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Skilluminati featured a SSI PDF on drugged out paramilitary fighters by Paul Rexton Kan:

“ DRUG INTOXICATED IRREGULAR FIGHTERS: COMPLICATIONS, DANGERS, AND RESPONSES“

From SS Einsatzgruppen to Bosnian Serb paramilitaries to Indonesian brush gangs, intoxicants have frequently been given to erode irregular fighters’ moral constraints and facilitate atrocities.

My Chicago Boyz fellow blogger, Dan from Madison, posted up on an important book – an economic history of Nazi Germany during WWII by Adam Tooze entitled The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy:

“Book Review – The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy”

….I have just finished up a book by Adam Tooze called The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. This book is about WW2 from an economic point of view. The book doesn’t really talk about generalship, tank tactics, or anything else military except in economic terms.

This book is simply outstanding. The beginning portions in particular are very dense and will require a basic understanding of economics to comprehend. I had to re-read several portions, especially in the first two hundred pages. Carl, who recommended the book to me, is an expert in economics and admitted to me that he even had to re-read portions. That aside, after you immerse yourself in this book you are in for a real treat and will learn a lot.

Too many times students of WW2 like myself tend to think of things happening in a vacuum. As an example, I knew that the Germans stormed across Europe in 1939 and 1940, but gave very little thought that this massive army didn’t just “appear”. The German economy had to be managed very effectively for them to be competitive on the world stage.

It was fascinating how the German economic minds managed their production in the thirties, all the while trying to escape from under their war reparations. In detail it is discussed how these minds bashed each other on how to manage their currency, trade, and raw materials.

Also interesting are many predictions by those close in Hitler’s circle of people that once the US got into the war on the side of the Allies all was lost. Germany simply could not produce enough of everything for long enough. After reading this book I can say with relative certainty that even if D-Day had failed, eventually the Allies would have prevailed, simply from the numbers involved. Not to mention Berlin would have been nuked, but that is certainly grist for another post.

Albert Speer, who for a time when he enjoyed Hitler’s favor as the Reichsminister for Armaments and War Production, was able to rationalize the crazy-quilt, quasi-planned, neo-autarkic Nazi economy by pushing decentralization (“industrial self-responsibility”) in the face of opposition by ambitious rivals (like Sauckel), corrupt gauleiters, the SS leadership and Nazi radicals. Such was Speer’s organizational abilities and skill at bureaucratic intrigue that Nazi Germany was actually becoming more industrially productive in the face of Allied bombing and invasion – to a point. Eventually, as Speer realized, critical resources such as wolframite, chromium and oil would simply become unavailable and the war machine would have come to a sudden, screeching, halt in late 1945, early 1946 at the latest, regardless of the progress of the Allied armies.

Economic strength and efficiency does not predetermine victory in war but the longer the war, the greater the weight economic power will have on the outcome.

 I decided that I didn’t have any better commemorative than this post from two years ago. Thank you to all of the veterans of D-Day for your courage and sacrifice: 

“This was an emotional day. The ceremonies honoring the fortieth anniversary of D-Day became more than commemorations. They became celebrations of heroism and sacrifice.

This place, Pointe du Hoc, in itself was moving and majestic. I stood there on that windswept point with the ocean behind me. Before me were the boys who forty years before had fought their way up from the ocean. Some rested under the white crosses and Stars of David that stretched out across the landscape. Others sat right in front of me. They looked like elderly businessmen, yet these were the kids who climbed the cliffs.*

We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”

I think I know what you may be thinking right now – thinking “we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day.” Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren’t. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him – Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, “Sorry, I’m a few minutes late,” as if he’d been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he’d just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots’ Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet,” and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge – and pray God we have not lost it – that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought – or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: “Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we’re about to do.” Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance – a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They’re still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It’s fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We’re bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We’re bound by reality. The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we’re with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all. ”

– Ronald Wilson Reagan, President of the United States, June 6, 1984

An older (2001) PDF on the lessons of history for American leaders facing asymmetric threats by Representative Ike Skelton (D-Missouri). Skelton is currently the Chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee.

America’s Frontier Wars: Lessons for Asymmetric Conflicts

Very nice to see a member of Congress who thought well ahead of the curve, demonstrating real expertise on an important national security matter over which he has jurisdiction and considerable influence for shaping policy long-term decisions. If every member of Congress emulated Skelton, their approval rating would be a good deal higher.

Hat tip to Charlie of Abu Muqawama

This is the great thing about blogging – the times when other people pick up where you had left off and turbocharge the conversation with their own posts. Some of the best kind of P2P feedback around. Here Younghusband and Lexington Green carry the ball downfield in two different threads. Both posts should be read in full but here are snippets and links:

Coming Anarchy -“History vs. the Future”

….A brief glance shows a gap in the qualitative area reflected in your comment that “History is a craft, not a science.” However, futurism is also about the “craft” of qualitative analysis as well, so the two are not necessary diametric. One common aspect of both fields is the philosophic, specifically the epistimelogical consequences (once again I would like to do a double-take at the term “discrete facts”) and the eternal quest to pare down bias. This is an area that I think could be explored more. If you know any good journal articles about this let me know.

Moving on, I would like to challenge one of your statements: “The problem with futurists is that their predictions are all too frequently in error.”

Error denotes precision. Futurists are in the forecasting business not the prediction business. If a futurist constructs a number of variant scenarios, none of which exactly fit the present conditions, but are able to be used to inform decision-making, where is the error? The fact that the scenarios could be drawn upon for guidance makes the futurist a success. Qualifying uncertainty is a key aspect of forecasting, one that is often overlooked by the public. Hey, we all can’t be fans of Sherman Kent

Younghusband is right – the best Futurism involves forecasting and work with intriguing scenarios of reasonable internal validity and the attempt to nail down hard predictions ( frequently demanded by journalists and politicians) often fails because the greater attempt at precision increases the probability of error. Scenarios are tools for guidance, they reduce our “surprise” through mental rehearsals and the extension of our anticipation of possibilities ( Taleb would say turning some black swans into gray ones).

Regarding “discrete facts”, it would have been more accurate for me to have written to say “primary source documentary evidence that is generally regarded as factual support for the narrative itself” by historians as opposed to “speculation” regarding motivations, plausibility, nuances inferred from the documents by the historian. Note that the content of the documents themselves may be decidedly non-factual or fantastic but for historians, what matters in terms of “fact” is that  they represent evidence of what was considered at the time.

Chicago Boyz – “Academia’s Jihad Against Military History: Further Thoughts”

A good recent piece on this issue which Zen did not link to is Military Histories Old and New: A Reintroduction by the excellent military historian Robert M. Citino. Citino’s essay was published in the American Historical Review, the flagship journal of the American Historical Association, which modestly describes itself as the major historical journal in the United States. Hence, Citino’s article is a case for the defense, made by a very qualified military historian, in the main forum of the profession.

….Citino concludes his essay by virtually imploring the rest of the profession:

Despite these problems, which no doubt promise to be contentious, military historians today are doing enough good work, based on exciting and innovative approaches, to re-engage the attention of historians in any number of areas. My final advice to my professional colleagues and friends in the broader discipline? Try something genuinely daring, even countercultural, in terms of today’s academy. Read some military history.

There is something grotesquely wrong when the author of many numerous top-quality works feels he has to grovel before his peers. Unfortunately for him, he has to live and function in a shark-tank of political correctness and ideological hostility. I wish him well.

I wish Citino well too, however it’s a quest that I fear is straight out of Cervantes and this example cited by Lex demonstrates how parlous the state of affairs for military history in academia has become. More effectively than my post had done. Lex’s post has stirred some excellent feedback as well as a possible solution from Smitten Eagle in the comments section.