“In the face of hard realities, Thucydides embodied the dual concern of classical realism, consciousness of external threats while being wary of our capacity for self-destruction, to fall prey to irrational emotions and false hope. An age of blood and iron is well and truly now underway, and the bitter winds of economic warfare are only just beginning to blow back on us all. It is not a bad time, then, to think through what it means to be prudent, while avoiding excess brutality and the corruption of our polities. Thucydides’ realism, austere yet humane, should both shake and fortify us in the hard days ahead.”
—Patrick Porter, “Thucydides was a Realist.” Engelsbergideas.com. April 1, 2022.
Tag: war
Spoiled Militaries
““Even those with military experience, you’ve got to realise that there isn’t a war that has been fought like this in a long time,” Le said. “What’s different with the US military and all the other NATO militaries—they’re spoiled. When it comes to fighting a war, they have air support, medivac, logistics, all kinds of different levels of intelligence, and support. Here in Ukraine, we had none of that.”
–Alastair McCready, ” Returning Soldiers Reveal the Dark Side of Life in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.” Vice. March 29, 2022
Reminds me of that saying from Afghanistan, “Americans have the watches. But the Taliban have the time.” When it comes to fighting a war, if you don’t have air support, medivac, logistics and other forms of support, you’re going to fight it differently than when you do. The other thing that is funny about this comment is that this is always the case, this soldier just got to see what it was like being on the other side of it.
Ukraine Crisis Live
The Guardian has live coverage of the all the latest developments in the 2022 Ukraine crisis.
Dune Foresaw—and Influenced—Half a Century of Global Conflict
“Written even before the advent of America’s war in Vietnam, Dune captures a world in which war is inherently asymmetric, where head-on, conventional military conflict has largely been replaced with all the subtler ways that humans seek to dominate one another: insurgency and counterinsurgency, sabotage and assassination, diplomacy, espionage and treachery, proxy wars and resource control. For the military officers and intelligence analysts who still read and reread Dune today, it presents an uncanny reflection of the state of geopolitical competition in 2021—from the pitfalls of regime change to the terra incognita of cyberwar.
-Andy Greenberg, “Dune Foresaw—and Influenced—Half a Century of Global Conflict.” Wired. September 28 ,2021
Obligatory. See also: The Secret History of Dune.
COVID-19 Deaths Compared to War
“More Americans have died from Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined.”
—Remy Tumin and Jeremiah M. Bogert, Jr., “Your Weekend Briefing.” The New York Times. February 21, 2021.
As another point of reference, 27 million people died in the Soviet Union during World War II.
Shooting and Storming of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.
You’ll need to sign in to see this, and it’s probably best you don’t.
Hiroshima by John Hersey
“A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these six were among the survivors. They still wonder why they lived when so many others died. Each of them counts many small items of chance or volition—a step taken in time, a decision to go indoors, catching one streetcar instead of the next—that spared him. And now each knows that in the act of survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see. At the time, none of them knew anything.”
—John Hersey, “Hiroshima.” The New Yorker. August 24, 1946.
August 6th is always a good time to reread John Hersey’s seminal essay, Hiroshima. Or, his book of the same name. Particularly when the United Nations leading official on nuclear disarmament has this to say in a recent interview on our current situation:
“Nakamitsu: The Doomsday Clock is a very effective way of informing the public about how dangerous things have become. I share the concern. The risk of use of nuclear weapons, whether intentional or by accident, is higher than it has been since the darkest days of the Cold War. But the greatest danger is through miscalculation.”
—Izumi Nakamitsu in an interview with Dietmar Pieper, “The Nuclear Risk Is ‘Higher Than it has been since the Darkest Days of the Cold War’,” Der Spiegel. August 6, 2020.
Then & Now: Walter Lippmann & Public Opinion
Cabramatta
“‘Cabramatta’, an autobiographical comic about growing up in a community of Vietnam War refugees resettled in Australia’s heroin capital…”
—Matt Hynuh, “Cabramatta.” Believer. October/November 2019.
Domestic War on Terror Is Not the Answer to White Supremacy
“At a time when the American system of government is already being sorely tested by a demagogue and would-be autocrat in the White House, it would be disastrous to grant more power to the Justice Department and the nation’s security services.”
—James Risen, ” To Fight White Supremacist Violence, Let’s Not Repeat the Mistakes of the War on Terror.” The Intercept. August 17, 2019.
Anytime you think the solution to a problem takes the form of “War on X” or “X War”, you probably need to think a little harder about it.
The War on Terror treats a symptom while acting as a catalyst for the underlying disease. Same goes for the “War on Drugs”. The moment marijuana was getting legalized, the criminal elements supplying it went to opiates. Further, one has to wonder how much longer “The Cold War” enabled communism to last by providing a facade the underlying structural problems could hide behind.
Also, this idea of, “At a time when…” is bogus. This kind of testing could happen at any time. If there is some capability you think the next Hitler shouldn’t have as head of government, then you have a good sense of what powers your government shouldn’t have, and you should use that line to have a principled discussion of the powers of state. Should one person be able to start a nuclear war? Should one person be able to start any war, via the War Powers Act? These are conversations that are overdue.
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