Category: General Warfare
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History raises more questions than it answers
In reading the introduction to The Past as Prologue (2006), Williamson Murray puts forth some succinct, yet profound thoughts on history. His overall thesis is that studying military history is critical for not only officers, but for state leaders as well. Murray immediately recognizes that “current senior leaders seem to have neither the time nor…
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Remembering the Gulf War and Schwarzkopf when I was 10
I was only 10 years old during the Persian Gulf War, but my parents were familiar with the scene. They grew up during the Vietnam era during which my dad even had a brief stint in the Air Force before troop levels began to wind down along with his career in the military. They were…
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IDF, Twitter, and the Myth of Declarations of War
There is some hubbub over the tweet by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) yesterday, announcing attacks against targets in Gaza. Some folks dubbed it the “First Twitter war declaration.” The IDF has begun a widespread campaign on terror sites & operatives in the #Gaza Strip, chief among them #Hamas & Islamic Jihad targets. — Israel…
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Clausewitz and Bobby Fischer? Just give me Clausewitz!
In War: A Historical, Political and Social Study (1978), Jon M. Bridgman attempts to define war. After discussing how some wars are won through battle, he moves onto to victory through the “personalities of the commanders,” which he believes was a view espoused by everyone’s favorite dead, Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz (d. 1831). The…
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Napoleon Killed Loads of Innocent People and this Surprises Some
The French are shocked, SHOCKED, that Napoleon could be responsible for killing so many innocent people in such a Hitler-esque fashion. French historian Claude Ribbe believes Napoleon was racist, instituted slavery, and was the first man in history that “asked himself rationally the question how to eliminate, in as short a time as possible, and…
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West Point’s Great Captains before Napoleon and Who They Snubbed
Some of my most cherished books are my West Point atlases. These thick, spiral-bound works offer loads of maps to supplement the hundreds of war books that fill my shelves. My latest purchase is Summaries of Selected Military Campaigns, published in 1961. Unlike the other West Point atlases, this book has some text around each…
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Can War Exist Without the State?
Yesterday, we examined John Keegan’s question, Does war-making define the state? Phrased differently, can a state exist without war? Today, we ask a different question, can war exist without the state? If a state cannot exist without war and war cannot exist without state, then we find ourselves pondering military history’s chicken-or-egg question. Meaning, did…
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Does War-making Define States?
The late historian John Keegan (1934-2012) posed the question in 1998. More specifically, is war-making required of a state? Of course, few reading this article live in a country that has not experienced war in its recent history. Even peaceful countries like Canada received their identities from the performance of their militia and regular soldiers…
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Remembering John Keegan
While I have spent a lifetime reading, only a handful of authors can claim they influenced my life. John Keegan can claim that influence. Having learned of his passing on August 2, I began reflecting on how much his work affected my life over the past seven years. My knowledge and appreciation of Keegan came…
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Reigning in the Operational Art of War
Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan have produced a convincing monograph on the need to reign in the influence of operational art in American war planning and execution (Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy). In it, they trace the evolution of the term from the industrial period, as it gained prominence in the Soviet and German armies…
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How I Decided to Go to College at Age 28
Ten years after high school, I finally applied to a community college to begin taking basic courses (e.g., English, Science). This was all geared toward transferring to AMU in order to pursue a bachelor’s in military history, the topic that overwhelmingly fascinated me in the realm of history. Several factors led to this decision. While…
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How I Became Fascinated with Military History
My dad is a channel-flipper. A fast one. As a child, I recall sitting on the coach, as he flew by channels with less than a second to process each. It drove my mother crazy. Still does, probably. I never knew what he was looking for, but he would always stop when he came to…