Christopher C. Harmon began studies with Dr. Rood around 1978 and went on learning from him for three decades. He has spent part of his career at Marine Corps University, Quantico, where today he is the Donald Bren Chair of Great Power Competition. He is lead co-editor or author of six books, including two editions of the graduate-level text Terrorism Today. Harmon and his friend (from Claremont) David Tucker edited the festschrift for Rood called Statecraft and Power (University Press of America, 1994). Dr. Harmon’s most recent book is a co-authored work from Brookings Institution Press: The Terrorist Argument: Modern Advocacy & Propaganda (2018).
Christopher C. Harmon began studies with Dr. Rood around 1978 and went on learning from him for three decades. He has spent part of his career at Marine Corps University, Quantico, where today he is the Donald Bren Chair of Great Power Competition. He is lead co-editor or author of six books, including two editions of the graduate-level text Terrorism Today. Harmon and his friend (from Claremont) David Tucker edited the festschrift for Rood called Statecraft and Power (University Press of America, 1994). Dr. Harmon’s most recent book is a co-authored work from Brookings Institution Press: The Terrorist Argument: Modern Advocacy & Propaganda (2018).
Dr. Rood’s special interest, within the rubrics of history and military history, was the growth of empires. He had intimate knowledge of the wars of German unification, and the two world wars, and Berlin’s parts in them. The expansion of Russia, succeeded by the expansion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Warsaw Pact and its overseas alliances, absorbed him emotionally and intellectually.
It is precisely during the historical lulls, the quiet backwaters, that the most thinking about strategy should be done—by officers and by political leaders, both serving or aspiring to service. Nor are democracy's other citizens free to ignore defense and foreign affairs; they too might attend to Kipling's poem of warning. Thinking about strategy in peacetime is even more vital than material preparation, though both are vital. Because when war comes, it may be too late. During war, it may be too difficult. In defeat, it will be of no use.