Reciprocity of War and Strategy: Theory and Practice in the Iraq War, 2006-2009
With Daniel Marston
Sponsored by the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History
Date: Monday, October 27, 2025
Time: 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm, Toronto time
Cost: Free, RSVP required
Location: Boardroom and Library, 315 Bloor St. West, Toronto, M5S 0A7 & Online via Zoom
About the Event
This talk will analyze the complexities inherent in the reciprocity of war and strategy by examining coalition warfare through the prism of the British Army’s experiences in Multi-National Division South East (MND SE) and Basra in the Iraq War, 2006-2009. It will delve deep into the concept of strategy in practice. Considered as a case study, this operation encompasses a range of experiences, from communication breakdowns caused by shifting national interests and the effects on working within a coalition with the US and Iraq, to demonstrating in MND SE operations a clear understanding of the character of the war and the role of reciprocity of war and strategy.
Daniel Marston is the Director of the Secretary of Defense Strategic Thinkers Program (STP) and Professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. He is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. Between, 2012-2018, he held a Professorship in War and Society at the Australian National University and was also the Principal of the Military and Defense Studies Program at the Australian Command & Staff College in Canberra. He previously held the Ike Skelton Distinguished Chair in the Art of War at the US Army Command and General Staff College and was a Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He has been a Visiting Fellow, on multiple occasions, with the Changing Character of War Program at the University of Oxford. He was a special advisor, between 2004-2018, in the United Kingdom, United States, Iraq and Afghanistan with the British Army, USMC and USA.
Marston has published widely on war and strategy from the 18th century to the present. Three of his books were prize winners. The Phoenix from the Ashes, an in-depth assessment of how the British/Indian Army turned defeat into victory in the Burma campaign of the Second World War, won the Field Marshal Templer Medal Book Prize (Best in British/Empire and Commonwealth military history) in 2003. The second volume, The Indian Army and the End of the Raj, was Runners Up for the Templer Medal in 2014. The third and final volume, 1945 Burma Campaign and the Transformation of the British Indian Army, with Prof Ray Callahan, won the Templer Medal Book Prize in 2021. He completed his doctorate as the Beit Research Scholar in Imperial and Commonwealth History at Balliol College, University of Oxford. He received a BA (Honours) and MA from McGill University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts.