Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict - Hardcover

Max Brooks is a writer, public speaker, nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Art of Future Warfare project. He is the author of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and The Harlem Hellfighters, among other works. John Amble is the editorial director of the Modern War Institute. A military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, he is a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. ML Cavanaugh is a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute and a U.S. Army strategist with global experience and assignments ranging from the Pentagon to Korea and Iraq to Army Space and Missile Defense Command. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, among other publications. Jaym Gates is a science fiction editor and author, with more than a dozen anthologies to her credit. She is the coeditor of War Stories: New Military Science Fiction. Stanley McChrystal is a U.S. Army general (ret.) who led the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq during the Persian Gulf wars and was top commander of American forces in Afghanistan.

"This may be the most innovative and interesting book on military strategy ever published. . . . This volume takes a completely different approach to explaining both the eternal nature and modern intricacies of strategy, politics, and conflict by using the popular Star Wars movies as a common frame of reference for discussing the many issues and challenges modern practitioners of the strategic arts face."—Jerry Lenaburg, New York Journal of Books (Jerry Lenaburg New York Journal of Books)

"Illuminating."—Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs (Lawrence D. Freedman Foreign Affairs)

"Strategy Strikes Back highlights what good science fiction and serious reflection on pop culture can do: bring the (strategic) dilemmas of the current age into stark relief."—Erin Simpson, War on the Rocks (Erin Simpson War on the Rocks 2018-06-01)

"You might be forgiven for thinking the never-ending Star Wars franchise was simply a cash cow built of sequels, spin-offs and toys. But the space saga is actually helping further the discussion about military strategy right here on Earth."—Chad Jones, San Francisco Chronicle (Chad Jones San Francisco Chronicle 2018-06-21)

"Anyone with a basic knowledge of the Star Wars universe is sure to enjoy the creative parallels used by these esteemed authors to simplify complex topics. Avid fans with deep knowledge of this universe cannot help but embrace these parallels, think through them more deeply, and dig even deeper into them as they try to support or argue against the authors while also showing off their superior knowledge of their favorite series of movies."—Steve Luczynski, Strategy Bridge (Steve Luczynski Strategy Bridge 2018-09-10)

"Strategy Strikes Back succeeds . . . in illuminating the parallels between war-fighting in speculative fiction and the real world. It opens strategic thinking to non-expert audiences, and prompts experts to reason creatively about the role of force—and indeed the Force—in establishing and maintaining political order."—Stephen Dyson, H-Diplo (Stephen Dyson H-Diplo)

“Over the course of history, our single greatest vulnerability has been a failure of imagination. Strategy Strikes Back confronts that vulnerability. The future may not evolve precisely as these authors suggest, but evolve it will. As it does, we will discover that some of tomorrow’s challenges will prove to be timeless, and others surprisingly new. Learning to imagine now will be time well spent.”—Gen. Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen. Martin Dempsey 2017-09-22)

“Star Wars is just as much a foundational mythology of our time as The Iliad was a long time ago. Strategy Strikes Back ingeniously uses that world far, far away to help readers take a look at our wars here today.”—P. W. Singer, best-selling author of Wired for War and coauthor of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War (P. W. Singer 2017-09-22)