What We're Reading: Foundations
By Mark Jacobsen, SAASS
/ Published August 16, 2021
Maxwell AFB, AL --
SAASS Class XXXI is off to a strong start!
The new class began the year with SAASS 601: Foundations of Strategy. This year's course director was Dr. Jim Tucci. Other teaching faculty included Dr. Rich Muller, Col. Jeffrey Donnithorne, and Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb. This year's readings included:
- Brands and Edel, The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order
- Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War
- Gaddis, On Grand Strategy
- Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
- Khong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965
- Zhang, Deng Xiaoping’s Long War: The Military Conflict between China and Vietnam, 1979-1991
- Murphy, War’s Ends: Human Rights, International Order, and the Ethics of Peace
- Chivvis, Toppling Qaddafi: Lybia and the Limits of Liberal Intervention
Next, the students tackled SAASS 600: Foundations of Military Theory. Dr. James Kiras directed the course, supported by Dr. Robert Hutchinson and Dr. Wayne Lee, SAASS's Colin S. Gray Visiting Professor of Strategic Studies. This year's readings include:
- Clausewitz, On War
- Sun Tzu, The Illustrated Art of War
- Jomini, Art of War
- Mahan, Mahan on Naval Strategy
- Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy
- Douhet, The Command of the Air
- Slessor, Air Power and Armies
- Liddell Hart, Strategy
- Howard, War in European History
- Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War
- Dolman, Pure Strategy
- Gray, The Strategy Bridge
- Boyd, Discourse on Winning and Losing
- Xiao Tianliang, ed., 战略学 (The Science of Strategy)