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Book Review: Putin’s War on Ukraine: Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution
September 25, 2024 — Senior Russia analyst Dr. Lionel M. Beehner provides thoughtful praise and critiques on Samuel Ramani’s 2023 book, Putin’s War on Ukraine, calling it “a must-read for diplomats and defense experts.” According to Beehner, Ramani provides “a front-row seat to the war,” helpfully “recalls incidents that may be buried in readers’ minds,” and “masterfully shows the chaos within Russian leadership circles near the invasion.” Beehner also distills and explains Ramani’s main point—that the reason behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “not fear of NATO encirclement but of regime change and popular revolution from within” (or “counter-revolution”)...

Book Review: The World: A Family History of Humanity
August 21, 2024 — The Harding Project’s Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Griffiths reviews this best-selling, epic in scope history of the world framed by powerful families and gives an honest evaluation of the book’s potential value (and shortcomings) for soldiers. Griffiths notes that the book provides insight into the “richness of the human experience” with “vignettes to give color to historical military campaigns and humanize those campaigns’ participants.”...

Book Review: Standing Up Space Force: The Road to the Nation’s Sixth Armed Service
August 21, 2024 — Robert D. Bradford III reviews this “first history” of the United States Space Force. He overviews the author Forrest L. Marion’s resources (“primary sources and extensive oral history interviews”) and highlights the book’s value in the way it “depicts cultural and bureaucratic barriers to . . . organizational change.” Bradford notes the history’s universal applicability as it relates to other situations in which an institution successfully approaches change...

Book Review: Info Ops: From World War I to the Twitter Era
July 19, 2024 — Dr. José de Arimatéia da Cruz calls Info Ops a “must-read for any future combatant commander concerned about how our enemies use information and communication technologies within a contested environment to advance their causes and wreak havoc within an increasingly polarized society.” He overviews the book’s topics, including World War I and World War II, social media, Soviet Union propaganda, and even Israel and Hamas, and discusses their immediate relevance, “highly recommend[ing] Info Ops to US Army War College students.”...

Book Review: Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission over the Roof of the World
July 19, 2024 — Dr. Heather Venable, course director, Airpower Strategy and Operations, at the Air Command and Staff College, insightfully analyzes multifaceted author and translator Caroline Alexander’s latest history of the China-Burma-India Theater. Venable overviews the book’s four main elements and the two structural topics—the “ ‘Hump’ of the Himalayas” and the land bridge. She praises the author’s “beguiling human and geographical detail” that “brings the CBI Theater to life while casting a critical eye on the human frailties of her research subjects.”...

Book Review: Cold Rivals: The New Era of US-China Strategic Competition
June 18, 2024 — Naval War College associate professor Dr. Jeffrey Reeves provides a thoughtful critique of this anthology on relations between the United States and China. After a brief note on US-Chinese relations during the Trump and Biden-Harris administrations, Reeves offers suggestions for further reading and implies that the book, while providing a “historical account of US-China relations and [chronicling] its evolution,” is not unique in its contributions compared to similar literature, though he does praise two chapters on economics and technology that “stand out.”...

Book Review: Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats
June 18, 2024 — Dr. John A. Nagl overviews Andrew Hoehn and Thom Shanker’s contributions with their recent book, Age of Danger, which is “well worth readers’ attention.” Nagl describes Hoehn and Shanker’s emphasis on the importance and relationship between the US intelligence community and the US Department of Defense. His review also focuses on the US relationship with China and Russia, the latter of which is featured as “[t]he acute threat” in what Nagl calls “the book’s best chapter.”...

Book Review: The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall
June 18, 2024 — Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Griffiths provides an insightful review of Professor Eliot A. Cohen’s book on leadership lessons through the lens of William Shakespeare’s work, a method that “helps readers see common challenges in new ways.” Griffiths describes Cohen’s structural approach to the book—a blend of modern examples with Shakespearean counterparts—and writes that The Hollow Crown’s “effective structure allows chapters to stand on their own while remaining part of a cohesive whole.” Griffiths also notes that “[a] deep appreciation for Shakespeare’s works is not required to enjoy the book,” and that, though the book “occupies an unusual literary space,” it would “rest easily on a bookshelf alongside biographies and excellent leadership texts.”...

Book Review: The Decline and Fall of Republican Afghanistan
June 18, 2024 — Foreign-policy expert Dr. Whitney Grespin reviews a “deservedly cutting reflection on mistakes made and lessons not learned during the Afghanistan War.” She notes the book’s “valuable perspective,” as one of the authors was in Kabul when it fell. Distilling the book’s contents into a detailed, useful overview, Grespin provides a helpful roadmap for readers interested in these topics and concludes the book is “[a] necessary read for practitioners engaged in security assistance.”...

Book Review: The Wandering Army: The Campaigns that Transformed the British Way of War
May 20, 2024 — European Military History | Author: Huw J. Davies | Reviewed by Dr. James D. Scudieri, senior research historian, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College | Senior research historian Dr. James D. Scudieri lends his expertise to review King’s College London academic Huw J. Davies’s most recent book, a “powerful monograph” on the 1750–1850...