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Worlds On Fire

Worlds A and B, to be exact.

It is March, but March of 2021, not 2010.  Crises have broken out around the globe.

In Africa, a major war involving US forces appears imminent.

In the Near East, an aggressive nation makes its bid for regional hegemony.

In Europe, a major power throws its weight around with increasing belligerence.

In East Asia, another major power has declared a Maritime Exclusion Zone (MEZ) in a large, resource rich area; the MEZ will take effect at month’s end.

In the Western Hemisphere, a powerful insurgency threatens to topple a fragile democracy and install a repressive regime; the conflict has generated a significant, rapidly growing refugee problem — and the refugees are headed our way.

Most disturbingly, at three inland ports, massive explosions have occurred within hours of one another, killing or injuring hundreds of Americans.

The whole thing is reported, twice a day, by SNN:  the Strategic News Network, replete with anchor person, reporters, commercials, and a signature phrase (“Strategies for Life”).

What’s next?  A massive earthquake?  An outbreak of zombies?  The cancellation of American Idol?  Only High Con, Low Con, and the Observer Controllers know for sure.

It’s SDME time at the Army War College.

The core curriculum is now behind us.  Since the beginning of the academic year in August the students have marched through six courses:  Strategic Thinking, Theory of War and Strategy, Strategic Leadership, National Security Policy and Strategy, Theater Strategy and Campaigning, and Joint Processes and Land Power Development.  (Brief descriptions of each course are here.)  Now comes the Strategic Decision Making Exercise (SDME).

According the war college web site, the SDME is “an experiential learning vehicle for USAWC students to apply the concepts, processes, methodologies, and knowledge gained earlier in the core curriculum. The exercise builds on the core courses and provides students the opportunity to distinguish the uniqueness of strategic level leadership and apply skills and competencies required of strategic leaders. A credible and complex virtual environment challenges students to use senior leadership skills and to apply and evaluate several interrelated strategic processes: the Interagency policymaking process, the Crisis Action Planning (CAP) process, the Multinational Coordination process, and the Resourcing process. Set in the future, SDME includes multiple crises (ranging from major combat operations to humanitarian assistance and stability operations, to domestic response, to terrorism and natural disasters)  to stress these integrated strategic processes.”

Although this is my second year at the war college, because of other commitments last year it is my first opportunity to observe the SDME.  I’m trying to make the most of it.  With one exception, which I’ll describe at another time, I have no duties in the SDME and can therefore wander at will through all elements of the exercise.  In future posts I’ll discuss specific aspects of the SDME, but here is what it looks like in general.

While most of the war college curriculum occurs in the twenty seminar rooms of Root Hall and the adjacent auditorium, Bliss Hall, the SDME takes place a few hundred yards away, in Collins Hall.  Built in 1994, Collins Hall houses the Center for Strategic Leadership (CSL).  The CSL does many things, but the most ambitious of these is the preparation and execution of the SDME, a six day practicum involving all 338 students and pretty much the entire faculty, as well as an impressive number of high powered “distinguished visitors.”

The students are divided into “cells” of between four and 21 students.  Each cell represents a different component of the national security system, among them the major commands (e.g. Central Command and Strategic Command), the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, and the Departments of State and Homeland Security.  Each cell is within a single room and with few exceptions its personnel can communicate with other cells only by email or phone.  To maximize meaningful participation, the cells are spread among two “worlds” — Worlds A and B — that address the crises independently of one another.

By the way, to heighten a sense of realism the names of actual countries are used throughout, but for the most part I will omit them on my posts because this is the one really sensitive aspect of the SDME.  It’s all too easy to for the mischievous, the paranoid, or the just plain idiotic to distort this notional exercise into real life preparation: “Did you know that at the Army War College they’re making plans for war with So-and-So?”

Controlling the exercise from above are senior faculty members who portray the President, the National Security Advisor, the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, and so on.  Controlling it from below are a cast of characters from the CSL and several outside organizations who come here specifically to support the exercise.  There are short notice media interviews with cameras rolling, tough questions, and snippets inserted into SNN broadcasts.  There are congressional hearings with real members of Congress demanding answers — and not always nicely.

The SDME goes on for six days, three of which take place in March 2021, when the scenarios unfold, followed by a 60-day jump into May 2021, when they play out to resolution.  During the jump, students change roles.  The commander of AFRICOM may become the Senior Policy Adviser for Media  Affairs, the Chief of Naval Operations becomes the NORTHCOM J3, and so on.  Many students are cell leaders — the head of each notional organization — but no student has a leadership role in both halves of the exercise.

It all sounds impressive as hell, and it looks impressive too.  That said, opinions of the SDME’s utility vary widely among the faculty and students.  I’ll get to that in a future post as well.

Ways Out of War

Military historians tend to assume that war is transhistorical — that as the Bible says, there will always be wars and rumors of wars.  But the Bible assumed that there would always be slavery as well, and that turns out not to have been the case.  One could object that pockets of slavery still exist, but that’s a quibble.  The big news has been the destruction of slavery.

Students of war ought at least to consider how we might end war.  Since we will never end human conflict, the only realistic way out is to find methods of resolving conflict without violence.  And I think the best practicum on the subject is to try and remove violence from our own lives, and to observe the methods that work, the ones that don’t, and what it is within ourselves that makes violence so intractable.

Too many people are literally violent when conflict occurs.  Even in families, it is common for spouses to hit one another, for parents to hit their children, for children to hit their siblings and sometimes their parents.  But words can also be weapons, and this is where violence really comes into play.  People who would never strike another person with their fists often think nothing of striking another person with their words — and even if they do think of it, find it almost impossible to avoid.  There’s something twisted in the human heart, and the question is whether and how it can be untwisted.

Which is where nonviolent communication comes in.

Attempts to conceptualize and enact nonviolent communication go back many centuries, but in modern form, some of the best thinking on the subject has been inspired by nonviolent resistance and, in the American context, by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.  A case in point is clinical psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg’s Center for Nonviolent Communication, an international, non-profit organization that emerged from his work with civil rights activists in the early 1960s.  During that period Rosenberg provided mediation and communication skills training to communities working to peacefully desegregate schools and other public institutions.

The Center provides training in nonviolent communication in 59 countries, including numerous world hot spots, among them Afghanistan, Congo, Israel, Palestine, Sri Lanka and the former Yugoslavia.  Rosenberg himself seems to travel tirelessly, working with military officers, police and prison officials, and government officials as well as educators, managers, mental health providers, and families.

Rosenberg’s emphasis has been on trying to teach the essentials of nonviolent communication as concisely as possible, and has published a number of short works that address the subject from various angles.  But he has also written several books, including Nonviolent Communication:  A Language of Life (2003).  Its first chapter is available on the Center’s web site:

Believing that it is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner, I have been preoccupied most of my life with two questions. What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively? And conversely, what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature under even the most trying circumstances?

My preoccupation with these questions began in childhood, around the summer of 1943, when our family moved to Detroit, Michigan. The second week after we arrived, a race war erupted over an incident at a public park. More than forty people were killed in the next few days. Our neighborhood was situated in the center of the violence, and we spent three days locked in the house.

When the race riot ended and school began, I discovered that a name could be as dangerous as any skin color. When the teacher called my name during attendance, two boys glared at me and hissed, “Are you a kike?” I had never heard the word before and didn’t know it was used by some people in a derogatory way to refer to Jews. After school, the two were waiting for me: they threw me to the ground, kicked and beat me.

Since that summer in 1943, I have been examining the two questions I mentioned. What empowers us, for example, to stay connected to our compassionate nature even under the worst circumstances? I am thinking of people like Etty Hillesum, who remained compassionate even while subjected to the grotesque conditions of a German concentration camp. As she wrote in her journal at the time,

“I am not easily frightened. Not because I am brave but because I know that I am dealing with human beings, and that I must try as hard as I can to understand everything that anyone ever does. And that was the real import of this morning: not that a disgruntled young Gestapo officer yelled at me, but that I felt no indignation, rather a real compassion, and would have liked to ask, ‘Did you have a very unhappy childhood, has your girlfriend let you down?’ Yes, he looked harassed and driven, sullen and weak. I should have liked to start treating him there and then, for I know that pitiful young men like that are dangerous as soon as they are let loose on mankind.”
Etty Hillesum: A Memoir

Full chapter

Defense Department Releases Official Policy on Social Media

Announcement on the U.S. Department of Defense web site, February 26:

The Department of Defense released its official policy on new/social media today.  The policy (Directive-Type Memorandum 09-026), which is effective immediately, states that the default for the DoD non-classified network (the NIPRNET) is for open access so that all of DoD can use new media. This is DoD’s first official policy on new media.  Prior to today, the Services and other DoD components developed and implemented their own ad hoc policies — some banning it all together.  Under this new policy, there will be open and consistent access across the board, but prohibited content sites (gambling, pornography, hate-crime activities) will still be blocked.  Also, Commanders at all levels and heads of DoD components will continue to keep networks safe from malicious activity and take actions, as required, to safeguard missions.

Service members and DoD employees are welcome and encouraged to use new media to communicate with family and friends — at home stations or deployed — but it’s important to do it safely. Keep in mind that everyone has a responsibility to protect themselves and their information online, and existing regulations on ethics, operational security, and privacy still apply.  Be sure never to post any information that could be considered classified, sensitive, or that might put military members or families in danger.

You can view the DTM here:

Full article

In Memoriam: George S. Pappas (1919-2010)

An appreciation by Richard J. Sommers, Ph.D., Senior Historian, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center,  the last charter member hired by Col. Pappas (1970) still working at AHEC.

COL (Ret.) George S. Pappas

Retired Col. George S. Pappas, the founder of the U.S. Army Military History Research Collection, now known as the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, passed away on Jan. 5 at his home in Belvedere, Calif. He had just celebrated his 90th birthday, December 26.

A professional Soldier, he entered service in June, 1939, as an enlisted man in the 6th Coast Artillery Regiment in Calif. His potentiality for leadership earned him admission to the U.S. Military Academy two years later. After graduating in October, 1944, and being commissioned into the Anti-Aircraft/Air Defense Artillery branch, he began a 30-year career, rising to the grade of colonel.

Throughout his service, he demonstrated great interest in the history of the profession of arms: reading about it, writing about it, preserving and making available source material on it.

His great opportunity to apply that interest came here at Carlisle Barracks in the mid-1960s. After graduating from the Army War College in 1966, he remained on the faculty as Assistant Chief of the Research and Publications Branch. His special responsibility was writing the history of the college. The resulting book, Prudens Futuri: The U.S. Army War College, 1901-1967, published in 1967, was the first modern history of the Army’s senior service college.

Completing that book did not complete his service at Carlisle Barracks. In the middle of Academic Year 1967, the War College moved into its current building, Root Hall. Its former location in the handsome, elegant, stately stone structure, now known as Upton Hall, was much too valuable to remain vacant. Many post activities claimed portions of it. Pappas persuaded the Commandant, Maj. Gen. Eugene Salet, to give him two rooms in it, the rooms along the north side of the east wing on the first floor, presently occupied by the Post Judge Advocate.

From that modest beginning, Pappas built the U.S. Army Military History Research Collection (MHRC). In 1970, MHRC became the official central historical repository for the entire United States Army. In 1977, MHRC was redesignated the U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI). The institute, in turn, became the core component upon which was built the U.S. Army Heritage and Education (AHEC), founded in 2002.

(Continued)

Society for Military History Update

SMH Logo

By Ethan S. Rafuse; cross posted from Civil Warriors

The program for the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, which is being held on 20-23 May in Lexington, Virginia, and sponsored by the Virginia Military Institute, has recently been posted. There will be a number of sessions and papers that address topics of interest to students of American Civil War military history. Moreover, as usual, there will be a pretty decent contingent of Civil War historians in attendance, including Mark, Carol Reardon, Susannah Ural, Brian Holden Reid, Gary Gallagher, and Joe Glatthaar. I will be presenting a paper in a session on “The U.S. Cavalry in the Civil War Era” and participating in various activities associated with chairing the SMH Awards Committee, which made some most excellent selections this year.

The recipients of the Distinguished Book Awards, which are given to outstanding works in the following categories, U.S., non-U.S., biography/memoir, and reference, are:

savageconflictDaniel E. Sutherland, A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press)
Edward J. Drea, Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945 (University Press of Kansas)
J.P. Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War (Cambridge University Press)
Spencer C. Tucker, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (ABC-CLIO)

The Moncado Awards for outstanding articles in The Journal of Military History go to:

John Morgan, “War Feeding War? The Impact of Logistics on the Napoleonic Occupation of Catalonia” (January 2009)
Irving W. Levinson, “A New Paradigm for an Old Conflict: The Mexico-United States War” (April 2009)
Brian Holden Reid, “Michael Howard and the Evolution of Modern War Studies” (July 2009)
Kevin M. Boylan, “The Red Queen’s Race: Operation Washington Green and Pacification, 1969-70” (October 2009)

Further information about the SMH program and logistics for the meeting can be found here.

Why the Civil Rights Movement Was an Insurgency

"Bloody Sunday": Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965

This article appears in the current issue of MHQ [Military History Quarterly].  It’s also available online.

In 1962 David Galula, a cerebral-looking French lieutenant colonel, arrived at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs as a research fellow. Powerfully influenced by his observations of postwar insurgencies and his 21 months as a company commander in the 1954–1962 Algerian War, Galula set down the lessons of his experiences in Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, which was published in 1964. Forty years later, it exerts a major influence on the new American doctrine created to deal with the problem of defeating 21st-century insurgencies. Like most military theorists of his day, Galula viewed insurgency through the lens of the Maoist doctrine of revolutionary war. He saw violence as being a core characteristic of insurgency. It is not surprising, then, that he completely dismissed the rumblings of an insurgency then in progress within the United States. Yet his sophisticated theories perfectly illustrate the dynamics of what was indeed an insurgency: the American civil rights movement.

Labeling that movement an insurgency flies in the face of the common perception of what constitutes an insurgency. Three objections spring to mind. One is superficial, though perhaps understandable in the post-9/11 era: Isn’t it outrageous to call the movement an insurgency? Aren’t insurgencies evil? Such a reaction fails to recognize that the term “insurgency” is value-neutral. Insurgents have also fought for noble causes. The United States itself was the product of an insurgency.

The remaining objections are more substantive. First, the movement was nonviolent, so how could it have been an insurgency? After all, even the official U.S. Department of Defense definition of insurgency assumes “armed conflict” as a basic tactic. Second, it is often thought that the civil rights movement received unstinting support from the U.S. government. Popular films such as Mississippi Burning (1988), whose protagonists are Federal Bureau of Investigation agents hell-bent on defeating the Ku Klux Klan, reinforce this interpretation. If so much pressure on segregationist governments emanated from above, then using the term “insurgency”—a challenge to the existing power structure from below—seems preposterous.

These objections, however, hinge on serious misconceptions about the nature of the civil rights movement, about the stance the federal government took toward civil rights, and above all about the scope of the “insurgency” concept. Once these are cleared away, the notion of the movement as an insurgency becomes more plausible. Ultimately, it becomes inescapable.

Full article

Naming the War

Like many military historians I get calls from journalists wanting my opinion about something have to do with past wars, current national security issues, and (ever since John J. Miller’s “Sounding Taps” essay) the state of academic military history.

A day or two after we invaded Iraq, a reporter phoned to ask what I thought this new war would be named.

Here’s what I told him, according to his article:

No one knows for sure what any conflict will come to be called by later generations — or even by the people starting to fight the battles, said Mark Grimsley, a professor of American military history at Ohio State University.

Wars often draw names based on the viewpoints of the participants, he said.

A classic example: the Civil War, known as the War of the Rebellion by Northerners and the War of Southern Independence by Southerners.

(“War Between the States” gained currency only after the war, thanks to the publication of a book with that title by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens.)

Other examples are the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years War in Europe; and what Europeans called the War of the Spanish Succession, or, to colonists in America, Queen Anne’s War. (The colonists didn’t know the intricacies of the Spanish succession — and didn’t care, Grimsley said.)

“The names wars are called often wind up loaded with a lot of propaganda value,” the professor said.

In the former Soviet Union, for instance, World War II is still known as the Great Patriotic War, he said.

The last U.S. war with Iraq, Grimsley noted, goes by two descriptions: Desert Storm, the Pentagon code name for the operation, and the Gulf War — named, like the Korean and Vietnam wars, for the location of the conflict.

Such geographic designations sometimes create confusion, however.

Some historians, Grimsley said, refer to the earlier war between Iraq and Iran as the Gulf War.

“For whatever reasons, certain names just come into general usage and become the most common name for a war,” he said. “The media, I think, would be a good guess as to where some of these names, these tag lines, originate.”

In recent history, he said, the government label has often been adopted by the press and the public.

The code name for the 1989 invasion of Panama — Operation Just Cause — received widespread usage, at least at the time.

“Sometimes,” Grimsley said, “there’s a certain political spin to the name of the war.”

At the turn of the last century, when Americans were battling a rebellion in the Philippines, the conflict was called the Philippine Insurgency, he said.
“The word insurgency and calling the Filipinos ‘rebels’ gave the impression they didn’t have any business fighting us.

“Calling it a war might have suggested more legitimacy on the part of those combatants.”

Later, the U.S. government insisted on referring to the fighting on the Korean peninsula as a “police action” and not a “war,” Grimsley said.

“That’s dropped out of vogue, but that’s what the Truman administration called it.”

The word war is much more popular with the government today.

“When you call something a war, it underlines the seriousness of what you’re trying to accomplish,” Grimsley said. “From a public-relations standpoint, it’s understandable.”

So, although Congress hasn’t declared war, the Iraq conflict will certainly be known as one.

As for what it will be called, Grimsley is betting against Gulf War II.

“In any case, you might have to call it Gulf War III” — because of the Iraq-Iran war.

As it turns out, the “Iraq War” seems to be the front contender, at least for now. I wonder if that will remain the case. I rather doubt it. I imagine that the ultimate name will depend upon future assessments of the conflict (like the competing names for the American Civil War) and / or developments (like the First World War).

In any case, it probably won’t be the suggestion proposed by a member of a Columbus American Legion post:

“How about Operation We Should’ve Done It Right the First Time?”

["A War By Any Other Name:  What New Conflict Will Be Called Remains Unknown," Columbus Dispatch, March 23, 2003]

What If the Allies Had Bombed Auschwitz?

Reprinted with permission of World War II Magazine

It is a hot August afternoon in 1944. The scene is Birkenau, that portion of the vast Auschwitz concentration camp dedicated to the industrialized killing of Europeans the Nazis regard as unworthy of life. They have already slain over five million through shooting, carbon monoxide poisoning, and, since September of 1941, the use of the lethal insecticide Zyklon B. Of the five original death camps, all in occupied Poland, Birkenau is the only one still in use. But it is efficient: its gas chambers can kill 2,000 prisoners in a single day.

Another group of Jews has just emerged from the fetid cattle cars of the train that has carried them from their homes to this forbidding place. Weak from disease, hunger, and dehydration, most are too bewildered or too frightened by the brutal SS officers and guards to pay much attention to the drone of aircraft approaching from the south.  The SS men are scarcely more concerned. Even as the drone resolves into 75 American B-17 bombers, the SS men assume that their target must be the I. G. Farben synthetic oil and rubber plants at Buna, an Auschwitz subcamp some seven miles away, which had been struck a few days earlier. But the deafening crash of the first bombs, less than 600 yards away, announces that the objective is Birkenau….

Full article (PDF format)

Death by PowerPoint

I thought officers’ derisive references to “PowerPoint Rangers” were wisecracks — until I actually began to see military briefings.  PowerPoint is de rigueur. I’ve seen some really good ones, but many are text driven, wire diagrammed nightmares.  Oh, the humanity…

Source: “Worth a Thousand Words,” Brain Rules Blog.

Populating a Military History Program: The “School Solution”

Three weeks ago I asked readers to populate a military history program based on having, notionally, two, three, or four faculty lines available to fill.  I received a number of very thoughtful replies and promised to eventually offer my own solution.  I didn’t realize that “eventually” would be quite so long in coming.  But I wanted time to read and digest your comments and offer a serious response. This is my first opportunity to do so.

My use of the term “school solution” — which in military speak refers to the doctrinally correct answer to a tactical problem — is of course facetious.  There is no one best configuration.  But working from the limited menu of choices offered on my original post, I’d go with the following:

Two faculty members (the minimum needed for a graduate field):

modern US military history (1903-present)
modern European military history (1871-present)

Three faculty members:

Add  Pre-1750 World Military History (I’m following the lead of some of you in rejecting my original formulation, which would have been “pre-1500 world military history, non-specific as to region”; I would also restrict the research focus to East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, or Southwest Asia.)

Four faculty members:

You don’t need four.

Here’s my rationale…

By way of prologue: I saw a number of very innovative responses arguing that we should move beyond traditional chronological / regional formulations. I agree that these are outmoded. The problem is that, at this point, both entering graduate students and (more importantly) the history departments that will hire them still think primarily in terms of traditional fields.  That is beginning to change.  But until it does, a more conventional group of specializations is probably best.

Two faculty: I selected modern U.S. and modern Europe because most graduate students in military history want to work in the modern era, so given the minimal number, a research focus in that era is probably best.  It’s true that many undergraduate students enjoy the military history of other periods, and one could argue that in purely intellectual terms the strongest graduate preparation may be done by scholars of earlier periods, on the theory that they tend to have a better grasp of modern history than modern historians have of earlier periods.  But my question would be:  Do they have the ability to direct dissertations in the modern period?

Three faculty: This is of course the critical hire needed to make the program competitive, and for that purpose it is imperative to have a non-western historian so that the program is able to place military history in global perspective.  I don’t think anyone seriously doubts that this is the direction that the field as a whole is taking. I chose to add pre-1750 Asian history because although it overlaps with European rise to hegemony (1500- ), until 1750 one can reasonably argue that the Asian experience was not dominated by the struggle with Europeans and that parts of Asia, especially China and the Ottoman Empire, were the premier world powers.  I might have gone with a specifically Ottoman, China, or South Asia historian except that the aperture needed to be wide enough to ensure an adequate pool of qualified applicants.

The above is the “default” mode.  As a number of you noted, one surely needs to bear in mind the strengths of a given department and build upon or complement them.  This is true not just from chronological / regional standpoint but also in terms of conceptual approach: political, social, cultural, gender, etc.

I concur with the point made by at least one commenter that it is entirely reasonable to dispense with early and modern American specializations and expect American military historians to be able to cover American history from colonial times to the present.  If historians of other regions can be expected to be competent over several hundred years of history, then surely one can expect the same of Americanists.  Moreover, the archival holdings for American history are sufficiently well organized and accessible that it is less necessary than might otherwise be the case for a dissertation adviser to have personal familiarity with a given set of archives.  Doctoral candidates should be able to figure these out independently.  The real work of the adviser would be in terms of question framing, conceptualization, and constructive critique.

Four faculty: You don’t need four because while four would not exhaust the number of historians required to cover the field comprehensively, it holds the danger of creating an insular program even if the department were otherwise large enough to accommodate four. It would be best to do as a number of you suggested: place the program in conversation with other fields and draw upon the interest of other historians in collective violence.  So much societal change occurs through violence that this should not be hard to do.

By way of example:  The OSU history department is in the process of creating six to eight “constellations” of faculty interested in broadly similar questions that cross traditional field boundaries.   The military history program initiated a proposal for a constellation dealing with war, collective violence, and diplomacy.  (It’s interesting, by the way, that although the body of the proposal has been worked out for several weeks, we have yet to come up with a final title.  There just aren’t succinct, accessible phrases that fully capture what we have in mind.) There are at present 19 constellation members on the main campus (and several more from our regional campuses; I’m restricting myself to the main campus merely for purposes of illustration).  Of these, seven are military or diplomatic/international historians, which might be considered “the usual suspects.”  The remaining twelve are from other fields:  e.g., Ottoman, African American, and sub-Saharan African history.

This, by the way, suggests a core competency that we as military historians ought to develop. The apology for a thematic field is the ability to place its subject in longitudinal and comparative perspective.  To maximize this requires faculty with the skill set needed to generate and sustain conversations with other fields, and this is something we need to instill in our graduate students as a normal part of their training.

The one thing that gave me serious pause in the course of this exercise was the implication that by choosing some specializations over others I was blatantly excluding some of the ablest practitioners of military history.  So here is another possibility:  to move beyond departmentally based programs and to create conditions in which historians from outside one’s own department can involve themselves formally in graduate training; e.g., team teaching courses and serving on graduate examination committees.  More on that in a future post.

The Undie Bomber: A Disinformation Mission?

What’s So Important About the Abdulmutallab Affair?
By Stephen Gale and Gregory Montanaro

Reprinted from Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Note, January 2010

Stephen Gale is professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the Chair of FPRI’s Center on Terrorism and Counterterrorism. Gregory Montanaro is Executive Director of the Center on Terrorism and Counterterrorism.

The Crux of the Matter

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt at bombing Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009 certainly has rekindled Americans’ interest in terrorism and security. Until recently, security issues for many citizens seemed to focus on complaints about the endless lines and burdensome procedures at airports. In fact, far too many of us, presumed that the world’s most serious terrorist groups had lost interest in U.S. domestic attacks after the post-9/11 changes in security and the bevy of heavy-duty U.S. military operations aimed at destroying terrorist groups worldwide. But now, with Abdulmutallab’s one bungled attempt, security is once again captured Americans’ attention.

Unsurprisingly, in the aftermath of Abdulmutallab’s failure accusations and finger pointing prevail as well as the usual attempts to identify the relevant security gaps and improvements in security procedures. However, since very little is known either about the reasons for the attack or just why he was selected for the operation, the options reviewed have been largely limited to arguments about the means for plugging the various security holes exploited by Abdulmutallab in his failed attempt. And in the end, since the information that has emerged has provided little more than some background accounts on Abdulmutallab, his purported relationships with radical Muslim clerics, and an incomplete picture of his possible connections to one or another terrorist group, most of the security recommendations have all the hallmarks of “locking the barn door after the horse has left” or opportunities for showpiece political one-upmanship.

In the final analysis, we believe that it is this incomplete information — both in understanding the current wave of Islamist terrorism and our on-going failure of imagination — that constitutes the crux of the problem that America and Americans face today with respect to terrorism and security. While we are chasing after the security gaps that allowed Abdulmutallab to board and potentially destroy one airplane, we still seem to be missing many – if not most – of the critical information necessary to prevent potential future terrorist attacks that can severely damage and disrupt critical U.S. infrastructure and our economy. Thus, although there have been endless reports that outline the factors related to specific terrorist tactics (such as the measures employed in hijacking, bombing, and the gaps and failures in security), we still know very little about terrorist strategies (the sequence of operations employed by the world’s various terrorist groups) and the kinds of major actions being planned for the future. Even more significant, while we have generally focused on the methods used in past events and the associated preventative measures, there is almost no information on what security measures work, what doesn’t, or how to improve the efficiency of security operations.

(Continued)

Military History Carnival Is Back

After a long hiatus, a new military history carnival — the twentieth, if I’m not mistaken –  is underway at The Edge of the American West.

(Hat tip to Brett Holman at Air Minded)

Hitler Learns Leno Is Moving Back To Late Night

Funny but really vulgar.  You have been warned.

A Softer Taliban

In today’s New York Times:

Taliban Overhaul Image to Win Allies
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

The Taliban have embarked on a sophisticated information war, using modern media tools as well as some old-fashioned ones, to soften their image and win favor with local Afghans as they try to counter the Americans’ new campaign to win Afghan hearts and minds.

The Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, issued a lengthy directive late last spring outlining a new code of conduct for the Taliban. The dictates include bans on suicide bombings against civilians, burning down schools, or cutting off ears, lips and tongues.

The code, which has been spottily enforced, does not necessarily mean a gentler insurgency. Although the Taliban warned some civilians away before the assault on the heart of Kabul on Monday, they were still responsible for three-quarters of civilian casualties last year, according to the United Nations.

Now, as the Taliban deepen their presence in more of Afghanistan, they are in greater need of popular support and are recasting themselves increasingly as a local liberation movement, independent of Al Qaeda, capitalizing on the mounting frustration of Afghans with their own government and the presence of foreign troops. The effect has been to make them a more potent insurgency, some NATO officials said.

Full article

Oh My God! She’s a Scud!

Operation Desert Storm began nineteen years ago today (U.S. time–it was already December January 17 in Iraq when the first air strike hit Baghdad).  Thanks to mobile satellite communications, 24-hour cable news, and embedded journalists — as well as a canny public relations campaign by the armed forces — it was the first American war to be broadcast in real time, which gave a somewhat misleading but nonetheless riveting look at the unfolding conflict.  For days on end I was practically glued to the TV, as were millions of other Americans (and presumably viewers elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Coalition member countries).

A Wayne’s World sketch aired on Saturday Night Live on January 19, 1991, three days after the start of air campaign, captured the non-stop coverage and our reaction to it.  Here’s the script:

Wayne’s World

Wayne Campbell…..Mike Myers
Garth Algar…..Dana Carvey

Announcer: Saturday Night Live will be seen immediately following this Excellent Report.

Wayne & Garth: “Wayne’s World! Special Report! Party Time! Excellent!”

Wayne: Welcome to “Wayne’s World: Special Report”! I’m your excellent host, Wayne Campbell! With me, as always, is Garth.

Garth: Party on, Wayne!

Wayne: Party on, Garth! Okay! For the last 72 hours, all we’ve been doing is coverage of the War in the Gulf. Non-stop.

Garth: We haven’t been out of the basement in three days!

Wayne: We’ve got three sets down here, man! It’s a media circus! One set is on CNN, one set is on NBC, and one set is on ABC. We didn’t even bother with CBS, because, I’m sorry, their coverage sucks! Dan Rather – not! Okay, we’ve been surviving on a diet of Pizza Hut Pizza and Jolt Cola, so.. we’re a little fried.

Garth: Yeah, man! Whoa-oa-oa-oa!!

Wayne: But we’re riding a humungoid caffeine and sugar buzz. I mean, I could bend spoons with my mind!

Garth: I’m so tired, that for a while there I was starting to hallucinate, man! ‘Cause at 4 in the morning, Garrett Utley started to look like an alien! I just wanted to grab his big head and go, “Bleeeaaaggggghhhh!!!”

Wayne: Okay! Our job tonight is more to inform than to entertain, because, after 72 hours of non-stop three-set intense watching – I mean, we got so sucked into the coverage, we didn’t even bother to go upstairs. I mean, we just whizzed in the laundry room sink, you know? So, I don’t mean to sound conceited, but we are now experts in the field of military hardware and media coverage. Alright, Garth, quiz me.

Garth: Alright, what is the range and speed of the Patriot missile?

Wayne: All right. The MIM-104 Patriot, with a range of 37 miles at a speed of Mach-3, primarily used against aircraft, but battle-tested for the first time against the Scud.

Garth: He shoots, he scores! Excellent!

Wayne: Now, it’s time for the Best/Worst list of media coverage.

Wayne & Garth: [ singing ] “Best/Worst! Best/Worst! Party Time! Excellent!”

Garth: Okay! Best name of a correspondent!

Wayne: Brit Hume, ABC. Geez, I wish that was my name! It sounds like James Bond, you know? [ imitates ] “Hume. Brit Hume.” Congratulations! Good work, my friend! Okay, Worst Name. CNN Pentagon Correspondent, Wolf Blitzer? Shyeah, right!

Garth: It’s so obvious the guy made it up for the war!

Wayne
: Yeah! I know, it’s like, “Hi, we now take you to our War Correspondent, Howitzer Explosion Guy.” Okay! Best Military Hardware Name. Scud.

Garth: Scud! Scud! A Soviet-made short-range ballistic missile with a speed of Mach-1, and a range of 300 miles!

Wayne: Good work, my friend!

Garth: Excellent!

Wayne: You know, the first time I heard the word “Scud”, I thought it was like, you know when you see a really pretty chick walking down the street, about 30 feet away, and you say, “Hello! Babe alert!” Right? But when you get closer, you go, “Oh, my God! She’s a scud!” It’s just like the missile, right? You’ve got medium-range chick scuds, and long-range chick scuds… it’s brutal!

Garth: Alright, Worst Map. “Nightline”, ABC. What were they thinking!

Wayne: I know, it’s like a sandbox! I built a volcano in the third grade that looked better! Okay! Best Video. The Pentagon Smart Bomb tape. You know, the one that’s so accurate it goes through the door? You know, the bomb that goes, “Knock-knock!”

Garth: Who’s there?

Wayne: Ka!

Garth: Ka who?

Wayne: Ka-boom!

Garth: Excellent!

Wayne: Okay, Worst Going To Commercial War Theme.

Garth: CNN, man. It was just a bunch of drums.

Wayne: Hey! Spend some money – it’s a war! Alright, Best Haircut. Ted Koppel. It looks natural…

Wayne & Garth: Not!

Garth: Sidebar! Sidebar! Watch the wind, Ted! Whoa-oa-oa! Alright! Whoa-oa-oa-oa! Alright, Most Interesting Opening Line On A Network Program.

Wayne: Okay, easy. “Live, from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” Whoa-oa!

[Source:  SNL Transcripts]

The Military in America’s Domestic History

THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY IN AMERICA’S (DOMESTIC) HISTORY
A History Institute for Teachers
The Foreign Policy Research Institute

Saturday and Sunday, April 10-11, 2010
The First Division Museum, 1 S. 151 Winfield Road, Wheaton, IL

Sponsored by

The Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Wachman Center
The Cantigny First Division Foundation of the McCormick Foundation

FPRI’s Wachman Center, in association with the Cantigny First
Division Foundation, is proud to be presenting their fifth weekend-long
conference for teachers on subjects in military history.

Topics and Speakers include:

EXPLORING THE WEST
Michael Tate, Charles and Mary Martin Chairof Western History,
University of Nebraska

BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE
Todd Shallat, Director, Center for Idaho History and Politics,
Boise State University

PROTECTING MARITIME TRADE
James C. Bradford, Associate Professor of History, Texas A&M University

SPURRING TRANSPORTATION
Alex Roland, Professor of History, Duke University

PROMOTING CIVIL RIGHTS
Christopher S. Parker, Assistant Professor of Political Science,
University of Washington, Seattle

NATION BUILDING
Dominic Tierney, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore
College, and Senior Fellow, FPRI

The conference begins at 8:50 am CT on Saturday, April 10, and
concludes at 1:00 pm CT on Sunday, April 11, 2010.

(Continued)

Routinizing Trouble

Cross posted from Facing the Demon.

Here is what to do if an M-16 jams on you:

Slap the magazine three times
Pull the charging handle to the rear
Observe the ejected round to the ground
Release the charging handle
Tap the forward assist three times
Shoot

I just wrote that from memory, 26 years after first learning the procedure during Basic Rifle Marksmanship at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I just checked. It is in fact the correct procedure, given in the correct order.

What has this got to do with bipolar disorder?

Plenty.

If an M16 jams on you — whether on a firing range or in combat — you automatically “pull SPORTS,” an acronym used to remind soldiers of the correct procedure for reducing a stoppage without investigating the cause. The military has a lot of procedures like this: things you’re trained and trained and trained to do, to the point where someone like me, who last held an M16 some twenty years ago, still retains the required knowledge. Not a dim memory of it, or a recollection of some of the steps, but the exact knowledge.

I think of this as routinizing trouble.

Here’s another problem.

An earthquake has shattered the little Caribbean nation of Haiti. You are watching the ceaseless TV coverage: astonishing views of destruction, heart-rending cries of the frightened, the bereaved, the dying.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with a per capita income of $1,300/year.

You’ve known since youth the story of the widow’s mite:

As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything — all she had to live on.”

[Mark 12:38-44 (New International Version)]

You feel compelled to do something to help the people of Haiti. There is an easy way to donate online.

Counting all three credit cards you own, you have an available credit of over $60,000.

How much do you donate?

(Continued)

Souls of the Departed

On the road to Basra stood young Lieutenant Jimmy Bly
Detailed to go through the clothes of the soldiers who died
At night in dreams he sees their souls rise
Like dark geese into the Oklahoma skies

Well this is a prayer for the souls of the departed
Those who’ve gone and left their babies brokenhearted
This is a prayer for the souls of the departed

Now Raphael Rodriguez was just seven years old
Shot down in a schoolyard by some East Compton Cholos
His mamma cried “My beautiful boy is dead”
In the hills the self-made men just sighed and shook their heads

This is a prayer for the souls of the departed
Those who’ve gone and left their babies brokenhearted
Young lives over before they got started
This is a prayer for the souls of the departed

Tonight as I tuck my own son in bed
All I can think of is what if it would’ve been him instead
I want to build me a wall so high nothing can burn it down
Right here on my own piece of dirty ground

Now I ply my trade in the land of king dollar
Where you get paid and your silence passes as honor
And all the hatred and dirty little lies
Been written off the books and into decent men’s eyes

Bruce Springsteen, “Souls of the Departed,” Lucky Town (1992)