I have been pondering why modern Westernized man has such a problem successfully waging war for a few days and had a breakthrough recently. Before we can really get to that, a few brief thoughts are in order. First, what is war? Most people would probably agree that war is armed conflict between states, at least that is the classical definition. I would add the modern caveat of armed conflict with what are euphemistically called non-state actors (IRA, AL-Qaeda, FARC, etc.). These two definitions are good enough for my current purposes although I don’t think they really cover everything that we should or could call war. Second, what constitutes victory? … More after the Jump…
The Return of Pallywood in the current fighting in Gaza
You know, this has inspired me to start thinking and I will probably put together a piece addressing 20th-21st Century Unconventional Warfare and the nexus played by the media in wittingly or unwittingly shaping public opinion of world events.
Happy Veterans Day! To all my fellow veterans, I say thank you for your service and dedication in protecting this great nation from her enemies, both foreign and domestic
I read The Reagan Diaries when they first came out and had occasion to reread them not long ago when I had nothing better to do.  I mainly read the book, not because I am a rabid Reagan conservative, although I have been so accused, but because Reagan was president when I was a kid in Junior and High School and he is also the first political figure who I really paid any attention to while they were in office.  I vaguely remember Carter being president, but only because my dad got angry every time his name was mentioned.  I learned some of my first curse words when Carter would come … More after the Jump…
Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, is one of the best economic histories I have read.  It seeks to be a global history of money and does a good job of it.  It is somewhat tilted towards Europe and Western countries but only because that is where the majority of financial innovation has come from, especially in the last 300-400 years.last 400 years. What I found especially interesting were his explanations of the way sophisticated financial instruments actually work.  It often seems as though investment and investing have a language specifically designed to confuse and confound the layman.  Dr. Ferguson’s explanations of derivatives and other financial instruments were understandable … More after the Jump…
I had the opportunity to visit Leipzig this past weekend and while there stopped briefly by the monument to the 1813 Battle of the Nations from the Napoleonic Wars.  At the Battle of the Nations the Sixth Coalition consisting of Prussia, Britain, Russia, and Austria fought the French Army of Napoleon and over the course of three days defeated him and forced him to retreat back to France. I only had about 20 minutes at the monument and Leipzig is on my list of places to see again as one day was not enough to see all that I wanted to see.  The monument is currently undergoing renovation in preparation for events surrounding the 200th anniversary of the Battle next year. It is … More after the Jump…
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the publisher for purposes of reviewing it. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] The Color of War is one of those strange history books that seems both bipolar and unified at the same time. It is the story of the invasion of Saipan and the Port Chicago naval disaster told mostly convergently. At first the somewhat bi-polar nature of the way the story was told was off-putting but the more I read the book the more the method made sense. The two different but temporally convergent narratives … More after the Jump…
I will probably be a little slack on posting over the next 6-8 months. Mainly because I am trying to complete a second Bachelor’s degree right now and simply do not have the time to devote to updating the blog as I would like. Expect the Book Reviews to keep coming and the monthly world military updates, but I cannot promise any substantive military history posts for the foreseeable future. I have a couple in the pipeline that I will try to finish as time allows. This is one reason I solicited contributors a few months ago. I renew the invitation now. Just contact me using the contact link on the right and we can get going.
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the publisher for purposes of reviewing it. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] Road to Valor is the story of one of the many unsung and unremembered heroes of World War II. Gino Bartali was a prewar Italian racing champion and winner of the Tour de France. Just about everyone has heard of Oskar Schindler and his List due to the 1993 Spielberg movie or Anne Frank. What is less known are the thousands of others across occupied Europe that worked trying to help Jews and others that … More after the Jump…
Saw this interesting little bit of history this morning and figure I would take a photo. This has less to do with warfare itself than with the aftermath of war. This is a plaque dedicated to the role that Bayreuth, Germany played in the resettlement of ethnic Germans in the wake of the mass expulsion of these people from their homes in Eastern Europe after Germany’s defeat in WWII. Their is a good piece with a brief history of post war ethnic movements in Europe by the BBC Here: ArticleNo More War or Expulsions
from February to October 1946 the Bayreuth Main Train Station hosted 33 Cargo trains containing 39,281 expellees from the Sudetenland.
The city and county are thankful for the reception
Sudeten German Organisation July 2010
The town in Germany where I live has what is actually a rarity among German war memorials. It has a memorial to the dead of the Franco-Prussian War. Of course, they have the obligatory WWI and II memorial like every self respecting German town that calls itself a town. Most do not have Franco-Prussian War memorials though, in all my travels throughout Germany over 12+years I have only seen a few memorials to the Franco Prussian War. The one where I live is actually pretty nice and obviously well thought out. The memorial is in the form of an obelisk supported by three cannonballs and … More after the Jump…
This improbable tale of brave rabbits is a classic and one of the best stories I have ever read. It first came out in the seventies and a movie adaptation was made in 1978 by the BBC. It is the tale of a group of rabbits who leave their home warren because of a premonition and the many adventures they have as they cross the English countryside in search of a new home and go through the struggles of establishing one on Watership Down. The story itself is outstanding but what makes it even cooler in my opinion is that all the places in the book actually … More after the Jump…
Countdown: H Hour is the third installment in the Countdown series, hopefully there are plenty more still to come as this just built onto the already strong premise of the first two books. This book happens at the same time as the events in M Day but in the Phillipines as part of the Regiment conducts a completely separate mission to rescue a rich Phillipino businessman who has been kidnapped by a group of Moro terrorists from the Basilan region. The action is almost non-stop as the short battalion for the mission conducts operations in Somalia, Basilan, and around Manila in the course of the book. Adam, … More after the Jump…
I received notification this morning that my first Peer-Reviewed article has been accepted for publication. It is an annotated bibliography of Frederick the Great for Oxford University Press (OUP) Online and it has taken me awhile to write it up. The process of writing it is pretty interesting in and of itself and I am going to describe how that went. I was first contacted by OUP last November asking if I had any interest in writing an article. The initial contact had the proposed subject and that Dr. Dennis Showalter is the Editor-in-Chief for the project. Because I get blog related spam and fishy requests and … More after the Jump…
This question came up for several reasons mainly because of the news out of Afghanistan and Iran plus the book I am currently reading about the Second World War . Victory is an elusive thing because in war defining victory is perhaps the major strategic goal of the belligerents. I suppose that one could take the Clausewitzean the ideal of destroying the enemy’s force or means to fight as victory but that really isn’t it. As we saw in Iraq the destruction of the enemy army does not necessarily mean that the war is over. Unless the population of The enemy country, nation, or tribe is convinced that they … More after the Jump…
