War’s Indirection or the Return of the Limited War
Over the last few years both the United States and Russia seem to have changed their conception of how to deploy force.
From America there has been increased reliance on the private sector, allied on-ground action and “leadership from behind”. From Russia we have seen greater emphasis on special actions, intelligence, information wars, and even nuclear posturing. Following the escalation to total war in the twentieth century, these strategic choices probably bear witness to a return to notions of “limited war”.
Article published in Politique étrangère, Vol. 80, No. 4, Winter 2015
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Security Studies Center
Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.
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