Lawrence Freedman

Biographic Data

ID3589588
NAMELawrence Freedman
GIVEN NAMESLawrence
FAMILY NAMEFreedman
SIGNATUREFREEDMAN L
AFFILIATIONSKing's College London
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS313
TOTAL CITATIONS736
AUTHOR COUNT312
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1975
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX12

  • Why definitions matter: Victory, security, and the strategy gap

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLEJournal of Strategic Studies2025References: 5

  • Europe’s Nuclear Deterrent: The Here and Now

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLESurvival2025Cited by: 1

  • In (qualified) praise of fads and fashions

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLEJournal of Strategic Studies2023

    Given the size of the community and the constant flow of new issues and potential security challenges, strategic studies can lend itself to surges of interest in particular topics that then fade into irrelevance, speculative investigations that lead nowhere, or intensive research projects that produce banal conclusions. The durability of much of the research may turn out to be short yet there is still enough that is of value, including insights i…

  • The Russo-Ukrainian War and the Durability of Deterrence

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLESurvival2023Cited by: 4

    Both the Russian Federation and the United States and its allies have avoided taking actions carrying the greatest risk of escalation to nuclear-weapons use. Left uncertain is whether specific contingencies might yet prompt nuclear use. But the Russo-Ukrainian war has now been going on long enough to ground the debate in what has been said and done during its course. Russian nuclear decision-making requires the most attention, and Russian Preside…

  • Humanitarian Challenges of Great Power Conflict: Signs from Ukraine

    Open AccessLawrence FreedmanARTICLEDaedalus2023References: 1

    Until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was little evidence of what a conventional war between the regular forces of peer competitors might look like today. After the total war of the twentieth century, the evolution of precision-guided munitions and drones set up the possibility of a new ideal type of conflict, in which U.S.-NATO coalitions could quickly defeat the regular forces of much weaker opponents, largely from a distance, while avoi…

  • The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age

    Mark Moyar, John Bew et al.BOOKNew Makers of Modern Strategy2023Cited by: 4

  • Casting the atomic canon: (R)evolving nuclear strategy: A reply

    Open AccessLawrence Freedman, Jeffrey MichaelsARTICLEEuropean Journal of International…2022

    We are grateful to Kjølv Egeland, Thomas Fraise, and Hebatalla Taha for their commentary on the four editions of The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy . In addition to their critique of the book, their review was intended to offer ‘a looking glass into the broader field of nuclear security studies’. Our reply to their review therefore touches both upon their critique, as well as the more general theme of writing about the history of nuclear strategy.…

  • Salt 50 Years On: Strategic Theory and Arms Control

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLESurvival2022

    This article addresses the relationship between the practice of arms control in the 1970s and strategic theory. Although the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is often described as an example of theory-directed arms control, this article shows that ballistic-missile defences were a poor investment because of the ease with which they could be overwhelmed by offensive systems, especially with multiple warheads. The Nixon administration constructed…

  • The worst military leaders in history

    Open AccessLawrence FreedmanARTICLEInternational Affairs2022

  • Grand Strategy: The History of a Concept

    Lawrence FreedmanCHAPTEROxford Handbook of Grand Strategy2021

    A concept of “grand strategy” only emerged during the first decades of the twentieth century. Through the nineteenth century, strategy had a very narrow meaning, largely concerned with getting troops into the best position for battle. Tactics was concerned with the conduct of battle. For a number of reasons, including the importance of peacetime preparation for war, the separation between military strategy and the wider political and economic con…

  • China and the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020–22

    Lawrence Freedman, Heather WilliamsARTICLEAdelphi series2021

    Narratives provide the storylines of conflict and in doing so become an arena of conflict themselves. When states mount information campaigns against each other, they are trying to change the narrative. The digital platforms of the new information environment have been identified by various analysts as a significant factor in contemporary strategy and crisis management. But while social media is noisier and more chaotic than traditional media, an…

  • India–Pakistan, 2019

    Lawrence Freedman, Heather WilliamsARTICLEAdelphi series2021

    Narratives provide the storylines of conflict and in doing so become an arena of conflict themselves. When states mount information campaigns against each other, they are trying to change the narrative. The digital platforms of the new information environment have been identified by various analysts as a significant factor in contemporary strategy and crisis management. But while social media is noisier and more chaotic than traditional media, an…

  • Understanding narratives and information campaigns

    Lawrence Freedman, Heather WilliamsARTICLEAdelphi series2021

    Narratives provide the storylines of conflict and in doing so become an arena of conflict themselves. When states mount information campaigns against each other, they are trying to change the narrative. The digital platforms of the new information environment have been identified by various analysts as a significant factor in contemporary strategy and crisis management. But while social media is noisier and more chaotic than traditional media, an…

  • US–Iran, 2020

    Lawrence Freedman, Heather WilliamsARTICLEAdelphi series2021

    Narratives provide the storylines of conflict and in doing so become an arena of conflict themselves. When states mount information campaigns against each other, they are trying to change the narrative. The digital platforms of the new information environment have been identified by various analysts as a significant factor in contemporary strategy and crisis management. But while social media is noisier and more chaotic than traditional media, an…

  • Russia and the Ukraine crisis, 2013–23

    Lawrence Freedman, Heather WilliamsARTICLEAdelphi series2021

    Narratives provide the storylines of conflict and in doing so become an arena of conflict themselves. When states mount information campaigns against each other, they are trying to change the narrative. The digital platforms of the new information environment have been identified by various analysts as a significant factor in contemporary strategy and crisis management. But while social media is noisier and more chaotic than traditional media, an…

  • Conclusion

    Lawrence Freedman, Heather WilliamsARTICLEAdelphi series2021

    Narratives provide the storylines of conflict and in doing so become an arena of conflict themselves. When states mount information campaigns against each other, they are trying to change the narrative. The digital platforms of the new information environment have been identified by various analysts as a significant factor in contemporary strategy and crisis management. But while social media is noisier and more chaotic than traditional media, an…

  • Political impatience and military caution

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLEJournal of Strategic Studies2021References: 5

    Two examples from recent British campaigns, the first from the Falklands War of 1982 and the second from the Iraq War of 2003, are used to consider attempts by civilian policy-makers to influence the conduct of ongoing military operations as a result of frustration with slow progress. Both cases highlight the importance of the higher command structures as providing a buffer between the government and local field commanders, and show the problems …

  • The Crisis of Liberalism and the Western Alliance

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLESurvival2021

    Liberalism as the ideology of the Western alliance is in crisis. Having seen off Nazism and communism, it gained influence after the end of the Cold War, which produced optimism about security, human rights and global prosperity. Now liberalism, shaken by the financial crisis and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is in retreat. Illiberal states, notably China and Russia, are reshaping the international system. Liberalism may not be able to contin…

  • The Trouble with Regime Change

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLESurvival2021

    In his lucid and analytical Losing the Long Game, Philip Gordon suggests that the US should not set in motion events likely to move well beyond its control in situations it does not fully comprehend

  • Arms Control: Management or Reform?

    Lawrence FreedmanBOOKArms Control2020

  • Strategy for a Pandemic: The UK and Covid-19

    Open AccessLawrence FreedmanARTICLESurvival2020Cited by: 4

    In retrospect, the strategy developed in early March assumed that the UK had more time to implement its responses than was available, and more control over the development of the pandemic than was realistic

  • Scientific Advice at a Time of Emergency. Sage and Covid‐19

    Open AccessLawrence FreedmanARTICLEThe Political Quarterly2020Cited by: 7

    The challenge for experts in government is often described as one of speaking unwelcome truths to a resistant power. Yet, just as problematic can be instances where the advice is welcome and so left unchallenged. Two such cases in which the UK government followed flawed expert advice are considered: intelligence assessments and military advice leading up to the 2003 Iraq War and the role of SAGE (the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) dur…

  • The Falklands War: An Imperial History, by Ezequiel Mercau

    Open AccessLawrence FreedmanARTICLEThe English Historical Review2020

    The Falklands War: An Imperial History, by Ezequiel Mercau The Falklands War: An Imperial History, by Ezequiel Mercau (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2019; pp. 251. £29.99) Lawrence Freedman Lawrence Freedman King’s College London [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 135, Issue 576, October 2020, Pages 1384–1385, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceaa240 P…

  • Arms Control: Management or Reform

    Lawrence FreedmanBOOKArms Control2020

  • Cult of the irrelevant: The waning influence of social science on National Security

    Lawrence FreedmanARTICLEJournal of Strategic Studies2019References: 4

    Monsieur Diderot, I have listened with great interest to everything that your brilliant mind has inspired. But your grand principles, which I understand quite well, make for good books and bad acti