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Articles by Jonathan Boff
Economic warfare and sanctions since 1688
Advanced search Journal of Strategic Studies Latest Articles Submit an article Journal homepage Full Article Figures & data Citations Metrics Reprints & Permissions Read this article /doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2026.2674949?needAccess=true Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional information Notes on contributors Jonathan Boff Jonathan Boff is Professor of Military History at the University of Birmingham and author of the forthcoming The Age of Mammon and Mars: Money...
Accelerating the ‘kill chain’ – a terrifying glimpse of future warfare
Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team and the Dawn of AI Warfare W.W. Norton, pp.416, 23 America possesses the most powerful military in history, but since 1945 it has not won a war against anyone other than Saddam Hussein. It appears not to understand why. In fact the only thing the US seems worse at than winning wars is learning lessons from its defeats. People such as the secretary of war Pete Hegseth think it’s all about woke.
Learning from history requires sophistication and skill
The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict and Warnings From History Allen Lane, pp.243, 25 If you reckon you have an understanding of international politics today, you probably haven’t been listening properly. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump are making history too fast for most of us to keep up. Odd Arne Westad’s The Coming Storm seeks to make sense of the current geopolitical chaos by drawing parallels between now and the years before 1914.
Clerical skulduggery on the far borders of 1830s Germany
A Scandal in Königsberg Allen Lane, pp.240, 22 Königsberg is no more. Now known as Kaliningrad, it forms part of a small Russian exclave surrounded by Lithuania and Poland. It is probably here that the third world war will start. Before it was bombed flat and ethnically cleansed, the historic Baltic city formed one of the main centres of the German province of Prussia. Old Königsberg was a port and a -meatballs-and-potatoes kind of place, but also one of the battlefields of the Enlightenment.
When ordinary men did extraordinary things – D-Day revisited | The Spectator Australia
Sword: D-Day Trial by Battle William Collins, pp.400, 25 The ferry from Portsmouth to Caen is the most atmospheric way to visit the D-Day battlefields, if not always the most comfortable. As the Normandy coast emerges from the haze, the sand and shingle of Sword beach stretch away to starboard. This was the easternmost of five landing areas assaulted on 6 June 1944 with nearly 30,000 soldiers landed there that day.
Will the German economy bounce back?
Germany was once the powerhouse of Europe; for decades, its economy has helped drive the continent’s growth. No longer. Berlin’s economy ministry plans to downgrade its growth forecast for this year. The German government now expects the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent in 2024 — down from a previous estimate of 0.3 percent growth, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports. Is this the medicine the German economy needs to get it back on to its feet?
Is there any evidence that Abraham Lincoln was gay?
Given the idolatry with which America worships the man widely seen as the greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, and the obsessive place that identity politics now occupies in public spaces, it was probably inevitable that the sexuality of the Civil War winning “honest Abe” would come under revisionist scrutiny sooner or later. And now it has happened.
Did Britain gain anything from the 1942 Bruneval raid?
These days we use radar to help us park our cars, but during the early years of World War Two it was white hot technology and a closely guarded military secret. First used to detect aircraft in 1935, within a few years it had helped win the Battle of Britain and sink the Bismarck. It was so secret that work on it was forbidden even to physicists of genius who had fled the Nazis.
When Britannia ceased to rule the waves
The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain, Volume 3, 1814-1945 Allen Lane, pp.812, 40 When the Royal Navy celebrated Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, 173 ships and 50,000 sailors filled the Solent. The Spectator (3 July 1897) described the ‘endless succession of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, gunboats and torpedo boats’ as offering ‘the most magnificent naval spectacle ever beheld’.
What did Britain really gain from the daring 1942 Bruneval raid?
Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler’s Radar William Collins, pp.362, 25 These days we use radar to help us park our cars, but during the early years of the second world war it was white hot technology and a closely guarded military secret. First used to detect aircraft in 1935, within a few years it had helped win the Battle of Britain and sink the Bismarck.
A Guardsman’s life as not as glamorous as it might seem
Those Must Be the Guards: The Household Division in Peace and War, 1969-2023 Osprey, pp.368, 30 This book is the perfect present for the Guardsman in your life. It offers an authorised biography of the five regiments of Foot Guards and two of Household Cavalry from 1969 to the present day. In that half century the Guards have been under fire in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan, with much of the time also spent maintaining a presence in West Germany.
Fighting every inch of the way: the Italian Campaign of 1943
The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 Bantam, pp.640, 25 In Whitehall, visible to even the most short-sighted from the gates of Downing Street, stands an outsize statue of Lord Alanbrooke, the strategic adviser to Winston Churchill during the second world war. His job was to help the prime minister see the big picture and concentrate on the decisions that really mattered. This was no easy task.
Springtime for Europe
One afternoon in January 1848, in the Sicilian city of Palermo, the streets began to fill with crowds. What brought people out of their homes en masse, or what they wanted, no one was entirely sure. Attempts to disperse them, however, rapidly turned violent, and running battles spread through the streets and squares of the city. Demonstration soon spawned insurrection.
Setting Soviet history straight
Would Hitler and Stalin have fought so hard over a city named Tsaritsyn? This article is taken from the November 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. In the summer of 1942, with the German army deep inside the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Blue, an attack from around Kharkiv in south-east Ukraine across hundreds of miles of steppe towards the oil fields of the Caucasus.
Operation Chariot succeeded because it was unthinkable
Eighty years ago, just after midnight on 28 March 1942, the British destroyer HMS Campbeltown crept up the estuary of the River Loire towards the heavily defended port of St Nazaire. Here lay an immense dry dock, the only facility on the west coast of France that German battleships such as the ferocious Tirpitz could use if they needed repair. Destroy the dock, and Tirpitz would be unable to sortie against the Atlantic convoys supplying Britain.
New tactics are needed for the wars of the future
The strategic bankruptcy of the West has twice so far this century demanded that our brave soldiers risk their bodies and minds to fight unwinnable wars. The lessons to be learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan, and indeed from Libya, Syria and the Sahel, are many; but the original sin was hubris, born of post-Cold War military preponderance and successes in Sierra Leone, Ulster and Kosovo.
Spitfires of the sea: the secret exploits of the Royal Navy’s 15th Motor Gun Boat Flotilla
Fast boats and fast women have been the ruin of many a poor boy. But they can also prove a triumphant mix, as the wartime exploits of the Royal Navy’s 15th Motor Gun Boat Flotilla, described in Tim Spicer’s highly enjoyable book, show. An under-cover unit run during the second world war by the Secret Intelligence Service, it used sleek 110ft motor launches to ferry agents and supplies between England and France.
WW II Turned on Malta
If you can tell the difference between Jack Hawkins and John Mills, and between a Stuka and a Sten gun, perhaps after long, wet afternoons watching black-and-white war films, this is the book for you. Max Hastings is a wily operator who knows exactly what his readers want and with Operation Pedestal he has produced it for them again.
How a small Mediterranean island determined the outcome of the second world war
If you can tell the difference between Jack Hawkins and John Mills, and between a Stuka and a Sten gun, perhaps after long, wet afternoons watching black-and-white war films, this is the book for you. Max Hastings is a wily operator who knows exactly what his readers want and with Operation Pedestal he has produced it for them again.
The Carnage of Western Front Was Over Quickly
The Carnage of Western Front Was Over Quickly The pace of technological change was dizzying, says Nick Lloyd, and by late 1918 the Allies’ sophisticated tactics brought total battle defeat for Germany Read Full Article »
The carnage of the Western Front was over surprisingly quickly
This book does not mess about. It tells the story of the fighting on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918, just like it says on the tin. It offers a proudly traditional military history, from the opening skirmishes, through the titanic clashes of the Marne and Verdun, the Somme and Ypres, on to the often overlooked Allied sweep to victory of the Hundred Days. It describes what happened when, where and why.
Physician, heal thyself? Leaving healers at risk of covid-19 is unacceptable
Gordon Muir, consultant urologist1, Jonathan Boff, reader in the history of warfare2 1King’s College Hospital, London SE5 9RS, UK 2Department of History, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK gordon.muir{at}nhs.net We read the reports from Israel suggesting that one dose of Pfizer vaccine could be less effective than expected with disquiet.1 NHS staff are being vaccinated for covid-19 with a single dose, as if they were members of the ordinary population rather than uniquely exposed to the...
Medice Cure Te Ipsum (1)
Dear Editor We read this report with disquiet. NHS frontline staff have been surprised in the last few weeks: initially to see international colleagues first in their countries for COVID-19 immunisation while NHS workers have been second in line. They have now been refused their second, recommended, dose of the Pfizer vaccine which will be delayed by months to allow greater numbers of the population to have one initial dose.
Covid-19: “Steady the front line! There is no retreat from here”
Gordon Muir, consultant urologist1, Jonathan Boff, senior lecturer in modern history2 1King’s College Hospital, London SE5 9RS, UK 2University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK gordonhmuir{at}me.com As an ex-army surgeon and a military historian, we have previously felt uneasy about healthcare workers being described as “frontline staff.”1 The front line suggests to us a tangible risk of harm or death at work. No longer. NHS staff are dying of covid-19 acquired from patients.
Michigan War Studies Review
New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2018. Pp. xxv, 373. ISBN 978–0–19–967046–8. The literature on the First World War has grown enormously over the past three decades, given a further recent boost by the centenary of the war.
A War for Welfare
A new book seeks to change the way we look at the Second World War by challenging three enduring myths about Britain’s involvement. Jonathan Fennell has produced a compelling and magisterial history of the British and Commonwealth armies between 1939 and 1945. His explanation of their development and operations achieves exactly the right balance between narrative and analysis.
1918: Year of Victory and Defeat
For most of the past hundred years, horror, sorrow and trauma have been the leading motifs of the First World War. They define how its centenary has been commemorated. On one level, this makes sense. Aside from the occasional inspiring story of self-sacrifice, only fools and knaves find much to celebrate in war and each generation has a duty to warn the next of its evil. Over the last four years, however, it has been easy to forget that this was not a war in which there were no victors.
Haig’s Enemy: Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany’s War on the Western Front; The First Soldier: Hitler as Military Leader
Military history tends to be seen through the eyes of the victors, but these two books show the two world wars from the perspective of the defeated Germans. Archival research on German military decision-making during World War I has been hampered by the destruction of the bulk of the records in World War II. Boff has managed to fill some of the gaps by supplementing standard sources with the detailed diaries of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria.
Don’t Believe All Those Stories About The Germans And Mission Command
Modern militaries often claim that their command system is built around the principles of ‘mission command’, whereby a commander sets his subordinate a mission, explains his intent, and leaves the subordinate freedom to decide how to accomplish the task he has been set. The concept of ‘mission command’ is often traced back to the Auftragstaktik of the German army of the First World War and earlier.
1918: Year of Victory and Defeat
For most of the past hundred years, horror, sorrow and trauma have been the leading motifs of the First World War. They define how its centenary has been commemorated. On one level, this makes sense. Aside from the occasional inspiring story of self-sacrifice, only fools and knaves find much to celebrate in war and each generation has a duty to warn the next of its evil. Over the last four years, however, it has been easy to forget that this was not a war in which there were no victors.
The Year of British Victory and German Defeat
For most of the past hundred years, horror, sorrow and trauma have been the leading motifs of the First World War. They define how its centenary has been commemorated. On one level, this makes sense. Aside from the occasional inspiring story of self-sacrifice, only fools and knaves find much to celebrate in war, and each generation has a duty to warn the next of its evil. Over the last four years, however, it has been easy to forget that this was not a war in which there were no victors.
Learning about the First World War through German eyes
Thanks to the ongoing centenary commemorations, interest in the First World War has never been higher. Whether it be through visiting the poppies at the Tower, touring the battlefields of Belgium and France, tracking grandad’s war or digging in local archives to uncover community stories – unprecedented numbers of people have come face to face with their history in new and exciting ways. There are a few aspects missing from the commemorations held so far, however.
Passchendaele: why was it fought and why did it fail?
Of the many beautiful cemeteries cared for around the world by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the largest lies on the side of a gentle hill in Belgium. The bodies of nearly 12,000 men lie in Tyne Cot Cemetery, most of them unidentified. Another 35,000 whose bodies were never found are commemorated on a memorial wall at the top of the plot. Look back down the slope: you can see the town of Ypres below, only about five miles away.
Editors' Picks: Favourite Nonfiction of 2018
I’ve been asking people for book recommendations for close to a decade now (our first Five Books interview with Harvard economist Robert Barro was back in 2009), so I feel a bit sheepish admitting I don’t much like recommending books. My reading choices reflect subjects I happen to be interested in finding out more about—and that’s not necessarily what anyone else wants or needs to know more about. That disclaimer aside, these were my favourite nonfiction books of 2018. 1.
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