Write for Us
To post your writing on The Polemologist, send a direct message to
.
Below are some general (read as flexible) business rules to guide the publication towards a common vision.
Business Rules
Contents
Types of Posts
Essays. 1,500+ words. More extensive pieces of analysis or reportage that comprise the body of the Substack.
Comments. <1,500 words. Make a single, provocative point. Alternatively, they may provide a short assessment of current affairs.
Reviews. No word range. Discussions of new or old books.
Responses. Should match the word range of the article they are responding to. Offer commentaries on material that has been published in previous issues. Similarly, Postscripts are commentaries by past authors on how well their earlier articles for us have held up.
Decision Forcing Cases (DFCs). No word range. Provide thought experiments that can be given to a group or an individual. These can be Tactical Decision Games (TDGs), Ethical Decision Games (EDGs), or historical cases formed to elicit a decision from the reader.
Reading Lists highlight leading works on a particular subject and explain what makes them special.
Letters From. No word range. First-hand accounts or reflections.
Format for posts
General Guidelines
Feel free to use American or British spelling, so long as the article itself remains consistent.
Use the Oxford Comma.
Citations
Authors are expected to cite their sources for claims or ideas taken from other works, as well as facts that are less well-known. They need not cite sources for commonly known facts or commonly accepted ideas. If in doubt, an extra citation would never hurt. Citations can come in one of two forms, and are meant for the ease of the author and reader alike.
Hyperlinks. Use hyperlinks when citing news articles, web-pages, visual or audible media, or the overall concept of a book or journal article. The hyperlinked text should be the word or phrase specifically taken from the source. Avoid highlighting entire sentences or paragraphs.
Footnotes. Use footnotes when citing specific pages of written works, or when it is beneficial to add commentary to the citation. Footnote references should use the current edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.
The exception to the CMOS: when including URLs in the footnote, simply highlight the title of the material and hyperlink it, rather than spelling out the URL at the end.
Articles in The Polemologist should never use in-line citations, such as APA format or CMOS Author-Date style.
Augmenting with media
Each article should have at least one image to help highlight its topic and attract viewers. If the author cannot find an appropriate fair-use image, contact
for assistance.Outside of this, The Polemologist is intended to be primarily a source for written work (and maybe one day podcasts), but if the author finds it useful to augment their writing with other media, they absolutely should.
Graphics, photos, video, or audio should be attributed to its source in the same manner as described above. Either hyperlink the media or add a footnote attributing the source. Authors are responsible for ensuring their use of the media honors its copywrite and is in-line with the law. Resources provided on this page are not exempt and should still be cited in all posts.
Decision Forcing Cases (DFCs)
Writers of Tactical Decision Games (TDGs) are encouraged to use the following resources:
The International Kriegsspiel Society’s map resource repository. This includes modern topographical maps as well as historical maps that work well in their Kriegsspiels and should do great for TDGs.
Spatial Illusions’ Unit Symbol Generator.
Discussion Points or Learning Objectives
DFCs may include a list of learning objectives at the end to allow the reader to give the DFC to their team. They should be out of sight of the original reader. For examples, see Artillery TDG #1.
Historical Battle Maps
Those writing on historical battles or campaigns are encouraged to check West Point’s Military Atlases. Must cite your source. Contact their team if you have questions on fair use.
Tags
We are starting with a robust tagging structure in hopes of first showing authors that we are serious in our goal of foregoing limitations on discipline, scale, time, or space. Second, we hope to one day fill out these tags and create sections within the Substack that can attract different viewers.
Discipline
Theory and Philosophy of War. Use when you are arguing against Corbett, updating Douhet for the space age, or spearheading your own theory for AI.
Geopolitics. Use this in the classical sense: how geography affects politics or strategy.
Anthropology. If you’re wondering how this fits into war studies, read Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Economics. Macro, micro, the arms trade, as an cause of war, or as an consequence.
Intelligence. All the INTs.
Politics and Diplomacy. Domestic or international politics.
Technology. Whether you’re a weapon-nut or you want to discuss technology’s role in the Revolution of Military Affairs.
Nuclear. Not “nucular.”
Deterrence.
Scale
Strategy. Grand or otherwise.
Operational Art.
Tactics. High-level or squad-leader focused, it matters not
.
Time
History of Ancient and Classical Wars. Roughly ending in the 5th or 6th centuries AD, but can be fudged for different parts of the globe.
History of Medieval Wars. From 500 to about 1500 AD.
History of Gunpowder Wars. The Early Modern era. Age of Sail for the Navalists. Marked by widespread use of firearms, ending with the industrial revolution.
History of Industrial and World Wars. From the industrial revolution through the end of World War II.
History of War Since 1945. Begins with the end of WWII through today.
Current Affairs. Events that are still unfolding.
Future Wars. Predictions of the distant future, not the near future.
Space
Global
Americas. North and South America.
Europe
Africa
Asia/Pacific
Land
Sea
Air
Space
Cyberspace