Tag: History

Review: Women At War

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

Women At War

Edited by Elspeth Ritchie, Women at War is a collection of academic essays about the massive expansion of women in the US military through the years of war in the 21st century.

Now there’s a few things I’d like to say about the controversial topic of women in the military. The first is that in the “yes or no” arguments, my armchair opinion is “we don’t really have a choice”. As the current crunch shows, topping up a big volunteer military is tough already. There simply are not 200,000 ready gigachads who would join the military instead. The second is that I hate the term “combat roles” to refer to the controversy of infantry/armor/etc…, because it implies a false dichotomy between never intended to be in harms way and full inclusion in fields where you could raise legit objections. The third is that the worst thing that could happen to women in the military (or minorities in any field, basically) is the kind of identity-politics obsessed person who thinks that any disproportionately small amount of _____ in _____ must be due entirely to the Bias of the System.

Anyway, this actual book is a mixed bag. There are a lot of understandably dry but very thorough and cited articles on various effects that are done with proper hard-science rigor. Then there’s the fluffy pretentious ones that feel very out of place. Like I understand getting figures on how many women have been “naughty” on overseas deployments is going to be hard, but you could at least try instead of engaging in theorizing that ranges from the obvious to the silly. And that at least you can justify the theoretical with the difficulty in getting solid figures. There are other topics where instead of examining say, how the cultural differences in another country make the incorporation of women into the military better or worse, the writer just gives out marshmallow talc.

Stuff like this is why I just can’t recommend the book fully, even though it has many excellent articles and resources. Then again, that and its high price is just the nature of academic publishing. Of course, the other side of the coin is that you can get lots of relevant facts, figures, and stories about the topic, which is also the nature of academic publishing. So its your call.

Review: Stealing the Atom Bomb

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

Stealing The Atom Bomb: How Deception and Denial Armed Israel:

I want to say that Roger Mattson’s Stealing the Atom Bomb does the story of a critical and underreported part of nuclear history justice. In the mid-1960s, Israeli agents swiped enough highly enriched uranium to make multiple first-generation warheads from an enrichment plant in Pennsylvania. As the subject matter is incredibly secret, Mattson had to wade through a massive jungle to find out more. To his credit, the book is well-researched and detailed.

The problem is that so much of the book is about how the investigations went. That could be interesting in and of itself, but it’s told in such a stilted, dry way. So I regretfully have to say that what could have been a great resource has become a niche topic for nuclear weapons historians.

Tactical vs. Strategic Nukes

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

So it’s worth noting that “Tactical” and “Strategic” nuclear weapons are a vague comparison. There’s a saying I’ve heard that what defined a nuclear weapon as “tactical” in the Cold War was if it detonated on German territory or not. Certainly a lot of “tactical” warheads had/have more power than the very strategic pair of WWII bombs.

Now you can just say “use” and that’s a fair definition. But I like to define it as range of the delivery system. So even if say, the legendary “Atomic Annie” cannon’s shell is in the same yield ballpark as the Little Boy, its short range qualifies it as a “tactical” system while a bomb carried by a long-range B-29 or similar plane counts as “strategic”.

It’s as good a distinction as any.

Elvis Presto

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

It’s no secret that Super Bowl halftime shows prior to Michael Jackson’s historic 1993 one were rightfully regarded as throwaway novelty acts. But one in particular stands out for its “questionable” judgement. That would be 1989’s Elvis Presto.

Now there wasn’t a successful Elvis impersonator thirteen years after the death of the real one known as “Elvis Presto” already. Nor was it someone famous already doing an Elvis impression. No, this was just an Elvis impersonator doing silly magic tricks and music. Ok, that’s still in the ballpark of what old halftime shows were like, except for the small problem of that, save for one snippet of Burning Love…

NONE OF THE SONGS HE SANG WERE ACTUAL ELVIS PRESLEY ONES

It’s like “why?” It’s not like he was known as the “king of rock and roll”? I’m sure they could, with difficulty, find fifteen minutes of worthy Elvis songs to play. I mean, he was one of those artists who didn’t really record much mater-oh wait.

Yeah, there’s a reason why halftime shows are now filled with star power.

Review: Inheriting the Bomb

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

Inheriting The Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine

I’ve looked forward to few nonfiction books as much as I anticipated reading Marina Budjeryn’s Inheriting The Bomb, about how nuclear weapons were removed from Ukraine after the USSR’s breakup (the word choice is deliberate). I was not disappointed. This is an amazing book that can for all intents and purposes clear up the “could Ukraine have kept its nukes” confusion.

I’ve already posted about WMDs and the non-Russian SSRs. Short answer is “They never had control or the necessary pieces to maintain the arsenal of nuclear weapons on their territory, but they nonetheless had the raw technical ability to make an arsenal”. Raw technical ability but little else. Budjeryn doesn’t go into that much detail on counterfactuals (though she does wisely defer to credible experts in that regard and cites them).

She does go into lots and lots of detail on the political twists and turns and not just for Ukraine itself. Yet it was far more reticent than Belarus or Kazakhstan were and viewed itself as a legitimate holder of the weapons. Factors from the fact that Russia was threatening Ukraine almost literally from day one (and by Yeltsin officials and not Zhirinovsky-ist fireeaters) to the desire to preserve jobs in the giant Dnepropetrovsk missile plant are mentioned. This is a great, indispensable book about a very important topic, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Hungary’s Humongous Divisions

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

In the late 1940s, Hungary, fresh off Soviet conquest and the statistical worst hyperinflation ever recorded, was rebuilding its military. Not surprisingly, the plans reportedly called for a force structured along Soviet lines and doctrine. But surprisingly, the centerpiece was on ridiculously large infantry divisions. How large? Paper strength of at least 25,000 people, but that doesn’t describe all of it.

No, comparing the number of infantry battalions ultimately under divisional control draws this insanity into better perspective. The archetypical triangular infantry division has nine (three in each of three regiments/brigades). The square division largely rejected as too big and clunky had twelve (three in each of four regiments). This had sixteen. Four regiments of four battalions each.

There’s a reason why these actually weren’t made and why, even beyond the impact of the 1956 rebellion and short leash, Hungary’s army in actuality remained conventionally Soviet-styled for the rest of the Cold War.

Review: Hell to Pay

On By coilerxiiIn Review2 Comments

Hell To Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan

With the atomic bombing in the news thanks to the Oppenheimer movie, I figured I’d had to take a look at D.M. Giangreco’s Hell to Pay, an analysis of what would likely happen if the dreaded invasion of Japan was likely launched. Spoiler alert: Hundreds of thousands of Americans and over ten million Japanese would have almost certainly been killed.

With clear and concise arguments that cite primary sources from both sides, Giangreco makes the case very convincingly. With their backs to the wall and years of experience and preparation, the Japanese would face a strung-out American fleet. This book certainly gives credibility to the statement that the atomic bomb was actually the most humane choice.

Those interested in WWII or alternate history should definitely read this book.

Review: Seizing Power

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

Seizing Power

Naunihal Singh’s Seizing Power is a book about military coups and how they work. The timing of this review is a complete coincidence and has no bearing on recent events whatsoever. Anyway, Singh studies the basic three types of coups and makes an academic argument that they are in essence, “coordination games”-that is to say they have to give the appearance of inevitability instead of actual hard power (in most cases.)

Singh divides coups into three categories. The first is coups from the top, like say, the central party committee imprisoning the president and attempting to seize control. The second is coups from the middle, like say, a division-sized force dashing from its base on the border to the capital and hoping the rest of the army can join it. The third is coups from the bottom, like say, rioters in support of a parliament with no army on its own trying to sway the military and take vital television stations. (Yes, all three examples happened in Russia/The USSR. They were the 1991 August Coup, the recent Wagner uprising, and the 1993 constitutional crisis).

Singh spends most of his time covering all three types of coups that happened in Ghana in its history, and then ends with the August Coup of 1991, a coup from the top that should have effortlessly succeeded but in fact failed miserably. Like most academic histories, it gets a little too pendantic at times. But it’s still a great read.

Review: US Army Doctrine

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

US Army Doctrine: From The American Revolution to the War on Terror

In his study of published doctrine, Walter Kretchik embarks on the herculean task of reading multiple centuries worth of field-manualese. He looks at the very first to the then latest manuals (the book was published in 2011) and how they were applied in practice. The result is an excellent nonfiction study for field manual nerds like me.

The book is very readable and understandable. I would advise reading the actual manuals themselves if you wanted to know more (they’re all public domain by their very nature and the age of many of them), but as a starting point for both doctrine and warfare, this book is excellent. It’s expensive and niche, but it’s good in addition to being those two.

The Non-Russian SSRs and nuclear weapons

On By coilerxiiIn Essay2 Comments

There is one argument, especially after the 2022 invasion, about Ukraine (and the other non-Russian ex-SSRs) and nuclear weapons. This goes: They gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for largely meaningless and unenforceable diplomatic agreements, which was a mistake that Ukraine paid for and Kazakhstan might have.

Many informed nuclear commentators have pointed out that the launch codes/infrastructure were still in Russian hands, that Ukraine had no actual control, and that the ICBMs in particular were ill-positioned for deterring their former owners. This is all accurate, as is the staggering cost of making a usable nuclear program during a time of massive political and economic upheaval (Ukraine’s implosion in the 1990s made Russia’s look like a modest recession, and Kazakhstan had effectively no army of its own immediately after independence)

But there is another opposite fallacy, which is that the decision was more or less out of their hands. Because all the nuclear weapons were under Russian control, there was no real choice involved. This is also flawed. The nuclear weapons weren’t immediately usable, but to act like there was a Ward Of Russianism on them is wrong. Ukraine had extensive infrastructure and science on its territory (including a missile plant), while Kazakhstan’s uranium industry meant that it was already over the biggest hump for a usable bomb-the materials.

So it was not technically impossible for the non-Russian SSRs to maintain a nuclear weapons program. You can argue that it was politically and economically so, and probably correctly. But it was not a technical issue. The republics had agency, and they likely prevented a far earlier Russian invasion by relenting.