Episode five features Dr. David Stone and Dr. Kenneth Swope from the U.S. Naval War College, who examine how two pivotal conflicts between 1894 and 1905 reshaped China’s place in East Asia. This episode compliments the Russo-Japanese War case study within the Strategy and War Course. While examining the period between the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the guests trace China’s struggle to modernize its military, the heavy costs of defeat by Japan, and the growing shadow of Russian ambitions in the region. Dr. Stone and Dr. Swope first explore how the Sino-Japanese War sets the stage for the Russo-Japanese War and then how both conflicts influenced Chinese and Russian strategic thought. The episode closes by drawing connections between these two wars and power dynamics in East Asia today.

Cover art:

Frederick W. Rose and Kisaburō Ohara, "Kokkei Ō-A Gaikō Chizu: A humorous diplomatic atlas of Europe and Asia" (1904). Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests:

Professor David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy.

Kenneth M. Swope is a Professor of Strategy and Policy who graduated with a B.A. from the College of Wooster (OH) in 1992. He earned his M.A. (Chinese Studies, 1995) and Ph.D (History, 2001) at the University of Michigan. Professor Swope previously taught at Marist College, Ball State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi. He served as the Dr. Leo A. Shifrin Chair at The United States Naval Academy in 2019-20. A specialist on the military history of Ming-Qing China (1368-1911), Dr. Swope has published numerous books and articles including Struggle for Empire: The Battles of General Zuo Zongtang (Naval Institute Press, 2024), which received the "Book of the Year" prize from The Samuel B. Griffith Foundation for the Study of Chinese Military History, and a Distinguished Book Award from The Society for Military History.

Guests Katrina Ponti and Jonathan Romaneski join host Brendan Neagle to unpack the historical significance and strategic effects of operations at Fort Ticonderoga during the American War of Independence. The discussion complements the course materials for American War of Independence case study in the Strategy and War Course at the U.S. Naval War College. The guests explore how the fort’s capture by irregular colonial forces in 1775 revealed the outsized psychological impact of seemingly small operations and the advantages of decentralized execution for insurgents. The discussion then turns to British strategic adjustments and the difficulty of distinguishing between a military objective’s perceived symbolic importance and its true strategic value. Finally, the conversation draws broader lessons on irregular and hybrid warfare, connecting Ticonderoga’s story to modern dilemmas such as gray zone conflicts and the enduring need for adaptability in military planning.

The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, The US Navy, or US Naval War College.

Guests: Katrina Ponti, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow in the Strategy and Policy Department. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Rochester in 2022. Before joining the Strategy and Policy Department, she was an Ernest May Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Ponti has published on topics related to the diplomatic and maritime history of the early United States. In addition to her interests in history and policy, she is a trained historical archaeologist. She is an award-winning poet for her fifth grade work about Fort Ticonderoga: Rainy Day at the Mountain Lake

Rainy day at the mountain lake

What should we do today?

Should we go to a fort

From that long ago day?

Where cannons were brought from one state to the next

Over mountains that nearly touch the sky

LTC Jonathan Romaneski, U.S. Army, is a military professor in the US Naval War College’s Strategy and Policy Department. He is a U.S. Army Aviation officer whose previous command and staff positions include extensive time in Europe, the U.S. Military Academy, Fort Carson, Colorado, and Fort Cavazos, Texas. His most recent assignment was his battalion command tour in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He has a BA in history from James Madison University and a PhD in military history from the Ohio State University.

Guests Michael Pavković and Josh Hammond join host Vanya Eftimova Bellinger to profile the strategic leadership of two of the most compelling figures of the Peloponnesian War: Demosthenes and Brasidas. They compare Brasidas’s formative experiences in Sparta with Demosthenes’s in Athens, exploring how these backgrounds shaped each man’s approach to strategic leadership. The discussion highlights key qualities of effective strategic leaders, including the ability to balance boldness with prudence, exceptional creative and critical thinking skills, and the capacity to reassess, adapt, and decide faster than the adversary. A central theme is the adaptability required to transition from a successful tactical commander to an effective strategist. Careful listeners will also enjoy a surprisingly apt Guns N’ Roses analogy.

Guests

Professor Michael F. Pavković currently serves as Vice Admiral William Ledyard Rodgers Professor in Naval History in the Strategy and Policy Department at the college. He received his B.A. in history and classics from Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He has presented papers at national and international conferences and has also published a number of articles, book chapters and reviews on topics relating to ancient, early modern and Napoleonic military history. He is co-author of "What is Military History?" (Polity Press, 3rd edition, 2017). He is currently writing a book on sea power in the ancient world.

Cmdr. Josh Hammond graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in classical languages and the U.S. Naval War College with an M.A. in national security and strategic studies. While at NWC, he received the Adm. Richard G. Colbert Memorial Prize for professional writing and research. A career naval flight officer, he has over 2,300 hours and 500 carrier landings in the F-14D and F/A-18F in support of numerous operations in the Arabian Gulf and Western Pacific. Other assignments include air operations officer on USS Carl Vinson and an exchange assignment with the Royal Navy in carrier doctrine development.

Guests John Maurer and James Holmes join host Vanya Eftimova Bellinger to discuss the influence of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theories on the strategic environment of the twentieth century and beyond. The guests definitively settle the question of how to pronounce Mahan’s name correctly before diving into how various strategic leaders applied, or misapplied, Mahan’s theories to the formulation of maritime strategy. After analyzing the historical cases of Germany and Japan’s application of Mahanian theories, Dr. Maurer and Dr. Holmes turn their attention to how these ideas influence great power competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

Guests:

Professor John H. Maurer is the Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy and served as the Chair of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

James Holmes holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and served on the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer, he was the last gunnery officer in history to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger, during the first Gulf War in 1991. He earned the Naval War College Foundation Award in 1994, signifying the top graduate in his class. His books include Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2010 and a fixture on the Navy Professional Reading List.

Guests Vanya Bellinger and Andrew "Dex" Wilson join host Brendan Neagle to compare and contrast the foundational theorists of war: Clausewitz and Sun Tzu.

Guests:

Andrew R. Wilson is the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies. Professor Wilson has lectured at military colleges and civilian universities across the United States and around the world. The author of a number of books and articles on Chinese military history, Chinese sea power and Sun Tzu's “The Art of War,” he is presently at work on “The Acme of Skill: Strategic Theory from Antiquity to the Information Age.” Professor Wilson is also featured on “The Great Courses,” with lecture series including “The Art of War”; “Masters of War: History’s Greatest Strategic Thinkers”; and “Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life and Culture.”

Vanya Eftimova Bellinger earned a Ph.D. in history at King’s College, London. Bellinger is the author of “Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War” (Oxford University Press USA, 2015). She is the winner of the 2016 Society for Military History Moncado Prize for her article, “The Other Clausewitz: Findings from the Newly Discovered Correspondence between Marie and Carl von Clausewitz.” Bellinger is the first scholar to work with the newly discovered correspondence between the Clausewitz couple. Before transitioning to academia, Bellinger worked as a journalist and international correspondent for various European outlets.