From the editors

We would like to welcome Chiara Libiseller to the editorial team of The Journal of Strategic Studies. We are excited to have her join us as Deputy Editor. We would similarly like to extend our deepest appreciation to Joshua Rovner for his years of service as Deputy Editor and to Alan James for his tenure as the journal’s Reviews Editor.

In recent years, as evidence of China’s nuclear and conventional buildup has grown, so too has concern over the prospects of escalation stemming from the entanglement of Chinese nuclear and conventional weapon systems.¹ In ‘Are They Reading Schelling in Beijing? The Dimensions, Drivers, and Risks of Nuclear-Conventional Entanglement in China’, David C. Logan of Princeton University develops a framework for assessing entanglement and its risks. Applying that framework to China, he finds that Beijing’s missiles are not as entangled as is sometimes feared. He argues that strategic signaling and perception management will be key to controlling escalation risks stemming from nuclear-conventional entanglement in China.²

The issue’s next three essays examine the topics of strategic culture and military innovation. In ‘Theory of Strategic Culture: An Analytical Framework for Russian Cyber Threat Perception’, Martti J. Kari of the University of Jyväskylä and Katri Pynnöniemi of the University of Helsinki formulate an analytical framework to study the formation of Russian thinking on cyber threats as part of Russian strategic culture. They identify a sense of vulnerability, the narrative of Russia as a besieged fortress, and the technological inferiority of Russia as specific factors influencing Russian cyber threat perceptions.³

The literature on military innovation is vibrant and growing.⁴ In ‘What is Military Innovation and Why it Matters’, Michael C. Horowitz of the University of Pennsylvania and Shira Pindyck of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation note a remarkable lack of consensus on the term ‘military innovation’ in the literature. What qualifies as an innovation is, all too often, in the eye of the beholder. To move forward, the authors survey dozens of existing studies and review articles for proposed definitions and examples of military innovation. They locate common and differentiating themes across a wide range of definitions and propose a new framework for thinking about military innovation, one that builds on existing research and suggests a path forward for future research.⁵

The themes of culture and innovation come together in Caitlin Lee’s ‘The Role of Culture in Military Innovation Studies: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Air Force’s Adoption of the Predator Drone, 1993–1997’. Lee, of the RAND Corporation, concludes that competing cultural norms explain the Air Force’s uneven and halting approach to the development and employment of the Predator. Moreover, in contrast to earlier scholarship, she contends that it is possible to view culture as a central force in military innovation while adhering to the principles of positivism.⁶

The issue moves on to consider issues of deterrence, credibility, and resolve. In ‘Defence without Deterrence: India’s Strategy in the 1965 War’, Arzan Tarapore of Georgetown University argues that, to deter rivals after war, states must couple battlefield success with credible signals of resolve, such as retaining captured territory or risking a wider war. In 1965, India used both denial and punishment strategies, but both failed to establish post-war deterrence because New Delhi judged the necessary signals of resolve to be too costly.⁷

In ‘Western Strategy’s Two Logics: Diverging Interpretations’, Lukas Milevski of Leiden University argues that whereas classical strategic theory encompasses two different logics – instrumentality and adversariality – and two different modes – decision-making and performance – in modern strategy these modes have been on diverging paths, with varying interpretations – game theory; operational art; and the ends, ways, means model – privileging one logic above the other. He makes the case for strategic studies returning to a balanced interpretation of strategy.⁸

The issue concludes with two review essays: by Or Rosenboim of Stephen Wertheim’s Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy and by Campbell Craig and S.M. Amadae of Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press’ The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age.

We look forward to continuing to offer our readers the world’s best scholarly research on strategic studies throughout 2023 and beyond.

Notes

¹ Thomas J. Christensen, ‘The Meaning of the Nuclear Evolution: China’s Strategic Missile Force Modernization and Its Implications for the United States’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 35/4 (August 2012), 447–487; and Joshua Rovner, ‘Two Kinds of Catastrophe: Nuclear Escalation and Protracted War in Asia’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/5 (2017), 696–730.

² David C. Logan, ‘Are They Reading Schelling in Beijing? The Dimensions, Drivers, and Risks of Nuclear-Conventional Entanglement in China’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 46/1 (February 2023), 1–51.

³ Martti J. Kari and Katri Pynnöniemi, ‘Theory of Strategic Culture: An Analytical Framework for Russian Cyber Threat Perception’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 46/1 (February 2023), 52–80.

⁴ See, for example, Tai Ming Cheung, ‘The Chinese defense economy’s long march from imitation to innovation’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 34/3 (2011); Tai Ming Cheung, Thomas G. Mahnken, and Andrew L. Ross, ‘Frameworks for Analyzing Chinese Defense and Military Innovation’, in Tai Ming Cheung, ed. Forging China’s military might: A new framework for assessing innovation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 2014); Theo Farrell, ‘Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–09’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (2010); Robert T. Foley, ‘A Case Study in Horizontal Military Innovation: The German Army, 1916–1918’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 35/6 (2012); Stuart Griffin, ‘Military innovation studies: Multidisciplinary or lacking discipline?’ The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017); Adam Grissom, ‘The future of military innovation studies’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/5 (2006); Nina Kollars, ‘War’s Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 38/4 (2015); and Thomas G Mahnken, ‘China’s anti-access strategy in historical and theoretical perspective’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 34/3 (2011).

⁵ Michael C. Horowitz and Shira Pindyck, ‘What is Military Innovation and Why it Matters’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 46/1 (February 2023), 81–110.

⁶ Caitlin Lee, ‘The Role of Culture in Military Innovation Studies: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Air Force’s Adoption of the Predator Drone, 1993–1997’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 46/1 (February 2023), 111–145.

⁷ Arzan Tarapore, ‘Defence without Deterrence: India’s Strategy in the 1965 War’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 46/1 (February 2023), 146–175.

⁸ Lukas Milevski, ‘Western Strategy’s Two Logics: Diverging Interpretations’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 46/1 (February 2023), 176–202.