NK Finney

Orphaned Tactics Oops we did it again

“The war with Iran is little more than the joint targeting process unleashed. The Frankenstein’s monster that is the operational level of war, unsatiated after eating strategy, is now feasting on policy”. @bafriedman.bsky.social

Going to be a busy end of March!

Why war isn’t always good for defence stocks They win only if governments want just enough weapons—but not too many

Why war isn’t always good for defence stocks…

Listening to a storyteller spin some yarns…

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Guys, China’s risk calculus on Taiwan is not determined by some global scale of the acceptability of aggression

Good thread. Note the maximalist aims…they differ from perceived dramatic (but discrete and tactical) successes in Venezuela and air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

UT-Austin to merge race, ethnic and gender study programs More than 800 students are pursuing degrees in the affected departments, which include African, Latino and gender studies.

They are merging AMST with three other departments, effectively shuttering a program that has been in existence for 85 years. www.texastribune.org/2026/02/12/t...

Devastated to learn that Univ of Texas at Austin is closing the American Studies dept. The years I spent there earning my PhD were formative, making me the teacher, thinker, and writer I am today. I've passed on what I learned at UT to thousands of students over the past 20 years. Just awful.

I am loved. Doesn’t get better.

Gramsci watching the Super Bowl: “It’s the war of position!”

Family time…

Access a decade of peer-to-peer professional writing with the sole purpose of developing the next generation of leaders
in strategy, national security, & military affairs ==>

thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge-i...

I still get emails from folks asking if we’ll publish an article they wrote in The Strategy Bridge. The memory endures…

I miss that community…it was quite the vibrant writing group that was always expanding. And @misscherryjones.bsky.social’s Black Widow post was always one of my favorite…

Building on Grumbach's point here, putting the onus on advocates and citizens to change public opinion for you is not political leadership; it is bad faith cowardice.

Snowy shenanigans…

“…through the course of the war the goals of the council shifted based on input, support, and both robust and passive resistance by state citizens.” (Page 8)

BTW - Love these pics friends send me of them with “Orchestrating Power”!

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Louis Brandeis got here first and best, in 1927: “If there be a time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence”.

Frozen day = s’mores evening…

On this episode of @cimsec.bsky.social #SeaControl, I host Dr. Elsa Kania to discuss her in-depth research of Chinese Command and Control.

To understand how the #CCP commands the #PLA, and how the #PLA command its forces, give this episode a listen! #WriteFightWin

open.spotify.com/episode/1xQc...

Cool opportunity thanks to @dukesanford.bsky.social/AGS.

The Author’s Corner with Nathan K. Finney Nathan K. Finney is a U.S. Army strategist; a non-resident research fellow at The Duke Program in American Grand Strategy; a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Securi…

Thanks to John Fea and his team for doing a quick interview on “Orchestrating Power”!

thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/01/20/t...

Now up to 4 book talks scheduled for the next few months. Really excited and humbled to be asked to talk about “Orchestrating Power”!

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

China’s Muted Response to Venezuela: Sober Alarm, Not Nationalist Bombast The official Chinese narrative foregrounds international condemnation and positions Beijing as defender of the international order. But Chinese commentary strikes a different tone.

“Chinese businesses in Latin America must be more cautious, assess geopolitical conditions, avoid sensitive critical infrastructure, & focus on trade rather than investment… [&] structure investments through multilateral bodies so as to avoid U.S. scrutiny.”

thediplomat.com/2026/01/chin...

Canada's deal with China signals it is serious about shift from US Carney says Canada's relationship with China has become "more predictable" than that with the US, as his country searches for trade certainty.

"The prime minister is saying, essentially, that Canada has agency too, and that it's not going to just sit and wait for the United States”

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Orchestrating Power The American Associational State in the First World War by Nathan K. Finney - SHGAPE Orchestrating Power explores how the expansion of the American state for the First World War reshaped the nature of governance. Nathan K. Finney focuses on North Carolina’s Council of Defense to descr...

Thanks to the Society for the Gilded Age and Progressive Era @shgape.bsky.social for sharing information on "Orchestrating Power"!

www.shgape.org/books/orches...

@cornellupress.bsky.social @bethanywasik.bsky.social @silbey.bsky.social

Apparently DoD’s priority theater follows me around…