Strategy Matters

This is a special episode of the Strategy Matters Podcast. Host Brendan Neagle talks with historian Dr. John Ferling to explore the strategic lessons of the American Revolution. This special episode reaches back to provide additional perspective on the third Strategy and War case study at the U.S. Naval War College. Although the timing of this episode does not align directly with the American Revolution case study, Dr. Ferling’s insights illuminate many of the course themes that cut across the entire course. Drawing on his books Whirlwind and his new work Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling assesses the Revolution’s strategic environment and international context and the central choices both sides faced at the outset of the conflict. Dr. Ferling dives into the challenges of forging a cohesive strategy from competing colonial interests, George Washington’s strengths and weaknesses as a strategic leader, and how diplomacy combined with military operations to shape the war’s trajectory. He also provides perspective on some of the strengths of British military decision-making, particularly by General Henry Clinton. The conversation closes with reflections on the Revolution’s most important strategic principles and why they still matter for today’s strategists.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. John Ferling is a leading historian of the American Revolution who spent most of his four-decade academic career at the University of West Georgia, where he taught courses on Colonial America, U.S. military history, and the Revolution. The author of numerous works, including Whirlwind and Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling has long combined scholarship with a passion for writing accessible history. His career began with two years teaching high school in Texas before moving into higher education in Texas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and ultimately Georgia. In 2013, he received the Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities in recognition of his lifetime contributions to history and civic culture. A lifelong baseball fan, the first major league game he saw was between Pittsburgh and the Brooklyn Dodgers, a game in which Jackie Robinson scored the winning run. For twenty years he timed his research trips to Boston so that the Red Sox were in town. He has a picture of Fenway Park proudly displayed in his office.

In episode seven, Admiral (ret.) Lars Saunes and Dr. Michelle Paranzino discuss how the outcome of the Second World War shaped the politics and security in Europe. This episode complements the Second World War case study within the Strategy and War course. It also addresses one of the primary themes in the study of war: the strategic implications of military operations. The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union fought as allies, but they also had different visions for the world after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Their leaders, the so-called ‘Big Three,’ Franklin D Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, also had to consider operational and logistical challenges when seeking to fulfill them. Admiral Saunes and Dr Paranzino consider alternative scenarios for military operations on the continent and why they were not taken. Finally, the guests highlight that although understanding the agreement the Allies achieved at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 can help us grasp Vladimir Putin’s logic, it is not a good guide for achieving peace in Ukraine or navigating current security challenges.The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.Guests:Rear Admiral (ret.) Lars Saunes was born in Alesund, Norway. He retired from the Navy from the position as Chief of Royal Norwegian Navy August 2017 and is now CNO Distinguished international fellow at the USNWC. He is a Submariner by trade and has held different command position on Kobben and Ula class submarines. He has been the commander of the Norwegian task group, Chief Naval operations at joint HQ, Commander submarine operating authority, Commandant and commander of the Norwegian Coast guard as well as Chief of the Royal Norwegian Navy. He has served as the head naval section of the Norwegian defense high command/join and the Norwegian defense research Institute.Michelle Paranzino, earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied U.S. foreign policy, Soviet history and Cold War Latin America. She has published numerous articles and book chapters and is the author of "The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War: A Short History with Documents" (Cambridge: Hackett, 2018). She grew up in Los Angeles, earning her B.A. in history at UC Santa Cruz and an M.A. in history at Cal State Northridge. She has held fellowships at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and is currently working on a book about the war on drugs.

In Episode 6, Dr. Burak Kadercan and Dr. Jesse Tumblin explore the current case study in Strategy and War Course, World War I, from a different angle: the strategic challenges the Ottoman Empire faced. At its height, the Ottoman Empire ruled on three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it lost much of its European domains and struggled to modernize. The possession of one of its former provinces, Bosnia and Herzegovina, led to the clash between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, which snowballed into World War I. Throughout the war the Allies targeted the Ottoman Empire with a series of peripheral campaigns in the Balkans and the Middle East. Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger and her guests explore valuable strategic lessons these campaigns offer. At the end of the war, Great Britain and France divided the Ottoman domains in the Middle East among themselves, leading to many of the issues continuing to plague the region through the current era. Also, the guests discuss how the modern Turkish Republic emerged from the ashes of World War I largely due to the vision and leadership of one of the heroes from the Dardanelles/Gallipoli Campaign, Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk.The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.Guests:Burak Kadercan is an Associate Professor who holds a PhD and MA in political science from the University of Chicago and a BA in politics and international relations from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. Dr. Kadercan specializes in the intersection of international relations theory, international security, military-diplomatic history, and political geography. Prior to joining the Naval War College, he was Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Reading (United Kingdom) and Assistant Professor in International Relations and Programme Coordinator for the MA in international security at Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Dr. Kadercan’s scholarly contributions have appeared in International Security, Review of International Studies, International Studies Review, International Theory, and Middle East Policy. Dr. Kadercan is the author of Shifting Grounds: The Social Origins of Territorial Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2023).Jesse Tumblin 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.

Episode five features Dr. David Stone and Dr. Kenneth Swope from the U.S. Naval War College, who examine how two pivotal conflicts between 1894 and 1905 reshaped China’s place in East Asia. This episode compliments the Russo-Japanese War case study within the Strategy and War Course. While examining the period between the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the guests trace China’s struggle to modernize its military, the heavy costs of defeat by Japan, and the growing shadow of Russian ambitions in the region. Dr. Stone and Dr. Swope first explore how the Sino-Japanese War sets the stage for the Russo-Japanese War and then how both conflicts influenced Chinese and Russian strategic thought. The episode closes by drawing connections between these two wars and power dynamics in East Asia today.Cover art:Frederick W. Rose and Kisaburō Ohara, "Kokkei Ō-A Gaikō Chizu: A humorous diplomatic atlas of Europe and Asia" (1904). Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.Guests:Professor David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy.Kenneth M. Swope is a Professor of Strategy and Policy who graduated with a B.A. from the College of Wooster (OH) in 1992. He earned his M.A. (Chinese Studies, 1995) and Ph.D (History, 2001) at the University of Michigan. Professor Swope previously taught at Marist College, Ball State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi. He served as the Dr. Leo A. Shifrin Chair at The United States Naval Academy in 2019-20. A specialist on the military history of Ming-Qing China (1368-1911), Dr. Swope has published numerous books and articles including Struggle for Empire: The Battles of General Zuo Zongtang (Naval Institute Press, 2024), which received the "Book of the Year" prize from The Samuel B. Griffith Foundation for the Study of Chinese Military History, and a Distinguished Book Award from The Society for Military History.

Guests Katrina Ponti and Jonathan Romaneski join host Brendan Neagle to unpack the historical significance and strategic effects of operations at Fort Ticonderoga during the American War of Independence.  The discussion complements the course materials for American War of Independence case study in the Strategy and War Course at the U.S. Naval War College. The guests explore how the fort’s capture by irregular colonial forces in 1775 revealed the outsized psychological impact of seemingly small operations and the advantages of decentralized execution for insurgents. The discussion then turns to British strategic adjustments and the difficulty of distinguishing between a military objective’s perceived symbolic importance and its true strategic value. Finally, the conversation draws broader lessons on irregular and hybrid warfare, connecting Ticonderoga’s story to modern dilemmas such as gray zone conflicts and the enduring need for adaptability in military planning.The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.Guests: Katrina Ponti, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow in the Strategy and Policy Department. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Rochester in 2022. Before joining the Strategy and Policy Department, she was an Ernest May Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Ponti has published on topics related to the diplomatic and maritime history of the early United States. In addition to her interests in history and policy, she is a trained historical archaeologist. She is an award-winning poet for her fifth grade work about Fort Ticonderoga: Rainy Day at the Mountain LakeRainy day at the mountain lakeWhat should we do today?Should we go to a fort From that long ago day?Where cannons were brought from one state to the nextOver mountains that nearly touch the sky LTC Jonathan Romaneski, U.S. Army, is a military professor in the US Naval War College’s Strategy and Policy Department. He is a U.S. Army Aviation officer whose previous command and staff positions include extensive time in Europe, the U.S. Military Academy, Fort Carson, Colorado, and Fort Cavazos, Texas. His most recent assignment was his battalion command tour in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He has a BA in history from James Madison University and a PhD in military history from the Ohio State University.

Guests Michael Pavković and Josh Hammond join host Vanya Eftimova Bellinger to profile the strategic leadership of two of the most compelling figures of the Peloponnesian War: Demosthenes and Brasidas. They compare Brasidas’s formative experiences in Sparta with Demosthenes’s in Athens, exploring how these backgrounds shaped each man’s approach to strategic leadership. The discussion highlights key qualities of effective strategic leaders, including the ability to balance boldness with prudence, exceptional creative and critical thinking skills, and the capacity to reassess, adapt, and decide faster than the adversary. A central theme is the adaptability required to transition from a successful tactical commander to an effective strategist. Careful listeners will also enjoy a surprisingly apt Guns N’ Roses analogy.GuestsProfessor Michael F. Pavković currently serves as Vice Admiral William Ledyard Rodgers Professor in Naval History in the Strategy and Policy Department at the college. He received his B.A. in history and classics from Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He has presented papers at national and international conferences and has also published a number of articles, book chapters and reviews on topics relating to ancient, early modern and Napoleonic military history. He is co-author of "What is Military History?" (Polity Press, 3rd edition, 2017). He is currently writing a book on sea power in the ancient world.Cmdr. Josh Hammond graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in classical languages and the U.S. Naval War College with an M.A. in national security and strategic studies. While at NWC, he received the Adm. Richard G. Colbert Memorial Prize for professional writing and research. A career naval flight officer, he has over 2,300 hours and 500 carrier landings in the F-14D and F/A-18F in support of numerous operations in the Arabian Gulf and Western Pacific. Other assignments include air operations officer on USS Carl Vinson and an exchange assignment with the Royal Navy in carrier doctrine development.

Guests John Maurer and James Holmes join host Vanya Eftimova Bellinger to discuss the influence of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theories on the strategic environment of the twentieth century and beyond. The guests definitively settle the question of how to pronounce Mahan’s name correctly before diving into how various strategic leaders applied, or misapplied, Mahan’s theories to the formulation of maritime strategy. After analyzing the historical cases of Germany and Japan’s application of Mahanian theories, Dr. Maurer and Dr. Holmes turn their attention to how these ideas influence great power competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.Guests:Professor John H. Maurer is the Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy and served as the Chair of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.James Holmes holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and served on the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer, he was the last gunnery officer in history to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger, during the first Gulf War in 1991. He earned the Naval War College Foundation Award in 1994, signifying the top graduate in his class. His books include Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2010 and a fixture on the Navy Professional Reading List.

Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, an expert on Clausewitz, and Andrew R. "Dex" Wilson, a specialist in Sun Tzu, delve into the contrasting theories of war. They explore whether Clausewitz ever read The Art of War and discuss the shared strategic foundations of both thinkers. While Bellinger highlights Clausewitz's focus on the chaos of battle, Wilson sheds light on Sun Tzu's indirect methods. The duo warns against common misinterpretations and stresses the importance of contextual understanding, offering unique insights for modern strategists.