Does history repeat itself? This monograph clearly answers "no," firmly. However, it does not argue that an absence of repetition in the sense of analogy means that history can have no utility for the soldier today. This monograph argues for a "historical parallelism," in place of shaky or false analogy. The past, even the distant and ancient past, provides evidence of the potency of lasting virtues of good conduct. This monograph concludes by offering four recommendations: 1. Behave prudently. 2. Remember the concept of the great stream of time. 3. Do not forget that war nearly always is a gamble. 4. War should only be waged with strategic sense.

"Does history repeat itself? This monograph clearly answers 'no,' firmly. However, it does not argue that an absence of repetition in the sense of analogy means that history can have no utility for the soldier today. This monograph argues for a 'historical parallelism,' in place of shaky or false analogy. The past, even the distant and ancient past, provides evidence of the potency of lasting virtues of good conduct. This monograph concludes by offering four recommendations: 1. Behave prudently; 2. Remember the concept of the great stream of time; 3. Do not forget that war nearly always is a gamble; 4. War should only be waged with strategic sense"--Publisher's web site.

This monograph examines the potential utility of history as a source of education and possible guidance for the U.S. Army. The author considers the worth in the claim that since history (more accurately termed the past) is all done and gone, it can have no value for today as we try to look forward. This point of view did not find much favor here. The monograph argues that although history does not repeat itself in detail, it certainly does so roughly in parallel circumstances. Of course, much detail differs from one historical case to another, but nonetheless, there are commonly broad and possibly instructive parallels that can be drawn from virtually every period of history, concerning most circumstances. Contents: Should the U.S. Army Learn From History? Understanding the Past: A Foreign Country? Persisting Concerns and Enduring Hazards A Familiar Past? Parallels and Analogies What Changes and What Does Not? What Can the U.S. Army Learn From History? Recommendations for the U.S. Army

This monograph examines the potential utility of history as a source of education and possible guidance for the U.S. Army. The author considers the worth in the claim that since history (more accurately termed the past) is all done and gone, it can have no value for today as we try to look forward. This point of view did not find much favor here. The monograph argues that although history does not repeat itself in detail, it certainly does so roughly in parallel circumstances. Of course, much detail differs from one historical case to another, but nonetheless, there are commonly broad and possibly instructive parallels that can be drawn from virtually every period of history, concerning most circumstances. Contents: Should the U.S. Army Learn From History? Understanding the Past: A Foreign Country? Persisting Concerns and Enduring Hazards A Familiar Past? Parallels and Analogies What Changes and What Does Not? What Can the U.S. Army Learn From History? Recommendations for the U.S. Army

Strategic Intelligence is a form of meaning that promises the possibility of strategic advantage, dignity, the achievement of objective, and the fulfillment of potential in hostile environments. In The Cultural Roots of Strategic Intelligence Gino LaPaglia demonstrates that the strategic aspect of reason—arising in human experience, encoded as value, and born by culture as a strategic resource—has been encoded as values that have been memorialized in culturally authoritative sources in various Eurasian cultures for thousands of years. These sources have validated a strategic orientation in the world, legitimized the strategist as a heroic identity, and transmitted a coherent world view that enables the practitioner of strategy to overcome asymmetric threat. By excavating the provenance of strategic thought expressed in the cultural identity of the strategist in the most culturally authoritative mythological, literary, philosophical and religious sources, and excavating the underlying strategic values expressed in cultural products, LaPaglia demonstrates that the strategic aspect of human rationality is one of the most basic structural dynamics of human meaning, and that the transmission of this strategic way of being and acting in the world offers hope for life’s underdogs.

In this edited volume, authors seek to document and analyze how state and non-state actors leverage digital rhetoric as a twenty-first-century weapon of war. Rhet Ops offer readers a chance to focus on the human dimension of rhetorical practice within mobile technologies and social networks: to reflect not only on the durable question of what it means to conduct oneself ethically as a speaker or writer, but also what it means to learn the art of rhetoric as a means to engage adversaries in war and conflict.

For more than 3 decades, the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) Department of National Security and Strategy has faced the challenge of educating future strategic leaders on the subject of national security, or grand strategy. Fitting at the top of an officer's or government official's career-long professional development program, this challenge has been to design a course on strategy that incorporates its many facets in a short period of time, all within the 1-year, senior service college curriculum. To do this, a conceptual approach has provided the framework to think about strategy formulation. The purpose of this volume is to present the USAWC strategy formulation model to students and practitioners. This book serves as a guide to one method for the formulation, analysis, and study of strategy--an approach which we have found to be useful in providing generations of strategists with the conceptual tools to think systematically, strategically, critically, creatively, and big. Balancing what is described in the chapters as ends, ways, and means remains at the core of the Army War College's approach to national security and military strategy and strategy formulation.