Talking Strategy
Our thinking about defence and security is shaped by ideas. What we see depends on our vantage point and the lenses we apply to the world. Governments, military and business leaders are seeking to maximise the value they gain from scarce resources by becoming more ‘strategic’. Standing on the shoulders of the giants of strategy from the past helps us see further and more clearly into the future. This series is aimed at those looking to learn more about strategy and how to become more strategic – leaders, practitioners and scholars. This podcast series, co-chaired by Professor Beatrice Heuser and Paul O’Neill, examines the ideas of important thinkers from around the world and across the ages. The ideas, where they came from and what shaped those whose ideas shape us now. By exploring the concepts in which we and our adversaries think today, the episodes will shine a light on how we best prepare for tomorrow. The views or statements expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by RUSI employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of RUSI.
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S5E18: George C Marshall: Strategic Planning for War and Peace
06/17/2025
S5E18: George C Marshall: Strategic Planning for War and Peace
General Marshall planned brilliantly for the US Army’s rapid wartime growth and a 'Just Peace' for post-war Europe. Professor Bill Johnsen explains how. General George C Marshall's (1880-1959) career as a strategist and strategic leader was impressive. As the Chief of Staff for the US Army, he oversaw a forty-fold increase in the size of the Army. Quick to spot talent and advance it out of turn, his appointments included Generals Omar Bradley, Lesley J McNair, George S Patton, and perhaps most crucially, Dwight D Eisenhower. Winston Churchill described Marshall as 'the organiser of victory' After the War, he was appointed as Secretary of State, where he lobbied for the reconstruction of Europe that would build the capacity of nations exhausted by the War, and act as a bulwark against Soviet expansion. The European Reconstruction Plan, which would eventually become simply the 'Marshall Plan', earned him the unique distinction of being the only Army General to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Professor William (Bill) Johnsen is the former Director of Academics at the US Army War College, and a former Infantry Officer. He served in NATO working on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and the 1991 NATO Strategy. He is the author of numerous works, including Origins of the Grand Alliance: Anglo-American Military Collaboration from the Panay Incident to Pearl Harbor (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), and his latest manuscript, tentatively entitled War Councilors: The Combined Chiefs of Staff and the Winning of World War II, is under publication review.
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S5E17: Giuseppe Garibaldi: ‘The Only Hero the World Needs’
06/03/2025
S5E17: Giuseppe Garibaldi: ‘The Only Hero the World Needs’
Professor Lucy Riall explains Garibaldi's mastery of revolutionary war by harnessing military, political and populist levers of power to become a father of modern Italy. Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was one of the world's greatest revolutionaries, leading resistance movements with irregular armies such as the Ragamuffins and the Red Shirts in Latin America and Europe. A crucial figure of 19th century liberalism and nationalism, he inspired millions. Che Guevara claimed that he was the only hero the world needs. As one of the fathers of modern Italy, Garibaldi was the Risorgimento's Sword, to Count Cavour's Brain and Giuseppe Mazzini's Soul. Untrained as a soldier and often over-matched by his opponents, he nevertheless achieved victories against the French and Austrian Armies, the Papal States and in Sicily. Perhaps as impressively, he maintained the effectiveness of irregular forces in numerous retreats that might, under a lesser commander, have lost the morale of his citizen fighters against professional armies. Historian AJP Taylor described Garibaldi thus: 'He evoked from the people, and even from the politicians, a personal devotion almost without parallel in modern history; . . . and he showed himself the greatest general that Italy has ever produced.' Professor Lucy Riall is a leading expert on modern Italy. She has written extensively on Italy's formation, as well as on Giuseppe Garibaldi. She is currently at the European University institute in Florence and a Visiting Professor at the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan.
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S5E16: Cyrus the Great: Inventing Empire and Universal Monarchy
05/13/2025
S5E16: Cyrus the Great: Inventing Empire and Universal Monarchy
Cyrus’ exemplary leadership forged a patchwork of ethnicities into an empire that founded Persian rule in the Middle East, Professor Lynette Mitchell explains. Cyrus the Great (or the Elder) is known to many through the Cyrus Cylinder exhibit preserved in the British Museum, which tells us that he was chosen by God for his special virtues to become ‘king of the four corners of the world’. Indeed, he created a Persian empire that extended from the Greek communities of Asia Minor to the marches of India. Ever since, virtues of a great strategic leader have been attributed to him, including by Xenophon who, as a Greek, might have been expected to be hostile to Cyrus’ expansion. Instead, Xenophon took him as a model for the ideal leader in war and peace. Even today, the stories of his leadership are revered in management literature. But does the reality justify the acclaim? Professor Lynette Mitchell of the University of Exeter has discovered her interest in the life and achievements of Cyrus from her earlier research on Greek culture and customs, on which she has published widely. Her book, Cyrus the Great: A Biography of Kingship, was published by Routledge in 2023. Irving Finkel (ed.): The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon. (London: I-.B- Tauris, 2013)
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S5E15: And then what? Thinking Strategy, with Baroness Ashton of Upholland
04/29/2025
S5E15: And then what? Thinking Strategy, with Baroness Ashton of Upholland
Baroness Catherine Ashton, formerly the European Union’s lead for foreign and security strategy, discusses challenges, opportunities and tips for collaborative strategy-making. As the EU’s first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Ashton was at the heart of international strategy making between 2009 and 2014 working on some of the world’s most intractable problems. She was appointed by the UN Security Council to lead the P5+1 negotiations for a nuclear deal with Iran and was in post when Russia first invaded Ukraine, seizing Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014. She also led peace negotiations in the Western Balkans between Serbia and Kosovo, for which she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In this episode, she reflects on strategy-making in an international and supranational context, the challenges facing Europe today and how ‘false binaries’ – such as those that posit the EU and NATO as being in opposition – stifle effective strategy elaboration. She argues that strategy makers need preparedness of thought and action, the ability to ground their ambition both in reality but also in individual and organisational values, as well as the will to ask, and respond to, the key question of any adaptive strategy, ‘And then what?’. In an illustrious career, The Rt Hon The Baroness Catherine Ashton of Upholland LG GCMG PC was a minister, Leader of the House of Lords, the UK’s first female Commissioner in the European Union and the High Representative and First Vice President for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in the Barroso Commission establishing the European External Action Service as a major actor in international affairs.
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S5E14: Abdul Haris Nasution: Insurgent Founder of the Indonesian Army
04/15/2025
S5E14: Abdul Haris Nasution: Insurgent Founder of the Indonesian Army
General Nasution's journey from insurgent to Army commander and strategist fighting against communist insurgents in Indonesia is described by Colonel Dr Almuchalif Suryo. Trained by the Dutch as part of the Netherlands East Indies Army, General Abdel Haris Nasution (1918-2000) fought with them against the Japanese during the Second World War and then against them for Indonesian independence. Having become an expert guerilla commander, he was then charged with creating Indonesia's state army, a force that had to unite elements trained by the Dutch and the Japanese, as well as citizen soldiers. One of the first tasks of this new army was to counter a communist insurgency in which Nasution himself was a target. Narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his 8-year old daughter, he fell afoul of Indonesia's politics and was removed from post by President Sukarno. Nasution was rehabilitated under President Suharto before the two fell out. Towards the end of Nasution's life, they reconciled, and Nasution became one of only three five-star generals in Indonesia's history. Colonel Dr Almuchalif Suryo was an infantry officer in the Indonesian Army, where he was the school commander of the Combatant Training Centre and Head of Total War Study at the Republic of Indonesia Defence University. Now retired, he still lectures there. He speaks to us in a personal capacity. FURTHER READING Abdul Haris Nasution, Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare, Frederick A. Praeger, 1965. Abdul Haris Nasution, Towards a People's Army, Djakarta cv Delegasi, 1964. C.L.M. Penders and Ulf Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution: a political biography, University of Queensland Press, 1985. Almuchaif Suryo, The Dual Function of the Indonesian Armed Forces and the Concept of Citizen Soldiery, Norwich University, 1999.
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S5E13: Modernising the Royal Navy: Admiral Lord Fisher RN
04/01/2025
S5E13: Modernising the Royal Navy: Admiral Lord Fisher RN
Admiral John (Jacky) Fisher radically transformed the Royal Navy in terms of its people, doctrine, equipment and structures. Dr Richard Dunley explains how. Few service chiefs have had such a profound effect on their service as Admiral of the Fleet, Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, Chief of the British Royal Navy in 1904-1910, and again in 1914-1915, before resigning in frustration over Churchill's Gallipoli campaign. Joining a wooden-hulled, sail-powered Royal Navy at the age of 13, by the time he retired aged 74, his Service was operating steel-hulled, oil-powered and technologically advanced battleships, with submarine and aviation arms. He was at the forefront of many of these reforms, but his impact went beyond the technology, overseeing profound changes in naval strategy (working alongside Julian Corbett - Season 1, Episode 1), doctrine, force disposition, personnel and training. Like other great strategic leaders, he was adept at shaping the political environment, securing for the Royal Navy the lion's share of the defence budget. Yet his legacy is mixed - his Royal Navy was undoubtedly a stronger, more capable fighting force but, according to our guest, was institutionally damaged and divided, and took some time to recover. Dr Richard Dunley is a senior lecturer in history and maritime strategy at the University of New South Wales, Canberra, where he teaches at the Australian Defence Force Academy. His research focuses on the relationship between navies and technology, with a particular emphasis on the Royal Navy in the early 20th century.
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S5E12: Toussaint Louverture and the Strategy of Dynamic Adaptation with Professor Charles Forsdick
03/18/2025
S5E12: Toussaint Louverture and the Strategy of Dynamic Adaptation with Professor Charles Forsdick
Professor Charles Forsdick tells the story of Toussaint Louverture, who led Haiti’s successful and highly adaptive slave revolt against the 18th century’s great powers. Toussaint Loverture was a force of nature. A former slave, he led the revolt in Saint Domingue between 1791– 1802 that resulted in Haitian independence. As a self-taught military commander, he was ever present in the fight, adapting his tactics, employing psychological warfare techniques and harnessing the island’s tropical diseases to degrade the French occupying forces. A man of contradictions, he was variously a Spanish monarchist and a French republican who played the great powers of Britain, France, Spain and the United States to secure the space and resources for his revolution to succeed. Despite leading one of the only successful slave revolts in history, he was less successful as a ruler, where the traits that made him such a great military leader, isolated him from his people. Internal divisions within the revolutionary army led to his capture by Napoleon’s forces and death in captivity in France a few months before Haiti achieved full independence in 1803. For this reason, the Haitian’s know him as ‘the Precursor’ and reserve the title, ‘Liberator’, for one of his lieutenants, Dessalines. Professor Charles Forsdick is the Drapers Chair of French at the University of Cambridge. He writes extensively about post-colonial memory in Francophone countries, and is the co-author of Toussaint Louverture, A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolution, with Christian Høgsbjerg published by Pluto Press in 2017.
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S5E11: Jean Monnet and the Strategy of International Defence Cooperation
03/05/2025
S5E11: Jean Monnet and the Strategy of International Defence Cooperation
Jean-Marc Lieberherr examines Jean Monnet’s vital role in securing US arms for Britain and France during the Second World War and in driving international cooperation. A committed internationalist, long before becoming one of the founding fathers of the EU, Jean Monnet played a crucial role in enabling cooperation between countries in two world wars. As a member of the Executive Committee of the Allied Maritime Transport Council during the First World War, he helped coordinate shipping between the Allied powers of France, Great Britain, Italy and, from 1918, the US, before becoming the Deputy Secretary General of the League of Nations in 1919. During the subsequent world conflagration, , Monnet, trusted by Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, coordinated arms procurement from the US through the Anglo-French Co-Ordinating Committee, the British Purchasing Committee and the Combined Production and Resources Board. According to economist John Maynard Keynes, Monnet’s work shortened that war by one year. After 1945, Monnet continued seeking internationalist solutions, connecting the French and German markets under the European Coal and Steel Community. Seeing how the principles of cooperation could be applied more broadly, he advocated for a European Defence Community during the Korean War. While this attempt at European defence integration failed, his work inspired the founding treaties of the EU. He became the first ‘Honorary Citizen of Europe’ in 1976. Jean-Marc Lieberherr is the founding chairman of the Jean Monnet Institute (JMI), which is devoted to promoting Monnet’s historical heritage. Before creating the JMI in 2021, he had a career with large international groups such as LVMH, Unilever and Rio Tinto. Further Reading Jean Monnet, Memoirs (London: Harper Collins, 1978). François Duchêne, Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (New York, NY: W W Norton, 1994). Robert R Nathan, ‘An Unsung Hero of World War II’, in Douglas Brinkley and Clifford Hackett (eds), Jean Monnet: The Path to European Unity (New York, NY: St Martin’s Press, 1991). W W Rostow, ‘Jean Monnet: The Innovator As Diplomat’ in Gordon A Craig and Francis L Loewenheim (eds), The Diplomats, 1939-1979 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 257–88. Sherrill Brown Wells, Jean Monnet: Unconventional Statesman (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner, 2011). Institut Jean Monnet Website, available at: https://institutjeanmonnet.eu/en/.
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S5E10: Creating Destruction: US Industrial Mobilisation in the Second World War
02/18/2025
S5E10: Creating Destruction: US Industrial Mobilisation in the Second World War
Professor Mark Wilson explains how governments, industry and the military collaborated to forge the US’s ‘arsenal of democracy’ during the Second World War. The prevailing myth is that the miracle of US industrial production was achieved by individual business leaders who were freed from the dead hand of government. The truth is more nuanced. The impressive efforts of business leaders relied on their workforce, government and the military. It was also a truly international effort. French and British orders started before the European war and long before Pearl Harbor, thereby expanding US industrial capacity and providing a springboard for success once the US was mobilised. This episode’s guest, Professor Mark Wilson, is an historian from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He specialises in in military-industrial relations and war mobilisations in US history, having written important books on US Civil War mobilisation and the business and politics of US industrial mobilisation for the Second World War.
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S5E9: Empress Matilda: Chess Grandmaster of Siege Warfare with Dr Catherine Hanley
02/04/2025
S5E9: Empress Matilda: Chess Grandmaster of Siege Warfare with Dr Catherine Hanley
Fighting for her rightful inheritance of the English crown, Empress Matilda (1110–1125) proved to be a grandmaster in the Anarchy’s bloody chess game. The war of dynastic succession in 12th century England and Normandy is known as the Anarchy. (1135-1154). Barons and nobles of all ranks joined in the family quarrel over the succession to Henry I. Matilda, Henry’s only surviving legitimate child and widow of Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, challenged her cousin and rival Stephen of Blois, who managed to seize the crown. This was a game of chess or chequers, in which seizing castles and fortified towns was what mattered, as well as bringing nobles with their retainers over to one’s side. Matilda played astutely but only won when she ceased to pursue the crown for herself and demanded it for her son. She continued as the power behind Henry II’s throne from Normandy. This episode’s guest, Dr Catherine Hanley, is the author of the latest scholarly biography of Empress Matilda, Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior (Yale University Press, 2019). Holding a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Sheffield, she is the author of several history books.
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S5E8: Transforming a Nation: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
01/21/2025
S5E8: Transforming a Nation: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Modern Turkey was forged by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. In this episode, Dr Mesut Uyar joins us to discuss Atatürk’s legacy of strategic leadership. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the most important Turkish political leader since the Ottoman Empire’s expansion was checked at Vienna in 1683. A career officer educated from the age of 12 in military academies – where he excelled, earning the nickname Kemal (‘the Perfect’) – he saw service in Tripolitania (modern Libya) and the Balkans. He entered the world stage during the First World War, especially for his command of the Ottoman 19th Division defending the Gallipoli peninsula against the Allied forces’ landings in 1915–16. His ascent was secured through his command in the war with Greece over the frontiers of the Turkish rump-state in 1919–1922, which ended in a population exchange. His military successes paved the way for his political leadership, which was inspired by French Republican views. He transformed Turkey through a profound programme of modernisation, which earned him a new title, Ata-Türk – father of Turkey. Despite his small stature, he cast a long shadow over Turkey that endures today. Dr Mesut Uyar, our guest for this episode, graduated from the Turkish Military Academy and from Istanbul University (Political Sciences). As a Turkish career military officer twice wounded in action, he served as an instructor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and did several tours for the UN in Georgia and as a staff officer in Afghanistan. He has lectured on Ottoman military history at the University of New South Wales, Canberra, and at Antalya Bilim University. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of New South Wales, Canberra.
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S5E7: H.R. McMaster on National Security Strategy Making
01/07/2025
S5E7: H.R. McMaster on National Security Strategy Making
H.R. McMaster shares his extensive experience of strategy-making and strategic leadership as a military officer, academic and former United States’ national security advisor. ‘The Iconoclast General’, H.R. McMaster has a distinguished record serving his country. Commissioned from West Point into the armoured cavalry, he retired as a Lieutenant General after thirty-four years’ service, including operational service in Iraq and Afghanistan. His success in fighting counter-insurgency campaigns saw him involved in the development of the United States’ Army and Marine Corps’ counter-insurgency field manual (FM3-24). One of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in April 2014, he was described by Lieutenant General (retired) David Barno as ‘the 21st century Army's pre-eminent warrior-thinker’. Appointed by President Trump, H.R. McMaster served as the 25th National Security Advisor between February 2017 to March 2018. His account of his time in the White House is described with typical balance and candour in At War With Ourselves. Consultation, bringing top leaders together and getting them to thrash out what the problem is and what one should do about it, and then to issue directives to a (sometimes) reluctant bureaucracy, that was his recipe. In this episode, he describes how the National Security Strategy of 2017 was negotiated during his time in office, the methodology, some of its main tenets, and how it was translated into policy making. And how an historical perspective offers lessons and consolation today. A historian by training, he has a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the flaws and inadequacies of U.S. strategy in the Vietnam War, and now lectures at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He hosts the podcast series Battlegrounds: Vital Perspectives on Today’s Challenges and is a regular on GoodFellows, both of which are produced by the Hoover Institution. He is a Distinguished University Fellow at Arizona State University.
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S5E6: Trenchard and the Royal Air Force: Creation, Innovation and Power with Dr Harry Raffal
12/17/2024
S5E6: Trenchard and the Royal Air Force: Creation, Innovation and Power with Dr Harry Raffal
The world’s first independent air force owes its survival and shape to its ‘father’, Hugh Trenchard. We explore how with the RAF Museum’s Dr Harry Raffal. Described as ‘the architect and patron saint of modern air power’, Marshal of the RAF Viscount Hugh Trenchard (1873–1956) was the first Chief of the Air Staff (January–April 1918 and 1919–1930). An army officer badly wounded in the Boer War, he was among the first British military pilots and the frontline commander of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. The RAF was formed on 1 April 1918, and Trenchard set firm foundations for its survival and development, often against bitter hostility from the other Services. His administrative skills, realism, tenacity and willingness to be unpopular created an organisation that saved the nation during the Battle of Britain. His friend TE Lawrence (Season 3, Episode 7) argued that ‘The RAF is the finest individual effort in history. No other man has been given a blank sheet and told to make a Service from the ground up. It is your single work…’ Following retirement from the RAF, Trenchard was appointed as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, where he set about a substantial reform agenda with the same single-mindedness. Dr Harry Raffal is Head of Collections and Research at the RAF Museum. His doctorate, from the University of Hull, explores RAF and Luftwaffe operations during the evacuation of Dunkirk. He is a Committee member of the RAF Historical Society and the British Commission for Military History, and Vice-Chair of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Aeronautical Heritage Group.
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S5E5: Santa Cruz De Marcenado - Spain's Clausewitz
12/03/2024
S5E5: Santa Cruz De Marcenado - Spain's Clausewitz
The 3rd Marquess of Santa Cruz de Marcenado (1684–1732), soldier, diplomat and scholar, pioneered humanist ways to prevent or suppress insurgencies in his Military Reflections. In his time, Marcenado was the most widely read Spanish author on war. He drew on his own rich experiences of the Spanish War of Succession to complement his erudition based on existing publications from antiquity to the Age of Enlightenment. In a work comprising 11 volumes, he examined subjects ranging from the ethical question of whether it is right to go to war, to the leadership qualities required in a general, to the merits and dangers of battle or the recruitment of soldiers. Intended as guidance for practitioners, his work set standards in both erudition and the human approach to war. This applies particularly to his thoughts on how to prevent, contain or pacify insurgencies. Marcenado was also a diplomat charged with negotiating on behalf of his kingdom to end the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727. His writing on war thus transcends the merely military, and the greater political dimension behind it can already be discerned. Dr Pelayo Fernández García of the University of Oviedo – our guest for this episode – is the greatest living expert on this Spanish thinker and practitioner, whose ideas are strikingly modern even for our times.
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S5E4: Turning Around a Defeated Army: Field Marshall William Slim, with Dr Robert Lyman MBE
11/19/2024
S5E4: Turning Around a Defeated Army: Field Marshall William Slim, with Dr Robert Lyman MBE
Voted Britain’s ‘greatest general’ by the National Army Museum in 2011, ‘Uncle Bill’ Slim led the XIVth Army from defeat to victory. Dr Robert Lyman tells us about Slim’s strategic leadership. Field Marshal William Slim (1891–1970) is famous for transforming troops who had retreated almost 1,000 miles through Burma pursued by the Japanese Army into a force that emerged from the Second World War victorious. Whether in defeat – where his leadership ensured his forces maintained their order and discipline – or in the campaign that led to their victory, his men loved him, giving him the affectionate title ‘Uncle Bill’. To have achieved this is all the more remarkable given the diversity of forces under his command. A master of combined and joint warfare, his forces included African, American, British, Chinese, Gurkha and Indian troops, and his ability to integrate air into his campaign predates – but acts as an exemplar for – the relationships needed for the air-land battle. Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten stated about our subject that: “Whenever leadership is spoken of or written about, tribute is regularly paid to his supreme qualities as the finest leader of fighting men in the Second World War”. Our guest, Dr Robert Lyman MBE, agrees with this; he is a former officer in the British Army and a renowned author. His books include a biography of William Slim – Slim, Master of War (Constable & Robinson, 2004); a record of the Battle of Kohima (Kohima, 1944, published by Osprey Press, 2010); and, with General Lord Richard Dannatt, Victory to Defeat (Osprey, 2023). Dr Lyman is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
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S5E3: Katsu Kaishū and the Foundations of the Modern Japanese Navy
11/05/2024
S5E3: Katsu Kaishū and the Foundations of the Modern Japanese Navy
In this episode we discuss Admiral Katsu Kaishū’s transformation of the modern Japanese navy into a force that defeated the Russians in 1905. For 200 years, Japan was largely isolated from the world. By the 19th century, as countries in Europe and North America were expanding into its neighbourhood, Japan’s military capability had atrophied. In response, the Tokugawa Shogunate created a navy in 1853 and Katsu became a naval officer. Trained by the Dutch, he became an expert in Western gunnery and commanded the Kanrin Maru on the first deployment of a Japanese warship to a Western port. There he could observe how a Western navy worked – ideas he brought back to Japan as the basis for the modern Japanese Navy. By 1867, under the Meiji government, he was responsible for overseeing the Navy’s transition from sail to steam technology. He introduced profound changes to the Navy’s organisation, strategy and tactics, including shore-based defences, harbours, shipyards and human resource systems that allowed access to the talent needed by a more technological service. Ultimately, the foundations he laid helped the Japanese defeat the Russian Navy at the battle of Tsushima in 1905. Commander Dr Hiroyuki Kanazawa, our first guest for this episode, serves in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, and his PhD examines the Japanese Navy in the Late Tokugawa Period (1853–1868). Dr Haruo Tohmatsu, our other participant, is Professor of Diplomatic and War History at the National Defense Academy. His PhD in Politics and International Relations is from the University of Oxford. He has published numerous works in English, including Pearl Harbor (London: Cassell, 2001) and World War Zero: The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
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S5E2: Radical Reform of the US Marine Corps: General Alfred Mason Gray
10/22/2024
S5E2: Radical Reform of the US Marine Corps: General Alfred Mason Gray
Lieutenant General George Flynn describes how his friend and former boss General Gray, the 29th Commandant, transformed the US Marine Corps’ warfighting, ethos and capabilities. General Alfred Mason Gray Jnr (1928–2024) was not the most obvious choice to lead the US Marine Corps when he became its 29th Commandant in 1987, but he succeeded in transforming the Corps into one of the world’s premier fighting forces. He moved the Corps’ culture and ethos towards one that prioritised manoeuvre warfare, in which all Marines became warfighters first and foremost. His changes included new processes and equipment, but were primarily focused on the human – a conceptual transformation as much as it was a transformation of capabilities. He embraced the indirect approach from Basil Liddell Hart (Season 2 Episode 10) and John Boyd (Season 1 Episode 7), as well as William Lind’s thinking on dislocating adversary decision-making that was so effective in the 1991 Gulf War, yet he situated these inside the Marine Corps’ traditions and values. Lieutenant General George Flynn (retd) served in the US Marine Corps for 38 years, including as General Gray’s aide in 1989–1991, as Chief of Staff at Special Operations Command and as Deputy Commander Multinational Corps Iraq, and created the Joint Force Development Directorate at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now on the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute, he is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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S5E1: Leading a Defence Startup: NATO’s First Secretary General, Lord Ismay
10/08/2024
S5E1: Leading a Defence Startup: NATO’s First Secretary General, Lord Ismay
NATO’s first Secretary General, Hastings Ismay, profoundly shaped today’s Alliance. Join us to discuss his legacy with his latest biographer, Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely. Hastings (Pug) Ismay was a general who never commanded beyond lieutenant colonel, rising through the ranks as a staff officer. This brought him into contact with politicians, like Churchill, and senior military commanders such as General Eisenhower, with whom he formed an enduring friendship. After retirement from the Army, Ismay briefly became a minister before serving as NATO Secretary General, 1952-1957. His time in office saw many challenges - the Soviet invasion of Hungary, Suez, the Cyprus Crisis of 1963-64 and the death of Stalin. Steering NATO through these crises required judgement, patience and humility. His legacy is that of NATO with a strong central headquarters connecting its political and military dimensions, and organisation with a global security perspective and a Secretary General who remains the servant of the Alliance. Our guest this episode, Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely , served in the British Army for 40 years, including in the 1982 Falklands War for which he was awarded the Military Cross, in Bosnia and Iraq. His book ‘Anatomy of a Campaign: The British Fiasco in Norway 1940’ won RUSI’s inaugural Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History. His latest book, ‘General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay: Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat’ was published in 2024.
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S4E21: Strategy’s Human Dimension, with Baroness Neville-Jones
04/09/2024
S4E21: Strategy’s Human Dimension, with Baroness Neville-Jones
To conclude Season Four of Talking Strategy, we talk to long-serving diplomat, policy adviser and politician The Rt Hon Baroness Neville-Jones. With intimate experience of the functioning of governments and the EU, Lady Neville-Jones compares the respective organisational cultures and human side of strategy, drawing on lessons from her career. Pauline Neville-Jones joined the British diplomatic service in 1963. She was posted in places as varied as Rhodesia, Singapore, Bonn, Washington and the European Commission. From the 1990s onwards her postings were specifically concerned with defence matters. She was head of the Defence and Overseas Secretariat of the Cabinet Office from 1991 to 1994, and during that time she also chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee. Subsequently, she was Political Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 1996, and in that capacity negotiated the 1995 Dayton Agreement on Bosnia on behalf of the UK. In the final episode of this season, Lady Neville-Jones reflects on the success of the Dayton Agreement: was it ‘good enough’? Was anything better in the offing? And on relations with Russia: did the West ‘lose’ Moscow in the 1990s? Tune in to hear her advice to practitioners.
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S4E20: Moshe Dayan, Master of Emergent Strategy? With Professor Eitan Shamir
03/26/2024
S4E20: Moshe Dayan, Master of Emergent Strategy? With Professor Eitan Shamir
Moshe Dayan (1915-1981) is a controversial figure in Israeli politics. Revered by some as a master strategist, he is criticised by others for his failure to foresee Egypt’s attack in 1973, and then for ‘giving up’ the Sinai in return for a peace treaty. Strategy-making can take two approaches. The first, ‘Deliberate Strategy’, is formulated and implemented hierarchically and centrally; decisions are taken by the head of the organisation, and detailed plans and instructions are issued to those responsible for implementation. The alternative model, ‘Emergent Strategy’, is characterised by its flexibility on ends as well as ways and means. This week’s guest, Professor Eitan Shamir, is the Director of the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies of Bar Ilan University, argues that Moshe Dayan was a strategist who took the second approach. Professor Shamir is the author of a new biography entitled “Moshe Dayan: The Making of a Strategist” (2023, in Hebrew, and due to be published in English in 2024 by Cambridge University Press) and, with Beatrice, edited Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies: National Styles and Strategic Cultures (CUP, 2017).
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S4E19: Arthur Tedder: A Coalition Strategist of War and Warfare with Air Marshal Edward Stringer
03/12/2024
S4E19: Arthur Tedder: A Coalition Strategist of War and Warfare with Air Marshal Edward Stringer
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur Tedder was General Eisenhower’s Deputy as Supreme Commander for Operation Overlord during the Second World War. A quiet and thoughtful leader, Tedder understood the difference between war and warfare and carefully orchestrated his campaigns – including the transportation plan concerning D-Day – in an alliance context to great effect. Tedder’s strategic leadership can be characterised as understated and thoughtful, underpinned by his ability to manage relationships with allies and experts to get the most from each. He also understood the importance of waging war economically in a way that exploited logistics capacity as a critical enabler for his own forces and as a means of weakening his enemies. Despite the Allied victory, after the Second World War he recognised the weaknesses that loomed. This week’s guest, Air Marshal Edward Stringer, was the air component commander for NATO's operation in Libya in 2011, the Director of Operations in the UK Ministry of Defence and the UK liaison officer to the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. In his last role, he was Director General Joint Force Development. Since retirement, he has become an expert commentator and writer on defence, defence strategy and air power.
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S4E18: Qasim Soleimani and the Strategy of Militant Proxies with Dr Afshon Ostovar
02/27/2024
S4E18: Qasim Soleimani and the Strategy of Militant Proxies with Dr Afshon Ostovar
Qasim Soleimani was arguably Iran’s most important military leader in modern history. He moved Iran’s overall strategy from a direct approach to an indirect one of proxy warfare using non-state actors. Born in 1957, General Soleimani rose from a humble background to become a key commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His experience of the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–88 gave him a desire to avoid another high-casualty conflict. Instead, he developed a proxy war approach that was much less costly to Iran, using Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and later Hamas to put pressure on Israel and the US. Soleimani was killed in a targeted strike by US forces in January 2020, which made him a martyr in Iran. Dr Afshon Ostovar, Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School, joins Beatrice and Paul for this episode. A graduate of the Universities of Arizona and Michigan, he was a Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, worked for the US Department of Defense, and taught at Johns Hopkins University. His book on the Revolutionary Guards examines the rise of Iran’s most powerful armed force and its role in regional conflicts and political violence.
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S4E17: José de San Martín: the Hannibal of Latin America? with Lieutenant General Diego Suñer
02/13/2024
S4E17: José de San Martín: the Hannibal of Latin America? with Lieutenant General Diego Suñer
José de San Martín gained his military experience serving Spain and fighting the French, sometimes with the British,meeting Wellington, Beresford, and Napoleon. Having served for 22 years in the Spanish Army, Jose de San Martin brilliantly led the armies that overthrew the Spanish to liberate the southern countries of South America. With naval experience, in coordination with former British naval officer Thomas, Lord Cochrane, he worked out how maritime and land forces could support each other, catching the Spanish colonial forces between simulated naval attacks on the one hand and land attacks on the other, forcing them to divide their forces. With technology no different from that available to Hannibal, San Martín crossed the Andes, a mountain range far higher than the Alps (admittedly with horses and mules, not elephants!). Joining us to talk about this national hero of Argentina, Chile and Peru is Lt Gen Diego Luis Suñer, Chief of the Argentine Army from 2016-2018. General Suñer joined the Army in 1979 and retired after 40 years' service in which he commanded multinational troops in Ecuador and Peru, attended the United States Army Command and Staff Course and was a professor at the Argentine Army’s Higher School of War.
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S4E16: Alanbrooke, Churchill’s Right-Hand General with Dr Andrew Sangster
01/30/2024
S4E16: Alanbrooke, Churchill’s Right-Hand General with Dr Andrew Sangster
The relationship between Winston Churchill and his leading military advisor, the abrasive General ‘Shrapnel’ Alan Brooke (1883–1963), was one of the most productive yet tensest in the history of civil-military relations. This episode delves into some of their strategic debates. Viscount Alanbrooke’s relationship with Churchill was famously rocky, yet the two leaders trusted one another. It was due to Brooke’s influence that the Americans were persuaded to drop their plan to liberate Italy by starting off with a campaign to take Sardinia and to go for Sicily instead, and he also talked Churchill into dropping plans for an operation in Indonesia. The guest for this episode is Dr Andrew Sangster, an historian and Anglican priest and the author of 17 books, including an acclaimed biography of Alanbrooke. His next book, From Plato to Putin, discusses the causes and ethical dilemmas of war.
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S4E15: Generals Lee and Grant: Great Strategists of the American Civil War with Dr Christian Keller
01/16/2024
S4E15: Generals Lee and Grant: Great Strategists of the American Civil War with Dr Christian Keller
Generals Ulysses S Grant and Robert E Lee commanded the opposing armies in the American Civil War, each the greatest military leader of their own side. Products of the Academy at West Point, they were both expert tacticians and, most importantly, understood their sides’ strategic goals, limitations and opportunities, and led them accordingly. But Grant only really took charge in 1863, two years into the war. Had one of his predecessors still been in command, might the South have won? Join us to find out whether it might have, and why it did not. Joining Beatrice and Paul for this episode is Dr Christian Keller, Professor of History and Director of the Military History Programme of the Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States Army War College. Dr Keller is the award-winning author of The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy, and is also the host of The Civil War Strategy Podcast. In 2017 he was named the General Dwight D Eisenhower Chair of National Security.
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S4E14: Lord Peach: Evolving, Adopting and Adapting Alliance Strategy
01/02/2024
S4E14: Lord Peach: Evolving, Adopting and Adapting Alliance Strategy
Air Chief Marshal Lord Peach, the former Chair of NATO’s Military Committee and architect of NATO’s first new military strategy in 50 years, joins us to discuss the process of strategy-making in an Alliance context. Lord Peach is the UK’s most experienced officer, having served in key 4-star appointments, including as the UK’s Chief of the Defence Staff (2016–18) and as the 32nd Chair of the NATO Military Committee (2018–21). He led the NATO military staffs through the creation of NATO’s new Military Strategy and the family of plans that sit beneath it. He is now the UK’s Special Envoy to the Balkans. In conversation, he offers insights into the challenges and strengths of Alliance strategy-making in NATO. In his view, while NATO requires unanimity for the adoption of any new decision, this is not only possible, but vital. It is a strength rather than the weakness some, less familiar with the organisation, perceive it to be. However, once unanimously adopted, a strategy must cope with ambiguity and evolve before it is adapted to ever-changing, and inevitably ambiguous, circumstances.
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S4E13: Sergey Gorshkov, Architect of the Soviet Navy with Captain (ret.) Dr Kevin Rowlands
12/19/2023
S4E13: Sergey Gorshkov, Architect of the Soviet Navy with Captain (ret.) Dr Kevin Rowlands
Admiral Sergey Georgyevich Gorshkov (1910–1988) was a celebrated hero of the so-called Great Fatherland War (1941–1945). He was Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy from 1956 until 1985, which he built up to be a navy fit for a superpower with global ambitions. He also furnished the navy’s theoretical strategic underpinnings through a series of publications which were studied closely by friends and foes alike. The navy that Gorshkov inherited was significantly smaller than that of the USSR’s main competitor, the US. Gorshkov turned this navy into a strong defensive force that could keep US nuclear submarines at bay. But he also wanted his navy to project Soviet power globally. In this episode, Beatrice and Paul and joined by Captain (ret.) Dr Kevin Rowlands, Head of the Royal Navy’s Strategic Studies Centre. Captain Rowlands spent 30 years in the Royal Navy, both at sea and in positions such as Secretary to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and was the Course Director for the UK’s Advanced Command and Staff Course.
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S4E12: Tecumseh: America’s First Whole-of-Society Strategy with Dr Kori Schake
12/05/2023
S4E12: Tecumseh: America’s First Whole-of-Society Strategy with Dr Kori Schake
In an epic achievement, Shawnee chief Tecumseh (1768–1813) brought together warring Native American tribes to stand up against the European settlers as they were pushing further West. His strategy included coalitions and the mobilisation of society as America had never seen before. In this episode, Beatrice and Paul are joined by Dr Kori Schake, Director of Foreign and Defence Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Tecumseh, initially just the younger brother of a Shawnee chief, rose to fame along with his younger brother Tenskwatawa, a shamanic figure. Together they launched a movement that bridged age-old divisions among the Native American tribes. Social reforms – the repudiation of European imports such as alcohol, and a return to native customs – went hand in hand with political mobilisation and then military operations to roll back the encroachment of European settlements on Native American territory. Dr Schake has developed a passion for the Shawnee chief. She is a practitioner of strategy, having served in several high positions in the US Defense and State Departments and on the National Security Council. She was a foreign policy adviser to the McCain-Palin 2008 presidential campaign and has previously held the Distinguished Chair of International Security Studies at West Point.
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S4E11: Napoleon Bonaparte: Soldier, Strategist, Emperor with Professor Alan Forrest
11/21/2023
S4E11: Napoleon Bonaparte: Soldier, Strategist, Emperor with Professor Alan Forrest
Napoleon is admired as one of the greatest strategists ever; he won most of his battles and dictated the terms of the peace treaties that ended his individual wars. Yet in the end, he was defeated, and his empire fell apart. So how great a strategist was he really? Napoleon’s ‘system of war’ remained the point of reference for generations, interpreted and publicised by Jomini and Clausewitz. Professor Alan Forrest joins Beatrice and Paul for this episode. A graduate of Aberdeen and Oxford, he was formerly the Chair of Modern History at York University, where he taught from 1989 to 2012. A prolific author, he is the general editor of a 2023 three-volume Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars.
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S4E10: Michiel de Ruyter: The Modest Admiral Who Kept the English at Bay with Dr David 'J.D.' Davis
11/07/2023
S4E10: Michiel de Ruyter: The Modest Admiral Who Kept the English at Bay with Dr David 'J.D.' Davis
Hailing from humble origins, Michiel Adrienszoon was later given the surname de Ruyter, the ‘raider’. His greatest triumph was the Battle of Solebay in 1672. There he launched a pre-emptive strike against and defeated the English fleet as it prepared to attack the Netherlands jointly with the French. Originally a merchant sailor, Michiel de Ruyter operated in waters from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. A reluctant hero and an apolitical figure, he loyally served the Dutch Republic under Jan de Witt and subsequently William III of Orange. De Ruyter is most famous in England for inflicting on the Royal Navy its most embarrassing defeat of the 17th century in the raid on Chatham in 1667. The guest for this episode, David ‘JD’ Davies, is the chairman of the Society for Nautical Research and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. A prize-winning and bestselling author, he specialises principally in the early history of the Royal Navy. His most acclaimed scholarly non-fiction books include Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare 1649-89 and Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Royal Navy. His series of naval fiction set in the 17th century, The Journals of Matthew Quinton, was described by The Times as ‘a series of real panache’, and he has also published a trilogy set in Tudor times around the fictional character of Jack Stannard.
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