Michael Vlahos | US Naval War College (original) (raw)

Papers by Michael Vlahos

Routledge eBooks, Jun 9, 2020

The Washington Quarterly, 1986

Third World Marxist-Leninist Regimes: Strengths, Vulnerabilities and U.S. Policy. By Uri Ra'a... more Third World Marxist-Leninist Regimes: Strengths, Vulnerabilities and U.S. Policy. By Uri Ra'anan et al. Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey's (for the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis), 1985. U.S. Foreign Policy and the Third World: Agenda 1985-86. Edited by John W. Sewell et al. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books (for the Overseas Development Council), 1985. By Mark N. Katz Making the Alliance Work: The United States and Western Europe. By Gregory F. Treverton. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. The Age of Vulnerability: Threats to the Nuclear Stalemate. By Michael Nacht. Washington, D.C.: Brookigs Institution, 1985. By Derek Leebaert Latin Migration North: The Problem for U.S. Foreign Policy. By Michael S. Teitelbaum. New York: Council of Foreign Relations, 1985. By Sol Sanders Nation Against Nation. By Thomas M. Franck. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. By Stanley J. Michalak, Jr.

Naval War College Review, 1979

Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 1991

... America's purpose in the new world will be different from that of its previous great glo... more ... America's purpose in the new world will be different from that of its previous great global mission. ... (3) Why do Europeans persist in nurturing the illusion of an ... blood relations with Europe, and Americans share with Europeans the same badges and appurtenances of daily life. ...

Washington Quarterly, Jun 1, 1997

Review of Faith & International Affairs, Jun 1, 2012

The tenets of American exceptionalism—defined as its civil religion—have shifted over time, and e... more The tenets of American exceptionalism—defined as its civil religion—have shifted over time, and exceptionalism's most recent iteration has alarming ramifications, demonstrated through US counterterrorism policy. In crucial respects, the American project can be compared to ancient Rome: in its civil universalism; its sense of exceptional destiny; its use of sacred symbols; and its militarization. Global terrorism today threatens America's sense of divine blessing, its civil-religious identity. The mindset undergirding current US counterterrorism, especially the extensive use of drone attacks, should be normatively criticized as a sharp deviation from the traditional ethos of exceptionalism. The new ethos is one of ruthlessly purging the world of alleged threats rather than redeeming/transforming the world.

Naval Engineers Journal, Jul 1, 1991

Naval Engineers Journal, Jul 1, 1992

Military review, Nov 1, 2007

THE PLACE: The River Frigidus, in a country we now call Bosnia. The time: autumn, 394. Two Roman ... more THE PLACE: The River Frigidus, in a country we now call Bosnia. The time: autumn, 394. Two Roman emperors. Theodosius I and Eugenius, are at war, with the world in the balance. A deciding factor: Alaric's Gothic tribal militia. His shock troops storm the laager where Eugenius's soldiers shelter, defeating them and reuniting the empire under Theodosius. But reveling in their strength, the Goths soon take on the imperial state itself. Rome contains them only when the emperor's sister. Galla Placidia. weds the Gothic leader and Visigoths are made Roman in Aquitaine. (1) Nine centuries later. A wholly extravagant man, Roger de Flor. seals a deal with Andronicus II, basileus of a much-shrunken Romaioi. Roger's soldier-company--7,000 Catalans. women and children, too--sets out against the Turks. Nothing can stop this skirmishing, ferocious light infantry. But there is not enough gold in the Byzantine treasury to pay them. Catalan anger against an empty-pocket state (that betrays them!) starts an empire-wide, seven-year rampage that comes close to bringing down Constantinople itself. (2) Two snapshots in history: two "'non-state actors" seizing the greatest states of their day by the throat--and taking what they want. For all of its unpalatable irony, this is our world today. We Americans, 21st-century Romans, find ourselves ineffective against the barbarians we call non-state actors. The non-state fighters are like Melville's Moby Dick: they "heap" us, they task us. Yet we can achieve nothing against them. Something is happening here, and we need to take it onboard. But doing so means throwing off our narcissism and certainty of entitlement. It is a heavy burden to shrug off. But shrug it we must. The "American Way of War" enshrines triumph through military "transformations." (3) They are divine tokens of our superiority. Even better, "like-us" challenges from others are met by all-out U.S. out-performance. German combined arms innovation between the world wars led to "Patton beats Rommel." Ditto Japanese carrier aviation. Ditto Soviet atomic rockets. Ditto too the Soviets' vaunted "military-technical revolution." How we outdid them! But our paradigm of military "revolution" is steadfastly both technology-driven and self-focused. The American way of war is all about "like-us" or "kin-enemies" also doing like us. We always win out in the end, and win big. Today's transformation, however, has nothing to do with us, except perhaps in how the new innovators take on our technologies--and target our vulnerabilities. The innovators here are emerging societies and alternative communities--not "kin-enemies" but aliens, "stranger-enemies." They drive this transformation of war. History's Legacy Since classical antiquity there have been two eras in which non-state actors dominated war. One was the time of antiquity's end, from the 5th to the 7th centuries. The second was at the end of the Middle Ages and the very beginning of modernity, in the 13th and 14th centuries. These were tumultuous times, of course, but also periods in which identity was shifting and migrating. Specifically, these eras track the morphing identity of the Greco-Roman world and the late-medieval transformation of the Mediterranean world (the emergence of the Ottomans as successors to both the Byzantine and Sunni Arab commonwealths). These were transition periods, between-times, bridging old establishments to new. Consider what was happening: * International relationships were marked by migrations of peoples, economic big changes, and "outside" shocks like grand pandemics and abrupt climate change. * Societies were shaken by new ideas and new movements, leading to new collective consciousnesses and thus new identities. * The very nature of ruling authority was shifting in people's minds, moving rapidly from established forms to new claims. If we look at late antiquity and early modernity, we see two very different, but also two very change-oriented times. …

Humanitas

What does it mean to be woke? First and foremost, "woke" is a religious signal that you have hear... more What does it mean to be woke? First and foremost, "woke" is a religious signal that you have heard the Good News and Seen the Light. Awakening means both witnessing revealed truth and experiencing spiritual transformation. Today this has taken the form of a collective enunciation: of a new national church, reformed and transformed, to replace the original American sect, which is wicked and corrupted. In simple, practical terms, the Church of Woke is pledged to the destruction of Racism, Patriarchy, and Heteronormativity. The original national religion-often called American Exceptionalism-and the Church of Woke are locked in a victory-or-death struggle. To understand this, two points are essential. First: America is a religion. American life and politics function in a religious milieu. 1 That should not surprise. In 1967, American sociologist Robert Bellah declared a national "civil religion"-yet "civil religion" is a pleonasm. 2 The Greek word "politics" and the Roman "civil" both refer to the city, the national community of Antiquity. Hence today, in our national city, all citizens are part of an American religious congregation.

Naval War College Review, 1981

Strategic Defense and the American Ethos, 2019

magnitude, made more formidable by a world where geography, military power, and time to react are... more magnitude, made more formidable by a world where geography, military power, and time to react are no longer sufficient to ensure our security. Strategic communication and other 21 st century instruments of statecraft require changes different in kind but similar in scale to the National Security Act of 1947 and the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. These changes will occur only with sustained, enthusiastic, and deeply committed Presidential leadership-and the collaborative and bipartisan support of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees of Congress. Government-private sector partnership. Finding new ways to harness strategic communication to the flexibility and creative imagination of the private sector will be central to successful strategic communication in the 21 st century. The commercial sector has a dominant competitive edge in multi-media production, opinion and media surveys, information technologies, program evaluation, and measuring the influence of communications. Academic and research communities offer vast untapped resources for education, training, area and language expertise, planning and consultative services. Effective sharing between government and society in the conduct of strategic communication is not new. Government grants to private organizations have long been a way to carry out international educational and cultural exchanges, foreign opinion polling, democratization and media training programs, and much of U.S. international broadcasting. Grants extend the reach of government programs and capitalize on the expertise and flexibility of non-government partner organizations. Recent study groups, including the October 2001 Defense Science Board Task Force, have recommended more extensive collaboration. These observers see value not only in leveraging private sector competencies but in new structures and a degree of distance that attracts credible messengers with non-government resumes, creative thinkers and talented communicators uncomfortable working with government agencies, and skilled, languagequalified professionals available for temporary crisis deployment.