Strategika at 100: The Importance of Thinking Ahead, with David Berkey

Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) - After twelve years of commissioning leading minds to write about the history of humans at war in Strategika, Hoover Research Fellow David Berkey says the work they generate can sometimes, inadvertently, illustrate the future.

Berkey works with members of Hoover's Military History in Contemporary Conflict Working Group and guest contributors to Strategika to curate entries, select art, and together with Hoover senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson, decide on the overall topic of each issue.

And often, he says, the ideas that become opinion pieces in the journal spark wider thought among military thinkers going forward.

"Strategika often looks ahead to issues that might not be in the forefront of the news but are very critical topics," Berkey said in an interview. "We're not trying to follow the news cycle at Strategika."

Something that comes up often in the wider Hoover Institution landscape is when a scholar will come upon something they're interested in personally, and weeks or months later it will be a subject of major interest to everyone in a certain field.

"We're trying to think ahead," Berkey said. "It's uncanny how sometimes we will release an issue and then six months later it will become a topic that will figure in news stories."

One such example was published in June 2015. Issue no. 24, released that month, asked whether traditional structures of US combat power-the carrier battle group, the infantry division, and the fighter wing-were still relevant ways to organize the military force. Contributor Thomas Donnelly discussed the way US troops were split into "brigade combat teams" of 3,500 soldiers at times during the global war on terror. He asked whether this move was prudent and predicted a US return to larger formations.

But in the post-2020 wars of the drone age, between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as between Russia and Ukraine, even smaller formations-such as the Russian Battalion Tactical Group, or small groups of saboteurs using e-scooters, motorcycles, or even donkeys to transport themselves and hide from one-way attack drones-became popular groupings of infantry.

Even with these developments forcing splits into ever-smaller groupings of soldiers in modern wars, several Strategika contributors pointed out that large groups of infantry remain the only way armies can occupy territory and solidify gains on the battlefield, raising an interesting conundrum yet to be solved.

In another issue, released in December 2022, contributors spoke about the potential future use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, using Russian President Vladimir Putin's suggestions about willingness to use those weapons in Ukraine as a news hook.

But the issue also discussed another phenomenon brought about in part by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a new global surge in demand for missiles and counter-missile systems, that would highlight the urgent need for America to revitalize its own stockpile of nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

Since then, experts have sounded the alarm ever more loudly about the revitalization of America's missile stockpile and nuclear arsenal. It's a topic that informed Distinguished Visiting Fellow Adm. James O. Ellis Jr. 's discussion at Hoover's 2025 Military History Working Group conference.

"We were hearing about this in the news, very provocative language that had come out from Russia about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons," Berkey said. "And then in light of the conflict, we brought that up as part of a workshop discussion at a later date."

As to the founding of Hoover's Military History Working Group and the Strategika publication, Davis Hanson said the intent of the journal was always to bring together experts with a wide variety of backgrounds and try to chart where warfare is heading, while nodding to the fact that armed conflict is not going away as a means of humanity settling disputes.

"Strategika offers discussions of contemporary strategic and tactical challenges analyzed and critiqued through comparisons to, and lessons from, thousands of wars of the past," he said.

"In each issue, the journal presents diverse discussions of current military-related controversies, often from a wide variety of conflicting academic, political, and professional viewpoints. Strategika thus seeks to help both policymakers and the public understand better the role of unchanging human nature in conflicts across time and space."

Another unique element of Strategika is its use of some of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives' collection of 100,000 historical posters to illustrate each issue.

Echoing Hanson's emphasis on the role of unchanging human nature in conflict, Berkey says the use of these posters in each issue illustrates that while military technology and tactics will always advance, human nature remains essentially the same.

Sometimes, Berkey said, he picks posters that "take a very different viewpoint from the actual opinion of the author in a piece."

One example came from issue no. 61, released in December 2019, which explores "tariffs and embargoes" from a national security perspective.

A poster advocating agricultural tariffs from the 1930 Parliamentary election in United Kingdom is shown. (Hoover Library & Archives)

"[The issue] was actually arguing against tariffs, but the poster is talking about protectionism building a brighter future," Berkey said.

Beyond a little humor, Berkey said, the point of running a poster contradicting the arguments made in the issue is to highlight the fact that previous generations of thinkers and voters have contended with the same issues we confront today.

"Previous generations have grappled with this. What did they have to say about it? What can the historical record teach us about how their response either worked or didn't work?"

Looking ahead, Berkey said Strategika will continue to point readers in the direction of new security challenges that America and its allies will need to confront.

The next two issues deal with US medical supremacy on the military battlefield and the future use of artificial intelligence in warfare. Like the discussions of the relevance of carrier battlegroups, tanks, and artillery from issues prior, these are matters that will only likely grow in importance as time goes on.

Pondering the overall mission of Strategika, Berkey said the publication is meant to predict where warfare is headed but also remind the reader that America's successes on the battlefield over centuries haven't occurred by accident and won't continue without sustained effort.

"We need to be maintaining our deterrence, we need to have a commitment to our national defense and to support our allies," Berkey said. "That this is what, in fact, has guaranteed a lot of the peace and prosperity that we enjoy in this country."