Recommended Reading

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

It has been a very long time since I have done a Recommended Reading post. In the interim, there have been some fabulous things online, for example, the #Profession series at The Bridge, which was outstanding! [ yes, go dig in to it]  I will be selecting some of these along with more contemporary posts in the past week or two.

Adam Elkus – A Matter of Path Dependence 

The US has opted to pursue a strategy of control, with short-term objectives of containment and (some) rollback and a long term objective (it seems) of rolling back the Islamic State completely. But in doing so Washington is setting the state for the expansion of Iranian influence — and a backlash is beginning to emerge in Western policy circles. How to interpret this? 

In my piece with Nick Prime on control and US strategy in Iraq and Syria, many likely did not pay attention to our aside: 

If the Obama administration truly thought ISIL was the worst of the worst, they would be open to options that might more directly benefit the likes of Bashar al Assad or an expansionist Iran. Yet they would prefer that striking ISIL and other terror groups not benefit Assad.More bluntly, how much does Washington want ISIL/ISIS/Daesh (I have opted to refer to it as the Islamic State here) stopped? How much would it be willing to trade off other priorities? 

This poses hard questions for Washington, questions that unfortunately are not getting responsible answers….

Lexington Green – History Friday: The Storming of the Taku Forts, 1860 

The war against China was a splendid opportunity to try out the latest equipment. The British brought with them the new Armstrong breach loading cannon.

One chief interest in this campaign has been to watch the first trial of the Armstrong guns, and I was soon down at the edge of the river at the south gate of Tankoo, watching our fire and that of the enemy; as usual, the direction of the Chinese guns was good, but the elevation defective; they sent their shot either short or over our heads, and during that morning not one shot came nearer than within twenty yards of our guns. Not so the Armstrong shells; the first few were short, and burst in the water, but soon they got the range, and then you could see the dust fly, as the shell struck the battery, nor was it long until their fire was slackened, and they were eventually silent. Mr. Hosier, R.A., is the officer who has the credit of that morning’s work at Tankoo.

As it happened, the concept of breech loading artillery was sound, and was in fact the wave of the future. But as sometimes happens with new technology, the first use of this new approach was unsuccessful. In the case of the Armstrong, they were comparatively expensive to make, and complex to operate. The Armstrongs performed well when they worked, but broke down and were unreliable and difficult to use. The British actually went back to using muzzle loading cannon, which would predominate for a few more years, including during the American Civil War which would break out a few months after these events on the other side of the world.

Fabius Maximus (Don Vandergriff) – Reforming the US Army: can be done, must be done. 

….The army has several experiments with reforms under way. But it’s only slow progress.

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