Council Senior Fellow Stephen Biddle’s Military Power Awarded Prize for Best Book on National Security Studies

March 10, 2006--Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton University Press, 2004), by Senior Fellow Stephen Biddle, was awarded the Huntington Prize on March 9 at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC. Established in 2000 by students and friends of Professor Samuel P. Huntington, the $10,000 prize is awarded each year to the best book in the field of national security studies.

In his book, Biddle addresses the causes of battlefield victory and defeat with an approach that combines an appreciation for the human and material elements of military power. “Steve Biddle may be the best American defense analyst of his generation, and this book is quite possibly his career masterpiece to date,” said Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon. “His argument about trends in warfare transcends the popular theory that a revolution in military affairs in now underway. He replaces this theory with a more convincing, more historical, and less technology-obsessed view of the modern battlefield.”

“Military Power is a comprehensive analysis of how doctrine and tactics influence the outcome of combat,” said Council President Richard N. Haass. “Steve’s knowledge of military strategy and the conduct of war is a valuable addition to the Council’s Studies Program.”

Biddle is senior fellow for defense policy at the Council, where he researches and writes on questions of U.S. national security and strategy. His article, “Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon,” on communal civil war in Iraq, appeared in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. He is also adjunct associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. Prior to joining the Council in January 2006, Biddle was associate professor and Elihu Root chair of military studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.

Founded in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, national membership organization and a nonpartisan center for scholars dedicated to producing and disseminating ideas so that individual and corporate members, as well as policymakers, journalists, students, and interested citizens in the United States and other countries, can better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other governments. 

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