Conversations on Strategy Podcast

In most urbanized societies, water is taken for granted and little thought is given to how fragile the supply of this vital resource can be. A water emergency, however, such as a treatment plant outage, a water source contamination event, or natural disaster has the potential for significant disruption to society and the infrastructure that depends on water to function. Most other sectors of criti...

Communications form the critical backbone of the modern world, connecting more people and more devices more completely than ever before. The benefits of this hyper-connected society drive ever-increasing reliance on secure, reliable, and resilient communications. Potential adversaries to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization certainly understand the importance of communications—those they seek to...

This podcast based on Chapter 1 in Enabling NATO’s Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 1 answers the questions: What is critical infrastructure? Why is it important? What is the difference between critical infrastructure protection (CIP) and critical infrastructure security and resilience (CISR)? What are some of the key terms defined in natio...

In 2014 NATO’s Centre of Excellence-Defence Against Terrorism (COE-DAT) launched the inaugural course on “Critical Infrastructure Protection Against Terrorist Attacks.” As this course garnered increased attendance and interest, the core lecturer team felt the need to update the course in critical infrastructure (CI) taking into account the shift from an emphasis on “protection” of CI assets to “se...

21st Century Warfare, Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, collapse, Doha Accord, Grand Strategy, international relations, Military Change and Transformation, Military Strategy and Policy, Pakistan, Security force assistance, Statecraft, strategy, Strategy and Policy, Taliban, Ukraine, War and Society Keywords: urban warfare, Ukraine, Afghanistan, modern warf...

The rapid collapse of Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) in August 2021 was widely anticipated and due to its structural constraints and qualitative decline from 2018–21. This article provides a targeted analysis of ANDSF operational liabilities and qualitative limitations, referencing often overlooked statements by US and Afghan political and military officials, data from officia...

How does the war in Georgia in 2008 relate to the war in Ukraine in 2022? Join Dr. Ariel Cohen and Dr. Robert Hamilton for an in-depth discussion, using their 2011 monograph, The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications, as a launching point. Click here to read the review and reply to the monograph: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/576/ Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, S...

In this podcast, Mr. Phillip Dolitsky and Dr. Lukas Milevski discuss the article “The Grand Strategic Thought of Colin S. Gray,” which was published in the Winter 2021-22 issue of Parameters. Click here to read the review and reply to the original article. Keywords: international relations, 21st Century Warfare, Military Strategy and Policy, War and Society, Military Change and Transformation Epis...

This podcast is inspired by Dr. Bettina Renz’s 2016 Parameters article “Why Russia Is Reviving Its Conventional Military Power.” Dr. Renz revisits her original work and shares her insights on the current situation in Ukraine. Keywords: 21st Century Warfare, Europe and Russia, War and Society, Russia, Ukraine Click here to read the article. Episode Transcript: Stephanie Crider Host Decisive Point i...

This podcast is based on a compendium that resulted from a conference on “Military Operations in an Urban Environment” cosponsored by the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce in conjunction with the Kentucky Commission on Military Affairs, the U.S. Army War College, and the Association of the United States Army. At the time of the conference, the concept of homeland defense was...

​This podcast analyzes the cutting-edge understandings of deterrence with empirical evidence of Chinese strategic thinking and culture to build such a strategy and explores the counter-arguments from Part 1 of this series. Read the original article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol51/iss4/4/ Keywords: China, Taiwan, CCP, PRC, Broken Nest, USA Episode Transcript: Stephanie Crider Hos...

Deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan without recklessly threatening a great-power war is both possible and necessary through a tailored deterrence package that goes beyond either fighting over Taiwan or abandoning it. This podcast explores cutting-edge understandings of deterrence with empirical evidence of Chinese strategic thinking and culture to build such a strategy and offers counter-argume...