Book Review: Carnifex by Tom Kratman

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Patrick Shrier

This is the second installment in the Legio del Cid series of books. It is another hit out of the ballpark my Mr Kratman for fans of combat SF.

Carnifex continues the story of the Legio del Cid and it’s ruthless commander Patrick Hennessy nee Carrerra in his battle to see the murderers of his wife and children brought to justice. The story line is developed more and does not rely as much on pure combat to move the story along. The part I like the best is the tale of the UN Peace Fleet’s intervention in the war and the cynical, self-serving logic behind their intervention. The UN realizes that if they don’t stop Carrera on Terra Nova, the logical extension of his quest for justice will lead him back to Earth. The UN and various NGOs and corrupt governments on Terra Nova actually team up to scheme against Carrera and the Legion. The only thing stopping them from invading Balboa for now is the power of the Federated States. This is another excellent installment in the Legion series and I heartily recommend it.

Kratman is one of the best writers of combat and combat SF fiction writing today and I hope he keeps writing it for years to come.

The Grave of Richard Wagner

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Patrick Shrier

I recently visited the grave of Richard Wagner behind the Wagner Museum in Bayreuth, Germany and thought I would share the photos I took while there. The grave itself is not very remarkable and the only way you know it is is his is because there are signs pointing to it. There is no marking on the grave itself saying it is where Wagner and his wife are buried. There is an outstanding site with a wealth of information on the composer at the Richard Wagner Archive.

The grave where Wagner and his wife Cosima are buried.

His dogs grave, it is about 5 feet from his. The dog accompanies him even in death.

The gravestone for the dog says Here rests and guards Wagner’s Russ. Russ was the name of his dog.

Wganer's wife's dog

The Tyranny of the Good Intentioned

Aside

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C.S. Lewis

I could not say it any better myself. Lord, deliver us from those that think they know better than we do.

Honey or Salt?

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Patrick Shrier

There is an old adage that “you can catch more flies with honey than with salt.” The truth of that adage is being put to the test daily in Afghanistan and being to shown to be false under certain circumstances at least. ISAF is not winning currently, but they are not exactly losing either. At best from what I read, see, and hear ISAF is fighting a delaying action against the inevitable fall of the central government and rise of whatever Islamic extremist group bubbles up out of the morass of internal Afghan politics. I can almost guarantee it won´t be the Taliban, but probably someone very much like them.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was back from his current tour in Afghanistan for R&R, I got the opportunity to sit down and talk to him a little about what is going on in his unit´s AO and it was not heartening. That talk, combined with the generally dismal news coming out of that Godforsaken country has really started me wondering if we can achieve our goals there. I don´t think we need to pull out and wash our hands of Afghanistan just yet but the time is rapidly approaching when I may start advocating that.

It is obvious that COIN doctrine is a complete failure in the fractured society of Afghanistan. Mainly I think that is because above the level of the clan the average Afghan cannot really conceive of having loyalty to anything. That goes double for something as amorphous as a national state. The central government has not really done anything for them and furthermore, is almost nonexistent outside of the provincial capitals and bigger towns. The Taliban are everywhere though, what´s more, their justice is swift and uncompromising, and they can actually enforce their edicts.

ISAF Patch

The essential question right now for the US and the rest of ISAF is what is the way forward? Are they really only looking to 2014 and an exit strategy? What are the plans when/not if another pro-terrorist or tolerant regime comes to power? Lastly, if we are only looking to get out, are we achieving anything in terms of training and development right now that justifies staying for another two years? All are questions without good answers that I can see.

Getting back to the title of the post, is current COIN doctrine working in Afghanistan? From where I sit, the answer seems to be a resounding no. The number of incidents in which supposedly friendly Afghan troops turn their weapons on the ISAF troops they are working with is amazing as a simple Google search for ana-isaf shootings shows. It also does not help that simple YouTube search for U.S. Army Soldiers Helmet Cam Firefights, turns up a legion of videos that the Taliban can use to examine our squad level TTPs or Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures. These videos are a major OPSEC failure at a minimum and the guys posting them are putting themselves and all their comrades in danger no matter how cool or exciting the videos may be.

It is apparent to me that what the US and by extension the rest of ISAF has tried to do is take what worked in Iraq and transplant it to Afghanistan and it has signally failed as a doctrine for the conditions in Afghanistan. Perhaps ISAF needs to fight more as the Taliban do, and by that, I do not mean fighting from the shadows. I mean perhaps ISAF should start going after the thing that Afghans value the most, the families of known insurgents. We do not need to necessarily kill them; it would probably be enough to sequester them. I am thinking something more along the lines of what the British did in the Boer War, the original concentration camps.

With proper planning, ISAF could eliminate a source of support for the insurgents while at the same time applying pressure to the insurgents to come to an accommodation with the central government. They could also get the NGOs involved in running such camps helping to ensure the the people are treated well and the rest of the world knows that. Credible threats to apply a policy of collective guilt, a concept known in Islam, can also be used. It would probably take some executions of family members to make the insurgents realize ISAF was serious, but you can´t make an omelet without breaking eggs and aid to insurgents is virtually the same thing as detonating an IED. The family and other supporters of insurgents are just as responsible for violence as are the insurgents themselves. Some type of scorched earth policy would probably also be necessary.

What is even better is that such a plan has some chance of success because I does not treat the Afghans as if they are poor Westerners, which is the mistake Westerners often make when dealing with people of other cultures. Of course, if such a plan were implemented the Bleeding Hearts like Amnesty International and other likeminded groups would scream bloody murder. It would also be hard for Western governments to ignore these groups, there tentacles are so deep in the political left of the West.

In the end, I don’t think that Western Governments have the will to do what they have to do to achieve victory in Afghanistan and we are wasting our time and soldiers lives for an enterprise that is ultimately futile. I would love to see us win or at least eliminate the potential for radical Islamism to come out of Afghanistan again. I just don’t see that in the cards given the nature of Western politics and the established that elected leaders really plan no farther than the next election.

I sincerely hope that I am wrong though. That is something that only time will tell. I am pretty goo at describing the past but my powers of predicting the future are often not that great. May this prediction be one of those. Otherwise, I fear that the West will be back in that corner of the world in the not too distant future essentially trying to do the same thing we are doing now.

Ralph Peters had an excellent piece on RCP a few weeks ago that both elegantly and not so elegantly expresses the frustration that people with military backgrounds and no political ax to grind have with the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. His not so elegant yet oh so apt summation is “In war, soldiers die. But they shouldn’t die for bullshit.” The full piece is here: Soldiers Murder Afghans, Generals Murder Soldiers

It is not that I don’t think we should fight. I just think that if we are going to fight this war then lets fight to win and not fight to find a “honorable exit” similar to what we supposedly achieved in Vietnam in 1973.

Book Review: Kirov by John Schettler

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Patrick Shrier

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own]

Kirov by John Schettler is the Philadelphia Experiment in reverse. It is the tale of a Russian cruiser that through some anomaly that is never fully explains finds itself catapulted eighty years backwards in time from 2021 to 1941 to just weeks prior to the meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill at Argentia Bay in Newfoundland. The cruiser in the novel is the resurrected, upograde, and fully modernized guided missile cruiser Kirov that currently exists in the Russian Navy today. Of course the cruiser used in the book is a fictionalized version but realistic. A very good aspect was the use of historical figures and the convincing way they are portrayed. I am not normally someone that likes historical fiction, you could even say that I despise it as a genre but Mr. Schettler does a good job of making the reader forget he is writing historical fiction.

I very much enjoyed reading this book. The plot is fantastic enough to be Sci-Fi but realistic enough to be good fiction and my favorite, there is plenty of well researched and portrayed action. The action scenes in the book are very well written and it is some of the best naval combat fiction I have read. I would compare the quality of naval combat portrayal with that of David Weber in the Honor Harrington books. Fantastic, but gripping enough to keep you reading. The plot moves smoothly along for the most part and I was not tempted to put it down until it was finished. I could wish there was more of an epilogue but the one that is there leaves plenty of room for the readers imagination while setting a stage for that imagination.

I have only one complaint about the book and it may be minor and is definitely a personal quirk of mine. When the main characters are introduced he tends to be fairly long-winded (or penned?) when describing the character’s history and motivations. It is almost as if each main characters ends up an excursion from the main plot instead of these elements being interwoven into the narrative.

Overall, I have to say I enjoyed this book immensely. There is plenty of action along with plenty of introspection on motives and human nature. I also have to say that I don’t understand why one of the bigger publishing houses hasn’t picked up this book or others by Mr. Schettler. It is currently published by The Writing Shop Press and as is all too often true in the world of publishing, great books get overlooked because the big publishers can’t or won’t pick them all up. I would probably never have found this work had the author not contacted me directly asking if I would be willing to read one of his books and review it on my site. I am glad he did, Kirov is an excellent work and fans of authors, such as David Drake, David Weber, Eric Flint, Tom Kratman, and John Ringo can confidently add John Schettler to the roster of authors putting out excellent military Sci-Fi.