From the Editors

The strategic studies field lost a truly significant figure when Andrew W. Marshall passed away on 26 March 2019 at age 97. During his 23-year career at the RAND Corporation, he made contributions our understanding of military power, the central importance of organisational behaviour in shaping decisions, the limits of rationality, and the concept of the Cold War as a long-term competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. In his four decades of public service that followed, as a public servant on the staff of the National Security Council and then as the long-time head of the US Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment, Marshall spurred the study of intelligence and deception, military innovation, military effectiveness, and strategic culture, among other topics. He also nurtured the careers and sponsored the research of several generations of scholars.¹

In ‘The Art of Net Assessment and Uncovering Foreign Military Innovations: Learning from Andrew W. Marshall’s Legacy’, Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky of IDC Herzliya University in Israel pays tribute to Marshall by discussing his efforts to uncover Soviet post-World War II defence programs. Adamsky uses newly available Russian sources to describe on the Soviet Union’s development of strategic air defence after World War II. In so doing, he provides a new perspective on the development of net assessment methodology and offers insights for experts examining contemporary defence innovation.

Marshall took an abiding interest in military innovation. Indeed, the Office of Net Assessment played a key role in fostering the growth of that field.² In ‘Peacetime Military Innovation Through Inter-Service Cooperation: The Unique Case of the U.S. Air Force and Battlefield Air Interdiction’, Phil Haun of the US Naval War College argues that existing theories of military innovation fail to explain an important case: the US Air Force’s adoption of Battlefield Air Interdiction to support the US Army’s AirLand Battle doctrine. Haun offers a revised theory of peacetime military innovation through inter-service cooperation resulting from external and internal threats to explain both why innovation occurred in this case but also why such cases are rare.

Another, related topic of interest to Marshall was strategic culture and its influence on organisational and strategic behaviour.³ In ‘Rethinking Strategic Culture: A Computational (Social Science) Discursive-Institutionalist Approach’, Tamir Libel of the Barcelona Institute of International Studies outlines a new approach to the study of strategic culture that draws upon computational social science to present and test middle-range theories.

In ‘U.S. Grand Strategy and the Origins of the Developmental State’, James Lee of the European University Institute examines how US grand strategy during the Cold War focused on accelerating the economic development of allies that were under the greatest threat from communism and thus fostered the development of state-led capitalism. In particular, Lee contrasts US policies on Taiwan, which faced a pronounced threat, with those in the Philippines, which faced a weaker communist threat.⁴

Finally, in ‘Clausewitz and the Politics of War: A Contemporary Theory’, George Dimitriu re-examines the theoretical underpinnings of the field of strategic studies and proposes a novel theory to analyze war’s fundamental relationship with politics in line with the Clausewitzian tradition. In particular, Dimitriu argues that the effectiveness of war has been reduced as political power has shifted from centralised state-oriented political leadership to market forces, non-state actors, and other political organisations.⁵

Notes

¹ Thomas G. Mahnken, ‘Andrew W. Marshall: In Memoriam’, War on the Rocks, 8 Apr. 2019, available at https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/andrew-w-marshall-in-memoriam/; Thomas G. Mahnken (ed.), Net Assessment and Military Strategy: Retrospective and Prospective Essays (Amherst NY: Cambria Press2020).

² Recent work on military innovation includes Tor Bukkvoll, ‘Military Innovation Under Authoritarian Government – the Case of Russian Special Operations Forces’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 38/5 (2015), 602–25; Tai Ming Cheung, ‘Innovation in China’s Defense Technology Base: Foreign Technology and Military Capabilities’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5–6 (2016), 728–61; Daniel Fiott, ‘A Revolution Too Far? US Defence Innovation, Europe and NATO’s Military-Technological Gap’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 417–37; Stuart Griffin, ‘Military Innovation Studies: Multidisciplinary or Lacking Discipline?’ The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017), 196–224; Adam M. Jungdahl & Julia M. Macdonald, ‘Innovation Inhibitors in War: Overcoming Obstacles in the Pursuit of Military Effectiveness’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 38/4 (2015), 467–99; Nina A. Kollars, ‘War’s Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 38/4 (2015), 529–53; and Raphael D. Marcus, ‘Military Innovation and Tactical Adaptation in the Israel–Hizballah Conflict: The Institutionalization of Lesson-Learning in the IDF’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 38/4 (2015), 500–28.

³ See, for example, Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, ‘From Moscow with coercion: Russian deterrence theory and strategic culture’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/1–2 (2018), 33–60 and Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, ‘Russian Campaign in Syria – Change and Continuity in Strategic Culture’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 43/1 (2020), 104–25.

⁴ Additional recent work on grand strategy includes Hal Brands & Peter Feaver, ‘The Case for Bush Revisionism: Reevaluating the Legacy of America’s 43rd President’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/1–2 (2018), 234–274; Hal Brands & William Inboden, ‘Wisdom Without Tears: Statecraft and the Uses of History’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/7 (2018), 916–946; Thomas P. Cavanna, ‘Geopolitics Over Proliferation: The Origins of US Grand Strategy and Their Implications for the Spread of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/4 (2018), 576–603; Michael Clarke & Anthony Ricketts, ‘Did Obama have a grand strategy?’ The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017), 295–324; Isabelle Duyvesteyn & James E. Worrall, ‘Global Strategic Studies: A Manifesto’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 347–57; Ionut C. Popescu, ‘Grand Strategy vs. Emergent Strategy in the conduct of foreign policy’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/3 (2018), 438–60; Doug Stokes & Kit Waterman, ‘Beyond balancing? Intrastate Conflict and US Grand Strategy’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/6 (2018), 824–49; Hew Strachan, ‘Strategy in Theory; Strategy in Practice’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 42/2 (2019), 171–90; and Pascal Vennesson, ‘Is Strategic Studies Narrow? Critical Security and The Misunderstood Scope of Strategy’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 358–91.

⁵ Recent scholarship on strategy and Clausewitz includes Kareem Ayoub & Kenneth Payne, ‘Strategy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5–6 (2016), 793–819; Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘Hostility and War, Small or Otherwise’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 443–449; Timothy D. Hoyt, ‘Clausewitz and Small Wars: The Conceptual Origins of the “Remarkable Trinity”’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 438–442; Jack S. Levy, ‘Clausewitz and People’s War’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 450–6; Paul Schuurman, ‘What-If at Waterloo. Carl von Clausewitz’s Use of Historical Counterfactuals in his History of the Campaign of 1815’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/7 (2017), 1016–38.