Episode 10: World War on the Peripheries: Strategic Lessons from Colonial Theaters in WWI

Episode ten of Strategy Matters aligns with the fourth case study in the Strategy and Policy Course at the Naval War at the U.S. Naval War College. Much of the case study focuses on the European theaters of World War I, but in the podcast, we are exploring the extra-European or colonial theaters of the conflict. Although distinct, they were seldom decisive. Nonetheless, the colonial theaters in WWI hold many lessons for today’s strategists, including the complexities of peripheral theaters and irregular warfare, the role of seapower in a global conflict, and recruitment and motivation to fight. The host, Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, is joined by two professors from the Strategy and Policy Department: Dr. Tim Hoyt and Dr. Jesse Tumblin. A renowned expert on irregular warfare, Dr. Hoyt examines why, despite much action in the colonial theaters, they failed to break the stalemate or shift the balance between the belligerents. A historian of the British Empire, Dr. Tumblin discusses how the dominions provided it with manpower and enormous resources, but also challenged the empire’s institutions and war strategy.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Dr. Timothy Hoyt, Ph.D. is the John Nicholas Brown Chair of Counterterrorism and, since 2019, has also served as the Director of the Advanced Strategy Program at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of numerous publications on irregular warfare, COIN and counterterrorism, and South Asia. Dr Hoyt also serves as the Deputy Editor of The Journal of Strategic Studies.

Dr. Jesse Tumblin, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of strategy and policy specializing in political and military history, ideas of security, and the current and former British world. He earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from Boston College and a B.A. from the University of Tennessee. He is a past fellow in international security studies at Yale University. He is the author of “The Quest for Security: Sovereignty, Race, and the Defense of the British Empire, 1898-1931” (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and an article on Britain’s attempts to secure its Indo-Pacific empire, which won the Saki Ruth Dockrill Memorial Prize for international history from the Institute for Historical Research, University of London.