Friday Reflection: Generally Accepted Untruths?
Phillips Payson O'Brien on War and Power
Published on November 7, 2025
Synopsis
The conversation opens with the problem at the center of Phillips Payson O’Brien’s new book, War and Power: the enduring myth of the “great power.” For two centuries, international relations theory has taken it for granted that great states, armed with vast militaries, determine the fate of the world. Al begins by recalling Leopold von Ranke’s classic definition—that a great power is one that can “maintain itself against all others, even when they are united”—and O’Brien swiftly dismantles it. No state, he observes, has ever done so. Even the British Empire, at its zenith, depended on cooperation, alliances, and favorable circumstances rather than self-sufficient might.
From there, the two turn to how such myths persist. O’Brien traces the modern fascination with decisive battles and short wars to nineteenth-century habits of mind reinforced by war games and military theory. Both he and Al marvel that, even after the catastrophic misjudgments of the twentieth century, the belief in quick, clean victories returned in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The “short war” illusion, O’Brien argues, is hard to kill because it appeals to our craving for closure and drama.
Al and O’Brien then explore how war is not merely military but profoundly political. Drawing parallels from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower, they argue that successful generals have always been shrewd political actors. Washington and Nathanael Greene understood, as did Churchill and Eisenhower, that military success depends on maintaining domestic legitimacy and public will.
The heart of the conversation examines what O’Brien calls “power rightly understood.” Economic and technological capacity, leadership, social cohesion, the ability to build and regenerate militaries, and the strength of alliances—these, he says, are the real determinants of success. Together they revisit Churchill’s transformation in the First World War, when he learned that industrial production, not gallantry, decides outcomes. By 1940, that lesson helped Britain fight a long war while sparing lives.
From there, the discussion widens into how societies sustain war. Al and O’Brien take the Anglo-American relationship as an example of peaceful power transition—proof that the rise and fall of powers need not produce conflict. O’Brien emphasizes that culture, political structure, and mutual perception often prevent wars that theory would predict.
As they turn to the Second World War and beyond, O’Brien explains that battles reveal, but rarely decide, wars. The Battle of Kursk, often cited as decisive, destroyed a mere fraction of German armaments; production, not loss ratios, tells the real story. In the same way, single weapons—tanks, missiles, or drones—matter less than the systems that integrate them. Here, O’Brien connects twentieth-century lessons to Ukraine’s present fight, where adaptability and mass production of drones matter more than any particular model.
The conversation concludes with a discussion of “applied history.” O’Brien resists the label but admits that War and Power offers a framework for historical analysis: to understand how a state will fight, look first at its economy, technology, leadership, society, and alliances. Both Al and O’Brien lament that analysts have grown less cautious, mistaking torrents of data for understanding. True historical thinking, they agree, requires humility about what we can know—and a refusal to be dazzled by the illusion of transparency in an age of information.
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Why does O’Brien argue that the idea of “great powers” is ahistorical?
What makes the myth of the “short war” so persistent despite centuries of contrary evidence?
How do leadership and political skill shape military success?
What did Churchill learn from his experiences in the trenches during the First World War?
How does O’Brien’s framework of power—economy, technology, leadership, society, alliances—alter our understanding of modern conflict?
What can the peaceful Anglo-American power transition of the late 19th century teach us about today’s rivalries?
Why do O’Brien and Al see battles as revealing events rather than decisive events?
How does integration of systems differ from the pursuit of a single superior weapon?
What parallels exist between the technological revolutions of World War I and today’s drone warfare?
Why do Al and O’Brien see humility as an essential quality for both historians and strategists?
How and why might certain untruths become generally accepted? And how do they persist?
For Further Investigation
Phillips Payson O’Brien, War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why (Public Affairs, 2025)
—, How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
—, The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff (Dutton, 2019)
—, The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler—How War Made Them and How They Made War (Dutton, 2024)
Margaret MacMillan, War: How Conflict Shaped Us (Random House, 2020)
Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Cathal Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford University Press, 2017)
Michael Livingston, Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War (Basic Books, 2025)
Tags: Phillips Payson O’Brien, International Relations, International History, Diplomatic History, Military History, War, Conflict, Society, Historically Thinking