The Cove, the professional development site for the Australian Army, has posted a link to a 2011 lecture by Professor Sir Hew Strachan. Strachan, a Professor of International Relations at St. Andrews University in Scotland, is one of the more perceptive and trenchant observers about the recent trends in strategy, war, and warfare from a historian’s perspective. I highly recommend his recent book, The Direction of War.
Strachan’s lecture, “The Changing Character of War,” proceeds from Carl von Clausewitz’s discussions in On War on change and continuity in the history of war to look at the trajectories of recent conflicts. Among the topics Strachan’s lecture covers are technological determinism, the irregular conflicts of the early 21st century, political and social mobilization, the spectrum of conflict, the impact of the Second World War on contemporary theorizing about war and warfare, and deterrence.
This is well worth the time to listen to and think about.
