The U.S. Navy’s Strategical Awakening
From the 1870s-1890s the U.S. Navy experienced a strategical awakening. Changes in technology, international politics, and other factors drove officers to develop new concepts of naval professionalism,…
The Rhetorical War Presidency of Barack Obama
Scholars of presidential rhetoric try to understand how presidents lead through speech. The classical studies of the rhetorical presidency examine how presidents "go public," how they use…
The Geopolitical Law of Nature in Thucydides
Thucydides is generally not considered a philosopher in the sense that Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle are. David Bolotin, for instance, said, “[Thucydides] is not generally thought of…
War, Progress, and Sociology in the Age of Ideology
In the preface to The Quest for Community, Robert Nisbet explained the theme of his work: “I have chosen to deal with the political cause of the…
Yves R. Simon: A Thomist looks at a Divisive Invasion
The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought. Yves R. Simon with Anthony O. Simon, ed., and Robert Royal, trans. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,…
Advice to War Presidents: More Wars and Less Peace
Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft. Angelo M. Codevilla. New York: Basic Books, 2009. As a professor, former U.S. Naval Officer, Foreign Service…