The Dangers of Strategic Fashion: Dr Chiara Libiseller

Buzzwords and jargon abound in the literature on strategy. While they can be useful lenses through which to understand change, they can obfuscate variety in warfare.

Strategic thinking runs aground when it sees what it is looking for and not what is really there. When ladies' skirts became longer and more voluminous in the 1950s, this fashion was referred to as "the New Look", a term then borrowed to describe the USA's new nuclear strategy. The term obscured the dual nature of this strategic change: at once it was a strategy of deterrence by denial by introducing battlefield nuclear weapons, and one of deterrence by punishment, by holding at risk massively major cities within the Soviet sphere of power. Similarly, other fashionable labels have been used in strategic thinking from Low Intensity Conflict in the Vietnam War era, to the more recent Revolution in Military Affairs, Counterinsurgency, or Hybrid Warfare – three terms explored by Chiara Libiseller. They are latched onto by those wishing to be seen as ahead of the curve. As officials and academics are forever inventing new definitions, confusion arises as to the meaning of such terms, for they are used differently by individual scholars and often thought to mean different things by the practitioners who try to use them in their work.

Dr Chiara Libiseller is a Lecturer in Strategic Studies for the Department of War Studies, King's College, London, where her research focuses on Western knowledge production about war and strategy and its effects on practice. She is also the deputy editor of the Journal of Strategic Studies and part of the Advisory Committee of Women in International Security in the United Kingdom.

Recommended Reading

• Libiseller, Chiara: Reconceptualising War: The Rise and Fall of Fashionable Concepts in Strategic Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026).
• Marks, Michael: Metaphors in international relations theory (New York: Springer, 2011).
• Silove, Nina. "Beyond the buzzword: the three meanings of "grand strategy"." Security studies 27.1 (2018): 27-57.
• Wither, James K. "Hybrid warfare revisited: a battle of 'Buzzwords'." Connections: The Quarterly Journal 22.1 (2023): 7-27.
• Futter, Andrew. "'Cyber-semantics: why we should retire the latest buzzword in security studies." Journal of Cyber Policy 3.2 (2018): 201-216.
• Sondarjee, Maïka, and Nathan Andrews. "Decolonizing international relations and development studies: what's in a buzzword?." International Journal 77.4 (2022): 551-571.

Related RUSI Talking Strategy Episodes

• 1:9. Colin S Gray, Strategic Culture and What is Good Enough? Dr Jeanie Johnson
• 1:12. A Practitioners Perspective: Creating National Security Strategy. Lord Peter Ricketts.
• 2:Extra. Reflections on a Pedagogy for Strategy. Emilie Cleret
• 3:12. Petraeus's 'Big Four': Brainstorm, Communicate, Implement, Assess. General (retd) David Petraeus
• 5:7. H.R. McMaster on National Security Strategy Making. HR McMaster
• 6:3. Lord Mervyn King: Effective Strategy for Radical Uncertainty. Baron Mervyn King
• 6:21. Delivering National Security Strategies. Sir Mark Lyall Grant
• 7:1. Avoiding Strategic Surprise: Lessons from NATO. Dr Florence Gaub

Professor Scott Smitson traces the origins of geopolitics and geoeconomics as concepts and why these forgotten ideas are returning to shape today's world.

The triumphalism following the end of the Cold War led some to believe we had reached The End of History, and that great powers had moved beyond a world shaped by geopolitics and geoeconomics. Robert Kaplan's The Revenge of Geography in 2012 challenged this view, arguing that geography still shapes how states see the world, and can either strengthen them or limit their ambitions. This is the core of geopolitics, an idea developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by thinkers such as Rudolf Kjellén and Sir Halford Mackinder.

Drawing on the achievements of the Mongol Empire – see our discussion of its chief strategist, Subotai, in Season 4, Episode 1 – Mackinder believed that whoever rules the Heartland (Eurasia), commands the 'World Island' and thus the world. This was problematic for maritime powers, and later Nicholas Spykman argued that it was actually whoever controlled the Rimland, the coastal regions surrounding Eurasia, who controlled the destinies of the world. This was reflected in George Kennan's logic behind the Cold War containment strategy toward the Soviet Union. Its legacy remains in thinking about China, but does the Belt and Road Initiative suggest an attempt by China to break out of this singular characterisation and reduce its vulnerability to classical containment?

Professor Scott Smitson is Director of the Grand Strategy Program at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He served for 21 years in the US Army, including as a strategist at US Central and Southern Commands and the Joint Staff. Has also served for a period as a US Officer embedded in the UK's Ministry of Defence Strategic Plans team.

Further Reading:

Nicholas J. Spykman, Geography of the Peace, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1944.

Halford Mackinder, 'The Geographical Pivot of History', The Geographical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4, April 1904, pp. 421–437. Available at: https://dn720002.ca.archive.org/0/items/The-geographical-pivot-of-history/The%20Geographical%20Pivot%20of%20History%20by%20Halford%20John%20MacKinder.pdf

Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, Random House, 2012. Available at: https://archive.org/details/TheRevengeOfGeographyWhatTheMapTellsUsAboutComingConflictsAndTheBattleAgainstFate

Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means: Geo-economics and Statecraft, Harvard University Press, 2017. Available at: https://archive.org/details/warbyothermeansg0000blac

US Air Force, China Aerospace Studies Institute, In Their Own Words: Science of Military Strategy 2020, January 2022. Available at: https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/Translations/2022-01-26%202020%20Science%20of%20Military%20Strategy.pdf

Related RUSI Talking Strategy Episodes

S1E1, Sir Julian Corbett and the British Way of War, with Professor Andrew Lambert.

S1E4, Leo VI (the Wise) and the Beginning of Western Strategy, with Dr Georgios Chatzelis

S1E5, Admiral Liu Huaqing and China's Island Chain Strategy, with Professor Christopher Yung.

S2E2, Neptune's Prophet: Alfred Thayer Mahan, with Cdr Dr Benjamin Armstrong.

S5E13, Modernising the Royal Navy: Admiral Lord Fisher, with Dr Richard Dunley

S5E18. George C Marshall: Strategic Planning for War and Peace, with Professor Bill Johnsen.

What is realpolitik, and why is the world said to be returning to it? Professor John Bew CMG traces the idea back to its origins.

The world may well be entering a new age of realpolitik, but the harder question is defining which kind. The term is usually associated with an unsentimental use of power to further national interests, often seen as a rejection of a more idealistic, values-based approach to international relations. But that's not where it came from. Realpolitik was first coined in 1853 by Ludwig von Rochau, a German liberal, who used it to describe something different: the ability to understand and adapt to the realities of power, and to pursue enlightened goals in a world that doesn't follow enlightened rules. For von Rochau, Realpolitik wasn't just about foreign policy – the strongest states, he argued, were those that could harness social forces at home and manage internal division effectively.

Professor John Bew is a historian at King's College London and a leading figure at the Centre for Statecraft and National Security. He has advised four British Prime Ministers and authored three UK National Security Strategies. His book, Realpolitk: a History is a definitive work on the subject, just as are his biographies on Castlereagh and Attlee.

Further reading:

John Bew, Realpolitik: A History (Hurst, 2026).

Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster, 1994).

Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812–22 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999).