Lukas Milevski
Biographic Data
| ID | 5905147 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lukas Milevski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lukas |
| FAMILY NAME | Milevski |
| SIGNATURE | MILEVSKI L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leiden University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2928-0662 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
And then what? Extraordinary versus average warfare during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
History and International Studies 1900-present
What makes a good strategic concept
Strategic concepts are more than simply academic concepts but must also relate to strategic practice, which affects how we should gauge concept quality. Rather than purely academic measures, strategic concepts must also be judged according to their usefulness for practice. Yet the relationship between general theory and specific practice has hardly been explored, a task this article undertakes. Academic theory generates ad hoc concepts, which are…
Western strategy’s two logics
Classical strategy as a concept encompasses two different logics (instrumentality and adversariality) as well as two different modes (decision-making and performance). In modern strategy, these modes have been on diverging paths, with varying interpretations privileging one logic above the other. Game theory focuses on decision-making, but encompasses both adversariality and instrumentality. Operational art focuses on performance, but in an adver…
Clausewitz at the nexus of competing fashions in Western strategic thought
The history of strategic thought is well trodden ground, but has not been approached from a fashion perspective. This article focuses on the issue of engagement among intellectual fashions by examining how events may lead observers to believe that established, long cycle ways of thinking have become partially, if not wholly, inapt, thereby leading to an uncertain and perhaps incomprehensible strategic environment. Newer, revisionist but often sho…
The Primitivisation of Major Warfare
History and International Studies 1900-present
On “The Grand Strategic Thought of Colin S. Gray” and Author's Response
Russia’s Escalation Management and a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone
Liddell Hart’s Impact on the Study of Grand Strategy
Did Basil Liddell Hart make a significant contribution to the study of grand strategy? Although many scholars assume that he did, discussion of his impact has been largely limited to factually erroneous suggestions that he invented the idea or at least its modern interpretation. This chapter considers Liddell Hart’s impact on the subsequent study of grand strategy by differentiating between his own grand-strategic thought and that of his later in…
The Grand Strategic Thought of Colin S. Gray
Colin S. Gray distinguished himself from other scholars in the field of strategic studies with his belief that grand strategy is indispensable, complex, and inherently agential. This article identifies key themes, continuities, conceptual relationships, and potential discontinuities from his decades of grand strategic thought. Gray’s statement that “all strategy is grand strategy” remains highly relevant today, emphasizing the importance of agent…
Colin S. Gray, deterrence, and contingency
Most scholars as well as practitioners in strategic studies recognize that deterrence is contingent upon the opponent choosing to be deterred. This recognition was a contribution made by Colin Gray
War and Peace
The claim that concepts such as ‘hybrid warfare’ or the ‘grey zone’ reflect the real world better than traditional notions of war and peace does not survive scrutiny
Battle and its emotional effect in war termination
The emotional dimension of the human element of war remains understudied. This article explores war’s fundamental cognitive frame of mind, adversariality, with a focus on its emotional thread, in the context of battle and war termination. Adversariality itself is discussed with specific reference to Clausewitz before key emotional aspects—emotion causation and consequence, and stress, anger, and fear—are explored from the perspective of the emoti…
The idea of genius in Clausewitz and Sun Tzu
In mutual comparison, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu have been critiqued for their individual notions of genius and of promises of victory, respectively. Yet both critiques are beside the point, as they misunderstand both Clausewitz’s intellectual environment and the cultural milieu of ancient China in which Sun Tzu wrote. This article first provides an overview of Clausewitz’s idea of genius, particularly within the context of Enlightenment theorie…
The Strategic Response to Ambiguity
Sanctuary, Honor, and War Termination
The Emergence of the Modern U.S. Army
The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought
In strategic studies and international relations, grand strategy is a frequently-invoked concept. Yet, despite its popularity, it is not well understood and it has many definitions, some of which are even mutually contradictory. This state of affairs undermines its usefulness for scholars and practitioners alike. Lukas Milevski aims to remedy this situation by offering a conceptual history of grand strategy in the English language, analysing its …
Pre-Modern Grand Strategic Thought
It is widely, but erroneously, believed that the term ‘grand strategy’ did not exist before the 1920s. In fact Anglophone grand strategy is largely a product of nineteenth-century American military thought, originally derived from contemporary French military thought. It was a highly military-focused concept with four differing main interpretations. Of these three may have stemmed from French military thought ans the experience of the Napoleonic …
The nature of strategy versus the character of war
Recent literature in strategic studies has argued for or against the idea that the world is entering an era of new types of conflict. Yet neither side of the debate appears to have considered the primary source of the character of war, which is strategy. Strategy's two main relationships (that between military power and political consequences, and that between interacting adversaries) contribute significantly toward determining the character of a…
Strategy Versus Statecraft in Crimea
The March 2014 annexation of Crimea may be interpreted as a contest between Russian strategy and Western statecraft. The respective natures of strategy and statecraft differ substantially, which predetermined the parameters and outcome of the Crimean crisis. This makes an excellent case study of the interaction between strategy and statecraft, and shows why strategy trumps statecraft in direct confrontations
Grand Strategy and Operational Art
This article examines the relationship between two concepts in strategic studies, grand strategy and operational art, to consider their aggregate effect on the fundamental concept of strategy. Grand strategy as a higher level of strategy fails to account for the entire ends-ways-means logic of strategy, thus requiring the introduction of another concept to compensate. Parallels are drawn between this conceptual dichotomy and the current practice …
Deterring ‘Able Archer’
This is a short commentary on Dmitry Adamsky’s recent article ‘The 1983 Nuclear Crisis – Lessons for Deterrence Theory and Practice’. First, it teases out nuances in the relationship between deterrence and strategy and considers deterrence to be both a strategy and an effect. Second, it explores the culminating point of deterrence in theory and considers it untenable, as it does not conform to the logic of, or to any logic analogous to, Clausewit…
"Fortissimus Inter Pares"
L andpower is financially costly, politically contentious, exacts a high human price, and impossible to assess until after the fact. It is of apparently questionable value for preserving security in unstable states or maintaining the benefits of kinetic operations. It has been a truism for sixty years never to conduct a major land war in Asia. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested to an audience at West Point, one also might now add the …
Revisiting J.C. Wylie's Dichotomy of Strategy
J.C. Wylie presented his dichotomy of sequential and cumulative operational patterns in a context of effect through control, not victory or peace, as the objective of war. The author refines concepts of control presented by Rosinski, Eccles, Schelling and Corbett and presents its three facets (taking, denying, exercising) to develop a model of control as manipulation of the opponent's operational choices. This concept of control, when applied to …
Battle and its emotional effect in war termination
The emotional dimension of the human element of war remains understudied. This article explores war’s fundamental cognitive frame of mind, adversariality, with a focus on its emotional thread, in the context of battle and war termination. Adversariality itself is discussed with specific reference to Clausewitz before key emotional aspects—emotion causation and consequence, and stress, anger, and fear—are explored from the perspective of the emoti…
War and Peace
The claim that concepts such as ‘hybrid warfare’ or the ‘grey zone’ reflect the real world better than traditional notions of war and peace does not survive scrutiny
Grand Strategy and Operational Art
This article examines the relationship between two concepts in strategic studies, grand strategy and operational art, to consider their aggregate effect on the fundamental concept of strategy. Grand strategy as a higher level of strategy fails to account for the entire ends-ways-means logic of strategy, thus requiring the introduction of another concept to compensate. Parallels are drawn between this conceptual dichotomy and the current practice …
"Fortissimus Inter Pares"
L andpower is financially costly, politically contentious, exacts a high human price, and impossible to assess until after the fact. It is of apparently questionable value for preserving security in unstable states or maintaining the benefits of kinetic operations. It has been a truism for sixty years never to conduct a major land war in Asia. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested to an audience at West Point, one also might now add the …
Revisiting J.C. Wylie's Dichotomy of Strategy
J.C. Wylie presented his dichotomy of sequential and cumulative operational patterns in a context of effect through control, not victory or peace, as the objective of war. The author refines concepts of control presented by Rosinski, Eccles, Schelling and Corbett and presents its three facets (taking, denying, exercising) to develop a model of control as manipulation of the opponent's operational choices. This concept of control, when applied to …
Strategy Versus Statecraft in Crimea
The March 2014 annexation of Crimea may be interpreted as a contest between Russian strategy and Western statecraft. The respective natures of strategy and statecraft differ substantially, which predetermined the parameters and outcome of the Crimean crisis. This makes an excellent case study of the interaction between strategy and statecraft, and shows why strategy trumps statecraft in direct confrontations
Grand Strategy and Operational Art
This article examines the relationship between two concepts in strategic studies, grand strategy and operational art, to consider their aggregate effect on the fundamental concept of strategy. Grand strategy as a higher level of strategy fails to account for the entire ends-ways-means logic of strategy, thus requiring the introduction of another concept to compensate. Parallels are drawn between this conceptual dichotomy and the current practice …
Deterring ‘Able Archer’
This is a short commentary on Dmitry Adamsky’s recent article ‘The 1983 Nuclear Crisis – Lessons for Deterrence Theory and Practice’. First, it teases out nuances in the relationship between deterrence and strategy and considers deterrence to be both a strategy and an effect. Second, it explores the culminating point of deterrence in theory and considers it untenable, as it does not conform to the logic of, or to any logic analogous to, Clausewit…
The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought
In strategic studies and international relations, grand strategy is a frequently-invoked concept. Yet, despite its popularity, it is not well understood and it has many definitions, some of which are even mutually contradictory. This state of affairs undermines its usefulness for scholars and practitioners alike. Lukas Milevski aims to remedy this situation by offering a conceptual history of grand strategy in the English language, analysing its …
Pre-Modern Grand Strategic Thought
It is widely, but erroneously, believed that the term ‘grand strategy’ did not exist before the 1920s. In fact Anglophone grand strategy is largely a product of nineteenth-century American military thought, originally derived from contemporary French military thought. It was a highly military-focused concept with four differing main interpretations. Of these three may have stemmed from French military thought ans the experience of the Napoleonic …
The nature of strategy versus the character of war
Recent literature in strategic studies has argued for or against the idea that the world is entering an era of new types of conflict. Yet neither side of the debate appears to have considered the primary source of the character of war, which is strategy. Strategy's two main relationships (that between military power and political consequences, and that between interacting adversaries) contribute significantly toward determining the character of a…
The Emergence of the Modern U.S. Army
The idea of genius in Clausewitz and Sun Tzu
In mutual comparison, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu have been critiqued for their individual notions of genius and of promises of victory, respectively. Yet both critiques are beside the point, as they misunderstand both Clausewitz’s intellectual environment and the cultural milieu of ancient China in which Sun Tzu wrote. This article first provides an overview of Clausewitz’s idea of genius, particularly within the context of Enlightenment theorie…
The Strategic Response to Ambiguity
Sanctuary, Honor, and War Termination
Battle and its emotional effect in war termination
The emotional dimension of the human element of war remains understudied. This article explores war’s fundamental cognitive frame of mind, adversariality, with a focus on its emotional thread, in the context of battle and war termination. Adversariality itself is discussed with specific reference to Clausewitz before key emotional aspects—emotion causation and consequence, and stress, anger, and fear—are explored from the perspective of the emoti…
Liddell Hart’s Impact on the Study of Grand Strategy
Did Basil Liddell Hart make a significant contribution to the study of grand strategy? Although many scholars assume that he did, discussion of his impact has been largely limited to factually erroneous suggestions that he invented the idea or at least its modern interpretation. This chapter considers Liddell Hart’s impact on the subsequent study of grand strategy by differentiating between his own grand-strategic thought and that of his later in…
The Grand Strategic Thought of Colin S. Gray
Colin S. Gray distinguished himself from other scholars in the field of strategic studies with his belief that grand strategy is indispensable, complex, and inherently agential. This article identifies key themes, continuities, conceptual relationships, and potential discontinuities from his decades of grand strategic thought. Gray’s statement that “all strategy is grand strategy” remains highly relevant today, emphasizing the importance of agent…
Colin S. Gray, deterrence, and contingency
Most scholars as well as practitioners in strategic studies recognize that deterrence is contingent upon the opponent choosing to be deterred. This recognition was a contribution made by Colin Gray
War and Peace
The claim that concepts such as ‘hybrid warfare’ or the ‘grey zone’ reflect the real world better than traditional notions of war and peace does not survive scrutiny
On “The Grand Strategic Thought of Colin S. Gray” and Author's Response
Russia’s Escalation Management and a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone
What makes a good strategic concept
Strategic concepts are more than simply academic concepts but must also relate to strategic practice, which affects how we should gauge concept quality. Rather than purely academic measures, strategic concepts must also be judged according to their usefulness for practice. Yet the relationship between general theory and specific practice has hardly been explored, a task this article undertakes. Academic theory generates ad hoc concepts, which are…
Western strategy’s two logics
Classical strategy as a concept encompasses two different logics (instrumentality and adversariality) as well as two different modes (decision-making and performance). In modern strategy, these modes have been on diverging paths, with varying interpretations privileging one logic above the other. Game theory focuses on decision-making, but encompasses both adversariality and instrumentality. Operational art focuses on performance, but in an adver…
Clausewitz at the nexus of competing fashions in Western strategic thought
The history of strategic thought is well trodden ground, but has not been approached from a fashion perspective. This article focuses on the issue of engagement among intellectual fashions by examining how events may lead observers to believe that established, long cycle ways of thinking have become partially, if not wholly, inapt, thereby leading to an uncertain and perhaps incomprehensible strategic environment. Newer, revisionist but often sho…
The Primitivisation of Major Warfare
History and International Studies 1900-present
And then what? Extraordinary versus average warfare during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
History and International Studies 1900-present
Political science (23 works) · Law (17 works) · Military History and Strategy (15 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Economics (9 works) · History (9 works)