Reconceptualizing War: The Rise and Fall of Fashionable Concepts in Strategic Studies

The field of Strategic Studies, which studies the use and threat of force for political purposes, has seen the repeated rise of concepts to dominate discourses and research agendas, only to eventually fall to the margins again. What explains this cyclical pattern? What are the consequences for our understanding of war?

Reconceptualizing War examines these questions by likening the coming and going of theories to fashions. While in vogue, fashionable concepts are used widely, becoming broader and vaguer until essentially stripped of meaning. At the same time, they are bestowed with authority and power that allows them to withstand criticism and marginalizes alternative perspectives. These characteristics severely affect the quality, depth, and diversity of research by narrowing and siloing the field of inquiry.

Tracing three concepts--revolution in military affairs, counterinsurgency, and hybrid warfare--through their fashion lifecycle, Chiara Libiseller demonstrates how fashionability affects the concepts themselves, related research, and the field more generally. Embedded within a discussion of the history and dynamics of Strategic Studies, the book calls for more reflexivity in the study of war and strategy.

Chiara Libiseller, Lecturer in Strategic Studies, Department of War Studies, King’s College London

Chiara Libiseller is a Lecturer in Strategic Studies at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research focuses on Western strategic and military thinking and discourse, the changing character of war, and knowledge production on war. Her work has been published in the Journal of Strategic Studies and Survival, among others. Dr Libiseller received her PhD from the King’s College London Department of War Studies in 2022 and has held positions at Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Innsbruck. She also serves as a Deputy Editor for the Journal of Strategic Studies.