War Plans Research Articles

Rationed Life: Science, Everyday Life, and Working-Class Politics in the Bohemian Lands, 1914–1918, by Rudolf Kučera

Rudolf Kučera’s 2013 Czech-language study of the fragmentation and re-constitution of the working class in the Bohemian lands in the First World War is now available in a clearly translated English-language edition, published by Berghahn Books (perhaps surprisingly, it is not part of their well-established ‘Austrian and Habsburg Studies’ series, although in approach and theme it is obviously a close cousin of many of the works featured there). Its subject is the attempt by planners to cope with wartime scarcity in Habsburg Bohemia. Something between a long essay and a monograph, it is a work of impressive intellectual sophistication and originality. Kučera’s central argument is that the First World War practically transformed into public policy long-existing scientific and rationalist discourses about the organisation of work and of workers. There seemed to exist in Habsburg war planners’ minds an ‘optimal work ratio’, the achievement of which would lead in turn to an optimal output from Czech workers, balanced, of course, against an efficient minimum of ‘inputs’. Calculations thus existed to determine the right amount of ‘fuel’ (that is, food) and work/rest balance workers would need in order to sustain themselves—oversupply in any of these fields could potentially undermine the Habsburg war economy. Kučera does not argue that there was a centralised masterplan to this process of rationalisation: this kind of power operated in a diffused, Foucaultian fashion. These were bodies of knowledge the origins of which were in the Enlightenment, but which were dormant or academic in nature until the advent of the war created an urgent need for their application in every conceivable field of the economy.

'Diplomatic Wallop': Nixon and the Return of Counterforce

In the early 1970s, US nuclear posture—the combination of weapons and war plans that comprised US nuclear capabilities—took a durable and confusing turn towards counterforce. This paper explains how and why. It was in the early 1970s that that the US began to work hard, persistently, to improve its first strike counterforce capabilities. At the same time, it abandoned its pursuit of missile defense technologies that could have augmented offensive counterforce. This was odd. On one hand, nuclear hawks could argue that despite its counterforce investments, the US was not serious about fielding forces that were useful for anything but retaliation. Having abandoned defenses, American threats to use nuclear weapons first, or in a limited way, rang hollow. Nuclear doves, on the other hand, were equally unhappy about counterforce. Not only was it wasteful, but insofar as it created first strike incentives, it was also dangerous. Consequently, Washington’s pursuit of ‘half throttle counterforce’—where offensive forces were not backstopped by defenses—from the early 1970s onward is a puzzling thing. The vast majority of academic writing on US nuclear posture seeks to explain this odd behavior by blaming pathologies inherent in the US military bureaucracy. In this paper, I show that ‘pathological posture theory’ fails to explain the US turn towards counterforce in the early 1970s. Instead, I show that President Nixon was the primary driver behind the United States’ embrace of ‘half-throttle’ counterforce. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and even Clinton followed in his footsteps, but it was Nixon who led the charge. Nixon’s decision-making was a product of his beliefs about nuclear weapons and foreign policy. In Nixon’s mind, the nuclear balance was an indicator of national strength that could boost or diminish US resolve and influence a wide range of diplomatic outcomes. Some inchoate conception of nuclear advantage, Nixon believed, permitted the US to walk tall in the world, and get its way, even if that advantage was not in fact militarily usable.

LOW-RISE RESIDENTIAL BUILDING AND PLANNING DEVELOPMENT OF LIEPAJA “NEW WORLD” AND THE LAKE TOSMARE SHORE TILL WORLD WAR II

Russian Army Headquarters and Maritime Fleet planned to build a sea and land fortress, and Major General Ivan Alfred McDonald developed a project on August 30, 1892. Near Naval Port and the Lake Tosmare Apparent Heir’s Grove and residential buildings with streets were built. Residential buildings were built in “New World” – land between Romny Railway and Grobin Highway. In Liepaja 1922 administrative border plan development was started to include the Lake Liepaja’s northern part into the urban territory. Low-rise residential buildings of Aspazija’s (former Apparent Heir’s) Grove were supplemented. Research issue – building structure and development of residential buildings of Libava Maritime fortress territory has been studied insufficiently. Novelty characteristics – low-rise residential buildings’ construction and street network of Apparent Heir’s Grove has been analysed. Research goal – analyse “New World” and low-rise residential building and planning of the Lake Tosmare surroundings till World War II. Principal research methods – planning and construction observation in nature, archive and cartographic material analysis. Brief description of research outcomes: fortress built on the Baltic Seacoast affected further development of the territory. Nowadays development of qualitative architectonic space without historical development analysis is impossible.

Ingvar Svennilson on Economic Planning in War and Peace

During the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy in the mid-1940s, Sweden experienced a heated debate on economic planning in which a number of Sweden's leading economists were involved. ...

Ratni planovi Vojske Kraljevine Jugoslavije prema Albaniji 1938-1941

Ratni planovi Vojske Kraljevine Jugoslavije prema Albaniji 1938-1941

“Phlegm defines the Russian national character …”

In current historiography, the German General Staff with its responsibility for war planning and military intelligence is usually playing a key role in the emergence of World War One. Surprisingly, no recent study focuses the military agency’s perceptions of Russia and the Russian people, although these notions build an important part of the bilateral relationship between the Russian and the German Empire. This study shows that the views of certain leading General Staff officers about Russia were based for the most part on long-standing Russophobe resentments felt by the German bourgeoisie. Most of the German General Staff members thought of their eastern neighbor as a vast and hostile country with a barbaric and despotic government, while the Russian people were seen as dumb and lazy, frugal and naive. In addition, German perceptions were characterized by a sort of flamboyant ambiguity, with contempt and disdain going hand in hand with fear of Russia’s irresistible demographic economic and military growth. Together with underestimation of the Russian national character, especially those fearful German perceptions were an important factor in the German military leadership’s decision to go to war in July 1914.

The analysis of Kim Ilsung’s Strategy during Korean War : The Tendency of Turning Strategy into Tactics

The Purpose of this article is to analyze the dynamics of ‘Strategy of Tactics’, based on a case study of Kim Ilsung’s strategy during Korean War, especially the period from June to September 1950. The strategy of tactics can explain why Kim Ilsung as a supreme war commander of north Korean Army conducted the Korean War like a battle rather than war without any consideration or calculation on the possible ‘friction of war’(conceptualized by Carl von Clausewitz). This research argues that a discord or a mismatch in the level of war defined in the ‘strategy - operational art - tactics’ hierarchical system facilitated the military adventurism and rigidity of strategy, which ultimately contributed to expand a crack and friction between ideal war(merely war planning) and real war(conduct of war). This basic conceptual framework defined as ‘tacticization of strategy’ illustrates a phenomenon that a lower level of war strategy(tactics) dominates the logic of higher level of strategy, possibly compared with a paradoxical situation such as ‘the tail wags the dog’. This article argues that Kim Ilsung’s tactics-oriented way of thinking, misinterpreting the whole war as a battle or combat rather than as a ‘war itself’, was an critical factor which motivated him an adventuristic initiation of war, and caused an unexpected friction and catastrophic mistakes and failure in the conduct of the initial offensive phase of Korean War from June to September 1950. This explanatory concept of ‘tacticization of strategy’ or ‘strategy of tactics’ can explain why Kim Ilsung miscalculated the war prospect based on a wishful thinking such as a blitzkrieg-victory illusion. This was a decisive mistake he made during war decision making process, which forced him not to assess and decide in a strategic sense during conduct of war as well. He overestimated the impact of blitzkrieg. He believed once north Korean army occupied south Korean Capital within a short period, the south Korean government would collapse and then he could rule all the territory in the southern part of Korean Peninsula. This illusion of blitzkrieg before and during war made his war as a simple combat or battle at a tactical level. As long as he regarded his war as a ‘mere combat, there was no reason to take into account the frictions of war for him. He never doubted the victory of his army. Kim Ilsung’s misunderstanding of war, defined as a tacticization of strategy in this article, resulted in a fatal catastrophe for him.

Aircraft carriers and the capacity to mobilise US power across the Pacific, 1919–1929

This paper analyses how aircraft carriers were developed and positioned within US Navy planning for war in the Pacific during the first decade of the interwar period. Building on Caren Kaplan's framing of military mobility as a capacity, the paper contends that as carrier technologies advanced during the 1920s so recognition of their capacity to act as more than simply mobile islands tasked with supporting the big guns of the fleet emerged. The paper draws on a range of primary sources, specifically pertaining to War Plan Orange (the US's plan for war against Japan primarily developed during the 1920s and 1930s), and analyses US Naval War College documents that positioned carriers, often aspirationally, as key tools of US Pacific power projection. Inflected through discussion of two US Fleet Problems – naval exercises which took place in 1924 and 1929 – the paper contends that the emergence of a recognition that the capabilities of both ship and aircraft needed to be considered in tandem offered new and important strategic opportunities for US war planners during the interwar period.

전쟁초기 장병의 심리적 안정과 전의 고양 방안

최근 우리 군의 초급간부들이 우수한 역량을 갖추고 있으나, 전투경험의 부재, 부대관리 차원의 교육훈련으로 인한 전장상황 장악능력과 전투지휘 능력의 취약으로 이들에 대한 배양이 절실히 요구되고 있다.BR 본 논문은 전장 환경의 특성과 전장심리, 전투사례의 교훈을 도출함으로써 전쟁초기 장병들의 심리적 안정을 유지하고 적과 싸워 이길수 있는 효과적인 전의 고양 방안을 제시하는데 목적이 있다.BR 전쟁 초기 심리적 안정과 전의 고양을 위해서는 먼저 전장의 특성과 전장에서의 인간심리를 이해하고, 전시에 통할 수 있는 전장적응훈련이 요구된다. 특히 전쟁초기 장병들의 심리적 안정을 위한 전투의지 교육은 평시에 부단한 대적관 확립을 위한 정신교육과 전시대비 교육훈련, 생활화교육, 사생관 확립을 위한 종교활동 등을 통해서 간접경험을 더욱 확충해 나가야 한다. 또한 실전에서 발생할 수 있는 여러 가지 부적응 현상을 극복하기 위한 전문적인 연구기관을 조성하고, 한반도 전장환경과 우리 군의 특성에 맞는 체계적인 연구가 이루어져야 할 것이다.

The balance of forces on the eve of Munich

ABSTRACTHad the Munich Agreement not forestalled it, the Second World War, or at least a European war, would have begun in 1938. According to arguments in defence of appeasement, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier bought time and avoided embroiling their countries in a conflict for which they were not prepared. The abundant historiography on Munich, nevertheless, continues to lack a complete picture of the balance of forces at the time. This article seeks to establish which side in the looming conflict was actually best positioned. It examines the likely line-up of belligerents, their respective land, sea and air forces and their war plans and strategies. The French and Czechoslovak armies were a more than even match for the Wehrmacht, it argues. An analysis of the German, Czechoslovak and French plans shows that Hitler's projected offensive was a hazardous enterprise that risked becoming bogged down and opening the Reich to a multi-sided invasion. Czechoslovak army strength and defensive capabilities, too often ignored or glossed over, weighed the scales down materially against German success. This was without even counting, finally, on the potential contributions of Britain and the Soviet Union on the allied side.

An enduring influence on imperial defence and grand strategy: British perceptions of the Italian Navy, 1935–1943

ABSTRACTThe Mediterranean was a vital artery of the British Empire. It was a strategic corridor, linking Britain to its Middle and Far East possessions and precious resources. Its control was a central tenet of British imperial strategy, yet by the mid-1930s, this faced a new challenge from Fascist Italy. The Italian Navy was central to expansionist aspirations and forced British reappraisals of the allocation of defence resources both in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. It therefore came to exert a generally under-appreciated influence on pre-war British imperial defence policy and war planning. Although consistently viewed as vastly inferior to the Royal Navy, it was still seen as an impediment to Britain's ability to deliver imperial defence across the globe, or conduct a worldwide war against multiple enemies. This view persisted even after important defeats were inflicted on it in 1940–1941, and continued right through to 1943. Awareness of the seriousness with which the British viewed Italian naval strength adds important context to debates about British strategy in the Far East and over Winston Churchill's preference for a ‘Mediterranean first’ strategy. Italian naval power played a greater role in shaping the Allied prosecution of the Second World War than is commonly accepted.

Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition by Barry Allen

Reviewed by: Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition by Barry Allen Shane Ryan (bio) and Chienkuo Mi (bio) Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition. By Barry Allen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 289. Hardcover $45.00, isbn 978-0-674-33591-2. Introduction Barry Allen's Vanishing into Things discusses intellectual traditions of Chinese philosophy through the thematic thread of knowledge. The thread takes us chapter by chapter from Confucianism, Daoism, and The Art of War to Chan Buddhism and The Investigation of Things. The final chapter discusses "resonance" and the part it has played in Chinese intellectual history. It wouldn't be surprising if such an ambitious work, covering the range of intellectual traditions that Allen covers, became fragmentary and disparate. After all, such [End Page 1299] traditions vary in significant ways and in certain respects are unrelated intellectually. What arrests this tendency is the commonality that Allen identifies in the treatment of knowledge. In particular, Allen advances the view that Chinese philosophy is concerned with "wise knowledge." This is the sort of knowledge that, among other things, allows us to live well (pp. 20–21, 80). The result is a quite comprehensive work on Chinese philosophy and the topic of knowledge, or at least one aspect of knowledge, and as such is a valuable resource for the increasing number of scholars interested in both Chinese philosophy and knowledge. Indeed, the book's strength is testified to by the fact that what Allen writes in his book can provide scholars with a basis for disagreeing with views that Allen advances. Allen deserves credit for this. The view that Chinese philosophy is concerned with wise knowledge is contrasted with the concern, as Allen sees it, of epistemology from the Western tradition. This contrast, presented as favorable to Chinese philosophy, is another of the central views advanced in Allen's book and, unfortunately, is perhaps the weakest aspect of the book. The case that Allen makes vis-à-vis Chinese philosophy and epistemology is, as we shall see, problematic. In the second part of our review we discuss in detail the account Allen provides of knowledge across Chinese intellectual traditions. The principal idea conveyed by Allen is that Chinese philosophy is concerned with wise knowledge and not everyday knowledge. Rather than there being a break between the concern for wise knowledge and everyday knowledge, however, we find merely a difference in emphasis. In contrast to what Allen writes, we believe there is a concern for everyday knowledge in Chinese philosophy. The Contrasting of Chinese Philosophy and Western Philosophy Allen introduces his book by telling the story of a servant dashing a duke's plans for war. The servant attends to small details to draw the correct conclusion that the duke is planning for war against a neighboring state. The airing by the servant of the duke's secret plan for war forces the duke to give up the plan. We are told that the servant is called a sage by Guan Zhong, who himself is a "sage statesman" (pp. 1–2). His is a case that exemplifies what Allen calls "wise knowledge." It tells us what Chinese philosophy expects and values in such knowledge. A Chinese proverb says of the sage that "from the inconspicuous he hits upon brightness" (p. 2). Another proverb in the Daodejing makes the same basic point: "To really see the little things is called enlightenment" (ibid.). Finally, in the Huainanzi, we have a further and more explicit variation on this: "Since the beginnings of good and bad fortune are tiny as a sprout, people overlook them. Only sages see their beginnings and know their ends. … The sage's perception of outcomes at their origin is subtle" (quoted on p. 2). Allen notes the importance given to "[p]enetrating the subtle—seeing a lot in little things. Discerning the concordant and contrary—knowing the resonance among things, and how to amplify or dampen emerging tendencies" is the "leading idea" with regard to wise knowledge in the Chinese tradition (p. 3; Allen's own emphasis).1 He describes [End Page 1300] this capacity to see what the little things portend as the "cognitive accomplishment" of...

What Comes Next

Wars do not end when the last shot is fired. War planning has failed to demonstrate an understanding that victory requires consolidation and the emergence of a more healthy society. The most prominent recent example is the Second Iraq War, but the failure reaches back to the American Civil War. This essay is less concerned with the moral obligation to reconstruct after war than the practical necessity of jus post bellum. In order to learn how to achieve such a consolidation of military victory, a shift in mindset is required from both civil and military policy-makers and planners. A change in practice is required at the very beginning of planning for war. “Whole of government” has been an empty phrase, but experience dictates that an unprecedented degree of domestic and international cooperation is required.

Spatial Mobilization: Kleist's Strategic Road Map for the Berliner Abendblätter and Tactical Displacements in the "Tagesbegebenheiten"

According Carl von Clausewitz's famous dictum, is continuation of politics by other means. Kleist's Berliner Abendblatter (BA), I argue, can be characterized similarly as continuation of by means of printing press, which allows for wide distribution of concealed, politically explosive messages in medium of ambiguous news reports and anecdotes instead of weapons. Recent studies have explored how Kleist's poetry reflects profound practical and theoretical transformations of warfare during Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and guerilla counter-insurgences.1 This article aims complement these interpretations by showing how geopolitical changes and subsequent societal challenges of this revolutionary and counterrevolutionary age have informed editorial and journalistic tactics of BA-not just represent and reflect them, but mobilize Prussian/German people and wage against Napoleon in virtual public sphere created by this medium.War is father of all in-depth thinking about politics of space, and totality of in Napoleonic era triggered a mobilization of space and dynamization of status quo that urged political leaders and military strategists rethink static, stratified organization of their state and army. Anders Engberg-Pedersen's recent study delineates series of spatial transformations that originated from National Convention's decree of national conscription and military mass-mobilization in 1793, so-called levee en masse. The withdrawal of distinctions between regular soldiers and civil fighters as well as between battlefield and hinterland resulted in an expansion of warfare potentially any terrain and a general increase of its complexity. In his treatise On War, Clausewitz introduced concept as an integrative category of many new uncertainties and imponderabilities which have turned modern battles into events of chance, and tactics into a science of observing and exploiting opportunities of moment for short-term gains and advances. Accordingly, overall strategic planning of has become predominantly an issue of intelligence assessments and probability calculations (see Engberg-Pedersen 37-68).In response these changed conditions, Clausewitz reassessed relationship between tactics and as centerpiece of his great theory of war. He defines strategy as the use of engagement for purpose of war and describes its tasks and challenges as follows:The strategist . . . will draftthe plan of war, and aim will determine series of actions intended achieve it: he will, in fact, shape individual campaigns and, within these, decide individual engagements. Since most of these matters have be based assumptions that may not prove be correct, while other, more detailed orders cannot be determined in advance at all, it follows that strategist must go campaign himself. Detailed orders can then be given spot, allowing general plan be adjusted modifications that are continuously required. The strategist, in short, must maintain control throughout.2That Clausewitz insists here a mobile strategist who remains flexible enough adapt changing situations and adjust general plan spot must be regarded as a concession great extent of friction in modern warfare, which seems privilege tactics. In a subsequent passage, however, he draws a sharper line of distinction between tactics and strategy. He emphasizes now that it is of greatest importance for strategist to follow through steadily, carry out plan, and not be thrown offcourse by thousands of diversions, whereas in tactics of individual engagements is carried away by pressures of moment, caught up in a maelstrom where resistance would be fatal, and, suppressing incipient scruples, one presses boldly on (Clausewitz 178). …

Review of 'The Fear of Invasion: Strategy, Politics, and British War Planning, 1880-1914'

Review of 'The Fear of Invasion: Strategy, Politics, and British War Planning, 1880-1914'

Solving America's Gray-Zone Puzzle

ABSTRACT: Until the missing pieces of the role of global transitions, of American flawed by design concepts of war and peace, and of paradoxical consequences resulting from America's roles and actions to maintain and disrupt the international system are calculated into the ongoing strategy and force planning reforms, any resulting changes of those efforts will inadequately prepare America to fight, win, and fully finish gray-zone wars. For anyone paying even the slightest attention to recent global security affairs, particularly over the past three to five years, denying the significant change and disruption of what has long been the conventional sense of world order would be difficult. Determining if and how the character, scope, and direction of geopolitical competition has changed, and is changing, from the previous and current norms is the most fundamental, and arguably the most essential, imperative facing grand and military strategists as well as the national leaders and polities they serve at such times of major geostrategic inflection. Perhaps the clearest recognizable signs supporting such a claim are the measurable rise in actions taken by a number of nationstates and nonstate actors as well as the prolific increase in scholarship related to their activities. Nonstate actors such as al-Qaeda and hybrid non-Westphalian forms of self-declared alternative statehoods such as the Islamic State challenge the legitimacy of both the norms, principles, rules, and decision-making processes of the current Western advanced-industrial state-based majoritarian international order and the United States as lead nation, hegemon, and guaranteeing power of the current world order. Another sign lies in the heuristic devices and labels scholars and practitioners alike adopt and use to describe and assign meaning to these behaviors in simple understandable terms and the early practical responses and reactions to match, counter, and then ultimately, overmatch these challenges and restore the status quo ante. The increasingly relationships the United States faces with great powers such as Russia and China, in addition to regional-level disruptors such as North Korea, Iran, and the self-declared Islamic State lead the concerns of America's senior defense leadership. Consequently, the Pentagon and the armed services call for major strategic shifts in policy, war plans, planning architectures, and approaches. The United States' top general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, recently stated traditional approach where we are either at peace or at war is insufficient to deal with that dynamic--the 'four-plus-one' challenges [of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as Islamist extremism] and the five domains of land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. Moreover, Dunford recognizes the state of adversarial competition with a military dimension short of armed conflict military and security studies scholars and practitioners have come to label gray-zone conflict. (2) This particular description, which answers the key questions of whether and how the character of geopolitical competition has changed, now represents an increasingly resonant line of inquiry in defense circles. But, just how smartly are we forming our understandings of, redesigning our overmatching strategies for, and planning our operational approaches to these so-called gray-zone problems? In the following pages, we argue current US defense efforts to better understand and to deal with this gray-zone puzzle, while sound and necessary, remain insufficient. In short, these three missing cause-and-effect pieces to the complete gray-zone puzzle are missing. If these elements are not soon acknowledged and sufficiently incorporated into our planning and capability development activities, future strategic efforts of the United States national security and defense enterprise to meet, overmatch, and overcome future gray-zone threats will be left wanting. …

US Naval Plans for War with the United Kingdom in the 1890s: A Compromise between Pragmatism and Theory

En 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan a élaboré un plan de guerre en cas d’hostilités envers les Britanniques; pour leur part, les classes du Naval War College des États-Unis ont mis sur pied des plans semblables en 1894 et 1895. Ces plans portaient notamment sur le nord-est des États-Unis et sa frontière avec le Canada. Faisant partie des premiers exercices formels de planification de mesures de guerre de la marine américaine, ces plans représentent un compromis entre la nouvelle vision stratégique de la profession navale américaine et une conception pragmatique des limites de la flotte américaine.

Not Learning Lessons

Aaron Rapport. (2015). Waging War, Planning Peace: US Noncombat Operations and Major Wars . Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, and London, 266 pp., $29.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-5358-8). This book is a cross-case study of how the United States plans for and executes noncombat operations (such as activities related to state-building, humanitarian assistance, and pacification) in the midst of war or in postwar contexts. The study is a very good example of how history may offer important insights into current crises. Rapport’s archive-based chapters on post-WWII Germany, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq compel us to think about contemporary conflicts and how the United States positions and plans for war, occupation, and transitional administrations. It is difficult to read this work and not to think of present-day Iraq and Afghanistan, and even Libya, Ukraine, Syria, and Iran—countries on the US security radar and thus the targets of contingency planning. The notion of noncombat operations in the midst of war (or very soon after it) seems worth unpacking, especially given the securitization of such environments. Can a military that has just used, or is still using, massive force ever engage in noncombat operations in the same territory? Certainly military organizations can be massive … roger.macginty{at}manchester.ac.uk

The Nuclear Necessity Principle: Making U.S. Targeting Policy Conform with Ethics & the Laws of War

In 2013, Obama administration spokesmen stated that all U.S. nuclear war plans “apply the principles of distinction and proportionality and seek to minimize collateral damage to civilian populations and civilian objects.” We analyze U.S. nuclear policy documents and argue that major changes must be made if U.S. nuclear war plans are to conform to these principles of just war doctrine and the law of armed conflict. We propose that the U.S. president announce a commitment to a “principle of necessity,” committing the United States not to use nuclear weapons against any military target that can be destroyed with reasonable probability of success by a conventional weapon. Such a doctrinal change would reduce collateral damage from any nuclear strike or retaliation by the United States and would, we argue, make our deterrent threats more credible and thus more effective.

The Next Korean War: Drawing Lessons From Israel's Experience in the Middle East*

What would an armed conflict between the two Koreas look like? The following analysis examines this question by drawing lessons from the history of military clashes between Israel and its Arab and Palestinian adversaries. Firstly, it suggests that an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula would be limited in its scope. Although qualitatively inferior, the North Korean military could conduct a limited ground maneuver south to the DMZ by employing Egypt’s strategy in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. A South Korean counterattack would also be limited. Advancing too deep beyond the DMZ would provoke Pyongyang to go on a nuclear alert and encourage Chinese and American pressure on Seoul to pull back. A South Korean refusal to comply could invite foreign intervention, similar to the American intervention in the 1973 War. Secondly, this paper explores the challenge of guerrilla warfare (both above and below ground) that ROK forces are likely to encounter if they cross the DMZ. Israel’s experiences in the 2006 Lebanon War and in Operations Cast Lead (2008) and Protective Edge (2014) illustrate that in facing such a challenge, even an indisputably superior force may have to pay a heavy price in casualties. Given that North Korean nuclear deterrence would prevent ROK forces from implementing reunification war plans, South Korea should consider stopping its counterattack at the DMZ, rather than pursuing the enemy into a terra incognita of topographical and subterranean traps.