Item category 2: POINTER Monthly Essays

The author highlights that many contemporary military strategists and practitioners value the philosophiescontained in Carl Von Clausewitz’s classic On War and its relevance to present day conflict. On the other hand, thereare also speculation and debates over Clausewitz’s relevance to contempora...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s victory over the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) during the Chinese Civil War marked one of the largest reversals in military history. While a multitude of factors have been cited as contributing to this outcome, this article will investigate the significance of p...

In this essay, the author theorises that a state’s growth in economic might is often matched by an increasingly outward-facing strategic vision and a corresponding build-up of military power projection capabilities. He cited the example of the United States, a growing economic power by the late 1...

In this essay, the author aims to discuss how China will embrace AI and Robotics to enhance its national security and how the security landscape will be affected by this pursuit. The author first identifies China’s national interests and examines how it will use AI and Robotics technologies to en...

According to the author, hybrid entities are state-sponsored groups which possess training, discipline and equipment, like state militaries. Where these groups lack high end equipment (e.g. tanks, aircraft), they compensate with asymmetric tactics of operating in urban environment and exploiting ...

Despite its failure, the Gallipoli campaign offers an excellent case study in the application of maritime strategy. Was it a good strategy badly executed, or was it simply a bad maritime strategy? It was, as this essay will argue, a bad strategy which was poorly executed. Even if it had been exec...

In this essay, the author first describes the concept of national security and how it is typically achieved before attempting to shed light on the concept of Transparency. Next, viewing Transparency as an instrument, he identifies the mechanisms underpinning its effects and discusses its value an...

The robotics revolution offers new ways of warfighting through co-operative robotics including swarm and multi-agent systems resulting in swarm warfare. The essence of swarm warfare combines the highly decentralised nature of melee combat with the mobility of manoeuvre warfare. Underlying the abi...

In this essay, the author discusses the various dimensions of strategy. He examines Clausewitz’s five elementsof strategy in his seminal work On War. He also explores Colin Gray’s 17 Dimensions and Michael Howard’s FourDimensions of Strategy. The author then studies the ques􀆟on that some dimensi...

In this essay, the author discusses the ideas of three military strategists in their analysis of Clausewitz’s Centre of Gravity (COG) concept—the Clausewitzian Traditionalists, the Rejectionists and the Accommodators. Specifically, the author examines the ideas of the Rejectionists as they reject...