When Rambo Meets the Red Cross takes a critical look at the trifecta of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF), their relationship with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and the beneficiaries of foreign aid. Stanislava Mladenova collects semi-structured interviews from actors on all three sides of the civil-military relationship to search for the answer to her central question: “Can SOF and NGOs be effective partners in low-intensity conflict?”
In The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder Sean McFate takes readers on a compelling journey through the evolving landscape of modern warfare, dissecting the shifts in tactics, strategies, and actors that have reshaped the nature of conflict. With a keen focus on unconventional warfare, McFate presents an urgent exploration of how non-state actors, technological advancements, and ideological battles are redefining the rules of engagement on the global stage.
Elisabeth Braw’s central thesis in The Defender’s Dilemma: Identifying and Deterring Gray-Zone Aggression is that gray-zone aggression has become an increasingly more pervasive and complex challenge for nations than traditional war and that defense strategies are often inadequate to address gray-zone aggression. Braw pointedly argues that gray-zone aggression, which refers to acts of aggression that fall between the traditional definitions of peace and war, has emerged as the preferred mode of modern conflict as states seek to assail Western institutions and values through non-traditional means, such as cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns, and economic coercion.