Added to the Blogroll
Blog Them Out of the Stone Age
This blog, run by military historian Dr. Mark Grimsley, is one I should have added to the blogroll a long time ago. From perusing Blog Them Out of the Stone Age, there are points of agreement and disagreement that I’d have with Grimsley, but his overall aim to put military history in a broader context or understanding is an effor worthy of enthususiastic support. Historical knowledge is useless unless it is widely disseminated.
Check out a few sample posts below:
….This is Martin Van Creveld’s eighteenth book, and like most of its predecessors it combines the insightful with the provocative with the merely exasperating. Van Creveld is both a gifted military historian and a world class gadfly, and he often gives the impression that he cherishes the latter reputation more than the former. This impression is more unavoidable than ever in The Culture of War, which, the author informs us, he has written with the desire to put “any 
number of assorted ‘-ists’ – such as relativists, deconstructionists, deconstructivists, post-modernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists, and feminists firmly in their place.” (xv) These “bleeding hearts,” he imagines, scorn the notion of a culture of war. He also wishes to confront the “neo-realists” who collapse warfare into a supposedly rational instrument of policy – and this is in fact the most interesting aspect of the book – but his swipes at the academic left are so frequent and tiresome that they threaten the integrity of the book.
A Plain Violation of Civilian Control? – Part Trois
….To a particularly tendentious question that was in effect an invitation to criticize the Obama administration, McChrystal replied, “I won’t even touch that.”
At no point in the Q&A did anyone mention Vice President Biden or allude directly to the Biden option. Many of the questions dealt with such things as the possible role/response of Iran, the legitimacy of the Afghan election, the element of the Taliban that was most dangerous (the questioner told McChrystal what he regarded as the most dangerous element, then asked if McChrystal agreed), how one might best cut off the flow of Taliban recruits (“jobs,” McChrystal replied), etc.
Having watched the whole Q&A, I was impressed by the general’s poise, his articulateness, his praise for the efforts of the coalition forces, and his repeated endorsement of the Obama administration’s strategy review process.
A Douglas MacArthur type McChrystal decidedly is not.
General McChrystal Versus Vicki Carr
….Modern communications have tempted some presidents to micromanage. During the disastrous Desert One rescue mission in 1980, Jimmy Carter famously (and problematically) dealt directly with COL Charles Beckwith, the commander on the scene. But the ultimate micro-manager was also the first to have easy access to ground commanders: President Abraham Lincoln, thanks to the telegraph. Lincoln constantly bypassed his secretary of war and general in chief to deal directly with army commanders. Although some historians seem to believe that everything Lincoln did was correct by definition, Lincoln’s interventions were often to ill effect.
In any event, Obama already knows what McChrystal thinks. At this point McChrystal, in effect, needs to know what Obama thinks. That is to say, the president needs to give McChrystal a clearly defined national security objective that is the prerequisite for any coherent military strategy.
Amen to that last part.
Seerov:
October 12th, 2009 at 3:05 am
"Historical knowledge is useless unless it is widely disseminated." (Zen)
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This is true, unless the historical "knowledge" is designed to weaken or destroy the target reader’s understanding of themselves. In this case, its important to keep this kind of "knowledge" far away from you, and the children of your society.
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For example, the history of European/American contact with the North American Indians is taught through a frame that emphasize how European expansion was a terrible crime and that Europeans (or whites) mistreated a peaceful people who taught Europeans how to grow corn. A more healthy narrative would be that Europeans acted no different than the Indians themselves (concurring territory and killing people etc) but that the Europeans were at least nice enough to provide living space to the people they conquered.
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If ever you notice that the children of your society are being taught historical "knowledge" that creates a negative ethnic/national identity, its pretty much certain that the wrong people are running your schools. When your society’s movies depict your history in a similar way, this too it evidence that the wrong people are depicting your myths and narratives.
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History (I now realize) is more about emphasis than facts. This doesn’t mean you make stuff up or you totally ignore instances that make your people look wrong, it just means that you should always socializes your people to have a positive self image of themselves. Most important, if your children are attending schools which intentionally create a nagative historical image, you can be sure that the wrong people are running them.
zen:
October 12th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Hi Seerov,
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More romanticized nonsense is written about American Indians than just about any other subject in American history. Frontier warfare was basically a war of insurgency and it was often incredibly brutal in the 15th-19th centuries (Anglo, French or Spanish colonies) and it was a two-way street. Intra-Indian warfare, both pre- and post- Columbian, is basically written out of secondary school textbooks and is ignored except by specialists and a very few popular historians. The tribes were often militarily more capable than white settlers, militia or the later US Army. What they were not, however, was numerous. Ultimately, Indians had no demographic chance to prevail even if they won 90 % of all battles.
Seerov:
October 12th, 2009 at 9:16 am
OK, but what about my comments on the subject of history itself?
zen:
October 13th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Ok, Seerov, you asked.
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The left-racialistic nutcases are a small minority among professional historians. You see them far, far, more in "studies" programs and among sociologists and anthropologists. These people have no lives other than politics so they lobby incessantly to get their views mandated by state boards of education. These radicals make inroads into education because the people making decisions on curriculum and textbooks are largely ignorant of history themselves and when faced by a loud, angry and aggressive faction that has no vocal opposition, they take the path of least resistance and give in.
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If more people who object to multicultural extremism ( like 4th graders putting Christopher Columbus on trial – gee, I’m sure they were not led to their conclusion by their teacher’s one-sided presentation. In the first place, what 4th grader understands the procedural implications of a "fair trial"?) spoke up at school board meetings and sent letters to their state legislators, we’d have less idiocy being pushed in public schools. Textbook publishers only care about selling books so they will tilt towards a series using Californian multiculturalism or Texas traditionalism based on their bottom line projections that year. Change the dynamic and what is taught in schools will shift in a hurry.
PurpleSlog:
October 13th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Yes!! Seerov gets it:
<blockquote>
If ever you notice that the children of your society are being taught historical "knowledge" that creates a negative ethnic/national identity, its pretty much certain that the wrong people are running your schools. When your society’s movies depict your history in a similar way, this too it evidence that the wrong people are depicting your myths and narratives.
</blockquote>