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Great-power success in protracted warfare: key drivers and core components

2022; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 62; Issue: 496-497 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19445571.2022.2274678

1944-5571

Iskander Rehman,

European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies

AbstractAs Sino-US relations have deteriorated, concerns have grown in Washington over its ability to defeat China in a major conflict. A conflict between such peer competitors would likely become a protracted war of attrition drawing on all dimensions of national power, but this reality has yet to receive a sufficient degree of analytical attention.In this Adelphi book, Iskander Rehman provides a historically informed and empirically grounded study of protracted great-power war, its core drivers and characteristics, and an examination of the elements that have most often determined a competitor’s long-term strategic performance. A detailed analysis of the contemporary Sino-US rivalry assesses how both parties might fare in the event of a protracted war, while highlighting some of its key significant differentiating aspects – most notably its nuclear and cyber dimensions. Notes1 As Frank Hoffman observes in an excellent recent study, ‘war is an arbiter of how military institutions and states perceive the future of conflict, how they prepare for war, and how well their intelligence and force-generation processes succeed in capturing emerging technologies and foreign military innovations. But the ultimate test of military preparation and effectiveness does not end once a war begins. On the contrary, history strongly reflects the enduring phenomena of learning and implementing change during war as well. You may go to war with the army you have, but you do not necessarily win with the same army. It has to adapt itself.’ Frank G. Hoffman, Mars Adapting: Military Change During War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021), pp. 5–6. For another interesting recent examination of the phenomenon of wartime adaptation, see David Barno and Nora Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).2 Hoffman, Mars Adapting: Military Change During War, pp. 8–9.3 See John Lazenby, The First Punic War (New York: Routledge, 2006), ch. 5; and J.H. Thiel, A History of Roman Sea-power Before the Second Punic War (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1954).4 Most notably, according to Livy, the Roman Senate voted to create two coastal-defence squadrons of ten ships each. See Livy, The History of Rome, Book IX, 30.3, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0155%3Abook%3D9%3Achapter%3D30. A good discussion of Rome’s early naval efforts can be found in Bernard Combet Farnoux, Les Guerres Puniques [The Punic Wars] (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), ch. 2.5 See Raffaele d’Amato, Republican Roman Warships 509–27 BC (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2015), pp. 9–19; and John Morrison, Greek and Roman Oared Warships 399–30 BC (Oxford: Oxbow, 2016), ch. 2.6 See Cassius Dio, An Epitome of the Lost Books 1–21 as Found in the Chronicon of Ionnes Zoanaras, XI, 8.9, Loeb Classical Library edition, 1914, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/11*.html.7 Didorus Siculus, The Library of History, Fragments of Book XXIII.2. Loeb Classical Library edition, 1957, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/23*.html.8 Imperial Rome’s later willingness to experiment and selectively adopt the foreign military equipment and tactics from lesser military competitors validates the arguments of Timothy Hoyt, who has argued that the diffusion and emulation process can occur from the periphery to the centre – rather than simply ‘downward’ from the hegemon toward lesser-ranking military powers. See Timothy Hoyt, ‘Revolution and Counter-revolution: The Role of the Periphery in Technological and Conceptual Innovation’, in Emily Goldman and Leslie Eliason (eds), The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 179–201.9 See Polybius, The Histories, Book I. Loeb Classical Library edition, 1922, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/1*.html. One could argue that Rome profoundly reshaped the pre-existing security equation, which had been characterised by a land–sea equilibrium that fostered stalemate, with neither power able to neutralise its opponent’s key source of comparative advantage. On how this state of affairs – involving sea powers ranged against land powers, with each unable to strike at their foe’s centre of gravity – can lead to protraction, see Colin S. Gray, ‘Sea Power: The Great Enabler’, Naval War College Review, vol. 47, no. 1, 1994, pp. 18–27; and Joshua Rovner, ‘Sea Power Versus Land Power: Cross-domain Deterrence in the Peloponnesian War’, in Erick Gartzke and Jon R. Lindsay (eds), Cross-domain Deterrence: Strategy in an Era of Complexity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). Rovner argues that Athens and Sparta’s respective advantages (at sea for Athens and on land for Sparta) prolonged their contest, as both nations struggled to implement decisive campaigns within their opponent’s favoured domain of operations.10 The classicist Dexter Hoyos posits that Polybius’s account, however sensationalist it may seem, is wholly plausible. Indeed, the remains of a smaller Carthaginian vessel that sank over the course of the First Punic War indicated that it was built with the aid of special marked timbers, in other words, notes Hoyos, ‘following the ancient equivalent of a blueprint – and the same could have been done by (Roman) craftsmen after taking apart the captured quinquereme’. Dexter Hoyos, Mastering the West: Rome and Carthage at War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 41.11 As Emily O. Goldman observes, ‘the competitive logic governing the international system creates a powerful incentive for actors to adopt the military practices of the most successful states in the system. … but while states have a powerful incentive to adopt innovative military methods, full emulation may not be the most efficient way to provide security given their geography, particular factor endowments, demographic pressures and strategic circumstances’. Emily O. Goldman, ‘Introduction: Military Diffusion and Transformation’, in Emily O. Goldman and Thomas G. Mahnken (eds), The Information Revolution in Military Affairs in Asia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 14. In this case, Rome was clearly engaging in a combination of emulation and innovation: emulating Carthaginian shipbuilding practices, while engaging in its own innovation effort, one better tailored to its preference for the heavy infantry melees characteristic of land warfare. In short, Rome was forcing Carthage’s navy to play by its continental rules. On military emulation more broadly, see Colin Elman, The Logic of Emulation: The Diffusion of Military Practices in the International System, PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1999.12 As Paul Erdkamp notes, ‘it is not that Carthage did not want to support Hannibal’s army (by sea) – there was simply no way to do so in a meaningful way’. Paul Erdkamp, ‘Manpower and Food Supply in the First and Second Punic Wars’, in Dexter Hoyos (ed.), A Companion to the Punic Wars (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 75.13 The first full-scale invasion of Africa, led by Marcus Atilius Regulus in 256 bce, however, was a costly failure, resulting in the defeat of the Roman invasion force and Regulus’s capture. On the importance of Regulus as both a cautionary tale and a symbol of heroic virtue in Roman historiography, see G.K. Tipps, ‘The Defeat of Regulus’, The Classical World, vol. 96, no. 4, Summer 2003, pp. 375–85.14 For a superb examination of the logistical challenges confronted by Hannibal, see John F. Shean, ‘Hannibal’s Mules: The Logistical Limitations of Hannibal’s Army and the Battle of Cannae, 216 B.C.’, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, vol. 45, no. 2, 1996, pp. 159–87.15 One of the most balanced analyses of Rome’s maritime threat perceptions leading up the First Punic War, and of the subsequent historiographical interpretations and debates surrounding Rome’s remarkable naval build-up, can be found in Matthew Leigh, ‘Early Roman Epic and the Maritime Moment’, Classical Philology, vol. 105, no. 3, July 2010, pp. 265–80.16 As Williamson Murray notes, ‘in peacetime, time poses few significant challenges to the innovator; he may lack significant resources, but he has time to form, test and evaluate his ideas and perceptions. The opposite is true in war. There, those involved in combat usually possess a plethora of resources, but time is not one of them; those pursuing serious changes in doctrine, technology, or tactics in the midst of a conflict have only a brief opportunity to adapt. Adding to their difficulties is the fact that as their organization adapts, so, too will the enemy.’ See Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 1.17 See Demosthenes, First Philippic, The Bibliotheke, https://cmuntz.hosted.uark.edu/texts/demosthenes/4-first-philippic.html.18 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, ‘On the Nature of War’ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).19 Meir Finkel, On Flexibility: Recovery from Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield (Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies, 2011). In the field of psychology, a helpful distinction has been made between ‘proactive adaptation’ and ‘reactive adaptation’. Rome’s maritime transformation during the First Punic War could be described as a case of proactive adaptation, whereas Spain’s decision to profoundly reorganise its infantry in the wake of Seminara can be presented as an example of reactive adaptation. On proactive versus reactive adaptation, see Christian D. Schunn and Lynne M. Reder, ‘Individual Differences in Strategy Adaptivity’, Psychology of Learning and Motivation, vol. 38, no. 1, 1998, pp. 115–54.20 Michael Howard, ‘Military Science in an Age of Peace’, RUSI Journal, vol. 119, no. 1, 1974, p. 7.21 For an excellent overview of the Italian Wars, see Christine Shaw and Michael Mallett, The Italian Wars 1494–1559: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2019).22 On the conquest of Granada and how its campaigns contributed to state formation and centralisation in early modern Spain, see Joseph F. O’Callaghan, The Last Crusade in the West: Castile and the Conquest of Granada (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); and Weston F. Cook Jr, ‘The Cannon Conquest of Nasrid Spain and the End of the Reconquista’, Journal of Military History, vol. 57, no. 1, 1993, pp. 43–70. On how Córdoba and his soldiers were initially ‘better equipped and trained to fight in the sierras of Granada and against the lightly equipped Muslim forces than to effectively face the heavily armed and fierce infantry and cavalry forces of the French’, see Idan Sherer, Warriors for a Living: The Experience of the Spanish Infantry in the Italian Wars, 1494–1559 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), p. 194.23 See Gabriele Esposito, Renaissance Armies in Italy 1450–1550 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2020), p. 60.24 ‘Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba to the Catholic Monarchs’, Reggio, 2 July 1495, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS/20211/1.25 See Paul Stewart, ‘The Santa Hermandad and the First Italian Campaign of Gonzalo de Cordoba, 1495–1498’, Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 1, 1975, pp. 29–37; and Rene Quatrefages, La revolución militar moderna: el crisol español [The modern military revolution: the Spanish crucible] (Madrid: Spanish Ministry of Defense, 1996).26 For a classic, if perhaps somewhat outdated, analysis of the Battle of Cerignola, see Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Dutton and Co., 1937), pp. 52–4.27 On the importance of arquebusiers in early Spanish force structure, see Fernando Gonzalo de Leon, ‘Spanish Military Power and the Military Revolution’, in Geoff Mortimer (ed.), Early Modern Military History, 1450–1815 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 25–42.28 To give another contemporary example, the German Leopard 2 tank’s diesel-powered engine is far easier for Ukrainian troops to maintain and refuel than the complex jet-fuel-powered turbine engine of the American M1A2 Abrams. The Leopard 2 is therefore far better suited to the Ukrainian war effort than the (arguably) better but more maintenance-heavy Abrams. On the logistical virtues of the Leopard 2, see Adam Taylor, William Neff and Daniel Wolfe, ‘For Ukraine, What’s So Special About Germany’s Leopard Tanks?’, Washington Post, 25 January 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/24/leopard-2-ukraine-germany-m1-abrams/; and ‘What Makes Germany’s Leopard 2 Tank the Best Fit for Ukraine?’, The Economist, 25 January 2023, https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2023/01/25/what-makes-germanys-leopard-2-tank-the-best-fit-for-ukraine.29 The rodeleros were eventually phased out in favour of larger numbers of arquebusiers.30 See Ignacio and Iván Notario López, The Spanish Tercios: 1536–1704 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2012); Esposito, Renaissance Armies in Italy 1450–1550; Rene Quatrefages, ‘The Military System of the Spanish Habsburgs’, in Rafael Banon Martinez and Thomas M. Barker (eds), Armed Forces and Society in Spain: Past and Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Luna Nájera, ‘The Deployment of the Classics in Early Modern Spanish Military Manuals’, Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 46, no. 3, 2015, pp. 607–27; and Mark R. Geldof, ‘The Pike and the Printing Press: Military Handbooks and the Gentrification of the Early Modern Military Revolution’, in Matthew McLean and Sara K. Barker (eds), International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World (Leiden: Brill, 2016).31 For a more in-depth analysis of the military reasons behind France’s defeat in the Italian Wars, see Michael Mallett, ‘The Transformation of War, 1494–1530’, in Christine Shaw (ed.), Italy and the European Powers: The Impact of War, 1500–1530 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 3–21.32 For a good overview of French military strategy and force structure during this period, see David Potter, Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, c.1480–1560 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008).33 For more literature on this period, see David Parrott, The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); and Thomas F. Arnold, The Renaissance at War (London: Cassell, 2006).34 For the contrast in attitudes between the French and Castilian higher nobilities on fighting alongside the lower social orders, see Sherer, Warriors for a Living: The Experience of the Spanish Infantry in the Italian Wars, 1494–1559, p. 246; and Treva J. Tucker, ‘Eminence over Efficacy: Social Status and Cavalry Service in Sixteenth-century France’, Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 32, no. 4, 2001, pp. 1057–95.35 See Idan Sherer, ‘“When War Comes They Want to Flee”: Motivation and Combat Effectiveness in the Spanish Infantry During the Italian Wars’, Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 48, no. 2, 2017, pp. 385–411.36 On the importance of cultural factors in military adaptation and change, see Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff, ‘The Sources of Military Change’, in Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff (eds), The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology (London: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 3–21.37 See Robert T. Foley, ‘A Case Study in Horizontal Military Innovation: The German Army, 1916–18’, Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 35, no. 6, 2012, pp. 799–827.38 See Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack 1916–18 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); Gary Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities (London: Headline, 2001); Michel Goya, La Chair et l’Acier: L’Armee Française et l’Invention de la Guerre Moderne (1914–1918) [Flesh and steel: the French army and the invention of modern warfare (1914–1918)] (Paris: Tallandier, 2004); and Mark Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).39 On the lasting influence throughout the Middle Ages of the fourth-century Roman military theorist Publius Flavius Vegetius, with his emphasis on battle avoidance, exhaustion and logistical harassment, see Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Vegetian “Science of Warfare” in the Middle Ages’, Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1, no. 1, 2002, pp. 1–20; Christopher Allmand, The De Re Militari of Vegetius: The Reception, Transmission and Legacy of a Roman Text in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); and Bernard Bachrach, ‘The Practical Use of Vegetius’ “De Re Militari” During the Early Middle Ages’, The Historian, vol. 47, no. 2, February 1985, pp. 239–55.40 These tactics had been honed to perfection by Edward III in the Scottish theatre during the early years of his reign. See Ranald Nicholson, Edward III and the Scots: The Formative Years of a Military Career, 1327–1335 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965); and Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War, Vol. 1: Trial by Battle (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). In the earliest years of the Hundred Years War, Edward III’s campaign efforts were largely inconclusive, with the English king struggling to finance his onerous system of alliances in the Low Countries, and unable to make any significant military gains in the face of Philip VI’s Fabian strategy. As Anne Curry has observed, ‘the English appeared to be losing the war in its first stages’. See Anne Curry, The Hundred Years War: 1337–1453 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002), p. 25.41 Moreover, once Philip’s great rival Edward III took the fateful decision, in 1340, to formally and publicly lay claim to the French throne, the conflict between the two monarchs took on a far greater symbolic and political resonance, one that called for some form of clear denouement in the form of a decisive battle. See Craig Taylor, ‘Edward III and the Plantagenet Claim to the French Throne’, in James Bothwell (ed.), The Age of Edward III (York: York Medieval Press, 2001), pp. 155–71. On the issue of chivalry and its relation to war fighting and national sentiment, see Craig Taylor, Chivalry and the Ideals of Knighthood in France During the Hundred Years War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).42 On the importance of cultural interpretations of honour and how honour-related considerations can trigger escalation or shape a decision-maker’s actions in war, see Allan Defor and Devin Caughey, ‘Honor and War: Southern US Presidents and the Effects of Concern for Reputation’, World Politics, vol. 68, no. 2, April 2016, pp. 341–81; and Barry O’Neill, Honor, Symbols, and War (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999).43 See A.K. McHardy, ‘Some Reflections on Edward III’s Use of Propaganda’, in Bothwell (ed.), The Age of Edward III, pp. 171–92. On strategies of deliberate or tailored provocation during periods of tension or conflict, see Hyun-Binn Cho, Tying the Adversary’s Hands: Provocation, Crisis Escalation, and Inadvertent War, PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2018, https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3100/.44 Charles V, one of the more intriguing and accomplished rulers of the late medieval era, remains a curiously underexamined figure in the English-language academic literature. For two excellent French examinations of his approach to statecraft and grand strategy, see Francoise Autrand, Charles V: Le Sage (Paris: Fayard, 1994) and Georges Bordonove, Charles V: 1364–1380 (Paris: Pygmalion, 2012).45 For a landmark examination of the wartime performance of modern authoritarian regimes, see Caitlin Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015). On autocratic audience costs, and the need for many authoritarian regimes to also cater to the demands and expectations of their domestic elites, see Jessica L. Weeks, ‘Autocratic Audience Costs: Regime Type and Signaling Resolve’, International Organization, vol. 62, no. 1, 2008, pp. 35–64.46 See Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War: 1980–1988 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002), p. 36. For a seminal history of the IRGC, see Afshon Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).47 As Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods rightly point out, ‘throughout the conflict, Khomeini and his hardline advisors believed their religious enthusiasm, engendered by their revolution, could replace military expertise, weapons systems, and technology. While this “way of war” may have affected a few tactical engagements, it was a recipe for disaster as a strategy.’ Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods, The Iran–Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 18.48 See Veronika Melkozerova, ‘Zelensky Slams Kremlin for Sacrificing Troops in the “Meat Waves” of Bakhmut’, Politico, 20 December, 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-ukraine-war-bakhmut-russia-sacrificing-troops-meat-waves/; Katie Bo Lillis et al., ‘Russian Mercenaries Jockey for Influence amid Military Struggles in Ukraine’, CNN, 2 November 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/politics/yevgeny-prigozhin-ukraine-putin-kremlin-war-ukraine/index.html; and Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano and Aaron Krolik, ‘An Alternate Reality: How Russia’s State TV Spins the Ukraine War’, New York Times, 15 December 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/technology/russia-state-tv-ukraine-war.html.49 As Theo Farrell observes, ‘when at war, a military has strong incentives to stick with those ways of operating that have been tried and tested, and for which the organization has trained and equipped: the opportunity costs of introducing new ways of operating in the midst of war are high, especially if the new way does turn out to not be so effective’. See Theo Farrell, ‘Introduction: Military Adaptation in War’, in Theo Farrell et al. (eds), Military Adaptation in Afghanistan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), p. 7.50 Clausewitz, On War, ch. 14.51 Some classicists deem this to have been one of the major causes behind Carthage’s defeat during the Punic Wars, arguing that, with the notable exception of Hannibal and his father Hamilcar, Carthaginian generals and statesmen were unwilling or unable to take sufficient risks, or seize clear opportunities when they presented themselves. See, for example, Combet Farnoux, Les Guerres Puniques. Adrian Goldsworthy notes that this was in part due to differences in recruitment practices – as ‘Carthage was never able to field troops in anything like the quantities of the Romans’, the ‘difficulty of replacing a tried and tested army often encouraged a tentative approach to campaigning on the part of Punic generals, who, with a few notable exceptions, tended to be far less aggressive than their Roman counterparts’. See Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265–146 BC (London: Orion Books, 2000), p. 36. On how ‘the lack of precedent makes wartime innovation risky, and with the risk comes a justified aversion’, see Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 24–5.52 Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime, p. 9.53 For a seminal study of the evolution of infantry warfare during the Hundred Years War, see Kelly DeVries, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics, and Technology (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1996). On the notion of military revolutions during the Hundred Years War, see Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years War’, Journal of Military History, vol. 57, no. 2, 1993, pp. 241–78; and Clifford J. Rogers, ‘As If a New Sun Had Arisen: England’s Fourteenth Century RMA’, in MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (eds), The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 15–34.54 The collapse of England’s position in France was not solely due to the power of French artillery. France’s more evolved system of recruitment and logistics, along with a wave of defections among previously Lancastrian-aligned French nobles, also played a key role. Nevertheless, it is hard to overemphasise the game-changing nature of France’s royal siege trains toward the end of the Hundred Years War. See David Nicolle, The Fall of English France: 1449–53 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2012), pp. 11–12; R.D. Smith, ‘Artillery and the Hundred Years War: Myth and Interpretation’, in Anne Curry and Michael Hugues (eds), Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years War (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1994), pp. 151–60; and Anne Curry, ‘Guns and Goddams: Was There a Military Revolution in Lancastrian Normandy 1415–1450?’, Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 8, 2010, pp. 171–88.55 See the superb analysis of strategic decision-making in Wanli’s court during the Imjin War in Kenneth M. Swope, ‘As Close as Lips and Teeth: Debating the Ming Intervention in Korea’, in Peter A. Lorge (ed.), Debating War in Chinese History (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 163–90.56 See Christopher Bell, ‘Winston Churchill, Pacific Security, and the Limits of British Power, 1921–41’, in John H. Maurer (ed.), Churchill and the Strategic Dilemmas Before the World Wars: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 51–88; and John Pritchard, ‘Winston Churchill, the Military, and Imperial Defence in East Asia’, in Saki Dockrill (ed.), From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima: The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, 1941–45 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994), pp. 26–54.57 As Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M Paine wisely note, ‘peripheral operations figure prominently in strategy because among the most important decisions in wartime is the decision to open, not to open, to contest, or not to contest a new theater’. See Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M Paine, ‘Conclusions: Naval Expeditionary Warfare and the Future of Sea Power’, in Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M Paine (eds), Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns and New Theaters of Naval Warfare (New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 202.58 For an excellent and nuanced examination of some of the vivid historiographical debates relating to the rationale behind Truman’s fateful decision, see J. Samuel Walker, ‘Historiographical Essay: Recent Literature on Truman’s Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground’, Diplomatic History, vol. 29, no. 2, April 2005, pp. 311–34.59 John David Lewis, Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), ch. 3.60 For some absorbing discussions of how Fabius’s generalship and political leadership during Rome’s darkest hour has traditionally been interpreted and perceived, see Sophia Xenophontos, ‘Πϵρὶ ἀγαθοῠ στρατηγοῠ: Plutarch’s Fabius Maximus and the Ethics of Generalship’, Hermes, vol. 140, no. 2, 2012, pp. 160–83; and Paul Erdkamp, ‘Polybius, Livy and the Fabian Strategy’, Ancient Society, vol. 23, 1992, pp. 127–47. For a good overview of Rome’s strategy during this period, see Klaus Zimmerman, ‘Roman Strategy and Aims in the Second Punic War’, in Hoyos (ed.), A Companion to the Punic Wars, pp. 280–98.61 Livy, The History of Rome, Book XXVIII, ch. 41. Loeb Classical Library edition, https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL381/2021/volume.xml.62 Ibid.63 For a detailed analysis of Scipio’s political and military decision-making during this period, see Arthur M. Eckstein, Senate and General: Individual Decision-making and Roman Foreign Relations, 264–194 BC (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), ch. 8.64 Lewis, Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History, ch. 3.65 Quoted in Carl Jacob Burckhardt, Richelieu and His Age: Power Politics and the Cardinal’s Death (London: Allen & Unwin, 1971), p. 10.66 On Richelieu’s grand strategy, see Iskander Rehman, ‘Raison d’Etat: Richelieu’s Grand Strategy During the Thirty Years’ War’, Texas National Security Review, vol. 2, no. 3, June 2019, pp. 38–75, https://tnsr.org/2019/06/raison-detat-richelieus-grand-strategy-during-the-thirty-years-war/.67 See Jean-Vincent Blanchard, Eminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), p. 163.68 For a good discussion of the concept and measurement of national power, see Ashley J. Tellis et al., ‘Measuring National Power in the Postindustrial Age: Analyst’s Handbook’, Rand Corporation, 1 January 2000, https://doi.org/10.7249/MR1110. On the importance of geography, and how it largely conditions the acquisition and exercise of national power, see D.G. Hansen, ‘The Immutable Importance of Geography’, Parameters, vol. 27, no. 1, Spring 1997, pp. 55–64; and Jakub J. Gyrgiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical Change (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).69 See the introductory chapter to Geoffrey Sloan, Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History (New York: Routledge, 2017).70 ‘The shape of the North American continent prevents Mexico from adding significantly to its size by southern expansion, and topography, and climate will make it forever impossible to build on its area a powerful economy. Canada, although larger in area than the United States, is by location and climate permitted to develop only a very small part of her territory as a base for economic and political life. The result is that the United States has been able to conduct its foreign policy for the last seventy-five years without giving any consideration to the problem of territorial security, and that its people are unable to understand the preoccupation of Europeans with security and power politics.’ Nicholas J. Spykman, ‘Geography and Foreign Policy, II’,