Western Way of War

Professor Eliot Cohen, the doyen of grand strategy, talks to Peter Roberts about how the Western idea of war and warfare has changed to one with a 'purposive' nature, reflecting a society unaccustomed to the destruction and chaos of combat, and dissects the important questions that political leaders should be posing to military commanders, but rarely do.

Dr Jenni Cole, biological anthropologist and public health policy guru, talks to Peter Roberts about pandemics, climate change and civil defence. The discussion covers the psychological barriers of the 'Dragons of Inaction', as well as why the military must learn to include better CivPop participation in their exercises. A must for those starting staff college soon.

Opening Season 3 of the podcast, Peter Roberts talks to General (retd) James Mattis, US Marine Corps, former US Secretary of Defense, about the military as guardians of values, war as a chameleon, celebrating mavericks, and attitude as the primary weapons system of successful militaries.

WWOW host Peter Roberts covers the five big themes of Season 2: The American Way of War – what went wrong and course corrections; continuity of concepts rather than radical change; systemic challenges in constructing concepts of fighting; how adversaries are preparing to fight wars; and the problems in ending conflicts. There is more optimism than you might expect and, with some of the most popular bits from the last six months, this smash-up of ‘everything warfare’ might go down a little bit like marmite.

RUSI Land Warfare scholar Jack Watling talks to Peter Roberts about the conclusions from his paper on the challenges facing Special Forces over the coming two decades. With the threat from state competitors now exceeding that of non-state actors, he explains that Special Forces will need to adapt their ways of operating, missions and tasking. This is backed with lessons from history and an analysis of alternative force models, offering new solutions to decision-makers.

Many governments watched the display of US military power in 1991, and again in 2003, and were awestruck. For some, this was a wake-up call that had far reaching consequences. Elsa B Kania, China military expert at the Center for a New American Security, explains the significance to Peter Roberts in terms of People’s Liberation Army modernisation across fighting arms, as well as how we need to understand potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses based on the slower accompanying cultural change among those in uniform in China.

The Russian military’s build-up around Ukraine between February and April 2021 was the topic of much media speculation. Russia analyst Michael Kofman and Peter Roberts pull apart the military timelines and deployments, drawing insights to better shape the Western way of war for the future.

Emma Sky, Political Advisor to US Generals Odierno and Petraeus between 2007 and 2010, talks to Peter Roberts about what we need to learn from our experiences of endless wars in the Middle East and how to utilise that in an era of strategic competition with China.

As modern military systems increasingly rely on software coding to achieve virtual effects, the question of how one knows whether these weapons work becomes more difficult to answer – at least when compared to the old physical testing that validated weapons systems. Retired US Navy Rear Admiral Archer Macy talks to Peter Roberts about testing and evaluation, the pathological state of machines and our need for evidence.

The 18th Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, talks to Peter Roberts about how to deal with tensions and friction in civil–military relations within alliances. The discussion starts with why status quo powers are not as effective in using their power to shape conflict as revolutionary ones, and  turns into a lament on how any compromise has become regarded as a failure.

Former US Under Secretary for Defence for Policy Michèle Flournoy talks to Peter Roberts about technology, concepts, young minds and competitive spaces in warfare. The conversation is predicated on the idea of obeying the just war principles until deterrence fails. Thereafter, we (the West) want a distinctly unfair fight.

Peter Maurer, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, sees no distinction between how the West and other belligerents wage war. In discussion with Professor Peter Roberts, Dr Maurer evinces a grimmer reality in which the cumulative effects of climate change, poverty and poor governance combine with the ‘democratisation’ of access to sophisticated weapons, which are now held by a multitude of actors. The result is a modern battlefield torn asunder by precision weapons, one which more resembles Armageddon than ideas of the beautiful ’surgical’ use of force that are often rehashed by military and political leaders. Sobering stuff. 

The truth universally acknowledged is that Western militaries seem to deliberately discard useful experience faster than they can accumulate it. Changing such a process in a way that builds better military capability requires leadership, not management. Such lessons can be learned faster under fire, according to Ben Barry in this conversation with Peter Roberts.

Western military personnel often feel that laws restrict the way they can undertake warfare. Dr Janina Dill, Oxford University's expert in war law and ethics, explains why this restrictive view is wrong and how law can empower tactics on the battlefield. Peter Roberts explores with her how law can enable more than it already does on operations, in ways currently more familiar to Russian and Chinese military commanders than to Western ones. This is as much a philosophical conversation as it is a legal one. Be prepared to grapple with your conscience.

Since war is a reciprocal relationship with the enemy, the idea of a Western Way of Warfare which is detached or abstract from the human adversary is nonsense, argues Sir Hew Strachan.  In conversation with Peter Roberts, one of Britain's foremost military historians discusses 'Carnage and Culture', decisive battles, mobilising societies, fear, loathing and death as a choice on the battlefield.  Sobering stuff.

If the Greeks invented a national style of fighting (according to Herodotus), which the French followed (with élan and martial virtues), and the British deviated from (with the indirect approach), whatever happened to the idea that democracies favour defence over offence? That question, posed by Professor Beatrice Heuser of Glasgow University, starts a fast-paced conversation with Peter Roberts that culminates in a rejoinder that a good peace treaty does not necessarily make for a good peace. Interested in these juxtapositions? Grab your notebook.

Manoeuvre warfare, the manoeuvrist approach, and manoeuverism as military concepts have been revered by Western militaries for half a century, while their lesser-known brethren concepts such as positional and attrition warfare have long been forgotten. Peter Roberts and Amos Fox, a US military theorist, reflect on contemporary conflict against these paradigms and draw some interesting and unexpected conclusions.

Peter Roberts talks to veteran Welsh politician and former President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Madeleine Moon about her reflections on two decades of handling political-military relations, and on the challenge of answering the desire for engagement by younger generations.

Since the Ukraine war of 2014, most Western governments have classified any hostile challenge as 'hybrid', 'sub-threshold', or as actions belonging to the 'grey zone' space, be those of 'little green men' seizing a TV station, or mechanized divisions invading another country. Why is the West so surprised, confused or bamboozled by the actions of competitors? Peter Roberts talks to UK psychological operations expert Ewan Lawson about lazy language, the digital revolution, and the struggle to find coherent responses (and not solely military ones).