Actually, Military Strategy Is Like Battleship

Game Theory -- John Arquilla, Foreign Policy

Actually, military strategy is like Battleship.

In the final candidates' debate last week, President Obama delivered a telling, somewhat snarky zinger in response to Governor Romney's call for naval expansion: "This isn't ‘Battleship.'" He then went on to school Romney about how having some aircraft carriers and submarines means we don't need more ships. The governor had no adequate reply.

But the fact of the matter is that the old "Battleship" board game -- not the more recent movie flop that was somehow based on it -- offers exactly the right metaphor to describe strategic affairs in the information age. "Battleship" does so by capturing the distilled essence of naval operations today: the hider/finder dynamic.

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My Comment: I completely agree with this author's analysis .... read it all. And yes .... as a kid .... I loved playing Battleship.

Ten Books That Are Better Than The Art Of War

Guerrilla Lit 101: Ten Books That Are Better Than The Art Of War -- John Arquilla, Foreign Policy

West Point's recently released list of the top 10 military classics is replete with doorstop-sized accounts of conflict from ancient to relatively modern times -- but almost completely neglects insurgency, terrorism, and other forms of irregular warfare. The U.S. Military Academy's list does a fine job of capturing the "horizontal" dynamic of clashes of roughly equal great powers armed with the most advanced weapons. But the history and shape of the world system have been just as influenced by the "vertical" axis -- the unequal struggles that have seen guerrillas, bandits, and commandos waging "wars of the knife" against empires and nations. And it is this latter mode of conflict that has dominated world affairs for the past half-century -- and will likely do so for at least a century to come.

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My Comment: An impressive list of books .... now I wish had the time to read and study them.