Joshua Rovner

YouTube video by School of War Podcast Ep 236: Joshua Rovner on Grand Strategy

Delighted to talk about Strategy and Grand Strategy with Aaron Maclean on his excellent School of War podcast. Check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZZD...

Navigating the New Nuclear Map - Texas National Security Review The global nuclear order is undergoing rapid and complex transformations, driven by the expansion of arsenals, evolving doctrines, and the interplay of domestic and international politics. This roundt...

Our latest roundtable examines the rapidly evolving global nuclear order. From North Korea to NATO, China to Latin America, this collection of essays explores the domestic and international forces reshaping nuclear security.

Full roundtable: tnsr.org/roundtable/n...

Strategies for pandemics and Grand Strategy for disease health security - CRASSH The plan to "win the peace" after a pandemic is a critical but undeveloped element of pandemic preparedness

Strategy and Grand Strategy beyond war and peace. Bradley Dickey from the Cambridge Centre for Pandemic Risk uses the book to understand the response to covid-19 - and to think about the broader questions surrounding health security. www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/blog/strateg...

I joined @nktpnd.bsky.social on his @warontherocks.bsky.social podcast “Thinking the Unthinkable” to talk about my new book: The Art of Coercion.

And here’s the book (the ebook is free!):
www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Age of Deception by Jon R. Lindsay | eBook | Cornell University Press At the heart of cybersecurity lies a paradox: Cooperation makes conflict possible. In Age of Deception, Jon R. Lindsay shows that widespread trust in cyberspace enables espionage and subversion. While...

Good news! You can now download the open access (free) ebook of Age of Decption from @CornellPress !

(You can also buy a paperback, which makes a fine decoration for your bookshelf)

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Jervis Forum Roundtable 17-5 on Gioe and Morell, “Spy and Tell” Roundtable Review 17-5 David V. Gioe and Michael J. Morell, “Spy and Tell: The Promise and Peril of Disclosing Intelligence for Strategic Advantage,” Foreign Affairs 7:4 (2024): 138-152.

Should the US release secret intelligence for strategic gain? A roundtable debate in @h-diplo.bsky.social with Melissa Graves, David Gioe, @mindyhaas.bsky.social and me: issforum.org/roundtables/...

New collection of essays and interviews on European security. Includes my thoughts on strategy and grand strategy. human-magazin.de/wp-content/u...

Teaching about 9/11, then and now. My thoughts @usatoday.com

I have some thoughts for USA Today on teaching abut 9/11, then and now www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

"Trade in War" with Mariya Grinberg, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Amazon

At the start of WWI, Britain allowed the trade of machine guns to Germany but banned the trade of carriages for them. Why?

On our podcast Mariya Grinberg discusses her book, "Trade in War," and why adversaries often continue to trade even while fighting @mitpolisci.bsky.social @ssp-mit.bsky.social

Article on sabotage accepted for publication in @ejisbisa.bsky.social authored with @lmaschmeyer.bsky.social and @jrovner.bsky.social
calls for a celebratory Dartmoor whisky

Sabotage weaponises friction to degrade; subversion actively generates change

2 distinct logics in “grey zone” statecraft

The World Is More Uncertain than You Think: Assessing and Combating Overconfidence Among 2,000 National Security Officials - Texas National Security Review This article analyzes more than 60,000 assessments of uncertainty made by national security officials from more than forty NATO allies and partners. The findings show that national security officials ...

A study of nearly 2,000 military and civilian officials reveals that even the most experienced experts are susceptible to cognitive biases that can have significant implications for international stability.

Read Jeffrey Friedman's article on this topic on the TNSR website. tnsr.org/2025/09/the-...

2/2 For more on strategy and grand strategy, and why they sometimes work at cross-purposes, see here: www.iiss.org/publications...

Opinion | Putin Should Be Careful What He Wishes For

1/2 Putin's long war in Ukraine has reduced Russia's influence abroad, writes @hannanotte.bsky.social. Put another way, its wartime strategy is working against its broader grand strategy. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/o...

New tenure-track position in international security tinyurl.com/5dsuwcvm

If you have used TNSR resources in the past, please take a few minutes to fill out this survey. The first 100 respondents will receive a FREE COPY of our next print edition! coda.io/form/Texas-N...

Quote from Claire Vergerio, "I would like to thank all the contributors again for engaging so thoughtfully with my work and for giving me the opportunity to further develop and clarify my own ideas on some of the core overarching questions that have driven my research over the years."

Claire Vergerio penned a response to the roundtable we published on her book earlier this year. In it she notes how historians of international relations tend to differ with legal scholars on their assessment of her book's contemporary relevance.

In this episode, Ryan Vest and Sheena Chestnut Greitens are joined by Jon Caverley, an esteemed national security and China scholar, to discuss his article, "So What? Reassessing the Military… The Strategic Significance of Taiwan in US Defense Planning | Horns of a Dilemma

Is Taiwan the indispensable military fortress it's often claimed to be? In our latest "Horns of a Dilemma" episode, Jonathan Caverley (@jcaverley.bsky.social) of the U.S. Naval War College presents a compelling analysis based on his TNSR article. youtu.be/6p-SJt6q5Es

Is War Ever Really Worth It? Experts discuss how to evaluate success and failure in war.

Is war ever really worth it? SIS professor Joshua Rovner (@jrovner.bsky.social) & other experts gave their unique analysis on this topic in a new piece published in @inkstickmedia.com as part of a collaboration with the Stimson Center.

inkstickmedia.com/is-war-ever-...

2/2 Meaningful success depends on aligning wartime strategy with peacetime grand strategy. For a longer discussion see: www.iiss.org/publications...

Is War Ever Really Worth It? Experts discuss how to evaluate success and failure in war.

1/2 Is war worth it? Some thoughts here, in a roundtable for @stimsoncenter.bsky.social with Chis Preble, @speechboy71.bsky.social, Paul Fritz, and Chijioke Onuchukwu inkstickmedia.com/is-war-ever-...

Nice to see Fixing the Facts in the Cornell UP backlist blog, though I wish there were fewer stories of politicization in the news... www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/fixing-the-f...

From the current issue of @tnsr.org: Anderson and Press on war and escalation in Korea, @jcaverley.bsky.social on Chinese control of Taiwan, @richardmaass.bsky.social on legal deterrence, Lonergan and Snyder on military culture, and Herb Lin on AI and nuclear weapons tnsr.org/latest-print...

What damage did the US do to Iran’s nuclear program? Why it’s so hard to know A scholar of intelligence and strategy explains why battle damage assessments are so challenging – and why the process has become politicized.

I wrote a primer on the technical and political problems of bomb damage assessment for @theconversation.com theconversation.com/what-damage-...

Fixing the Facts by Joshua Rovner | Paperback | Cornell University Press Rovner explores the complex interaction between intelligence and policy and shines a spotlight on the problem of politicization.

2/2 This doesn't mean that the White House should accept intelligence uncritically, of course. But the casual dismissal of IC assessments has real and lasting consequences. For more on the problems of intelligence-policy relations, see here: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Intelligence, Strategy, and the Israeli-Iranian War – War on the Rocks

1/2 Ignoring the intelligence community on Iran is a strategic mistake, as I argue in @warontherocks.bsky.social. It removes an important voice from the policy process, and it reduces US diplomatic leverage over friends and foes. warontherocks.com/2025/06/inte...

In Crisis With Iran, U.S. Military Officials Focus on Strait of Hormuz

Short thread on Iran’s potential threat to Strait of Hormuz, subject of much recent attention. 1/4
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/u...

My latest in @warontherocks.bsky.social

"Has North Korea found a way to compensate for its inferior conventional military power? Or is North Korea’s artillery—like the North Korean military more broadly—largely a paper tiger?" Quote from "Lost Seoul? Assessing Pyongyang’s Other Deterrent" by Nicholas D. Anderson and Daryl G. Press

Is North Korea's artillery a paper tiger? The latest TNSR article challenges the conventional wisdom on the threat to Seoul. tnsr.org/2025/06/lost...

H-Diplo | RJISSF Tribute to the Scholarship and Legacy of Owen R. Coté, Jr. 6 June 2025 | PDF: https://issforum.org/to/jt3 | Website: rjissf.org | Twitter: @HDiplo Editor: Diane Labrosse Commissioning Editor: Jennifer Erickson Production Editor: Christopher Ball Pre…

For those who didn't know Owen Coté, this roundtable is a good place to start. A must read for students of nuclear weapons, naval power, and security studies in general. issforum.org/tribute/h-di...