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The Organizational Determinants of Military Doctrine: A History of Army Information Operations

The Organizational Determinants of Military Doctrine: A History of Army Information Operations

For the past four decades, the U.S. Army has made repeated attempts to create an enduring doctrinal framework that describes the role of information in conflict, yet these attempts have been largely unsuccessful. What accounts for this struggle? More broadly,…

Stabilization Lessons from the British Empire

Stabilization Lessons from the British Empire

Failures of costly state-building missions in places like South Vietnam and Afghanistan have created a widespread belief that foreign interventions cannot stabilize fragile states. However, a review of the operational principles of British colonialism may…

Everyman His Own Philosopher of History: Notions of Historical Process in the Study and Practice of Foreign Policy

Everyman His Own Philosopher of History: Notions of Historical Process in the Study and Practice of Foreign Policy

The renewed interest in the utility of historical study — sometimes referred to as “applied history” — is a growing trend in both Europe and the United States. But while an invaluable foundation for understanding political, economic, and social issues,…

The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone

The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone

The Gulf War is often remembered as a “good war,” a high-tech conflict that quickly and cleanly achieved its objectives. Yet, new archival evidence sheds light on the extended fallout from the war and challenges this neat narrative. The Gulf War left…

Whither War?

Whither War?

In the introductory essay to Volume 3 Issue 3, chair of the TNSR editorial board Francis J. Gavin explores whether the nature of war and interstate competition may have changed and how the articles in this issue illuminate the changes.

Desperate Measures: The Effects of Economic Isolation on Warring Powers

Desperate Measures: The Effects of Economic Isolation on Warring Powers

Scholars and strategists have long debated whether cutting off an opponent’s trade is an effective strategy in war. In this debate, success or failure has usually been judged based on whether the state subjected to economic isolation surrenders without being…

Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations

Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations

In the last three decades, historians of the “U.S. in the World” have taken two methodological turns — the international and transnational turns — that have implicitly decentered the United States from the historiography of U.S. foreign relations.…

What Went Wrong? U.S.-China Relations from Tiananmen to Trump

What Went Wrong? U.S.-China Relations from Tiananmen to Trump

James Steinberg looks back at the relationship between the United States and China over the last 30 years and asks whether a better outcome could have been produced had different decisions been made.

The Collapse Narrative: The United States, Mohammed Mossadegh, and the Coup Decision of 1953

The Collapse Narrative: The United States, Mohammed Mossadegh, and the Coup Decision of 1953

On Aug. 19, 1953, elements inside Iran organized and funded by the Central Intelligence Agency and British intelligence services carried out a coup d’état that overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Historians have yet to reach a…

Raison d’Etat: Richelieu’s Grand Strategy During the Thirty Years’ War

Raison d’Etat: Richelieu’s Grand Strategy During the Thirty Years’ War

Renowned for his fierce intellect, mastery of the dark arts of propaganda, and unshakeable belief in the centralizing virtues of the French monarchy, Cardinal Richelieu’s actions as chief minister under Louis XIII from 1624 to 1642 have been heatedly debated…

When Do Leaders Change Course? Theories of Success and the American Withdrawal from Beirut, 1983–1984

When Do Leaders Change Course? Theories of Success and the American Withdrawal from Beirut, 1983–1984

Why did the United States withdraw from Lebanon in February 1984? How did new information shape policymakers’ proposals to expand, maintain, or terminate the intervention? Drawing upon declassified records, we challenge the conventional narrative that the…