter Prize in commemoration of the life of the founding editor of the journal. The prize recognizes the most outstanding essay submitted for publication by a junior faculty member. This year’s Perlmutter Award goes to Kersti Larsdotter of Uppsala University for her essay ‘Regional Support for Afghan Insurgents: Challenges for Counterinsurgency Theory and Doctrine’. Larsdotter’s article offers a framework for thinking about counterinsurgency in a regional framework, using the war in Afghanistan as a point of departure.

The issue concludes with reviews of three recent and notable books in the field of strategic studies.

Notes

1. See also Theo Farrell, ‘Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006--2009’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (Aug. 2010), 567--94; Sergio Catignani, ‘“Getting COIN” at the Tactical Level in Afghanistan: Reassessing Counter-Insurgency Adaptation in the British Army,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 35/4 (Aug. 2012), 513--39; and Eitan Shamir, ‘The Long and Winding Road: The US Army Managerial Approach to Command and the Adoption of Mission Command (Aufstragstaktik),’ Journal of Strategic Studies 33/5 (Oct. 2010), 645--72.

2. Dag Henriksen, ‘Deterrence by Default? Israel’s Military Strategy in the 2006 War against Hizballah’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/1 (Feb. 2012), 95--120; Evan Braden Montgomery and Stacie L. Pettyjohn, ‘Democratization, Instability, and War: Israel’s 2006 Conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah’, Security Studies, 19/3 (Aug. 2010), 521–54; Niccolò Petrelli, ‘Deterring Insurgents: Culture, Adaptation and the Evolution of Israeli Counterinsurgency, 1987–2005’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/5 (Oct. 2013), 666--91; Thomas Rid, ‘Deterrence beyond the State: The Israeli Experience’, Contemporary Security Policy 33/1 (2012), 124–47.

3. Sumit Ganguly and R. Harrison Wagner, ‘India and Pakistan: Bargaining in the Shadow of Nuclear War’, Journal of Strategic Studies 27/3 (Sept. 2004), 479--507; Wu Riqiang, ‘Certainty of Uncertainty: Nuclear Strategy with Chinese Characteristics’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/4 (Aug. 2013), 579--614; Thomas J. Christensen, ‘The Meaning of the Nuclear Evolution: China’s Strategic Modernization and US-China Security Relations’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/4 (Aug. 2012), 447--87.

4. Tor Bukkvoll, ‘Iron Cannot Fight: The Role of Technology in Current Russian Military Theory’, Journal of Strategic Studies 34/5 (Oct. 2011), 681--706.