The Diplomat  |  Author

James R. Holmes

James R. Holmes is a defense analyst for The Diplomat and a professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College where he specializes in U.S., Chinese and Indian maritime strategy and U.S. diplomatic and military history.

He is co-author of Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Foreign Affairs Book for 2010 and a former US Navy surface warfare officer.

The views voiced here are his alone.

Posts by James R. Holmes
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February 27, 2014

The Essential Guide to Writing a Best-Selling Strategy

By James R. Holmes
“Overlooking the interactive nature of strategic competition amounts to unilateral intellectual disarmament.”
February 23, 2014

Strategy and the Tyranny of Maxims

By James R. Holmes
Military strategists need the intellectual toolkits to use bumper-sticker precepts knowledgeably and nimbly.

February 18, 2014

Why Every Sailor Should Read Richard McKenna

By James R. Holmes
McKenna’s books have been on the Chief of Naval Operations’ Professional Reading List for some time.

February 17, 2014

Five Ways to Make Maritime Strategists

By James R. Holmes
Strategy should be as fundamental to an officer's education as mathematics and the sciences.

February 15, 2014

How the Weak Win Wars: China Edition

By James R. Holmes
The U.S. should not take too much solace in the fact that China’s defense spending lags behind its own.
February 09, 2014

Slouching Toward Offshore Balancing

By James R. Holmes
With America facing fiscal constraints, are lawmakers are absentmindedly adopting offshore balancing?

February 04, 2014

Time: Air Power’s Great Nemesis

By James R. Holmes
Cumulative strategic bombing campaigns are rarely strategically decisive in themselves.
February 01, 2014

“Responsibility to Protect” Can’t Save Syria

By James R. Holmes
R2P is just too sweeping to be practical, including in Syria. It’s time to search for more realistic options.

January 28, 2014

Where Abe’s WWI Analogy Falls Apart

By James R. Holmes
Just one month into 2014, and the analogies to 1914 are already picking up.

January 24, 2014

The Right Way to Educate Navy Officers

By James R. Holmes
The Naval Diplomat offers a “No Officer Left Behind” solution to the STEM-Humanities debate raging inside the US Navy.

January 20, 2014

The Battle Over the Littoral Combat Ship Heats Up

By James R. Holmes
The Pentagon and the Navy seek to frame the debate over the LCS as the budget is written.
January 16, 2014

Yes, The US Navy’s Been on a Strategic Holiday

By James R. Holmes
For the past 2 decades plus the US Navy hasn’t had to fight for command of the sea. Is it now hungover?

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