Strategy and the Last Manager: The Case for Dissenting War Studies

Applying James Burnham’s theory of the ‘managerial revolution’ to the evolution of war studies, this article argues that the field has been captured and reshaped by a managerial class more concerned with institutional consensus than with the political essence of war. Tracing war studies from its aristocratic and capitalist roots through the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, it contends that managerial dominance has replaced strategic insight with technocratic jargon and policy-adjacent busywork. The essay calls for a ‘dissenting war studies’ that resists insider capture, restores political clarity, and re-centres the study of war on its true purpose.