"Stephen Biddle's "Military Power" is one of the most important contributions to strategic studies in recent decades. Presenting a very powerful case for a very surprising argument on a very important question, it will be controversial in some quarters, but critics will be hard-pressed to refute the case."--Richard K. Betts, Columbia University, author of "Military Readiness"

"Fascinating, precisely written, indeed, brilliant, "Military Power" is among the most important books ever published on modern warfare. Stephen Biddle fundamentally rethinks the causes of victory and defeat in modern war and challenges almost the entire corpus of scholarship on assessing force capability and the role of offense and defense in determining war outcomes. Presenting his argument with power, balance, and subtlety, he synthesizes many partial historical explanations and provides a basis for understanding why so many 'rules of thumb' and other explanations are misleading. A landmark work."--Lynn Eden, Stanford University, author of "Whole World on Fire"

"Steve Biddle may be the best American defense analyst of his generation, and this book is quite possibly his career masterpiece to date. Few are as well qualified as Biddle to weave together vivid descriptions of the modern battlefield, clear explanations of historical lessons, a detailed understanding of defense technology, and a sophisticated use of military models and war games. Biddle does all these things, helping the reader understand modern warfare more than does any other book on the market. His argument about trends in warfare transcends the popular theory that a revolution in military affairs is now underway. He replaces this theory witha more convincing, more historical, and less technology-obsessed view of the modern battlefield."--Michael O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

How nonstate military strategies overturn traditional perspectives on warfare Since September 11th, 2001, armed nonstate actors have received increased attention and discussion from scholars, policymakers, and the military. Underlying debates about nonstate warfare and how it should be countered is one crucial assumption: that state and nonstate actors fight very differently. In Nonstate Warfare, Stephen Biddle upturns this distinction, arguing that there is actually nothing intrinsic separating state or nonstate military behavior. Through an in-depth look at nonstate military conduct, Biddle shows that many nonstate armies now fight more "conventionally" than many state armies, and that the internal politics of nonstate actors-their institutional maturity and wartime stakes rather than their material weapons or equipment-determines tactics and strategies. Biddle frames nonstate and state methods along a continuum, spanning Fabian-style irregular warfare to Napoleonic-style warfare involving massed armies, and he presents a systematic theory to explain any given nonstate actor's position on this spectrum. Showing that most warfare for at least a century has kept to the blended middle of the spectrum, Biddle argues that material and tribal culture explanations for nonstate warfare methods do not adequately explain observed patterns of warmaking. Investigating a range of historical examples from Lebanon and Iraq to Somalia, Croatia, and the Vietcong, Biddle demonstrates that viewing state and nonstate warfighting as mutually exclusive can lead to errors in policy and scholarship. A comprehensive account of combat methods and military rationale, Nonstate Warfare offers a new understanding for wartime military behavior.

How nonstate military strategies overturn traditional perspectives on warfare Since September 11th, 2001, armed nonstate actors have received increased attention and discussion from scholars, policymakers, and the military. Underlying debates about nonstate warfare and how it should be countered is one crucial assumption: that state and nonstate actors fight very differently. In Nonstate Warfare, Stephen Biddle upturns this distinction, arguing that there is actually nothing intrinsic separating state or nonstate military behavior. Through an in-depth look at nonstate military conduct, Biddle shows that many nonstate armies now fight more "conventionally" than many state armies, and that the internal politics of nonstate actors-their institutional maturity and wartime stakes rather than their material weapons or equipment-determines tactics and strategies. Biddle frames nonstate and state methods along a continuum, spanning Fabian-style irregular warfare to Napoleonic-style warfare involving massed armies, and he presents a systematic theory to explain any given nonstate actor's position on this spectrum. Showing that most warfare for at least a century has kept to the blended middle of the spectrum, Biddle argues that material and tribal culture explanations for nonstate warfare methods do not adequately explain observed patterns of warmaking. Investigating a range of historical examples from Lebanon and Iraq to Somalia, Croatia, and the Vietcong, Biddle demonstrates that viewing state and nonstate warfighting as mutually exclusive can lead to errors in policy and scholarship. A comprehensive account of combat methods and military rationale, Nonstate Warfare offers a new understanding for wartime military behavior.

Many now see future warfare as a matter of nonstate actors employing irregular methods against Western states. This expectation has given rise to a range of sweeping proposals for transforming the U.S. military to meet such threats. In this context, Hezbollah's 2006 campaign in southern Lebanon has been receiving increasing attention as a prominent recent example of a nonstate actor fighting a Westernized state. In particular, critics of irregular-warfare transformation often cite the 2006 case as evidence that non-state actors can nevertheless wage conventional warfare in state-like ways. This monograph assesses this claim via a detailed analysis of Hezbollah's military behavior, coupled with deductive inference from observable Hezbollah behavior in the field to findings for their larger strategic intent for the campaign.

America's novel use of special operations forces, precision weapons, and indigenous allies has attracted widespread attention since its debut in Northern Afghanistan last fall. It has proven both influential and controversial. Many think it caused the Taliban's sudden collapse. For them, this "Afghan Model" represents warfare's future and should become the new template for U.S. defense planning. Critics, however, see Afghanistan as an anomaly-a non-repeatable product of local conditions. This monograph examines the Afghan Model's actual role in the fall of the Taliban, using evidence collected from a combination of 46 participant interviews, terrain inspection in Afghanistan, and written documentation from both official and unofficial sources. The author, Dr. Stephen Biddle, argues that neither of the main current interpretations is sound: Afghanistan offers important clues to warfare's future, but not the ones most people think. The campaign of 2001-02 was a surprisingly orthodox air-ground theater campaign in which heavy fire support decided a contest between two land armies. Of course, some elements were quite new. Precision firepower was available in unprecedented quantity and proved crucial for success; special operations forces served as the main effort in a theater of war. In an important sense, though, the differences were less salient than the continuities: the key to success in both Afghanistan and traditional joint warfare was the close interaction of fire and maneuver-neither of which was sufficient alone, and neither of which could succeed without sizeable ground forces trained and equipped at least as well as their opponents. In Afghanistan, our allies provided theseground forces for us; where others can do so, the Afghan Model can be expected to prevail. Hence Afghanistan is not unique. But not all future allies have armies trained and equipped to their enemies' standards. Without this, neither the bravery of our special operations forces nor the sophistication of our precision guided munitions (PGMs) can ensure an Afghan-like collapse in a resolute opponent-and this implies a very different set of policies for the armed forces and the Nation than many of those now prominent in the public debate on the war. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph as a contribution to the national security debate on this important subject. Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr. Director, Strategic Studies Institute