What Are You Currently Reading? 2014

[davidbfpo]

A new thread, simple theme.

[jkhutson]

Shadows in the Desert - Ancient Persia at War, Kaveh Farrokh

[Bill Moore]

Just finished reading, "Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American Paperback"
by Cecil Currey

A good read that provides insights on his influence in the Philippines, most significantly helping getting Magsaysay elected, and then his subsequent operations in Cuba and Vietnam. It is also talked about his time in OSD where he lead the Special Operations Office, and called for the military to develop what we call today an irregular warfare capability. It does reinforce the adage that if you want to get a new idea read an old book. 99% of what we discuss in SWJ, often as though they're new ideas are covered thoroughly in this book, and he dealt with the same bureaucrats we are dealing with today. Very interesting comments on McNamara and others based on first hand accounts. I was principally interested in his work in SE Asia, but learned a lot about our failed efforts in Cuba during the Kennedy administration. According to Lansdale and others our secret efforts to oust Castro were only secret to us, the Cubans and Soviets were obviously well aware of them, and when the U.S. escalated those activities after the failed Bay of Pigs fiasco that is what generated the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Tukhachevskii]

For Christmas I received the following books (I recommend reading No. 1 before No. 2, No. 3 is optional, depends what you're into you kinky buggers)

1. Not Mentioned In Despatches (I had to ignore most of his befehlstaktik vs auftragstaktik nonsesne- he has a habit of making the same points over and over again- and his manoeuvre warfare agenda but it is still a very worthwhile read.)

2. Nine Battles to Stanley (The perfect accpaniment to "Not Mentioned..." and contains an analysis of boths sides)#

3. The Steampunk Illustrated Bible (Yeah? And?)

[jcustis]

"Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942" by Clay Blair. I picked it up for $5 in new condition at a Tampa Bay used bookstore and have been grinding through its 864 pages at a steady clip. http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-U-Boat.../dp/0679640320

This is the first volume of a massive two-book effort. The second volume details the period of 1942-1945 when fortunes were reversed and the German vessels became the hunted.

Like John Lundstrom's "The First Team: Pacific Air Combat from Perl Harbor to Midway", Blair's work is very detailed and draws from a wide range of sources to paint a picture that contrasts those put forth by many historians.

Blair asserts that the German WWII U-boat effort was not as effective as many historians otherwise believe, and he does so with a really good narrative style which has made the book much easier to read than Lundstrom's resource.

I always found submarine warfare an interesting, if only peripheral topic to read on, but I have really enjoyed the various movies like Das Boot. Blair's work is a good book that covers a lot of ground while still providing details where they matter--at least for my taste.

[Granite_State]

1. Patton and Rommel, Dennis Showalter. Good read, and a good introduction to both. Read D'Este's Patton biography, to which this doesn't compare, but didn't know much about Rommel. Showalter does a good job of showing Rommel's genius for knowing where to be on a battlefield, and how he was Johnny on the spot over and over again. He shows the limitations of that too, but not as fully. Showalter's writing style annoyed me though, he threw in all kinds of contemporary analogies (Monica Lewinsky IIRC!) which now read as very dated and forced.

2. Men Against Fire, SLA Marshall. I know (thanks to the old thread on here actually) that his combat participation stuff is widely debunked, and he played fast and loose with the facts. But I figured if General Van Riper is convinced of its value, it's gotta be worth reading. Enjoying the book, but taking it with a big grain of salt.

[Firn]

One final thought about the strategic implications of the relative political, economic and military situations. It is rather difficult to find the right words and paint the right picture while keeping it short. Possibly the simpliest way is to visualize it as a game of cards, taking a page out of good old CvC book.

We see therefore how from the commencement, the absolute, the mathematical as it is called, no where finds any sure basis in the calculations in the art of war; and that from the outset there is a play of possibilities, probabilities, good and bad luck, which spreads about with all the coarse and fine threads of its web, and makes war of all branches of human activity the most like a game of cards.

After getting the set, partly open, partly hidden you can have, by luck and effort a clearly stronger one then your adversary and rightly guess so but there still is this 'play of possibilities, probabilities, good and bad luck, which spreads about with all the coarse and fine threads of its web'. Even if you have a clear advantage (which you may not know) winning is all but trivial. To win, in the surest and 'best' way you still need to play with as much skill and effort as you can and hope for as much luck as possible.

Personally I think this mind picture is quite fitting. The leader of the weaker side, once he stepped into the wrong 'war framework' , played 'va banque' in many occasions like the Manstein plan for the invasion of France as the more conventional options of playing the game were very likely dealt with by superior strenght and much longer economic legs. The increasing craze for gadgets or 'Wunderwaffen', miracles indeed, later in the war matches the disperation and the hope to get somehow a good enough lucky punch.

On the other side the other side tended to play it out quite conservatively apart from some higher risk, higher reward plans like Market Garden. Why risk a temporary but embarrasing and painful setback if you could play it slow but safe. With far more ressources to spare the (Western) allies/USA could also cover the risk from the gadget front to a great degree and for example invest massively into a scientific adventure like the Manhattan project. I wanted to wade into prospect and game theory and its partly fitting implications but topic, time and shortness force me to leave it there.

[Biggus]

In part:

Are you aware of Eeben Barlow's blogsite:http://eebenbarlowsmilitaryandsecuri....blogspot.com/

He is a SWC member too, so may notice your post.

I've recently found Mr Barlow's blog, and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading from the first post up until the most recent. I'll cross my fingers that he might one day publish his book on Kindle or Kobo, but as I know first hand, it's not always as easy as simply formatting, uploading and publishing.

[BushrangerCZ]

PAMWE CHETE, LtCol R.F. Reid-Daly (Pub. 1999)

Link:http://books.google.co.uk/books/abou...d=h_MvAQAAIAAJ

[davidbfpo]

On a recent holiday I settled won to read five books, three e-books and one hardback - the later is David Kilcullen's 'Out of the Mountains', which is reviewed elsewhere:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...=12934&page=19

In 2011 'Dead Men Risen:The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story of Britain's War in Afghanistan' by Toby Harnden was published, winning plaudits and prizes. The author is an accomplished journalist and writer. His book 'Bandit Country': The IRA and South Armagh (Hodder, 1999), was excellent and so I sat down expecting a similar read.

'Dead Men Risen' was far better, harsh at times in portraying the campaigning, including the loss to an IED of the Welsh Guards CO. It combines interviews of a large number who served, with a good, balanced measure of criticism tactically and beyond.

Link:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Men-Ris...1712629&sr=1-3

In 2012 Margaret Evison, the mother of Lt. Mark Evison, of the Welsh Guards, wrote 'Death of a Soldier: A Mother's Story', after his death, in 2009 in Afghanistan, in what became for many evidence that something was very badly wrong - in Helmand Province and at home, with the coroner's inquest. It is I think unique as a mother's account and in places is very hard to read. Well worth reading and hopefully officialdom will have learnt some lessons by now.

Link:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Soldie...argaret+evison

The third e-book was 'The Last Great Cavalryman: The Life of General Sir Richard McCreery' by Richard Mead, had been well reviewed in The Spectator, but frankly was a disappointment. Yes this general is virtually unknown and played a key part in the Italian campaign. The chapters on his inter-war service was simply a too jolly account of riding, it gave little insight into his education, rather that he was lucky to be spotted by sponsors.

Link:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Great-C...eat+Cavalryman

The fifth book deserves a longer review as it is rather different and has an Indian author.

[BushrangerCZ]

[Johannes U]

I just finished Fukuyamas "The end of history ...".
Amazing book ... and especially amazing, how times can change.

[Firn]

Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia by Yegor Gaidar, a very prominent insider which died in 2009 at 53. His obituary in The Economist.

Still, Mr Gaidar knew his country, its history and its perils better than most Russian politicians. After leaving office, he continued to advise the government. In his book “Collapse of an Empire”, he warned against the dangers of post-imperial nostalgia and attempts to exploit it. He drew powerful and disturbing parallels between the Nazis in Germany and similar voices in Russia. Many of his fears were borne out by Russia's war in Georgia in August 2008. “The situation is extremely dangerous. The post-imperial syndrome is in full blossom. We have to get through the next five to ten years and not start doing something stupid,” he said.

He was honest, both intellectually and personally. Unlike many of the current Kremlin-dwellers, he did not enrich himself in the 1990s. His office was spartan and stacked with papers; good food (and drink) were his main indulgence. And as an academic, he never compromised his analysis for the sake of political expediency.

One of Russia's biggest problems, as he saw it, was the growing accumulation of wealth and power by bureaucrats and their friends in the name of a “strong state”. People who argued for such a state, he wrote, “have only one purpose—to preserve the status quo…A self-serving state destroys society, oppresses it and in the end destroys itself. Will we be able to break away from this vicious circle?”

Mr Gaidar argued that modernisation was impossible without political liberalisation. Yet just before he died, he agreed to apply his economics institute to the Kremlin's proclaimed task of modernising the Russian economy without touching its political system. Perhaps he sensed it was a vicious circle he could not square.

I really enjoyed his book, one feels his drive to understand and to explain. A far-sighted man indeed.

P.S: The Kindle version on my Android tablet has very small tables, a bit of bummer if you are actually interested in the raw data.

[ganulv]

NPR ran a story yesterday about the Palm Springs Desert Sun’s investigation into the off-duty vehicular deaths on the roads surrounding Twentynine Palms (Marine Corps) Base.

I was interested in the story because I have been passed more than once on the Interstate by a Marine weaving in and out of traffic at a high rate of speed. (Each instance was a demonstration of skilled as well as reckless driving at the same time.) So I did an Internet search for the online version of the original story, which may be found at the link here. It is a fairly long read, but it is structured nicely for reading on a tablet.

I have copied and pasted the “Investigation findings” section of the report below.

-------

The Desert Sun has spent the last year investigating the lives, and untimely deaths, of Marines at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. Here are some of our key findings:

• Since 2007, the base in Twentynine Palms has suffered more non-hostile deaths, like car crashes and suicides, than war fatalities. Sixty service members from the base have died in war zones in the Middle East, but at least 64 have died on American soil, mostly in the High Desert, while stationed or training at the base.
• Marines at the Twentynine Palms base have been significantly more likely to be killed in an off-duty vehicle accident than their counterparts at other Marine bases. As of 2002, Marines at Twentynine Palms were three times more likely to die in a traffic crash than the average Marine. Safety measures have made crashes less frequent in recent years, but the base maintains one of the highest fatal crash rates in the Marine Corps.
• Marines who commit suicide while at the Twentynine Palms base are nearly twice as likely to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of their death. Of the 15 Marines who committed suicide at the base between 2007 and 2012, seven had alcohol in their system at the time of death. This is nearly double the percentage reported by the Marine Corps as a whole. The base suffers an annual suicide rate of about two deaths per year, matching the Marine Corps average of 19 deaths per 100,000 troops. The civilian rate is 12 deaths per 100,000.
• In one particularly troubling case, a Marine at Twentynine Palms died after military doctors prescribed him six separate medications for post traumatic stress disorder. The Marine died of “multiple drug toxicity,” and his death was ruled an accident.

[Backwards Observer]

The Imperial Security State: British Colonial Knowledge and Empire-Building in Asia (Critical Perspectives on Empire) by James Hevia.

review - h-net discussion networks

google books link

[jcustis]

NPR ran a story yesterday about the Palm Springs Desert Sun’s investigation into the off-duty vehicular deaths on the roads surrounding Twentynine Palms (Marine Corps) Base.

I was interested in the story because I have been passed more than once on the Interstate by a Marine weaving in and out of traffic at a high rate of speed. (Each instance was a demonstration of skilled as well as reckless driving at the same time.) So I did an Internet search for the online version of the original story, which may be found at the link here. It is a fairly long read, but it is structured nicely for reading on a tablet.

I have copied and pasted the “Investigation findings” section of the report below.

-------

The Desert Sun has spent the last year investigating the lives, and untimely deaths, of Marines at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. Here are some of our key findings:

• Since 2007, the base in Twentynine Palms has suffered more non-hostile deaths, like car crashes and suicides, than war fatalities. Sixty service members from the base have died in war zones in the Middle East, but at least 64 have died on American soil, mostly in the High Desert, while stationed or training at the base.
• Marines at the Twentynine Palms base have been significantly more likely to be killed in an off-duty vehicle accident than their counterparts at other Marine bases. As of 2002, Marines at Twentynine Palms were three times more likely to die in a traffic crash than the average Marine. Safety measures have made crashes less frequent in recent years, but the base maintains one of the highest fatal crash rates in the Marine Corps.
• Marines who commit suicide while at the Twentynine Palms base are nearly twice as likely to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of their death. Of the 15 Marines who committed suicide at the base between 2007 and 2012, seven had alcohol in their system at the time of death. This is nearly double the percentage reported by the Marine Corps as a whole. The base suffers an annual suicide rate of about two deaths per year, matching the Marine Corps average of 19 deaths per 100,000 troops. The civilian rate is 12 deaths per 100,000.
• In one particularly troubling case, a Marine at Twentynine Palms died after military doctors prescribed him six separate medications for post traumatic stress disorder. The Marine died of “multiple drug toxicity,” and his death was ruled an accident.

The Sun should do a companion piece on the number of deaths that have occurred just up the road on the stretch of leading from I-15 to Ft. Irwin (the National Training Center). I've road-marched up there from 29 Palms (I was stationed there from 2002 to 2005) on a number of occasions and always took note of the high number of crosses staked into the shoulders of the road no doubt memorializing the deaths of Soldiers headed to the base from homes in Barstow and elsewhere or back from clubbing.

[snafu]

Must read on Pakistan Military Politics: Based on rare archival sources, and internal military documents to explain the army's traditions of tutelage and its consequences for Pakistan, and the wider world.

Aqil Shah, The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan (Harvard University Press, 2014).

The author is a Pakistani? (I think!) political scientist based at Princeton University. Although after reading this book, I am pretty sure he will be persona non grata in that country.

[snafu]

Great book on Nixon-Kissinger's complicity in the Pakistani Army's genocide of Bengalis in East Pakistan. Based on Arhcer Blood's dispatches from the U.S. consulate in Dhaka.

Garry Bass, Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide

Bass is a historian who teaches at Princeton University.