From the Editors

In this issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies, we are delighted to announce the winner of the Amos Perlmutter Prize. Ten years ago this prize was established to commemorate the life of the founding editor of the journal. The prize recognizes the most outstanding essay submitted for publication by junior faculty members. This year the prize has been awarded to Susan B. Martin of King’s College London. In ‘Norms, Military Utility, and the Use/Non-Use of Weapons: the Case of Anti-Plant and Irritant Agents in the Vietnam War,’ Martin re-examines the debate on the role of norms and military utility in decisions regarding the introduction, use, and non-use of new weapons. She finds that although ‘[B]oth norms and military utility were active factors in US decision-making … concerns about military utility were determinative in decisions regarding use…’.¹ She concludes that normative factors did affect decision-makers, but the key decisions for deployment and use were derived from estimates of the relative costs and benefits (including political costs), and the presumed military utility of these agents in an ongoing conflict.

New technologies present challenges to international norms. They also contribute to changes in military capability and to economic growth. The emergence of sophisticated ‘anti-access/area denial’ (A2/AD) capabilities is an important element in each of the next three articles. The emergence of these sophisticated capabilities alters regional security perceptions, challenges the ability of the US and partner states to intervene in crisis, and threatens to undermine norms of non-interference and freedom of transit, among others.²

Van Jackson, of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, examines the three key conceptual elements of the Obama administration’s rebalance to Asia. In ‘Red Teaming the Rebalance: The Theory and Risks of US Asia Strategy’,³ Jackson looks at three theoretical explanations – military power, economic liberalism, and institutionalism – that help provide tools to assess the Obama administration’s decision to rebalance and its possible consequences. He then examines the risks inherent in the assumptions behind each of these explanations, and ways in which the US and international community might mitigate those predictable risks. He concludes that in the military sphere maritime transparency and building defensively oriented military improvements in regional partners may both address core security concerns and mitigate the risk of an antagonistic Chinese response.

China’s rise as an economic competitor creates challenges for the US and regional partners.⁴ Wu Zhengyu of Renmin University of China, Beijing, approaches the rebalance from a different angle, examining the parallels between Anglo-German relations in the early twentieth century and Sino-US relations in the twenty-first. The lens used is the famous Eyre Crowe memorandum of 1907, which examined the German threat, sought explanations for German behavior, and projected the likely trajectory of Anglo-German relations. In ‘The Crowe Memorandum, the Rebalance to Asia, and Sino-US Relation’, Wu examines the logic of Crowe’s analysis – that Britain, as the dominant maritime power, must both maintain naval supremacy and act decisively to ensure the comity of nations, the balance of power, and the maintenance of the current international order. Wu notes that ‘[F]or the first time in history, there is direct, bilateral military competition between the two giants resulting from US hedging against China’s rise.’ China’s actions, like Germany’s a century ago, may prompt regional neighbors to request much higher levels of US presence and engagement. Despite this rising competition, Wu argues that ‘… the United States needs to preserve a favorable balance of power in eastern Eurasia only to the extent that such equilibrium sustains its position as the dominant maritime power and system leader.’⁵

Luis Simon of Vrije Universiteit Brussel examines the different complexities of the A2/AD challenge for Europe. In ‘The “Third” US Offset Strategy and Europe’s “Anti-Access” Challenge’, Simon discusses the new ‘Third Offset’ strategy proposed in the United States – a concept intended to develop new operational concepts and technologies and to encourage both doctrinal and organizational debate.⁶ He argues that both the US and Europe must strike a balance between concepts aimed at defeating A2/AD systems – including long-range precision strike capabilities – and those aimed at hedging against aggression from the states that already possess A2/AD capabilities. He concludes that two factors – the geography of the European theater and the resources and capacity of individual states – will shape Europe’s response to the threat. He suggests frontline states should focus on hedging while the more Western allies should deploy and develop systems aimed at defeating A2/AD systems.

As this issue is going to print, news has just been released about the death of Mullah Mansour, leader of the Taliban. Paul D. Miller of the University of Texas at Austin writes a powerful essay on the misuses of historical analogy in the long Afghan war.⁷ In ‘Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan’, Miller examines the origins of the term ‘Graveyard of Empires’, the scholarship examining the utility of historical analogies for policy makers, and the main historical analogies used by analysts throughout the conflict in an effort to inform policy. Miller argues that the historical analogies used to inform policymakers ‘… helped create conditions for the very insurgency policymakers most hoped to avoid.’⁸ In fact, he argues that a more careful reading of history suggests the US ‘… missed an opportunity to invest far greater resources in the country when Afghans were most receptive to it.’ This would have substantially increased our chances of winning the struggle in Afghanistan, and perhaps in the broader war on terror.⁹

The issue ends with a review essay of Philips Payson O’Brien’s How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) by Mark Harrison of the University of Warwick.¹⁰ O’Brien makes a strong revisionist argument that the Eastern front was not the critical theater of the Second World War. Although it involved enormous German and Soviet manpower on a front that stretched for thousands of kilometers, it absorbed only a small proportion of German war production. The majority of German and Axis production, however, went into air and sea weapons, and O’Brien argues that the battle in those domains ultimately created both attrition and immobility, and that these were what ultimately set the stage for the successful Allied combined arms offensives in 1944–1945.¹¹

Notes

¹ Martin, Susan B. 2016. Norms, Military Utility, and the Use/Non-Use of Weapons: the Case of Anti-Plant and Irritant Agents in the Vietnam War. Journal of Strategic Studies 39(3).

² See Evron, Yoram. 2012. China’s Military Procurement Approach in the Early 21st Century and its Operational Implications. Journal of Strategic Studies 35(1), 63-93; Erickson, Andrew S. 2014. Rising Tide, Dispersing Wave: Opportunities and Challenges for Chinese Seapower Development. Journal of Strategic Studies 37(3), 372–402; Chase, Michael S. and Cristina L. Garafola. 2016. China’s Search for a ‘Strategic Air Force’. Journal of Strategic Studies 39(1), 4–28.

³ Jackson, Van. 2016. Red Teaming the Rebalance: The Theory and Risks of US Asia Strategy. Journal of Strategic Studies 39(3).

⁴ Sangkuk Lee. 2104. China’s ‘Three Warfares’: Origins, Applications, and Organizations. Journal of Strategic Studies 37(2), 198–221; Manicom, James. 2014. China and American Seapower in East Asia: Is Accommodation Possible? Journal of Strategic Studies 37(3), 345–371; Li, Miangjiang. 2015. The People’s Liberation Army and China’s Smart Power Quandary in Southeast Asia. Journal of Strategic Studies 38(3), 369–382.

⁵ Wu Zhengyu, “The Crowe Memorandum, the Rebalance to Asia, and Sino-US Relations”, Journal of Strategic Studies 39(3) (May 2016).

⁶ Luis Simon. “The ‘Third’ US Offset Strategy and Europe’s ‘Anti-Access’ Challenge”, Journal of Strategic Studies 39(3) (May 2016).

⁷ Another perspective is Inboden, William. 2014. Statecraft, Decision-Making, and the Varieties of Historical Experience: A Taxonomy. Journal of Strategic Studies 37(2), 291–318.

⁸ Miller, Paul D. 2016. Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan. Journal of Strategic Studies 39(3).

⁹ Greentree, Todd. 2014. Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: US Performance and the Institutional Dimension of Strategy in Afghanistan. Journal of Strategic Studies 36(3), 325–256; Cronin, Audrey Kurth. 2014. The War on Terrorism: What Does it Mean to Win? Journal of Strategic Studies 37(2), 174–197.

¹⁰ Harrison, Mark. 2016. World War II: Won By American Planes and Ships, or the Poor Bloody Russian Infantry. Journal of Strategic Studies 39(3).

¹¹ O’Brien, Philips Payson. 2015. How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.