Afleveringen
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Professor Olivier Schmitt describes the systemic challenges of military transformation, given rapidly evolving technology and NATO's distinct strategic cultures.
Modern defence and security reviews highlight the deteriorating security environment and the need to prepare forces. But, as we hear from Lord King (Season 6, Episode 3), the ability to adapt will be essential; we need a mindset that allows for continuous change.
This is both enabled by, and made harder within, an alliance context where members' different strategic cultures – with different civil-military relations, defence procurement and operations – present systemic dilemmas. Professor Olivier Schmitt is the Head of Research at the Institute of Military Operations at the Royal Danish Defence College. He completed his doctorate at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. His most recent book, Preparing for War: Strategy, Power and Military Change, was published by Hurst/Oxford University Press in 2026.
Further Reading:
Schmitt, Olivier: Preparing for War. Strategy, Power and Military Change. (London, Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2026).
Schmitt, Olivier, Sten Rynning and Amelie Theussen (eds): War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2021)
Barno, David and Bensahel, Nora: Adaptation Under Fire. How Militaries change in Wartime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Finkel, Meir: On Flexibility: Recovery from Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2011).
Fox, Aimee: Learning to Fight: Military Innovation and Change in the British Army, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Goya, Michel: Flesh and Steel during the Great War: The Transformation of the French Army and the Invention of Modern Warfare (London: Pen and Sword, 2018).
Hoffman, Frank: Mars Adapting: Military Change During War (Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2021).
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We look at how Russia's armed forces are learning lessons from combat and examine Moscow's ambitions in its war against Ukraine.
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine is part of a long-term, much larger project of turning Russia into a regional hegemon with influence on other continents, while it builds relationships with China and others who may help its goals.
In this episode, Dr Andrew Monaghan, RUSI Senior Associate Fellow, unravels the threat and the depth of Russian long-term preparation for war.
Dr Monaghan is a senior British expert on Russia with extensive publications. He has directed research on Russia at NATO's Research Division in Rome, at Oxford University's Changing Character War Centre, and has worked at the UK's Defence Academy and Chatham House. He holds his PhD from the Department of War Studies, King's College London.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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The Centre for Economic Security's Dr Rebecca Harding argues for the importance of financial markets as the fourth pillar in supporting effective mobilisation.
Conversations about industrial mobilisation often focus on the triumvirate of government, armed forces and industry. In this episode we add a fourth pillar, that of finance, and the need for governments to consider how the economic system can be co-opted to the task of providing defence and security for their nations. Something that the US government recognised during the Civil War when, in 1861-1862, it issued the emergency paper current – the Greenback – to finance the war effort. The vital role of finance in recapitalising armed forces, and in building resilience, reinforces the need for comprehensive thinking about security discussed in earlier episodes and takes the task of mobilisation beyond defence ministries into all aspects of modern societies.
Dr Rebecca Harding is CEO of the Centre for Economic Security and an independent trade economist. Her strategic advisory business, Rebeccanomics provides analytical services in international trade, trade finance and sustainability. She has also acted as a specialist advisor to the UK Treasury Select Committee. She published The World at Economic War: How to Rebuild Security in a Weaponized Global Economy (London Publishing Partnership, 2025) and has co-authored numerous other publications, including The Weaponization of Trade: The Great Unbalancing of Politics and Economics, in 2017. She appears regularly as a commentator on BBC, Bloomberg, Sky News and CNBC.
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Despite an increasing focus on SMEs, effective industrial mobilisation must also better harness the power of traditional defence firms. Andrea Thompson from BAE Systems explains how.
The excitement in defence ministries about improving how they engage with dynamic and innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is understandable but represents only a partial element of what is needed for industrial mobilisation. As Christian Broze explained in the previous episode, the traditional defence primes remain crucial actors and often have the capacity for mass that SMEs lack.
Effectively engaging industry in the plans for growth of defence capacity that have been touted in defence reviews has to be multi-faceted, acknowledging the heterogenous nature of industry as a whole and responsive enough to accommodate the differences between distinct parts of the same enterprise.
Andrea Thompson offers the perspective of a large defence prime, drawing on her experience as Group Managing Director for BAE Systems' Digital Intelligence. With a career spanning the UK and US, she has worked at Rockwell International, Rolls Royce and BAE Systems, including in BAE's F-35 and Eurofighter Typhoon programmes, and as the Chair of the Eurofighter Supervisory Board for the Eurofighter GmbH consortium. She was named in the Financial Times' UK Top 100 list of Most Influential Women in the Engineering Sector in 2019.
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The preparedness of Western armed forces for conflict is something that has featured prominently in many defence reviews.
Christian Brose, Anduril's President & Chief Strategy Officer, describes how governments can build effective relationships with innovative, disruptive small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the defence industrial ecosystem, and how they can develop new strategies for achieving greater military capability to meet preparedness requirements.
It is clear there is no one-size-fits-all approach; Christian argues that today, government and the defence industry need to follow traditional approaches where that makes sense, and more modern, adaptive approaches for equipment that is designed to be scaled and mass produced without imposing huge investment and talent costs on suppliers.
Christian is the President and Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril Industries, prior to which he was Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Further Reading
Christian Brose, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare, Hachette, 2020.
Anduril Industries, Rebuild the Arsenal, PT-00/05, accessible at https://www.anduril.com/rebuild-the-arsenal.
Sidharth Kaushal and Paul O'Neill eds., Whitehall Paper 102, The Role of Dissimilar Rearmament, RUSI, 2025.
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Rear Admiral Archer M Macy Jr describes today's military, organisational, human and cultural risks and opportunities in integrating forces for air and missile defence.
Many modern defence reviews focus on the need for integration. Arguably, nowhere is the need more important today than in providing air and missile defence. State and non-state adversaries have shown varying abilities to combine their attacks in ways that pose multiple dilemmas.
Using small, slow-moving and low flying drones intended to swamp defences, coordinated with aircraft and cruise, hypersonic and ballistic missiles, these packages present huge challenges across a wide span of heights, speeds and trajectories. As well as being a problem for fielded forces, it is an industrial challenge in making sure there are enough interceptors at the right price point to sustain the defences.
In this episode, RAdm Macy USN (Retd) offers his unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities based on his time in the Aegis Program Office and most recently as the Director of the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization in the US Joint Staff.
Further Reading
Sidharth Kaushal, Archer Macy, and Alexandra Stickings. The future of NATO's air and missile defence. RUSI Occasional Paper, Royal United Services Institute, 2021, available at https://static.rusi.org/NATOMissileDefence2021.pdf.
Brian R. Green, Offense-Defense Integration for Missile Defeat: the Scope of the Challenge, Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2020, available at https://www.csis.org/analysis/offense-defense-integration-missile-defeat.
David C. Gompert, Preparing Military Forces for Integrated Operations in the Face of Uncertainty, RAND 2003, available at: https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP250.html.
Luke Harding, 'Judges with machine guns: the part-time drone hunters defending Kyiv', The Guardian, 9 May 2024.
Talking Strategy, Season 6, Episode 14, Force Integration in 1940 – Dowding's Air Defence System, RUSI Podcast, 2026, available at https://www.rusi.org/podcasts/talking-strategy/episode-14-force-integration-1940-dowdings-air-defence-system.
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Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding's air defence system was crucial during the Battle of Britain. The RAF Museum's Andrew Renwick describes how it was created.
In the 1930s, Great Britain, wrestled with the challenge of achieving wide area air defence to protect against threats from continental Europe while reliant on many different elements.
ACM Hugh Dowding was tasked with solving this problem. His solution was a system that integrated detection systems, including classified intelligence sources and the new radar technology, with disaggregated command and control systems directing fighters onto the enemy. It was this 'Dowding System' that underpinned British success in the Battle of Britain.
As Winston Churchill put it: 'All the ascendancy of the Hurricanes and Spitfires would have been fruitless but for this system, which had been devised and built before the war.'
Paul and Beatrice are joined by Andrew Renwick, the curator of photographs at the Royal Air Force Museum Hendon. He is the author of RAF Hendon, Birthplace of Aerial Power, published by Flight Recorder Publications in 2021.
Further Reading
John Terraine, Right of the Line: The Role of the RAF in World War Two, Pen & Sword, 2010.
Vincent Orange, Dowding of Fighter Command: Victor of the Battle of Britain. Grub Street, 2008.
Basil Collier, Leader of the Few: the authorised biography of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding of Bentley Priory. Jarrolds, 1957.
T. C. G. James, The Growth of Fighter Command 1936-1940, Air Defence of Great Britain Vol. I (Royal Air Force Official Histories, Air Historical Branch), Routledge, 2001.
Understanding the Dowding System, a Briefing Paper by the Association of RAF Fighter Control Officers, https://www.raffca.uk/art_UnderstandingTheDowdingSystem.php
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As European nations discuss preparing their militaries for war, Poland's former Chief of Defence, General Rajmund Andrzejczak, describes how they have led the way in increased military spend.
With almost 5% of its GDP now invested in defence, Poland has moved at speed to grow its armed forces. Indeed, Poland stands out as the European NATO member that has moved fastest to respond to the threats facing the Alliance and is rapidly becoming a European leader in defence.
In this episode, we talk to General Andrzejczak, the Chief of General Staff for the Polish Armed Forces between 2018 and 2023. It was while he was Poland's most senior military officer that preparations to face the new threat posed by Russia in Europe were accelerated.
He describes the opportunities and challenges in the transformation implemented across the physical, moral and conceptual components of Polish fighting power and what is still needed for NATO to deliver on its ambitions.
He also discusses how the European members of NATO might meet the Russia threat and respond to 'the strategic double espresso' of the 2025 US National Security Strategy.
A graduate of Poland's National Defence Academy, the Czech Army Defence Academy, and the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, General Andrzejczak is an expert commentator on European defence and security.
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How did Prussia turn from a beaten underdog into the leader of a united Germany following its victories of the 19th century?
In this episode, Geoffrey Wawro, Professor of Military History at the University of North Texas, joins Beatrice and Paul to discuss Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army from 1857–71.
Given the limited funding available to Prussia, von Moltke the Elder successfully advocated for investments in essential infrastructure and the weapons with the greatest effect, rather than spreading funds thinly and ineffectively.
Professor Wawro explains how Prussia emerged victorious from three successive wars in Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870-71), the role of education and how the military adapted to new technology on all levels.
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Often seen as the gold standard for societal resilience, Finland has many admirers. The Secretary General of its Security Committee, Petteri Korvala, describes Finland's approach.
Many nations are exploring how to build societal resilience as part of a comprehensive approach to security. The Scandinavian countries are often seen as exemplars of best practice, with Finland arguably leading the pack. But delivering resilience through comprehensive security requires trust across all elements of society and a cultural shift as much as it needs the right structures and processes.
In this episode, we hear from the Secretary General of Finland's Security Committee, Petteri Korvala, about how their comprehensive security system works.
Petteri Korvala has over 30 years of experience in Finland's defence forces and internationally, including in the Ministry of Defence and in Finland's Permanent Representation to the European Union, as well as having served as a liaison officer in United States European Command.
Further Reading:
Finnish Government, Security Strategy for Society: Government Resolution, 2025:3, available at https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/items/0126122a-1e8a-4ffa-9868-6286292efc01
Vesa Valtonen & Minna Branders, 'Tracing the Finnish Comprehensive Security Model', in Sebastian Larsson & Mark Rhinard (eds.), Nordic Societal Security, Routledge, 2020, pp.91-108. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003045533-7/tracing-finnish-comprehensive-security-model-vesa-valtonen-minna-branders.
Ari-Elmeri Hyvönen & Tapio Juntunen, 'From "spiritual defence" to robust resilience in the Finnish comprehensive security model', in Sebastian Larsson & Mark Rhinard (eds.), Nordic Societal Security Routledge, 2020, pp.154–178.
Tom Woolmore, The Porcupine and the Hedgehog: The Influence of Finland's Comprehensive Security Model on the British Whole-of-Society Approach, King's College London Master's Dissertation, 2025, available at: https://turvallisuuskomitea.fi/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/MA-Thesis-Thomas-Woolmore.pdf
Andrew Sharples (London School of Economics and Political Science): From Bowling Alone to Fighting Together: Social Capital and Whole-of-Society Defence.
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Britain was not ready for the First World War but some key, if embryonic, plans and capabilities proved vital. Sir Hew Strachan discusses the lessons for today.
With concerns rising about how ready Western nations are for the risk of war in Europe, we discuss the lessons from Britain's preparation for The Great War. And while preparation is important, not all actions to prepare are equally important. In this case, Britain was not fully prepared but had taken some initial steps that were important in allowing the country to accelerate towards preparedness.
The crucial elements concerned the ability to engage society, coordinate across government and ensure a robust industrial base that supported the armed force that drew on the talent of regular and volunteer forces. As a result, Britain was better (although not perfectly) prepared for the Second World War. And large parts of Europe seem further away from readiness now, so the lessons are vitally important.
Joining us to discuss these lessons is Professor Sir Hew Strachan from the University of St Andrews. Described by Jonathan Boff as 'the most influential British historian of the First World War of his generation', Professor Strachan has published widely on the First World War and is a regular advisor to the British Government and Ministry of Defence, particularly in relation to reserve forces and veterans.
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Professor Michael Epkenhans describes how Otto von Bismarck's adroit use of war, realpolitik and the harnessing all levers of state power unified the German nation.
Otto von Bismarck, Prussian Chancellor and – after 1871 – the leading political figure of the Second German Empire after the Kaiser, hated to be bullied but managed to manipulate and bully all around him into following his complex strategic plan. This involved not only keeping German democrats at bay but also Denmark, Austria, and France. Tricking Denmark and France into breaking conventions and declaring war on Prussia and its allies respectively, he got the other German states to close ranks and back the Prussian claim for leadership in a newly united German State.
By putting Prussia on the defensive, the other European great powers – the United Kingdom and Russia – did not intervene, even though the emergent German superstate changed the balance of powers in Europe. Stopping short of aiming for overseas territories, taking on the role of the honest broker of the quarrels among others, Bismarck avoided pushing Britain and Russia over the brink into coalescing against Germany – which his immoderate successors did not.
We are joined by Michael Epkenhans, Beatrice Heuser's successor as Director of Research at the Bundeswehr's Military History Research Office, and specialist on 19th century German and Prussian history.
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Innovation has long been a Western strategy, but how can it be made effective against an industrially and economically strong China? Dame Fiona Murray explains.
A defining feature of the West's Cold War approach to the Soviet Union was leveraging its technological and economic advantages, including through 'offset strategies'. While defence innovation remains a pillar of Western security, its focus has shifted toward dual-use technologies, reflecting a broader move of the locus of innovation from states to private industry.
However, just as earlier episodes in Season 5 explored (Episodes 10 and 11 regarding US industrial mobilisation during the Second World War, and Jean Monnet's plans for European post-war cooperation), success requires many actors coming together to create a resilient ecosystem. Achieving this demands alignment by all parties.
Professor Dame Fiona Murray is the Chair of the NATO Innovation Fund and William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She advises the UK Government and sits on the European Innovation Council Joint Expert Group. Her work is published widely in Science, Nature, American Journal of Sociology, Organisation Science and the Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation. Her most recent book Accelerating Innovation: Competitive Advantage through Ecosystem Engagement, (MIT Press, 2025) is with Phil Budden.
Further Reading
Phil Budden and Fiona Murray, Accelerating Innovation: Competitive Advantage through Ecosystem Engagement, MIT Press, 2025.
Edlyn V. Levine and Fiona Murray, How the US and its allies can rebuild economic security, in MIT Technology Review, 30 July 2024.
Stefan Raff, Fiona E. Murray, and Martin Murmann, Why You Should Tap Innovation at Deep-Tech Startups, in MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2024.
Gene Keselman and Fiona Murray, Dual-use is a Strategy, Not a Category (Nor a Trap), War on the Rocks, 2 January 2025.
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The National Army Museum's Justin Maciejewski reveals how General Bagnall's far-reaching reforms transformed the British Army for war against the USSR.
By the 1980s, General (later Field Marshal) Sir Nigel Bagnall GCB CVO MC and bar (1927-2002) felt that British Army was ill-prepared for the fight against the Soviets. He pinpointed shortcomings such as the lack of conventional mass, the right doctrine and a personnel skills gap. Moreover, British plans did not fit with the allied armies on either flank.
Bagnall sought to transform the Army and integrate it within a broader NATO approach involving changing nuclear and conventional postures, most notably the Air-Land Battle.
Commissioned as an infantry officer, Bagnall was schooled in counter-insurgency warfare in Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus and Indonesia-Malaysia before becoming an armour commander in West Germany. As Chief of the General Staff, he steered many of the reforms he had initiated when commanding the British Army of the Rhine, changing the face of the Army and leaving it better prepared for war in Europe. According to Justin Maciejewski, the reforms made Bagnall the most consequential officer since the Second World War.
Justin Maciejewski DSO MBE spent 27 years in the British Army before becoming a management consultant for McKinsey and then moving to the National Army Museum in London. He draws on his experience serving in the Army through the Bagnall reforms, and his time as a consultant overseeing commercial transformation programmes.
Further Reading
Justin Maciejewski, How the British Army's Operations Went Agile, McKinsey Quarterly, October 2019.
Alexander Alderson, Influence, the Indirect Approach and Manoeuvre, RUSI Journal Vol.157:1, 2012, pp. 36-43.
Ben Barry, Rise and Fall of the British Army 1975-2025, Osprey, 2025.
Army, Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 01, Operations, 1994.
Beatrice Heuser: NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949-2000 (London: Macmillan, 1997)
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Admiral Nelson instilled in his sailors a martial spirit that in many battles saw them prevail against superior odds. Dr Martin Robson discusses Nelson's legacy with us.
Widely considered one of the greatest admirals, alongside Admiral Yi Sun-sin, (Season 4, Episode 6) - Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (1758-1805) advised: 'No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy'. His legacy is multi-faceted, but in this episode, we seek to explore his leadership style, which might today be seen as pre-empting mission command, and his ability to create a warrior culture that delivered victory. Dr Martin Robson helps us explore how Nelson instilled this culture and what lessons in leadership remain for us today.
Dr Robson is an associate professor at the University of Exeter Strategy and Security Institute, specialising in the use of history and strategic theory of the past for today. He is also a member of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy. He holds a PhD from the Department of War Studies, King's College London, and has experience working at the United Kingdom Defence Academy. He is the author of two volumes in the prestigious A History of the Royal Navy series, covering the Napoleonic Wars (2014) and the Seven Years War (2015), published by IB Taurus.
Further Reading
Martin Robson, A History of the Royal Navy: Napoleonic Wars, IB Taurus, 2014.
Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Power, Little Brown, 1899. Available at: https://archive.org/details/lifeofnelsonembo01maha
John Sugden, Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758-1797, Random House, 2005.
Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, John Murray, 1996.
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A former four-star combatant commander, General (retd) Lori Robinson, discusses the challenges of strategy making and strategic leadership in a complex environment.
After 37 years of military service, Gen. Robinson retired in 2018 as commander of the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). This double role required her to report to both the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada. Consequently, her tenure involved directly addressing strategic challenges to the US posed by both China and Russia. She was the first woman in US history to lead a combatant command.
Having operated in environments of political and interagency complexity, she discusses the lessons she learned about being a successful strategic leader, working with politicians, government departments, business leaders and allied militaries.
Having retired in 2018, General Robinson is now a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Center for Security, Strategy and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and is a director on the KornFerry Board. She was named as one of Time magazine's '100 Most Influential People'; in 2016 and one of its 'First Women Leaders' in 2017.
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Edward Luce discusses how Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Carter, sought to bring down the USSR and end the Cold War by magnifying the Politburo' dilemmas.
During the Cold War, two dominant émigré figures emerged in United States national security strategy making: Henry Kissinger (Republican) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (Democrat). Zbigniew Brzezinski played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign, later serving as Carter's National Security Advisor. Often described as the realist 'Yin' to Carter's idealistic 'Yang,' Brzezinski was a trusted confidant of the President. However, his often-hawkish foreign policy stance created tensions within the Democratic Party and led to challenging relationships with colleagues in the State Department and Department of Defence. His efforts to bring down the Soviet Union earned the admiration of Ronald Reagan, whose Republican administration continued many of Brzezinski's policies. The consequences of some of these policies, though, caused problems later.
Edward Luce is the North America Editor of the Financial Times. He published a recent biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski that sought to reclaim Brzezinski's reputation as a leading architect of the strategy that brought the Cold War to an end without it becoming hot.
Further Reading
Edward Luce, Zbig. The life of Zbig Brzezinski: America's great power prophet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2025).
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strategic Vision; American and the Crisis of Global Power, Basic Books, 2012, available at: https://archive.org/details/strategicvisiona0000brze
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books, 1997, available at: https://archive.org/details/grandchessboarda00brze_0/mode/2up
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century, Collier Books, 1993, available at: https://archive.org/details/outofcontrolglob00brze/mode/2up
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983).
Justin Vaïsse, Zbigniew Brzezinski: America's Grand Strategist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018)
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Can clear Ends exist in a radically uncertain world? Lord Mervyn King explains how to align Ways and Means without them.
Successive national security and defence reviews in recent years have adjusted their language about the nature of the world, moving from being one of competition, to uncertainty, to today's 'radical uncertainty'. Is the concept simply being used to justify the new review and differentiate it from the last one, or does it reflect a real change in the challenges nations confront? Have we moved beyond VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), to BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible) and does it matter? And what does it mean for our approach to making strategy?
To guide us through these questions, we are joined by Baron Mervyn King of Lothbury KG. An economist by training, he graduated from both Cambridge and Harvard Universities, after time as an academic he became the Bank of England's chief economist. Between 2003-1013, he served as its Governor, where he was responsible for the United Kingdom's economic strategy during the 2008 global financial crisis. An accomplished academic, thinker and author, his book Radical Uncertainty with Professor John Kay considers the implications for decision making of this radical uncertainty.
Further Reading
John Kay and Mervyn King, Radical Uncertainty: Decision-making for an Unknowable Future, Bridge Street Press, 2020.
Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler, The Decision Book: Fifty models for strategic thinking, Profile Books, 2023.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, Penguin, 2007.
Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Random House, 2006.
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Dr Fiona Hill, one of the lead reviewers on the UK's 2025 Strategic Defence Review, discusses an expansive approach to defence and security for the modern world.
Dr Hill, who served the first Trump administration as a Russia expert, brings deep insights into Russian, American and British defence policy making.
Having identified Russia's obsession with recovering the old Tsarist Empire's borderlands, and anticipated Putin's strategic use of economic power to create dependencies in the 1990s, she sheds light on the thinking of Presidents Putin and Trump, and what is now needed by societies used to a peace dividend.
She also explains the challenges faced by the drafters of the UK's Strategic Defence Review, with limited means available to respond to a transformed international environment, with Russia an enemy, and the USA now an economic rival and a less reliable ally.
Dr Hill is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC and Chancellor of Durham University in the UK. She is on Harvard University's Board of Overseers, from where she gained her doctorate in history and was a Frank Knox Fellow. She co-authored Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (2013) and The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold (2003), both with Clifford Gaddy. She has been appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George by the UK and Knight First Class of Finland's Order of the Lion.
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Often touted as the gold standard in national security strategy making, 1953's Project Solarium was President Eisenhower's way of developing a strategy to counter Soviet expansionism. With frequent current calls for a new Project Solarium, was the original project a versatile solution or was it particular to Eisenhower's presidency? Professor Walter Hudson explains.
By 1947 relations with the Soviet Union were viewed in Washington as an ideological tug-of-war that could only be won by one side. After the initial strategy of Containment had been crafted under President Truman, the US and its NATO allies massively increased defence spending once the Korean War broke out, fearing a series of further acts of Communist aggression. By mid-1953, however, Stalin was dead, the Korean War at its end, while the cost to the US of the Containment strategy adopted in 1950 was becoming unbearable. With Project Solarium President Eisenhower initiated a rethink not only of what American strategy should be, but also how that strategy was made and understood by his Administration.
Professor Walter M. Hudson from the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., guides us through the process adopted in 1953. A former US Army officer, he served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Panama, Korea and Germany, and holds a PhD in military history from Kansas State University. He is the author of Solarium at 70: Project Solarium's Influence on Eisenhower Historiography and National Security Strategy, published in 2023 by the National Defense University.
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