Flanders

There's a passage in Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population that suggests a certain amount of geographic determinism, given that he wrote the essay in 1798:

The fertile province of Flanders, which has been so often the seat of the most destructive wars, after a respite of a few years, has appeared always as fruitful and as populous as ever.

I suppose he's referring to the Eighty Years' War, but I naturally think of the World War I poem, In Flanders Fields, written in 1915:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Observations from Actual Shootings

A 16-year veteran police officer who has spent the last few years as a crime scene investigator offers up his observations from actual shootings:

I'm not a researcher, nor an authority on anything. I have, however, investigated conservatively hundreds of shooting scenes where no one was hit, at least one person was hit, and/or at least one person was killed as a result of being shot. Another duty of my position is to observe, document, and collect physical evidence at autopsies — of which I have also participated in hundreds.

My observations are not revolutionary, and in fact have confirmed what many other legitimate studies have stated. I have become concerned, however, with some internet postings that I have seen (not on [Glock Talk] so far) from others who claim to be in the same or similar field but report very different observations. While I do not claim to be an expert, my observations have been consistent enough to make me suspicious of reports so markedly outside of what I have observed.

Nearly all of our shootings are what could be called "criminal vs. criminal".

Also let me state that this will be a fairly limited in calibers discussed. Where I am employed, shootings are common but calibers seem to be fairly limited. While some claim to regularly observe shootings in every caliber available, the miscreants in my locale seem to be less diversified. The overwhelming majority of handgun rounds I see used are .40 S&W, 9 mm Luger (9x19 mm), and .45 ACP — in that order. .22 LR, .25 ACP, .32 ACP, .380 ACP (9X17 mm), .38 SPL, .357 MAG, 10 mm, etc. do pop up with some regularity, but the first three probably constitute 80%+ of handgun rounds observed.

I do not have the numbers, but I would guess that more than 25% of our shootings also involve rifles of either .223 Rem (5.56 mm) [e.g. AR-15] or 7.62x39 mm [e.g. AK-47], with the 7.62 mm being the more popular of the two. 12-gauge shotguns also come into play with varying frequency. The only times I have observed the use of "high-power" hunting rifles has been in suicide investigations, perhaps 5 or 6; all were contact wounds and all were, I'm sure, instantly incapacitating — to say the least.

First off, as a crime scene investigator, I investigate shootings where those individuals struck survive their wounds, something I rarely see discussed in these topics. Perhaps my area is just fortunate, but far more people survive being shot than die from their wounds — this includes rifle rounds.

It seems that when people discuss these topics they assume that a hit from a rifle round is assuredly fatal. I'm sure that many of our returning service men who have had the misfortune of experiencing this could point out the error of this belief. Perhaps unfortunately so could many of the "legality-challenged" that roam America's streets.

What I have observed is that a miss with a .22 short is just as effective as a miss with a .30-06, or rather, a miss with a .30-06 is no more effective than a miss with a .22 short.

Only hits count.

I learned to shoot pistols with my father's .45 ACP Colt 1911A1 when I could barely hold it up by myself. By my mid-teens I was competing with custom 1911's and believed that this was the only "real" handgun and caliber. I also became acquainted with the writings of Col.Jeff Cooper, who further reinforced this belief.

In my mid-twenties, when I went nuts and left a very good white-collar desk job to answer the call of the wild and became a police officer, I was appalled to learn that the department issued 9 mm handguns. I was given the option of providing my own handgun if it was from a short list of quality makes in 9 mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP — at which I began to carry my beloved late '80's vintage SigSauer P220.

Over the next few years I would see many, many shootings that would begin to challenge my belief about terminal ballistics in the real world. Most of the shootings that occur in my jurisdiction do not involve anyone actually being struck. We joke about how high our homicide rate would be if the miscreants could actual hit anything!

The vast majority of "hits" we see are superficial and usually to the extremities. I don't know how common this is, but here many, if not most of our "shooting victims" are struck in the feet, legs, and/or buttocks — especially the buttocks. This goes for both fatal and non-fatal shootings.

Contrary to what I have seen posted elsewhere, there is no difference in effect between 9 mm, 40 S&W, and .45 ACP in these strikes. All do equal soft tissue damage and all break struck bones (including the femur) with equal ease.

I read a posting where it was said that 9 mm will glance off of, or be deflected by, bones. Certainly it will, as will .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and 7 mm Remington Magnum if they hit at the right angle. I have never seen 9mm fail to penetrate or break bones where either .40 S&W or .45 ACP would not have.

Also, soft tissue damage in these areas with both .223 and 7.62x39 mm is indistinguishable from 9 mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP, except that the .223 hole is noticeably smaller. (No magical "hydrostatic shock" has been observed.)

When the rifle rounds hit bone, however, it is a different story. Even the puny .223 striking a leg or arm bone can be quiet dramatic — sending sharp bone fragments at high velocity through surrounding tissue. I have on more than one occasion observed such bone fragments deeply embedded into nearby auto body panels, sheet-rock, etc.

As a rule, at anything beyond contact range, bullets cause (more or less) only simple laceration, either directly, or by secondary projectiles.

Proximal or immediately associated death/incapacitation is caused by either physical destruction of or "disconnecting" the Central Nervous System, or rapid drop in blood pressure in the circulatory system.

Every proximal shooting death (as in "now", not "later" due to complications) I have ever observed was a result of what was actually hit by either the bullet, a bullet fragment, or a secondary projectile such as a bone fragment. The effective hits are either to a major vein or artery, lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, spleen, brain, or spinal cord.

I've never seen a miss with a 9mm of one of these structures that would have been a hit with a .45 ACP.

.223 and 7.62 mm have a higher probability of causing bone fragments, but misses with these rounds prove no more effective than with the handgun rounds (again, no magical "hydrostatic-shock" observed to compensate for a near miss).

Side note: While bullet fragmentation and bone fragments can prove fatal, they are also erratic and unpredictable. To say the least, you can not count on a fragment making up for poor shot placement.

In general, lacerating, severing, tearing, puncturing, etc. major veins or arteries, lungs, hearts, livers, kidneys, spleens, brains, or spinal cords with cause a very rapid incapacitation.

Humans, however, can vary quite a bit. I have read in various academic journals and case studies of individuals surviving what are widely medically considered to be "Non-Survivable Wounds" (commonly NSWs). And certainly there are many, many records of people doing great damage and even killing others after they themselves had suffered a mortal wound (the famous FBI "Miami Shoot-out" comes to mind).

I have seen people who were DRT (Dead Right There — instantly killed) with a single hit to the lungs, kidneys, or spleen by a 9 mm, and others all but seemingly unaffected by the same hits with everything up to 7.62 mm.

I have personally worked two cases where individuals were not incapacitated by bullet strikes through the brain. One was a man who was walking around cussing and clutching his forehead where he had been struck by a 7.62x39 mm round — the bullet exiting through the back of his skull. At the hospital it was determined that the bullet had in fact pierced and traveled through the length of the left hemisphere of the man's brain — yet he appeared to be unaffected. Several hours later he developed complications from this injury and subsequently died as a result. None the less, for several hours after this injury, he was able to "be in the fight".

The second individual was struck in the side of the head just above and behind the ear by a 9 mm round that exited above and behind the ear on the opposite side. This man also never lost consciousness and was released from the hospital the following day. As far as I know he is still alive today.

Be sure and put up with no affronts

When a typical American thinks of the Puritans, Pilgrims come to mind — or maybe superstitious witch-burners. I suppose the typical Englishman thinks of Old Ironsides:

"Be sure and put up with no affronts," was the maxim of Cromwell; and when an English merchant — a Quaker — proved to him that a ship of his had been unjustly confiscated by the French, Cromwell, having first given the Quaker a letter to Cardinal Mazarin, demanding redress within three days, but without effect, then seized and sold the two first French ships within his reach, indemnified the Quaker out of the proceeds, and paid over the surplus to the French ambassador.

The History of the Honey Trap

Phillip Knightley gives a brief history of the honey trap via five examples. If you're unfamiliar with the term, which is used in the spy business, his first example should make it clear:

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli technician who had worked in Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, went to the British newspapers with his claim that Israel had developed atomic bombs. His statement was starkly at odds with Israel's official policy of nuclear ambiguity — and he had photos to prove it.

The period of negotiation among the newspapers was tense, and at one point the London Sunday Times was keeping Vanunu hidden in a secret location in suburban London while it attempted to verify his story. But Vanunu got restless. He announced to his minders at the paper that he had met a young woman while visiting tourist attractions in London and that they were planning a romantic weekend in Rome.

The newspaper felt it had no right to prevent Vanunu from leaving. It was a huge mistake: Soon after arriving in Rome with his lady friend, Vanunu was seized by Mossad officers, forcibly drugged, and smuggled out of Italy by ship to Israel, where he was eventually put on trial for treason. Vanunu served 18 years in jail, 11 years of it in solitary confinement. Released in 2004, he is still confined to Israel under tight restrictions, which include not being allowed to meet with foreigners or talk about his experiences. Britain has never held an inquiry into the affair.

The woman who set the honey trap was a Mossad officer, Cheryl Ben Tov, code-named "Cindy." Born in Orlando, Fla., she was married to an officer of the Israeli security service. After the operation, she was given a new identity to prevent reprisals, and eventually she left Israel to return to the United States. But her role in the Vanunu affair was vital. The Mossad could not have risked a diplomatic incident by kidnapping Vanunu from British soil, so he had to be lured abroad — an audacious undertaking, but in this case a successful one.

There are a number of variations:

The broadest honey trap in intelligence history was probably the creation of the notorious East German spymaster, Markus Wolf. In the early 1950s, Wolf recognized that, with marriageable German men killed in large numbers during World War II and more and more German women turning to careers, the higher echelons of German government, commerce, and industry were now stocked with lonely single women, ripe — in his mind — for the temptations of a honey trap.

Wolf set up a special department of the Stasi, East Germany's security service, and staffed it with his most handsome, intelligent officers. He called them "Romeo spies." Their assignment was to infiltrate West Germany, seek out powerful, unmarried women, romance them, and squeeze from them all their secrets.

Thanks to the Romeo spies and their honey traps, the Stasi penetrated most levels of the West German government and industry. At one stage, the East Germans even had a spy inside NATO who was able to give information on the West's deployment of nuclear weapons. Another used her connections to become a secretary in the office of the West German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt.

The scheme lost its usefulness when the West German counterintelligence authorities devised a simple way of identifying the Stasi officers as soon as they arrived in West Germany: They sported distinctly different haircuts — the practical "short back and sides" variety instead of the fashionable, elaborate West German style. Alerted by train guards, counterintelligence officers would follow the Romeo spies and arrest them at their first wrong move.

Three of the women were caught and tried, but in general the punishment was lenient. One woman who managed to penetrate West German intelligence was sentenced to only six and a half years in prison, probably because ordinary West Germans had some sympathy with the women. Wolf himself faced trial twice after the collapse of communism but received only a two-year suspended sentence, given the confusion of whether an East German citizen could be guilty of treachery to West Germany.

How Close Is Too Close?

Police officer Dennis Tueller asked How close it too close?, in a now-classic 1983 article for SWAT magazine:

Consider this. How long does it take for you to draw your handgun and place two center hits on a man-size target at seven yards? Those of us who have learned and practiced proper pistolcraft techniques would say that a time of about one and one-half seconds is acceptable for that drill.

With that in mind, let's consider what might be called the "Danger Zone" if you are confronted by an adversary armed with an edged or blunt weapon. At what distance does this adversary enter your Danger Zone and become a lethal threat to you?

We have done some testing along those lines recently and have found that an average healthy adult male can cover the traditional seven yard distance in a time of (you guessed it) about one and one-half seconds. It would be safe to say then that an armed attacker at 21 feet is well within your Danger Zone.

As the photo series illustrates, even if your draw and shots are perfect, you are cutting things awfully close (no pun intended). And even if your shots do take the wind out of his sails, his forward momentum may carry him right over the top of you, unless, of course, you manage to get out of his way. And if you are confronted with more than one assailant, things really get tricky.

Defensive shooters now practice a few variations on what's called the Tueller Drill:

1. The "attacker and shooter are positioned back-to-back. At the signal, the attacker sprints away from the shooter, and the shooter unholsters his gun and shoots at the target 21 feet (6.4 m) in front of him. The attacker stops as soon as the shot is fired. The shooter is successful only if his shot is good and if the runner did not cover 21 feet (6.4 m).


2. A more stressful arrangement is to have the attacker begin 21 feet (6.4 m) behind the shooter and run towards the shooter. The shooter is successful only if he was able take a good shot before he is tapped on the back by the attacker.


3. If the shooter is armed with only a training replica gun, a full-contact drill may be done with the attacker running towards the shooter. In this variation, the shooter should practice side-stepping the attacker while he is drawing the gun.

It was in the movie Flags of Our Fathers

Ron Grossman of the Chicago Tribune took a quick survey in the newsroom the other day — something between a Rorschach test and a pop quiz — asking younger colleagues to identify an iconic photograph:

While some instantly recognized the image, others couldn't quite place it.

"I know I ought to know it," one co-worker said. "It was in the movie, Flags of Our Fathers." Some, seeing uniforms, realized it must be a war photo. Maybe Vietnam? One got the era right but the battlefield wrong. She guessed it was D-Day, not, as it was, the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.

(Hat tip to David Foster.)

General-at-Sea Blake

The Father of the Royal Navy, Admiral Robert Blake, was then known not as Admiral Blake, but as General-at-Sea Blake:

Blake's business was to demand reparation for all the injuries done to the English during the civil wars. Casting anchor before Leghorn, he exacted from the Duke of Tuscany satisfaction for the losses which English commerce had sustained from him. He then sailed to Algiers, and demanded, and obtained, reparation for the robberies committed upon the English by the pirates of that place, and the release of the captives of his nation.

He next appeared before Tunis, and having there made the same demands, the Dey answered him with scorn, and bade him behold his castles. Blake's answer to this bravado soon convinced the Dey that times were changed since Buckingham was Lord High Admiral of England. He sailed into the harbour within musket-shot of the castles, and tore them in pieces with his artillery; he then sent out his long boats, well manned, and burned every ship which lay there." This bold action," says Hume, "which its very temerity, perhaps, rendered safe, was executed with little loss, and filled all that part of the world with the renown of English valour." He sent home, it is said, sixteen ships laden with the effects which he had received from several States, and no doubt in part with the English captives whom he had restored to liberty. One can hardly imagine a stranger scene than the casual presence of some of those liberated English captives, and of some of his old seamen who had shared in his unexampled achievements, in St. Margaret's churchyard, on that memorable day, when the bones of the hero were taken from their grave and cast, like those of a masterless dog, into a pit, where they still lie.

The respect with which Blake obliged all foreigners to treat his countrymen, appears, as Dr. Johnson has observed, from the story told by Bishop Buniet, which has been often repeated since. When Blake lay before Malaga, before the war broke out with Spain, some of his sailors went ashore, and, meeting a procession of the Host, not only refused to pay any respect to it, but laughed at those who did. The people, incited by one of the priests to resent this indignity, fell upon them and beat them severely. When they returned to their ship, they complained of their ill-treatment; upon which Blake sent to demand the priest who had set the people on. The viceroy answered that, having no authority over the priests, he could not send him; to which Blake replied, "that he did not inquire into the extent of the viceroy's authority, but that if the priest were not sent within three hours, he would burn the town."

The viceroy then sent the priest, who pleaded the provocation given by the seamen. Blake answered, that if he had complained to him, he would have punished them severely, for he would not have his men affront the established religion of any place; but that he was angry that the Spaniards should assume that power, for he would have all the world know "that an Englishman was only to be punished by an Englishman." So having used the priest civilly, he sent him back. This conduct greatly pleased Cromwell. He read the letter in council with great satisfaction, and said, "he hoped to make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a Roman had been."

Blake certainly seems fearless:

On the 13th of April, 1657, he departed from Cadiz, and on the 20th arrived at Santa Cruz Bay, in which he found the Spanish fleet of sixteen ships disposed in a very formidable position. Blake had twenty-five ships; but the bay of Santa Cruz, shaped like a horseshoe, was defended at the entrance by a strong castle, well provided with cannon, and in the inner circuit with seven forts, all united by a line of communication, manned with musqueteers. The Spanish admiral drew up all his smaller ships close to the shore, and stationed six great galleons with their broadsides to the sea.

This formidable aspect of things, which those who did not know Blake might have thought would at least make him pause before beginning his attack, whatever sense of the danger "of the enterprise it may have produced, caused no irresolution. And the wind, blowing full into the bay, in a moment brought him among the thickest of his enemies. Here, having, with his twenty-five sail, fought for four hours with seven forts, a castle, and sixteen ships, of six of which the least was bigger than the biggest of his own ships, he silenced the castle and forts, and destroyed the whole of the Spanish fleet. The Spaniards abandoned their ships, which were sunk or burned, with all their treasure; the English ships being too much shattered in the fight to bring them away. And then the wind, suddenly shifting, carried them out of the bay.

"The whole action," says Clarendon, " was so incredible, that all men who knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it; and they could hardly persuade themselves to believe what they had done; while the Spaniards comforted themselves with the belief that they were devils and not men who had destroyed them in such a manner. So much a strong resolution of bold and courageous men can bring to pass, that no resistance or advantage of ground can disappoint them; and it can hardly be imagined how small a loss the English sustained in this unparalleled action, not one ship being left behind, and the killed and wounded not exceeding two hundred men; when the slaughter on board the Spanish ships and on shore was incredible."

Why do we have an Air Force?

Why do we have an Air Force? It seems like an odd question, until you realize that the US did not form an air force when airplanes proved their worth in WWI, as the Brits did, and didn't form one for WWII either. All those planes strafing German half-tracks and shooting down Japanese Zeros belonged to the US Army Air Force and the US Navy.

Only after WWII, in 1947, did the US Air Force become an independent air force, like the Brits' Royal Air Force. In each case, the independence of the new air force was closely tied to the notion of strategic bombing, which was deemed unstoppable before the invention of radar and overwhelming after the invention of the atomic bomb:

In the period between the two world wars, military thinkers from several nations advocated strategic bombing as the logical and obvious way to employ aircraft. Domestic political considerations saw to it that the British worked harder on the concept than most. The British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service of the Great War had been merged in 1918 to create a separate air force, which spent much of the following two decades fighting for survival in an environment of severe government spending constraints.

Royal Air Force leaders, in particular Air Chief Marshal Hugh Trenchard, believed the key to retaining their independence from the senior services was to lay stress on what they saw as the unique ability of a modern air force to win wars by unaided strategic bombing. As the speed and altitude of bombers increased in proportion to fighter aircraft, the prevailing strategic understanding became "the bomber will always get through." Although anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft had proved effective in the Great War, it was accepted there was little warring nations could do to prevent massive civilian casualties from strategic bombing. High civilian morale and retaliation in kind were seen as the only answers. (A later generation would revisit this, as Mutual Assured Destruction.)

In Europe, the air power prophet General Giulio Douhet asserted the basic principle of strategic bombing was the offensive, and there was no defence against carpet bombing and poison gas attacks. Douhet's apocalyptic predictions found fertile soil in France, Germany, and the United States, where excerpts from his book The Command of the Air (1921) were published. These visions of cities laid waste by bombing also gripped the popular imagination and found expression in novels such as Douhet's The War of 19-- (1930) and H.G. Wells's The Shape of Things to Come (1933) (filmed by Alexander Korda as Things to Come (1936)).

Douhet's proposals were hugely influential amongst airforce enthusiasts, arguing as they did that the bombing air arm was the most important, powerful and invulnerable part of any military. He envisaged future wars as lasting a matter of a few weeks. While each opposing Army and Navy fought an inglorious holding campaign, the respective Air Forces would dismantle their enemies' country, and if one side did not rapidly surrender, both would be so weak after the first few days that the war would effectively cease. Fighter aircraft would be relegated to spotting patrols, but would be essentially powerless to resist the mighty bombers.

In support of this theory he argued for targeting of the civilian population as much as any military target, since a nation's morale was as important a resource as its weapons. Paradoxically, he suggested that this would actually reduce total casualties, since "The time would soon come when, to put an end to horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war...". As a result of Douhet's proposals airforces allocated greater resources to their bomber squadrons than to their fighters, and the 'dashing young pilots' promoted in propaganda of the time were invariably bomber pilots.

Pre-war planners, on the whole, vastly overestimated the damage bombers could do, and underestimated the resilience of civilian populations. The speed and altitude of modern bombers, and the difficulty of hitting a target while under attack from improved ground fire and fighters which had yet to be built was not appreciated.

Again, the development of the atomic bomb brought back the argument for strategic bombing.

(By the way, I've discussed Things to Come before.)

Years ago, I assumed that we had an army for fighting on land, a navy for fighting on water, and an air force for fighting in the air. It all seemed perfectly straightforward — except for the Marines and, to a lesser extent, naval aviators. Then I read James C. Bennett's The Anglosphere Challenge, which explains the roots of our system:

This model was based, fundamentally, on the militia system. The “general militia” was defined as the armed populace of the country, organized on a county-by-county basis. Those who trained regularly and were preorganized into units having a dedicated function in wartime were known as “select militia.” In time of war, this militia was to form the core of the army, along with the royal bodyguard regiments and any additional new regiments raised specifically for that war. Permanent peacetime military forces were viewed with such suspicion, constitutionally, that even select militia training was opposed by most Whigs throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

There were several important exceptions. It was recognized that specialized bodies of military experts could not be trained up quickly in emergencies, but would have to be maintained in time of peace. Artillerymen were the most obvious example; fortification engineers were another. To maintain this expertise, specialized bodies such as the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers were established and maintained.

Note the terminology. Contemporaries, ignorant of the constitutional purpose behind the Anglo-American military structure, idly wonder why the British Air Force and Navy are termed “Royal” while the Army is merely the “British Army.”

This terminology is not a piece of historical trivia: it reflects and illustrates a specific constitutional point. “Royal” forces are permanent forces of the state, maintained even in peacetime.
[...]
Therefore, while the British Army is not a “Royal” force, those parts of it that historically had to be maintained in peacetime are. Examples include the artillery or engineers: Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, and so on. The Royal patronage of various individual regiments comes originally from their origin as the personal bodyguard of the king — the Coldstream Guards, Horse Guards, and the like. Another force of troops maintained in peacetime was the category of “guards and garrisons” — troops manning forts at home and overseas. This category constituted most of the nonspecialist peacetime standing forces maintained by the British military from the Restoration until the post-1918 era.

Since it was recognized that maintenance of the freedom of international commerce and other necessary functions of government might require small-scale exercise of military force, one standing land force was earmarked for that purpose — the Royal Marines, maintained as an adjunct of the Royal Navy. The navy was ever landing small parties of marines to deal with pirates or piratical small tyrants, especially in areas such as North Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia (all of which, for that matter, remain troublesome nests of piracy to this day). An examination of the use of the Royal Marines, and subsequently the U.S. Marines, demonstrates how the structure of the armed forces under the Anglo-American civil constitution historically served to create an effective barrier to the abuse of the war-making power. Small-scale interventions have been, and will probably continue to be, an inevitable adjunct of the functions of a large country with worldwide trade and maritime activities. The need to deal with organized ideological-religious terrorist groups, larger than gangs but smaller than states, makes it all the more likely that small-scale armed expeditions will be an ongoing feature of contemporary affairs.

Traditionally, intervention using the navy and marines could be done on the initiative of the executive without the explicit sanction of Parliament. When the problem became too large and army troops had to be raised (since there were so few permanent troops, to send any overseas almost always implied raising them), the Crown was required to go to Parliament for an authorization for troops and funds. In the course of this process, the goals and objectives of the conflict could be thoroughly debated, and the costs and benefits to the country weighed. The subsequent call for volunteers and appeal for subscriptions and loans gave the country an additional opportunity to demonstrate its enthusiasm or lack thereof for the conflict in question. The bias against standing armies was so great that the term “British Army” was not used in official language, like acts of Parliament during peacetime, until 1745. (Appropriations for existing forces were earmarked for “guards and garrisons.”)

By that reasoning, a force like America's Strategic Air Command, would be, in some sense, naval — ever ready to intervene anywhere in the world — but America's strategic bombers had always been part of the land-based army, like tanks and artillery, so the new non-Army Air Force became independent — and protective of its turf.

Entering the Atomic Age with a branch of the military devoted to atomic bombs seems reasonable, especially with so many related technologies coming to the fore — ballistic missiles, spy satellites, guided missiles, etc.

But our military doesn't do much strategic bombing these days, and the Air Force has monopolized almost all "fixed-wing" aircraft. If the Army wants tactical air support, it has to use helicopters — "rotary-wing" aircraft — or go through the Air Force.

That's why Robert Farley, for instance, is arguing that we should abolish the Air Force as a separate bureaucratic entity:

The Air Force is most effective when operating in support of the Army, and least effective when carrying out its own independent campaign. However, the Air Force dislikes ground support. Its antipathy to tactical missions, for instance, is at the root of its repeated efforts to shed itself of the A-10 Warthog. The A-10 is a slow attack aircraft, extremely effective against tactical enemy targets. The Army loves the A-10, but because the aircraft contributes neither to the air superiority mission that the Air Force favors nor to the strategic mission that provides its raison d'etre, the Air Force has always been lukewarm toward the aircraft. Offers on the part of the Army to take over the A-10 have been rejected, however, as this would violate the Key West Agreement.

If strategic bombing won independence for the Air Force, yet strategic bombing cannot win wars, it's unclear why the Air Force should retain its independence.

There's a better way to use American airpower:

The Army and the Navy can accomplish the jobs that the Air Force does well within their current institutional structures. Tactical airpower should belong to the Army. Although the Army and the Air Force have worked out credible systems of cooperation, reunifying the two would likely result in tighter collaboration between air and ground forces. The tactical mission would also include air superiority, which is necessary to prevent enemy use of airspace and to allow freedom of action for U.S. forces. Similarly, some tactical elements of airpower would pass to the Marine Corps.

To the extent that the United States requires a capability to punish other states militarily for political purposes, the Navy can handle the job. The aircraft carriers of the Navy already represent the most powerful concentration of mobile military power in the world. Navy cruise missiles, launched from submarines and surface vessels, can strike most of the surface of the Earth within a couple of hours. Adding certain elements of the Air Force portfolio to the Navy would neither transform nor hinder the Navy's power projection mission.

The strategic nuclear capability of the Air Force should also go to the Navy. The USN already operates its own strategic deterrent in the form of the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, armed with the Trident missile. The Navy could also operate the other two legs of the nuclear triangle (ICBMs and strategic bombers) without difficulty, especially since the latter would support the Navy's strategic mission.

The Dread Stroevoy Smotr

The first case study in The Bear Went over the Mountain describes an ambush on a Soviet airborne battalion moving "secretly" to seal off Sherkhankhel village in search of insurgents. The American editor adds this analysis:

Operations security is difficult, particularly when fighting on someone else's turf and working with an indigenous force which may not be 100% on your side. Yet operations security is absolutely imperative for preserving your force and winning battles.

In this vignette, the regimental commander thoroughly inspected his force prior to its moving out. This sounds like a good idea, however, this was the dread stroevoy smotr [ceremonial inspection] which was an unwelcome part of peace-time, garrison soldiering in the Soviet Army. The entire regiment would lay out all its equipment on the parade ground. All equipment would be laid out on tarps in front of the vehicles. Every piece of equipment would be formally checked and accounted for, the correct spacing on uniform items would be checked with a template, and displays would be aligned with pieces of string. The process could take three days.

Although inspections are good ideas, these massive formal inspections were almost always conducted before a planned action. Any mujahideen in the vicinity were tipped off that an action was pending and could sound the warning. This Soviet pattern often compromised operational security. In this vignette, the mujahideen definitely were warned and punished the careless Soviet force. The stroevoy smotr may have been part of the Soviet problem.

Glory in Conquest

The only glory in conquest, Andrew Bisset says — writing in 1859 — must be in the valour and military skill displayed:

A man who obtains the appointment of governor-general of the British empire in India by rhetorical displays in the British Parliament, and then, by way of adding to his rhetorical renown the military glory of a conqueror, sits and plans an annexation of new territory to an empire already much too extensive, and picks a quarrel at his desk, can have no solid title to honour from the result of such a proceeding, however ably the general who is employed under him may act.

The Bear Went over the Mountain

In his introduction to The Bear Went over the Mountain, David M. Glantz shares some of the stark realities of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan:

The inability of the Soviet military to win the war decisively condemned it to suffer a slow bloodletting, in a process that exposed the very weaknesses of the military as well as the Soviet political structure and society itself. The employment of a draft army with full periodic rotation of troops back to the Soviet Union permitted the travails and frustrations of war and the self doubts of the common soldier to be shared by the Soviet population as a whole. The problems so apparent in the wartime army soon became a microcosm for the latent problems afflicting Soviet society in general. The messages of doubt were military, political, ethnic, and social. In the end they were corrosive and destructive.

As evidence, one needs only review the recently released casualty figures to underscore the pervasiveness of the problem. Soviet dead and missing in Afghanistan amounted to almost 15,000 troops, a modest percent of the 642,000 Soviets who served during the ten-year war. And the dead tell no tales at home. Far more telling were the 469,685 casualties, fully 73 percent of the overall force, who ultimately returned home to the Soviet Union. Even more appalling were the numbers of troops who fell victim to disease (415,932), of which 115,308 suffered from infectious hepatitis and 31,080 from typhoid fever. Beyond the sheer magnitude of these numbers is what these figures say about Soviet military hygiene and the conditions surrounding troop life. These numbers are unheard of in modern armies and modern medicine and their social impact among the returnees and the Soviet population, in general, had to be immense.

Camp of the Warriors

Steven Pressfield (Gates of Fire) has managed to tag along on a trip to Afghanistan with Marine General James N. Mattis:

Lashkar Gah is our next stop. The name means “camp of the warriors.” Alexander the Great’s warriors. His columns came through here in 330 B.C., skirting the Dasht-e-Margo, the Desert of Death, before setting up the tent city that would become Kandahar and trekking north across the Hindu Kush into the Bactrian plain. I peer down from our vertical-take-off Osprey. You can’t tell me much has changed in 2300 years. Below are mud-walled compounds, irrigated fields divided into squares, dark-eyed men in shalwar kameezes. The tribes even have the same names. Alexander and his generals sat around planning tables just like our ISAF commanders, trying to dope this theater out. The great conqueror employed the same tactics we’re using — he hired his enemies for pay, treated them with respect and sought to make them friends. He invested fortunes, built towns and cities, cut off cross-border sanctuaries (or tried to) and ran operations constituted of assault forces and blocking elements, aiming to trap the foe in between.

I’m talking to a Marine colonel. “Alexander’s mother Olympias wrote him a letter once,” the officer tells me, “getting on his case for taking so long to knock off these primitive, poverty-stricken Afghans. So Alexander captured three tribal chiefs and sent them back to Macedonia, each one carrying an offering of soil from his own tribal homeland; they were supposed to deliver these tokens to Olympias as a gift from her son. But waiting outside the queen’s palace door, the three chiefs got into a fight and killed one another. Alexander’s Mom wrote back: ‘Now I understand, my son.’” I’m not sure what that story means in the current context, but I’m pondering it as we fly back to Kabul at dark.

The English Constitution

The unwritten English constitution bears little resemblance to the written American Constitution:

The land of England was held on certain well-defined conditions, which conditions were, in the strictest sense, the purchase-money of that land. That purchase-money may be very accurately described to have been made payable as a perpetual annuity to the State, increasing in value as the land increased in value, just as tithe is payable to the clergy, and copyhold and other rents and profits to the landholders.

But the members of the Long Parliament and of the Convention Parliament of 1660 — in the face of the emphatic protest of Prynne and other sound constitutional lawyers — voted that the holders of the land of England should be totally exonerated from the future payment of this perpetual annuity, which constituted the purchase-money of their estates; and that this annuity, or purchase-money, should for the future be paid, in the shape of an excise, by other people, who held none of the land for which they were thus made to pay.

The land-owning members of Parliament used to be much more like voting shareholders. They voted on whether to fund a war or not, because they were footing the bill.

The Enormous Expense of Modern Wars

What are the causes of the enormous expense of modern wars?, Andrew Bisset asks, in 1859 — and he first turns to David Hume for an answer:

Some writers, and particularly David Hume, seem to think that the question is solved by the consideration of the greater facilities and means for borrowing which existed after the Revolution, and did not exist before it.

In his Essay on Civil Liberty, published in 1742, Hume says: "Among the moderns, the Dutch first introduced the practice of borrowing great sums at low interest, and well nigh ruined themselves by it. Absolute princes have also contracted debt; but as an absolute prince may make a bankruptcy when he pleases, his people can never be oppressed by his debts. In popular governments, the people, and chiefly those who have the highest offices, being commonly the public creditors, it is difficult for the State to make use of this remedy; which, however it may be sometimes necessary, is always cruel and barbarous. This, therefore, seems to be an inconvenience which nearly threatens all free governments, especially our own at the present juncture of affairs. And what a strong motive is this to increase our frugality of public money, lest for want of it we be reduced by the multiplicity of taxes, or, what is worse, by our public impotence and inability for defence, to curse our very liberty, and wish ourselves in the same state of servitude with all the nations that surround us."

Bisset sees the rising costs of war as a direct consequence of the shift away from feudalism:

Under the old English constitution, the legislating classes had a direct personal interest in keeping down the expenses of the government: that is, those who voted for wars and subsidies carried on the wars and paid the subsidies with their own blood and their own money; whereas, under the constitution substituted in the room of it, about the middle of the seventeenth century, those who voted for wars and subsidies carried on the wars and paid the subsidies with other people's blood and other people's money.

Those, therefore, who profess to be the advocates of good and economical government, will never attain their object till they obtain the restoration of that part at least of the principle of the old constitution, which gave to those who had the power a strong and direct interest in keeping down the expenses of the government.

A rentcharge proportioned in amount to the incidents or branches of tenure by knight-service in time of peace, and to the main trunk, or a certain number of days' actual military service, in addition to those incidents, in time of war, would effectually accomplish its object, and save the nation from the ruin in which the system of the last two hundred years, if persisted in, will overwhelm it long before another period of two hundred years has elapsed.

I can only imagine how irresponsibly a government might behave if those in power had no incentive to keep expenses down...

What if World War 3 has already started and nobody has noticed it?

What if World War 3 has already started and nobody has noticed it?, Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) asks:

If conflict in the 21st century takes takes the form of intelligence operations and targeted assassinations is it really war any more? Maybe it’s illegal to attack a government but if you do it slowly, quietly enough, then no red lines are crossed; no Security Council resolutions are enacted.

The Daily Telegraph quotes former British Labor Environment Minister as saying his party has been infiltrated by a secret cell of Islamists who are slowly but surely taking parts of it over.

“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said.

But Islamists aren’t the only ones who’ve discovered that it’s possible to conduct war by other means. The Weekly Standard described the extraordinary extent and success of the Administration’s Drone War. Kenneth Anderson says that America is policing the lawless parts of the world from the air with robots.

The Predator drone strategy is a rare example of something that has gone really, really well for the Obama administration. Counterterrorism “on offense” has done better, ironically, under an administration that hoped it could just play counterterrorism on defense — wind down wars, wish away the threat as a bad dream from the Bush years, hope the whole business would fade away so it could focus on health care. Yet for all that, the Obama administration, through Predator strikes, is taking the fight to the enemy.

Anderson bemoans the Administration’s failure to put forward a legal doctrine under which it conducts this extraordinary program of targeted assassinations. But why should it? If the press doesn’t demand it and conservatives are content to watch the perps zapped then perhaps it is better not mentioning it at all.
[...]
America’s enemies may not have much in the way of lasers, satellites and missiles but on thing they have a lot of is a lack of scruples. And ruthlessness may be the one military commodity worth anything any more on our politically correct planet. Maybe the reason Kenneth Anderson will never get his wish is that it is so much more convenient to deny you did it rather than to ask for permission. The basic principle of 21st century warfare is that that like CS Lewis’ devil it’s main aim is to convince everyone that it does not exist. The days of uniformed armies, navies and air forces may be numbered and in their place a world where disputes are settled by assassins, robotic or otherwise, cris-crossing the continents looking for a man with a problem.

Wretchard later cites the example of Chechen-separatist-turned-Russian-loyalist Sulim B. Yamadayev, who was shot and killed in Dubai — by a Man With a Golden Gun:

The killer fired three bullets from a gold-plated gun at the victim’s chest as Sulim Yamadayev climbed from his car in the private car park beneath his luxury residence in Dubai.… The March 28 murder was the latest apparent contract-killing in an extraordinary trail of blood leading from Chechnya that already stretched to Istanbul, Moscow and Vienna. And now the bustling emirate.

Yamadayev was the fifth person to be murdered in recent months seen as an opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed president of Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region of Russia’s southern fringe that fought two wars with Moscow.

Western armies and intelligences agencies are held to different standards than those of the rest of the world, Wretchard says:

This means that for the foreseeable future, the use proxies will be increasingly necessary to carry out operations. Caught between the Scylla of preventing attacks on their constituents and the Charybdis of maintaining their carefully manicured images, politicians may simply opt for cut-outs to perform electorally impermissible acts at acceptable PR costs. Political correctness has made decency an operational burden. Israel is a democracy it simply can’t do for reasons of frank military necessity what Chechnya might do on a whim. America’s laws mean that terrorists who recognize no law must given the the benefit of every due process, and more so to remove every suspicion they’re not getting their “rights”. There are some things they can’t do which their opponents can.

Political correctness, which has already driven open debate on subjects like race, education and healthcare underground and substituted coded speech in its place, will increasingly substitute hypocrisy for morality in international affairs without reducing the brutality of the battlefield by one whit. But perhaps its purpose is to craft an asymmetric battlefield, not reduce its savagery. The terrible struggle will continue, each side playing by a different set of behavioral rules. To even things up, a reliance on proxies and combat drones plus the increasing use of euphemism and subterfuge are likely to be used to meet the touchy-feely requirements of the 21st century. The other side, with fewer material resources, will retain the advantage of being able to operate unapologetically. Ian Fleming who created the character of James Bond, described his first mission of his fictional hero as that of discrediting an enemy agent protected by the Press by the Rube Goldberg method of bankrupting him at the Casino Royale. James Bond may have had his Bentley, wholewheat toast, Tiptree “Little Scarlet” strawberry jam and china egg cups, but he could never do anything directly; and it was always his foes who had the advantage of terror, useful in the hard places of the world. And 007 would have lost too, even at the Casino Royale simply because things had to be just so. Strangely enough, one reason why the intellectuals of the West find their enemies so attractive is that they are so brutal. It’s the audacity that bewitches them.

The Grope that Ended a Dynasty

Before backing the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion, Charlie Wilson supported the right-wing government of Nicaragua, led by President Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza:

The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua from the 1930s until the late 1970s, and Tachito Somoza was effectively leader of the country from 1967. Wilson was a strong supporter of the right-wing Somoza, and felt that his strong anti-Communist regime was being undermined by Jimmy Carter’s wishy-washy human rights-focused foreign policy. In trying to cajoul President Carter into supporting Somoza, he fought in the House appropriations committee, and at one point threatened to wreck President Carter’s Panama Canal Treaty if the U.S. did not resume supporting Somoza.

Wilson’s admiration for Somoza was unaffected by his offer of a large cash bribe to Wilson the first time they met in person (which were unnecessary — Wilson was a true believer). And when Wilson set up a meeting between Somoza and an allegedly former CIA operative, in a small party where the booze-was flowing freely, Somoza was initially delighted at the offer of a 1000-man squad of ex-CIA operatives to fight on Somoza’s behalf. But in a drunken stupor, Somoza made the mistake of fondling Tina Simons, a secretary of Wilson who was also his girlfriend at the time. (It was not Wilson but Somoza’s mistress Dinorah, who was present at the meeting, who went into a rage and ripped Somoza from Tina.) The fiasco embarrassed Somoza, who then lost interest in the squad when he heard about the price tag of US$100 million. Wilson was so embarressed by the situation, and in his awkward attempt to hijack US foreign policy after word of the meeting leaked out, that he abandoned his support for Somoza.

The aftermath? Somoza was ousted and exiled to Paraguay where he was assassinated. Nicaragua fell to a revolution led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and President Reagan later authorized the CIA to support the remnants of Somoza’s National Guard, the “contrarrevolucionarios” that became known as the Contras. And Tina Simons ended up testifying against the alleged CIA operative and disappeared into the witness protection program.

Charlie Wilson was embarressed and disgraced by the Somoza fiasco, which left people thinking he was reckless and had terrible judgment. But failure is the mother of success. Wilson learned from this experience: who he should work with in the US government, what was realistic, who he should trust, and the avenues of influence and barriers to success that faced him as he sat in Congress. It was this experience that taught him what to do when going solo on US foreign policy. And that was what led to Charlie Wilson’s War.

Invisible Causes of Death

As a strong proponent of division of labor, Adam Smith favored standing armies over militias:

Among his arguments in favour of standing armies in modern times, Adam Smith enumerates the greater difficulty of preserving any considerable degree of order and prompt obedience from the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed, as soon as he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the battle can be well said to be engaged. "In an ancient battle," he says," there was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death. Every man, till some mortal weapon actually did approach him, saw clearly that no such weapon was near him."

It is not unworthy of remark that Hobbes endeavours to account for the courage of the London apprentices in the civil wars, on a principle the reverse of this — namely, the invisible nature of the death. "Among theirs" — that is, the parliament's soldiers — "there were," he says, "a great many London apprentices, who, for want of experience in the war, would have been fearful enough of death and wounds approaching visibly in glistening swords; but for want of judgment, scarce thought of such death as comes invisibly in a bullet, and, therefore, were very hardly to be driven out of the field."

Pedersen Device

The Pedersen device is a fascinating footnote in the history of the modern assault rifle. In World War I, both sides used main battle rifles that resembled modern hunting rifles more than modern assault rifles — big, long rifles, shooting big, powerful rounds, very accurately, but very slowly. This would not do for storming enemy trenches:

John Pedersen, a long time employee of Remington Arms, was aware that the US would be entering the war at some point. Concerned about the inability for troops to effectively fire on the run while attempting to cross "No Man's Land", he decided to start studying the problem of semi-automatic fire that would allow them to fire from the hip without stopping. However, he also realized that there would be no way the Army would accept a totally new rifle design, as they were already struggling to produce enough Springfields, contracting to produce millions of M1917 "American Enfield" rifle with Remington and Winchester and were importing Ross rifles from Canada for training purposes.

This led him to the final design, which replaced the bolt of the standard Springfield with a device consisting of a complete firing mechanism and a small barrel for the small round. In effect, the device was essentially a complete blow-back pistol minus a receiver/grip using the short barrel of the device to fit into the longer chamber of the M1903 Springfield. The mechanism was fed by a long 40-round magazine sticking out of the rifle to the top right, and could be reloaded by inserting a new magazine. New sights were provided at the rear of the device. The system did require one modification to the rifle however, a hole had to be cut in the side of the bolt area to allow the ejection of spent rounds.

By 1917 his solution was perfected, and he traveled to Washington, DC to demonstrate it. After firing several rounds from what appeared to be an unmodified Springfield, he removed the standard bolt, inserted the device, and fired several magazines at a very high rate of fire. The evaluation team was astounded, and an immediate secret classification was applied. To deceive the enemy, the Ordnance Department decided to call it The US Automatic Pistol, Caliber .30, Model of 1918. Plans were put into place to start production of modified Springfields, which became the US Rifle, Cal. .30, Model of M1903, Mark I. Promises were made to have 500,000 ready for the 1919 Spring Offensive. The use of the Pedersen Device in the 1919 Spring offensive was to be in conjunction with the full combat introduction of the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).

After the war, Pederson designed a semi-auto rifle using a smaller .276 (7 mm) cartridge, but John C. Garand's design — re-chambered for Pederson's .276 cartridge — won the Army contract:

After the .276 Garand rifle was selected over the Pedersen rifle, General Douglas MacArthur came out against changing rifle cartridges since the .30-06 would have to be retained for machine gun use and one cartridge simplified wartime logistics. Garand reverted his design back to the standard .30-06 Springfield cartridge in 1932; the result became the M1 Garand.

The M1 Garand was the first semi-automatic rifle to be generally issued to the infantry of any nation and, in the words of Patton, "the greatest implement of battle ever devised."

Unto Caesar

F.A. Voigt argued that both Communism and National Socialism were revolutionary secular religions that sought to render unto Caesar that which is God's — that is, to transform religious promises into worldly reality — and that Britain had to act, within realistic constraints, to save the Commonwealth:

The greatest extension of international, social, and religious peace ever achieved has been achieved within the British Commonwealth. Throughout a quarter of the world the satanic forces that engender war and revolution are curbed, thanks to the Pax Britannica, with which a benevolent Providence has associated the Pax Americana and the Pax Gallica.

The Pax Europaica is one of these ideals that transcend practical statesmanship, which is necessarily short-sighted and bent on the fulfillment of immediate tasks. Excessively far-sighted statesmanship may be very dangerous, and to pursue an international ideal by political means is to invite a general catastrophe.

The Pax Europaica would certainly be in the interest of the British Commonwealth, but to enforce it is beyond the power of the Commonwealth (we often forget that the greatest power — even the power of the Commonwealth — is limited). England is under the absolute necessity of defending western Europe because that defense is self-defense. That necessity imposes a terrible burden and is attended by fearful dangers. The burden and the dangers must be borne, but to augment them in the pursuit of an ideal that is, in any case, unattainable in so short a time as one generation, would be madness. The Pax Britannica would be shaken and, perhaps, fall to pieces, British vital interests would suffer profound and perhaps irretrievable injury, and the ideal would certainly not be achieved but would, in all likelihood, be buried forever in the irretrievable ruin.

This passage, in Mencius Moldbus's opinion, approaches greatness:

The true lover of peace will be more concerned with peace in the concrete than peace in the abstract; with defending his and his country's peace, rather than with chimerical schemes for extending peace beyond the limits of the possible. He will always reflect whether its extension beyond the frontiers of his own country will be an extension not of peace, but of war. Even a seemingly small extension of peace may be dangerous, as the extension of the Pax Britannica to western Europe is. Inherent in universal peace is the menace of universal war — "indivisible peace" is "indivisible war."
[...]
The modern effort to establish universal peace is perhaps for this reason mainly an English effort. After the armistice, the English experienced a prodigious revulsion against war. But they also felt an island security which could no longer be menaced, seeing that the German fleet had been destroyed. Their pacifism acquired a messianic character — they were less concerned with saving their fellow-countrymen than with saving all mankind from war. Their own security made them more accessible than any other nations to utopian dreams of universal peace — and blinder to the danger inherent in such utopian dreams.
[...]
Monstrous proposals, like the proposal to create an international air force that would emerge — from some Alpine stronghold, presumably — and bomb the cities of the alleged aggressor, found a considerable following in the post-war years. Such inhuman phantasmagoria had an affinity with the secular religions of the European continent. Indeed, English militant pacifism had something in common with the Marxian dreams of a universal realm of peace, justice and well-being. As we have seen, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is inseparable from its own opposite. It can only come about by violence.The threat of universal war as a means of establishing universal peace is a peculiarly English conception that has crystallized in the doctrine of "sanctions." This doctrine is analogous to the doctrine of the proletarian dictatorship which would establish social peace by making class-war permanent and universal. "Sanctions" are the counterpart of the revolutionary terror — the purpose of either is peace, but the effect of both is the consolidation, through war or the threat of war (whether between classes or nations), of power in the hands of those hold it.
[...]
To erect the "punishment of the aggressor" into a general system would be to concentrate immense power into a few hands and establish an abominable and universal tyranny. In nothing is the evil inherent in universal systems of enforced morality more evident than in the doctrine of "sanctions."
[...]
There is no reason to suppose that a universal system of "sanctions" would abolish war even for a time. One evil would be replaced by a greater evil. Private wars would be abolished — only world wars would be allowed.

England, Voigt emphasizes, is the only Great Power exposed to the permanent danger of total and permanent defeat in war:

The United States have absolute security. They are exposed neither to blockade, nor invasion, nor attack from the air. Not one of their vital interests can be menaced. Unless their whole fleet engages in some rash enterprise far from its bases, they are safe from major defeat. And even major defeat would not expose them to conquest by a foreign foe. The United States can never be less than a Great Power.
[...]
Of all the Great Powers, England is the most vulnerable. On her armed strength depends her own existence — and the existence of others. She can never share the enviable state of the small countries on the north-western fringe of Europe. Without her, these countries would be threatened with extinction. If it were not for the British command of the sea, Holland would be absorbed by Germany, and her colonial empire would be at the mercy of Japan. It is very doubtful whether Denmark would exist at all if she were not situated on the fringe of the Pax Britannica. Norway and Sweden have a certain security in their remoteness — but the security of Norway, at least, is made doubly secure because England could not tolerate an alien conquest or penetration that would give a foreign navy the use of the Norwegian coast.

Belgium cannot exist as an independent nation without Britain and France. It is not even sure that Swiss independence would survive if the Swiss had not the French for neighbors and the French had not the English for allies.
[...]
England's general interest is in the national independence of existing States within their present frontiers and therefore, in the European status quo. But that interest is not so vital that she can make every change in that status a casus belli. Indeed no change in the territorial status anywhere in Europe, except in the west and in the Mediterranean area, can be a casus belli for England. But so delicate is the European equilibrium and so far-reaching may the consequences be if it is upset, that any territorial change anywhere in Europe may, by involving other Powers (especially France), lead to a situation so full of danger that she must always reserve to herself the possibility of intervening in defense of her vital interests.

Nor is the question purely political. The triumph of the militant, imperialistic Powers would promote the spread of protection and of tied economies. German expansion in central and eastern Europe would extend the area of German "self-sufficiency." Whether Germany achieves political domination, or even a decisive political and commercial influence, tariffs and systems of quotas, subsidies and import and export licenses are promoted to the advantage of Germany and to the exclusion of other countries.

Loss of trade in an area so extensive as the prospective Pan-German Empire and the zones of German ascendancy beyond the borders of that Empire would be a very serious matter for England.
[...]
While avoiding direct intervention in the affairs of central and eastern Europe, [England] must always be able to impinge on the central and eastern European situation, using her influences and her good offices to preserve the status quo. A general anti-German policy would be excessively dangerous and costly. Any general coercive system would be fatal to England if it were to dominate her policy. Isolation would be no less fatal. Her path must run clear of a utopian universalism and an equally utopian isolationism.

This passage, Moldbug says, demonstrates the tragedy of Voigt's liberal realism:

The principal antithesis in the world today is not between Berlin and Moscow, London or Rome, but between London and Berlin. Without this antithesis, a Pax Europaica or a United Europe would be possible.

The greatest — and perhaps unattainable — political need of Europe today is that a relationship, such as exists between London and Washington, should also exist between London, Paris and Berlin. If England, France and Germany are united, not in any federation or any centrally directed system, or indeed any system of any kind, but by virtue of a certain fundamental identity of outlook and by a common civilization (no other unity can be real), then Europe is united, and the dream of all "good Europeans," the Pax Europaica, will have come true.

The Pax Europaica cannot be achieved by protocols or treaties, by pacts, by alliances, by mutual assistance or by the League of Nations. It can only come about through a spiritual change — in Germany, but also in France and England.

Moldbug's reaction:

Here we see the tragedy of the British "appeasers" of the late '30s. Between the Congress of Vienna and the rise of Germany, Britain had enjoyed effective world supremacy, as the US does now. Liberal Imperialism foundered on this rock; it could not let Germany become a world power equal to the British, for Germany was not liberal.

Yet, by opposing Germany and denying it Westphalian parity, Britain made Germany hateful and paranoid, for Germans saw themselves being treated as an inferior in a world system in which it was not just formally an equal, but economically and militarily an equal. Thus the harder Britain worked to deny Germany equality, the less deserving of that equality Germany became.

The appeasers of the '30s inherited the final dilemma of this epic conflict. From the perspective of British interests, the right decision was clearly to abandon the Little Entente-type states created after World War I, whose adherence to democratic principles was anyway quite a bit less than stellar, and allow Germany to create her empire in the East. Yet this decision was both a release of power, which is always difficult for the powerful, and an empowerment of dangerous and illiberal forces beyond the control of Britain or anyone. Unlimited national sovereignty!

Another decision, of course, would have been to support Poland and Czechoslovakia to the hilt. This might not have restrained all future Hitlers; it probably would have restrained Hitler. But ultimately, it would have been necessary to back this bluff with actual war. Hence the course of universal peace, later followed.

But, through the natural tensions in her political system, Britain wound up following a course between these two poles, and one which was clearly worse than both. Seeking to avoid war and preserve her Empire — excuse me, "Commonwealth" — she got war, and lost her Empire. And lo, did Edgar Mowrer inherit the earth. Along with Moscow, for a time.

Here, again, is the tragedy of Voigt's liberal realism. He dabbles with actual, real realism — and rejects it. He ends up, with Mowrer, trying to convert Germany to "good thinking." That this can only be done with bombs, and that it can only end in the death of the British Empire, he at some level knows; but he cannot reject his geopolitics, his commercial advantage, his trade routes, all the cant of late Imperialism. Hence the war sucks him and his country in.

Cromwell Attended Cambridge

Before rising to power, Oliver Cromwell attended Cambridge — and his head is now buried beneath Sidney Sussex College's chapel:

It may be added here, with regard to athletic exercises, that Cromwell, when at Cambridge, distinguished himself far more at football and cudgels than at the exercises of the schools; and that he, like Marlborough, Clive, and many other great men, would never have risen to the command of armies, if such rise had depended upon a competitive examination, in which prigs and pedants will generally beat men of great force of character or genius for the arts of war or peace.

Nations of Shepherds

Some of the most extensive conquests in the history of the world have been made by nations of shepherds:

An army of hunters, as Adam Smith has observed, and as we have seen exemplified in the case of the North American Indians, "can seldom exceed two or three hundred men. The precarious subsistence which the chase affords could seldom allow a greater number to keep together for any considerable time. An army of shepherds, on the contrary, may sometimes amount to two or three hundred thousand.... A nation of hunters can never be formidable to the civilized nations in their neighbourhood; a nation of shepherds may. Nothing can be more contemptible than an Indian war in North America; nothing, on the contrary, can be more dreadful than a Tartar invasion has frequently been in Asia."

Adam Smith then proceeds to observe that the judgment of Thucydides, that no nation, either of Europe or Asia, could resist the Scythians united, has been verified by the experience of all ages. "The inhabitants," he adds, "of the extensive but defenceless plains of Scythia and Tartary, have been frequently united under the dominion of the chief of some conquering horde or clan; and the havoc and devastation of Asia have always signalized their union. The inhabitants of the inhospitable deserts of Arabia, the other great nation of shepherds, have never been united but once — under Mahomet and his immediate successors. Their union, which was more the effort of religious enthusiasm than of conquest, was signalized in the same manner."

Drake Shooting

The Selous Scouts of Rhodesia developed something called Drake shooting for fighting in bush country:

This useful technique is based on the fact that in a close-quarters firefight, 99 percent of combatants seek to hide from incoming fire by hitting the ground and rolling into the nearest cover. Accepting this fact, the Drake/cover shoot concept requires that two rounds be fired into positions of likely cover until all positions are neutralized.

Each man of the patrol would concentrate on his assigned arc of responsibility to his immediate front and systematically analyzed it.

While the scout analyzed his arc he would think ‘if I was the enemy, which position within my arc would I chosen for cover?’ The scout would look at the base of large trees, rocks and thickets, and “double-tap” two controlled shots into each side of the suspected location close to ground level. By placing the shots low into the position, dirt and stones will spray up into the face of anyone hiding there, causing them to take rapid evasive movements and thus exposing them to aimed fire. The trick is to try to place the bullets just above the ground, because a man lying down is no more than 12 inches high. To shoot any higher will result in the bullet winging harmlessly overhead.

A four-man tracking team of scouts could quickly and effectively clear 40 potential firing positions, assuming that each man uses a 20-round magazine on a semiautomatic weapon. In the case of trees, the scout was trained to fire right into them at almost ground level, as bullets fired from modern high-velocity weapons can easily and completely penetrate most trees. As the scout observed his arc he would start close up, then systematically progress further and further back, widening the arc of fire, until all likely and suspected positions have been engaged. This technique is effective in flushing hidden adversaries and is economical in ammunition expenditure.

For training, areas were chosen at random by the instructors for these purposes and small targets concealed in all likely positions in which an enemy might take cover. After some practice and coaching, it was quite remarkable at how many targets were successfully engaged without the firer ever having sight of the target.

The Effectiveness of Early Firearms

For a long time, the effectiveness of firearms was greatly exaggerated — but not by every fighting force:

The Turkish infantry—the Janissaries—were permanently embodied: they appear in their manner of fighting to have somewhat resembled the Scottish Highlanders; their custom being, after firing their muskets, to draw their sabres, and rush upon the enemy, Montecuculi bears testimony to the desperate bravery of the Turks. He says he has repeatedly seen them swim rivers in the face of an enemy, with their sabres between their teeth.

The chief strength of the Turk lay in his use of the arme blanche, which, with his infantry as well as cavalry, was the sabre.

What may be the effect of the recent improvements in fire-arms, both in respect to longer range and greater precision, time will show; but it appears certain that hitherto the effect of the invention of firearms upon war has been greatly exaggerated and misunderstood. For example, Adam Smith says: " In modern war, the great expense of fire-arms gives an evident advantage to the nation which can best afford that expense; and, consequently, to an opulent and civilized over a poor and barbarous nation."

This assertion is disproved by what the Highlanders accomplished in the seventeenth century under the Marquis of Montrose, and in the Rebellion of 1745, and by the whole history of the Turks for 200 years after the introduction of fire-arms. The Highlanders did their work principally with the broadsword, and the Turks with the sabre; and the result sufficiently showed the unsoundness of the conclusion, that making a noise by the explosion of gunpowder would form an efficient substitute for the neglect of the cultivation of the qualities of bodily strength and activity, and skill and dexterity in the use of arms. It is no answer to this to say that Cromwell's troops ultimately beating the Highlanders is in favour of fire-arms; for Cromwell did nearly all his work by the superior excellence of his cavalry and the bodily strength and enthusiastic spirit of his pikemen. More of the work, too, both of Cromwell and Gustavus Adolphus, was done by the butt than by the muzzle of the musket, the bayonet not being rendered effective till long after. It might be shown also that Frederick II. of Prussia owed much of his success to the excellence of his cavalry, commanded as they were by the best cavalry officer in the world, Seidelitz.

Where the Turks were weak was where, as has been shown, the Spartans were weak — in their cultivation of bodily strength to the total exclusion of intellectual power. With them, as with the Spartans, this rendered it impossible, or next to impossible, to possess a first-rate general. Consequently, the Spartans and the Turks, though they might, from their excellence as soldiers, be almost sure of defeating troops of inferior excellence led by ordinary generals, when they came to contend with the strategical genius of such commanders as Epaminondas and Eugene, were defeated; the great superiority of the general making up for the inferiority of his army.

Marshal Saxe's theory (which, however, must have been much modified if the rifle had then been in use) is that musketry is of very little service, unless at such close quarters as to be pretty nearly equivalent to the use of the "arme blanche." He speaks of "l'abus de la tirerie, qui fait plus de bruit que de mal, et qui fait toujours battre ceux qui s'en servent." He says, further, "La poudre n'est pas si terrible qu'on le croit. Peu de gens dans les affaires sont tués de bonne guerre et par devant; j'ai vu des salves entières ne pas tuer quatre hommes, et je n'en ai jamais vu, ni personne, je pense, qui ait causé un dommage assez considérable pour empêcher d'aller en avant, et de s'en venger à grands coups de bayonettes et de fusils tirés a brûle-pourpoint. C'est là où il se tue du monde, et c'est le.victorieux qui tue."

Marshal Saxe supports his theory by various facts; one of which was, the total and rapid destruction of two battalions of German infantry by a body of Turks: cavalry, it would seem; though that point is not quite clear in the Marshal's account; but, either way, the sabre was the weapon of destruction. He thus describes the action: "At the battle of Belgrade I saw two battalions cut in pieces in an instant: it happened thus. Two battalions, one of Lorraine, and one of Neuperg, were on a height which we called the battery; and at the moment when a blast of wind dispersed a fog which prevented us from distinguishing anything, I saw these troops on the crest of the height separated from the rest of our army. Prince Eugene asked me if I had a good sight; and what was that troop of horsemen which was making the circuit of the mountain. I replied, that it was thirty or forty Turks. He said to me, 'Those men are destroyed,' meaning the two battalions. I did not, however, see that they were attacked, or were likely to be, because I could not see what was on the other side of the mountain. I proceeded thither as fast as I could. At the moment I arrived behind the colours of Neuperg, I saw the two battalions present arms, take aim, and fire a general volley at thirty paces on a body of Turks who were advancing upon them. The fire and the melee were simultaneous; and the two battalions had no time for flight; for they were all instantly sabred on the spot where they stood. There escaped only M. de Neuperg, who, luckily for him, was on horseback ; an ensign, with his colours, who threw himself on my horse's mane, and hampered me very much; together with two or three soldiers. At this moment Prince Eugene rode up almost alone; that is to say, with only his staff; and the Turks retired, I don't know why. It was there that he received a shot through the sleeve. Some troops of cavalry and some infantry now came up, and M. de Neuperg asked for a detachment to secure the clothes. Sentinels were posted on the ground occupied by those dead battalions; and piles of coats, hats, shoes, &c. were collected. While this was going on, I amused myself with counting the dead, and I found only thirty-two Turks killed by the volley of those two battalions; which has not raised my opinion of the value of fire-arms."

After Armageddon

The History Channel's recent After Armageddon looked at what might happen after a truly devastating pandemic flu crippled basic services, like water and power. Robin Hanson makes a brief appearance about eight minutes into the fifth segment (of nine) on YouTube:



I can only imagine what wisdom he shared with the producers of the show — but it didn't make the cut.

Men of Energy

Turkey remained a succesful military despotism as long as the Sultans remained men of energy:

The principal causes assigned for the decline of the Turkish power were the habit contracted by Suleiman I., towards the end of his days (he died in 1566), of no longer presiding in person at the divan, the promotion of his favourites to the first dignities of the State, the influence of the harem in public affairs, and the immense power and wealth of the grand vizirs.

More than a century after this, however, the Turks threatened all Europe; but they never altogether recovered from the defeats they received, first, from John Sobieski, under the walls of Vienna, in 1683, and thirty-three years later, from Eugene, at Peterwardein. The strength of their position still protected them from total destruction; and in their case the world was enabled to see of what quality are the dregs of a military despotism suffered to run out its full course.

For a time the head of a military despotism must possess some of the qualities, such as courage, hardihood, and sagacity, which raised the first man — of whom he is the representative — to his post. But when conquest has procured wealth and the means of luxury, and time has given a certain degree of stability to the dominion at first conquered and held by valour, unremitted toil, and peril, the head of a military despotism no longer possesses either the qualities of a general or a statesman, of a hardy soldier or a constitutional king. He becomes an effeminate sensualist, who rules his empire and commands his armies through the ministers of his pleasures, and the whole machine of his government becomes one mass of imbecility, rottenness, and corruption.

Thus the strength of the Turks lasted as long as the Sultan was a man of energy, who devoted his time to labour and not to pleasure, and while, as a consequence of this devotion to the duties of his place, he gave all the highest posts under him to the greatest military merit. But even when Montecuculi wrote, this mortal disease had commenced in the Turkish government. After speaking of the valour of the Turkish troops and of the experience and military qualities of their officers, he adds that corruption has already appeared among them: men totally unfit being raised at once to the command of armies. The source of this abuse, he continues, is that the Sultan, plunged in sensuality, and neglecting the observance of the Mahometan laws, never goes to war in person.

The history of Rome under the empire, and the whole history of Asia, exhibit the same result, and demonstrate by unmistakeable signs the goal to which all military monarchies are drifting; though the history of the Turks shows that they may take ages to reach that goal. This explains why the Turks of the present day, though they may be as stalwart men and as good horsemen as the Spahis, who were once so formidable, make so poor a military figure; all their officers above the rank of captain being appointed, not for their military qualities, but for having been "a Pasha's pipe-bearer or something worse." The men have no confidence in them; and if they had, their confidence would be much misplaced.

We must Americanize ourselves

Heinrich Hauser wrote The German Talks Back to explain postwar Germany to Americans — not, Mencius Moldbug explains, from the point of view of a German liberal but from that of a German national-conservative. An excerpt:

The crucial test to which the American government in Germany ought to subject all claimants and lobbyists is, of course, "Just how many followers do you have? How many hale and hearty democrats can you deliver?" An honest question, to which in honesty the non-Nazified functionaries of the old Weimar Republic can only answer: "None. Unfortunately, the people have become estranged from us. The young generation has forgotten us and doesn't care about democracy. After thirteen years of Hitler, what can you expect?"

This is perfectly true, except that for once it is not Hitler who must take all the blame if American ideas don't work out in occupied Germany. That blame must be shared by German gullibility and American gullibility alike. The truth is that the fathers of the present generation ate sour grapes from America, and now the children's teeth are set on edge.

I will spare you the well-worn argument about Wilson's Fourteen Points, and how the Germans felt let down when they got the Treaty of Versailles instead. No: what you have forgotten, or never became conscious of, is that for ten years after the First World War Germany's most popular slogan was "Wir amerikaniseieren uns!" ("We must Americanize ourselves.") Rarely, perhaps never in history, was there a defeated nation so completely enamored of the victor's efficiency as the Germans after 1919. "American matériel has won the war? So then everything American must be superior. Let's imitate them, let's Americanize ourselves." Such was German logic.

Every American who visited Berlin during those reconstruction years will remember to what ridiculous lengths that German logic went: American bars and American-style nightclubs, American jazz bands, if possible with one "real imported" Negro at the saxophone. American cafeteries and American movie houses were ubiquitous. The neatly dressed German wore "shimmy" shoes and a suit of American cut. American cars rolled on the streets with a new and surprising noiselessness, and in if an American asked his way in German he got an English answer. The dollar was the Elite-Valuta — the elite-professionals of the Kurfuerstendamm demanded it from even their German customers. And the first skyscrapers begain to raise their steel skeletons over the trees of the Tiergarten.

We imitated everything. The National Assembly imitated your Constitution, and the Reichswehr your Sam Browne belt. Industrialists copied your production systems, workers adapted themselves to your speed-up systems, and poets sang in praise of the assembly line. We introduced your weekend and your bookkeeping. We blossomed out in Rotary Clubs and poured sugar into our perfectly good wine to ape the sweet tooth of America.

We really meant it all. Sure, the people were disappointed that their Wilsonian dream hadn't come true after all, but then they still clung to their dream of America. What kind of dream?

"If you will only be good democrats and work like hell and be modern and progressive as we are, then you can live like Americans." That was the siren song which in a thousand variations sounded from across the ocean, and the people listened as starry-eyed as ever Hitler listened to a Wagner opera. They dreamed of the electric refrigerator that would one day be theirs, and of the vacuum cleaner, and, above all, of that cheap little car.
[...]
For a time the carrot worked; the ugly 19th-century brick-and-plaster houses of Germany's Main Streets put on pants: facades of concrete reaching to the second floor and framing modern stores with neon lights. Cities built new municipal buildings and parks and hospitals for themselves. Yes, it was done with American loans — to a large degree, at least. Industry modernized itself and installed new machinery. Yes, American money helped do that, too. It looked almost like prosperity on the face of it, and a typical German crowd looked almost like a normal American crowd.
[...]
It must not be forgotten that private enterprise in Germany had suffered a major blow a few years before the Nazis came to power. In 1930, the great depression hit the economic body of Germany, which owing to malnutrition had a low resistance anyway. And the most significant thing about it was that "Wir amerikanisieren uns," the slogan of the 'twenties, backfired on us with a vengeance.

When the United States retracted her private loans, the first establishments to topple were the ones that had taken the loans. These included the municipalities that had gone farthest along the American way of modernity, and the industries that had gone the limit with American production methods, thereby accumulating an unduly high overhead. The workers on the American-style assembly lines were the first to be thrown on the dole. The most progressive farmers, who had invested heavily in modern American implements, were the first to surrender to the sheriff's sale.
[...]
The cheapest kind of amusement, which even those on the dole could afford once a week, which indeed was thrown in as part of the dole, was a ticket to the movies. People thronged the movie houses, partly for the warmth, partly to snatch an hour of sleep in half-comfort, partly to forget their misery, and partly for the show. And the show always included a newsreel and some slapstick comedy from the U.S.A.

Never shall we forget — we, the unemployed of the depression years in Germany — those nauseating scenes that Hollywood projected for us on the silver screen as ostensibly representing the American way of life. Never shall I forget the incredulous stare at first, and then the tightening of lips, and then the gleam of hatred in the people's eyes...

"So that's the way those fellows live over there in America... did you see those brats throwing pie at each other's faces, and all besmeared, and the whipped cream dripping all over?... And the girls in the sexy bathing suits, swimming in a pond full of apples and banging them around... Don't forget the ones who got their buttocks measured by a bunch of fellows — a beauty contest, they called it... And that other hussy in the beauty parlor; got her hair all plastered with yolk of egg. I've seen it. Real eggs, at least a dozen....
[...]
In that other thing, College Fun or whatever it was, did you see how they wrecked the place, smashed up the furniture and all? Did you think that was funny? No, I call that beastly, and I could have taken a stick and smashed their skulls, and never be sorry I did it."

Pre-war Germany and the modern Middle East suddenly seem eerily similar.