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Patrick Shrier
Cyber War – The Threat for a New Generation?
I hope that most people have heard of the stuxnet (Wikipedia, but the best description I have found)worm that supposedly infected and crippled Iran’s illicit nuclear program last year. It is supposedly the new wave of warfare, with faceless hackers in another country sending hordes of worms and viruses to cripple the enemy nation’s electronic infrastructure. The Pentagon has just completed a policy that supposedly says that an act of computer sabotage can be considered an Act of War under certain conditions. I wonder if the threat of cyberwarfare is as dire as it is made out to be? There are several attacks in recent years to draw lessons from. … More after the Jump…
Intriguing question: What happens if Iran develops the bomb?
What happens if Iran develops the bomb? That is a question often asked in the press but never really answered. Â A new report from the RAND Corporation seems to suggest that Iran may be in possession of a nuclear warhead within the next eight weeks. Â Admittedly, that link is from an Israeli and thus not necessarily objective news source but the original question still stands. Â What would the response of the world be to an Iranian announcement that they are now in possession of a nuclear weapon? Â I don’t have any great confidence that it would be anything effective. Â I foresee much gnashing of teeth in Western capitals, the Chinese … More after the Jump…
D-day: The 67th Anniversary
None of us in America should forget D-day, today 67th anniversary of the opening of the Second Front against Hitler in WWII. Â The national archives has an excellent page with a election of documents and photographs related to that day. Â Her are some photos that will hopefully provoke some refection on the sacrifices of our grandfathers and what has been characterized as “The Greatest Generation.” Â And a link to the text of an excellent speech by Ronald Reagan on the 40th Anniversary:Â The Boys of Pointe du Hoc Let us never forget our men and women in uniform.
The Fronts of World War I in 1915 & 1916
After Turkey’s entry into the war towards the end of 1914, the Dardanelles was closed to allied shipping and thus the only warm water route to Russian ports was closed. The allied solution to this dilemma was to use the powerful British Navy in concert with a French battle group to force the Dardanelles and reopen the route to the Black Sea. This operation gained added impetus with the massive Russian losses suffered in the previous year and because of the Turkish opening of a new front against Russia along their common frontier in the Caucasus. The first naval attempt to force the Dardanelles in February 1915 ended … More after the Jump…
The Opening Months of World War I in the East and Elsewhere
The opening months of World War I on the Eastern Front did not proceed at as the German General Staff thought they would. When General Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1912) was drawing up the German war plan that would subsequently bear his name, he made several assumptions about the Russian army that would prove to be false. The most glaring incorrect assumption was the Germans estimate of the time it would take the Russian army to take the offensive. The German General Staff assumed it would the take the Russians at least forty days to complete mobilization and begin their offensive. This was the amount of time they … More after the Jump…
Herman Cain Has Officially Announced His Candidacy for President
Herman Cain is the one real person running for president, not a career politician. He is probably the best candidate out there and I am waiting for the left-wing Smear Machine to go into overdrive on him. Here s a pretty good piece in The American that talks about how can the Tea Party be racist since most of us love Herman Cain.
Photo Essay: Geichberg Castle
I got a chance to visit the Geichberg Castle yesterday and decided to post a picture esay of the castle and a brief description of the fortifications and discuss the strong and weak points of the fortifications. The Geichberg is a castle located about 10km west of Bamberg Germany in Unter Franken or Lower Franconia in English. The castle was completed no later than 1125 as that is the first time it was recorded in documents. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times in in its history. The current incarnation originally dates from 1390 but was extensively renovate in the early 17th century. According to the … More after the Jump…
Sun-Tzu, Clausewitz, and Naval Warfare
The work of neither Sun Tzu nor Clausewitz is adequate to describe naval warfare except in the most general terms. While it is true that until recent times warfare on both land and sea was largely two dimensional, there are factors at work in naval warfare that defy explanation in either Sun Tzu or Clausewitz. The vagaries of wind and weather played a much greater role in medieval naval warfare than on land. The weather was often a determining factor in whether an engagement happened at all. The naval commander was at the mercy of the weather during the age of sail, something that ground commanders did not have to … More after the Jump…
Beef with Google Books
Dr Beachcombing over at strange history sent me this post of his through email a few days ago and I decided to link to it. It regards the quality of the scans available for books in the Google Books service. Â He takes particular umbrage with the poor quality of some of the Google scans of books they have up and also with the way they use IP mapping to determine if a user can even access the scan in the first place based on the geographic location of their IP Address. Â Read his post first, my reply to his email is below: Beach, Sorry, it has taken me a couple … More after the Jump…
Book Review: Fighting the Great War by Michael Neiberg
I originally saw Neiberg’s Fighting the Great War mentioned in a review essay covering recent works on WWI. The essay had good things to say about the work and then I decided to check and yes, the book had been reviewed by the Journal of Military History in the Jan 2007 issue, Vol. 71 no. 1 pg 242. I subscribe to the Journal so I pulled it it out and read the review. The review is generally favorable and recommends the book as a general history of the war. I did not have the same impression of the book as did the reviewer in JMH.I found the book to be … More after the Jump…
The Causes and Reasons for the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848
The Mexican-American war of 1846-1848 was not inevitable but both sides placed themselves on a collision course that seemingly made it so. A combination of Mexican unwillingness to recognize Texas independence and the desire of Texans for statehood with American desire for westward expansion set the stage for the first offensive war in the short History of the United States. Tensions between Mexico and the United States had been building for decades, ever since the Mexican government invited Anglo settlers into Texas in the 1820’s. The war with Mexico was the result of long-standing Anglo grievances that were mostly of the Mexican government’s own making. Perhaps … More after the Jump…
Europe and the Crusading Impulse
Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries was a continent in transition. The states of Europe were still in flux and the kings of Europe had limited authority outside their own personal demesne. Although individual French kings did wield considerable power, they waged a constant struggle to have their authority recognized by the great magnates in France, especially after the fall of the Carolingian dynasty in the ninth century[1]. The rest of Europe was no exception, in England the king was engaged in a great struggle with his leading barons and the Pope that would not be settled until the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215[2]. … More after the Jump…
I hate Citigroup
I dabble in the stock market and one of the stocks I owned until recently was 5 shares of Citigroup stock. I picked it up in late 2008 at $6 a share hoping to vulture-like profit share. In the interests of full disclosure, I bought it before they got any TARP money. It has since declined even further and sat in my stock portfolio like unwanted cheesecake consistently valued at less than I paid for it. I decided about a year ago that as soon as it broke even I would sell it and wash my hands of the company I dislike anyway. I dislike Citigroup … More after the Jump…
Book Review: Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, The Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World by Roger Crowley
I am planning a vacation trip to Malta this summer with my family and like all vacations I take there will be an element of historical tourism involved. I have always wanted to visit Malta and I am finally getting a chance. As preparation for that I am reading a few books with accounts of The Great Siege of 1565, the last battle of the Medieval Crusades. The first book is Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World by Roger Crowley. Crowley does an excellent job of bringing the siege to life and … More after the Jump…