From the editors

A constant theme in the study of strategy is the relationship between technology and war. While some hold that scientific leaps periodically revolutionise warfare and render old thinking obsolete, sceptics point to the way in which militaries regularly integrate new technologies and domains into their force structures and to the enduring relevance of the classics of strategic thought. Our first three articles strike a sceptical tone.¹

In ‘Looking back to look forward: Autonomous systems, military revolutions, and the importance of cost’, Jacquelyn Schneider of Stanford University and Julia Macdonald of the University of Denver shift the debate about the revolutionary impact of autonomous systems away from the focus on innovation. According to them, what makes autonomous weapons valuable is their potential to cut the economic costs and political risks of using force.² Similarly, Anthony King of Exeter University challenges the idea that future war will be waged through waves of drones.³ In ‘Robot wars: Autonomous drone swarms and the battlefield of the future’, he concludes that technology boosters overestimate the capacity of autonomous swarms to achieve results, underestimate the reliance of swarms on other systems, including human operators, and presume that drones favour the offensive.⁴ In ‘Technological determinism or strategic advantage? Comparing the two Karabakh Wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan’, Vicken Cheterian of the University of Geneva likewise pours cold water on theories of future victory premised on innovative technologies and battlefield transformation. His comparison of the First and the Second Karabakh War reveals that a range of political, diplomatic and military factors are needed to explain the Azerbaijani army 2020 victory over Armenian forces.

The remaining articles in this issue touch on themes of current relevance. In ‘Protecting civilians or preserving NATO? Alliance entanglement and the Bosnian safe areas’, Stefano Recchia of Southern Methodist University reminds readers of the importance of alliance politics.⁵ As his archival study shows, French, British and American officials supported the policy of safe areas in the Bosnian conflict not because they thought they could be kept safe but because the policy would bind the allies to continuing the military intervention. In ‘Success defying all expectations: How and why limited use of force helped to end Somali piracy’, Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College and Troels Burchall Henningsen of the University of Southern Denmark show how a multi-national naval effort can counter efforts to disrupt the flow of commercial traffic at sea.⁶ According to them, success against Somali piracy required great power leadership, international, regional and local level political support, effective military forces and the limited application of force. Finally, in ‘Beyond Defection: Explaining the Tunisian and Egyptian militaries’ divergent roles in the Arab Spring’, Risa Brooks of Marquette University compares the role of Tunisian and Egyptian armed forces during the Arab Spring. Most accounts emphasize that neither force opened fire on protesters, but that the Egyptian army took a much more active hand in determining the political fate of the regime and the political future of the country. However, Brooks shows that the Tunisian army also played an expressly (if less obvious) political part in ending the country’s autocratic regime in 2011. This comparison, Brooks argues, suggests that scholars of civil-military relations in authoritarian regimes should look beyond the mechanisms of coup proofing to appreciate how militaries behave.

This issue closes with a review of Melvyn Leffler’s Confronting Saddam Hussein (2023), in which Campbell Craig of Cardiff University challenges the author’s argument that the George W. Bush administration acted out of a genuine belief that Iraq presented a serious threat to the United States. Leffler’s book and Craig’s review essay will no doubt provoke further debate about the origins and wisdom of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

– The Editors

Notes

¹ For recent contributions to this debate, see Todd S. Sechser, Neil Narang & Caitlin Talmadge, ‘Emerging technologies and strategic stability in peacetime, crisis, and war’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/6 (2019), 727–735; Ben Garfinkel & Allan Dafoe, ‘How does the offense-defense balance scale?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 42/6 (2019), 736–763; Michael C. Horowitz, ‘When speed kills: Lethal autonomous weapon systems, deterrence and stability’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/6 (2019), 764–788; Heather Williams, ‘Asymmetric arms control and strategic stability: Scenarios for limiting hypersonic glide vehicles’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/6 (2019), 789–813; Tristan A. Volpe, ‘Dual-use distinguishability: How 3D-printing shapes the security dilemma for nuclear programs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/6 (2019), 814–840; Jacquelyn Schneider, ‘The capability/vulnerability paradox and military revolutions: Implications for computing, cyber, and the onset of war’, 841–863; Caitlin Talmadge, ‘Emerging technology and intra-war escalation risks: Evidence from the Cold War, implications for today’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/6 (2019), 864–887; Samuel Zilincik, ‘Technology is awesome, but so what?! Exploring the relevance of technologically inspired awe to the construction of military theories’, Journal of Strategic Studies 45/1 (2022), 5–32; Cameron Hunter & Bleddyn E. Bowen, ‘We’ll never have a model of an AI major-general: Artificial Intelligence, command decisions, and kitsch visions of war’, Journal of Strategic Studies 47/1 (2024), 116–146.

² On the political risks of drone warfare also see Erik Gartzke, ‘Blood and robots: How remotely piloted vehicles and related technologies affect the politics of violence’, Journal of Strategic Studies 44/7 (2021), 983–1013.

³ For his earlier contribution to discussions of future war, see Anthony King, ‘Will inter-state war take place in cities?’, Journal of Strategic Studies 45/1 (2022), 69–95.

⁴ Also see Amy Zegart, ‘Cheap fights, credible threats: The future of armed drones and coercion’, Journal of Strategic Studies 43/1 (2020), 6–46.

⁵ On NATO alliance politics, also see Jeffrey H. Michaels, ‘No annihilation without representation’: NATO nuclear use decision-making during the Cold War Journal of Strategic Studies 46/5 (2023), 1010–1036.

⁶ For additional recent work on Somalia, see Stefano Recchia, ‘Pragmatism over principle: US intervention and burden shifting in Somalia, 1992–1993’, Journal of Strategic Studies 43/3 (2020), 341–365; Paul D. Williams, ‘Building the Somali National Army: Anatomy of a failure, 2008–2018’ Journal of Strategic Studies 43/3 (2020), 366–391.