Posted on Jul 9, 2023 in Armchair Reading, Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Digital Influence Mercenaries: Profits and Power through Information Warfare Author: James J.F. Forest. Publisher: Naval Institute Press. Price $ 39.95 Use the term ‘mercenary’ and you likely conjure a visage of fourteenth century condottieri contracting with Italian princes or more recently the activities of the Russian-based Wagner group. Outlawed by international convention, the classic view of a mercenary has been supplanted by the verbally awkward, but legally accurate phrase ‘private military contractor’. But while the traditional role of mercenaries occupying the physical battlespace has been limited by international treaty and convention, the virtual battlespace is condottieri of a different color. Dr. James J.F. Forest explores the current state of activity in the digital space in his recent book Digital Influence Mercenaries: Profits and Power through Information Warfare (2022, Naval Institute Press). In defining his terms Dr. Forest draws a boundary around the activities of these modern Tom Sawyer’s, with digital influence mercenaries being concerned with profit above all else. A specific cause or ideology is irrelevant, as long as...
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Posted on Jun 4, 2023 in Armchair Reading, Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Uniting America: How FDR and Henry Stimson Brought Democrats and Republicans Together to Win World War II. Author: Peter Shinkle. Publisher: St. Martin’s Press. Price $ 32.50 Students of World War II history, both professional and casual, are familiar with the grand sweep of the military scope of the war. That familiarity ranges from an understanding of the tactical decisions within a single battle to the grand strategy discussions at Casablanca and Yalta. The common theme is the focus on history through the lens of the war effort. National governments are mostly depicted as monolithic institutions subordinate to the direction of their senior leaders – Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt. Like the Tamarian tale of Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, the Second World War was a conflict that brought unlikely partners together to unite against a common foe. Author Peter Shinkle changes that focus in his book Uniting America: How FDR and Henry Stimson Brought Democrats and Republicans Together to Win World War II. Shinkle explores the fascinating partnership between...
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Posted on Feb 5, 2023 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Dark Horse: General Larry O. Spencer and His Journey from the Horseshoe to the Pentagon. Author: General Larry O. Spencer, USAF (Ret.). Publisher: Naval Institute Press. Price: $ 26.95 The military is by default viewed as a warrior culture. Warfare and combat are, of course, the core of why the military exists. But there’s more to a military service than the action at the tip of the spear. The work of every individual behind that fighting tip contributes to the success of the organization. It’s an example of the axiom that there are no unimportant jobs. The 2022 book, Dark Horse: General Larry O. Spencer and His Journey from the Horseshoe to the Pentagon explores the career of Larry Spencer Larry was an black child from Washington, D.C.. Enlisting in the United States Air Forces in 1971, Larry Spencer’s career was a long road across the next four decades that saw him rise through the ranks to eventually retire as assistance chief of staff of the United States Air...
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Posted on Jan 7, 2023 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
War of Supply: World War II Allied Logistics in the Mediterranean. Author: David D. Dworak. Publisher: University Press of Kentucky. Price $ 40.00 During World War II, the Allied powers (primarily the United States and the United Kingdom) engaged in a number of campaigns in the Mediterranean region, including the North African campaign, the invasion of Sicily, and the Italian campaign. Logistics played a crucial role in these campaigns, as the Allies had to transport and supply troops, equipment, and supplies over long distances and across difficult terrain. When you mention military logistics, the first thing that comes to mind is the famous statement that “An army travels on its stomachâ€. While oft attributed to Napoleon or Fredrick the Great, the fundamental core of the statement remains true – for a military force to operate effectively, it must be supplied. While in the 18th and early 19th Century this mostly referred to food for the troops and fodder for the horses, by the mid-20th Century, technology had transformed warfare...
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Posted on May 2, 2022 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Patton’s Payback : The Battle of El Guettar and General Patton’s Rise to Glory. Author: Stephen L. Moore. Publisher: Caliber. Price $ 30.00 Stephen L. Moore’s 2022 book, Patton’s Payback: The Battle of El Guettar and General Patton’s Rise to Glory explores a chapter of the US Army’s history that rarely gets as much attention – the battles of Kasserine Pass and El Guettar. These events are perhaps best known in popular culture from the opening act of the 1970 movie Patton. Moore’s book is a narrative of the events following the Allied landings in French North Africa. The story carries across the German push through Kasserine Pass, the following US Army counterattack and the collapse of the Axis troops in Tunisia. Moore focuses the narrative at the operational level on the events that impact the US Army’s II Corps, initially commanded by General Lloyd Fredenhall, but famously commanded by George S. Patton from March into April of 1943. Despite its title, the book is less directly about George...
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Posted on Mar 8, 2022 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
The Sailor’s Bookshelf: Fifty Books to Know the Sea. Admiral James Stavridis. Publisher: Naval Institute Press. Price $ 24.95 I’ve read a fair number of books the past few years. It’s made me realize that there are authors, there are good authors and then there are authors that have you devouring their book from cover to cover. Admiral James Stavridis book, The Sailor’s Bookshelf: Fifty Books to Know the Sea is squarely in this last category. Now this might be the strangest book review I’ve yet written, because it’s basically a book review about a book composed of… book reviews. Still with me? Good! If you are going to read one book this year, you would do well to read The Sailor’s Bookshelf. Similar in structure to Stavridis’s earlier book The Leader’s Bookshelf, The Sailor’s Bookshelf is a list of, as the subtitle states ‘…Fifty Books to Know the Sea….’. But this book is much more than just a list. Admiral Stavridis clearly conveys his appreciation of both the...
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Posted on Feb 28, 2022 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary WWII Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour. Author: James D. Hornfischer, adapted by Doug Murray. Drawn by Steven Sanders. Colored by Matt Soffe. Lettered by Rob Steen. Publisher: Dead Reckoning, Annapolis, Maryland. Price $ 29.95 James D. Hornfischer wrote the definitive book on the naval battle off Samar – The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. Published by Bantam Books in 2004, Hornfischer recounts the tale off an outgunned force of U.S. Navy sailors stoically enduring all that the Japanese Navy could throw at them in a daylight surface action. The battle should have been the big gun shootout the Navy’s battleship admirals had sought for years. Instead, a support group of escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts faced off against capital ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, including the powerful battleship Yamato. In the balance hung the fate of the invasion of Leyte. You’d think it would make an epic movie, but sweeping naval battles...
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Posted on Feb 22, 2022 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Arctic Sea. Author: David Poyer. Publisher: St. Martin’s Press. Price $28.99 Arctic Sea is the latest installment in the 22-book series following the fictional exploits of U.S. Navy officer Dan Lenson. If you’ve not read the prior books in the series, a brief recap of this near future history has resulted in the US and China having fought a short, nasty war. Both China and Russia are pushing for greater control of the world’s waters, including the thawing Arctic Ocean. On top of that, a pandemic is afflicting the world’s population and political differences in the United States have erupted into open conflict with an autocratic Federal administration intent on retaining power. If that recap comes across as horribly bleak, well, it’s tough to characterize this as the ‘feel good’ novel of the year. However, the book true to the events of the prior novels and Poyer conveys a plausible future in line with predictive science fiction works of the past. Reading Arctic Sea, I’m reminded of H.G. Well’s...
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Posted on Jan 26, 2022 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Cyberspace in Peace and War. Author: Martin C. Libicki. Publisher: Naval Institute Press. 512 pages. Price $ 60.00 The headlines are dominated with the risk of cyberattacks against corporate and national entities. Is there a cyberwar looming over the horizon? Are you ready for cyberwar? How do you respond to a cyberattack? But hold on a moment – what exactly *is* a cyberattack? It clearly involves computers – but what is it and how does it fit into broader tactical and strategic operations? Would you like to know more? You can turn to Martin C. Libicki’s recent book Cyberspace in Peace and War (2021, Naval Institute Press). Dr. Libicki’s tackles the subject of cyberwar with an eye towards educating the reader as to the various types of cyber activities and how they fit into modern concept of conflict. It’s a well-organized book that starts with a brief history of cyber-attacks. You get a good summation of the broad types of attacks along with numerous real-world examples that might jog...
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Posted on Jan 22, 2022 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. Author: Paul Stillwell. Publisher: Naval Institute Press Price $ 37.95 The battle of Midway rightfully gets a lot of attention, but the Guadalcanal campaign marked the shift in momentum in the Pacific War. No longer just blocking Japanese attacks, at Guadalcanal the Allies began the series of offensives that would lead to victory in the Pacific. But Guadalcanal was far from a certain outcome and the series of naval battles in the waters of the Solomon Islands were pivotal in securing the island. In this environment, Vice Admiral Willis A Lee, Jr played a key role commanding United States Navy ships in action against the Japanese in November of 1942. He’d remain in command of elements of the fast battleship force until June, 1945. Against the plethora of well-known naval leaders like Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, and Burke, Vice Admiral Lee blended into background, focused on accomplishing his assigned mission. Willis “Ching†Lee’s life has never been documented in...
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Posted on Jan 10, 2022 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
John J. Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, 1917-1919, Volume 1: April 1917 – September 30, 1917.Author: John T. Greenwood (editor). Publisher: University of Kentucky Press. Price: $ 65.00 I’ll admit my knowledge regarding the United States military in the First World War is not a deep river. But you can argue that the Allied Powers may not have won the war without the declaration of war by the United States of America in April, 1917. The outbreak of war found the United States Army having to pivot from its recent ‘punitive’ campaign against Pancho Villa in Mexico to recruiting, training, equipping and transporting an entire army across the Atlantic into action in Europe. Fortunately, the country had a capable officer available for the task – John J. Pershing. General Pershing was faced with the intimidating task of transforming the US Army from a force engaged in counter-insurgency operations into a large standing force capable of waging modern war on a foreign battlefield. How General...
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Posted on Nov 28, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Clash of Capital Ships: From the Yorkshire Raid to Jutland Author: Eric Dorn Brose. Publisher: Naval Institute Press.  Price $ 49.95 There’s been a lot of ink spilled on Battle of Jutland, so much so that it is reminiscent of the Battle of Gettysburg, and rightly so. While a common perception of Jutland is that it revealed defects with the British battlecruisers, it’s best known as a decisive moment where the Royal Navy could have lost the war in a single afternoon. Eric Dorn Brose wades into this clash of historical narrative with his book Clash of the Capital Ships: From the Yorkshire Raid to Jutland published in 2021 by Naval Institute Press. Cover of Clash of the Capital Ships Dr. Brose has crafted a narrative that synthesizes the work of prior historians into an engaging and informative narrative of the battle. Dr. Brose charts a course through British and German naval strategy from the beginning of the war through the Battle of Jutland. The story explores how the...
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Posted on Oct 31, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Strategy Shelved: The Collapse of Cold War Naval Strategic Planning. Author: Steven T. Wills. Publisher: United States Naval Institute. Price $ 44.95 A common assumption is that since the end of the Second World War, the United States Navy has ruled to world’s seas throughout the Cold War and onward into the 21st Century. The assumption is not without merit. At the end of the Second World War, the United States Navy was the preeminent maritime strike force in the world. Counted separately, US naval aviation was the second largest air force in the world, only behind the U.S. Army Air Force. It was a state of affairs that scaled up the old phrase ‘send a gunboat’ into the more formidable action of sending a carrier battlegroup. And while ships did sail into harm’s way, the American public could assume that the sun never set on the ships of America’s Navy. Steven T. Wills explores how Cold War naval strategy was developed, evolved and implemented in his book Strategy...
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Posted on Sep 25, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
“They pay me to be an Admiral, not to think!†This quote attributed to Berkley Milne sums up an era of change that transformed the organization of the Royal Navy at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. Author Christopher M. Buckey explores this transformation in his recent book Genesis of the Grand Fleet: The Admiralty, Germany and the Home Fleet, 1896-1914. Buckley examines the factors and personalities that led to the creation of the mighty armada that was a foundational element in the Entente’s victory in the First World War. Buckey spotlights the truism that while technological superiority is definitely important in naval warfare, it means little if not paired with an effective tactical plan that in turn rests on a solid foundation of strategy. Buckey explores the intersection of geography, politics and personality and how these factors shaped the formation of the Royal Navy in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. The book serves as an effective proof that geography matters. The...
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Posted on Aug 7, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
The Second Anglo-Sikh War. Author: Amarpal Singh. Publisher: Amberley Publishing. Price $ 25.00 In the later half of the 1840’s the Sikh state founded by Ranjit Singh found itself in competition with the expanding British Empire’s East India Company. A short conflict in 1845-46 had led to concessions by the Sikhs, with those concessions fostering resentments which sparked a second war in 1848. Amarpal Singh’s book The Second Anglo-Sikh War provides a comprehensive overview of the war, it’s causes and the aftermath. The book is divided between an extensive portrait of the personalities and events that led to the second war and the campaign and battles that resulted in the defeat of the Sikh armies and the annexation of the Sikh territory into the British Empire. Starting from the final events of the First Anglo-Sikh War, Amarpal Singh provides a detailed narrative that delves into the personalities of the coming war. The reader is introduced to the feudal nobility of the Sikh leaders and the families. You’ll gain insights...
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Posted on Jul 24, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Opening the Great Ocean Depths: The Bathyscape Trieste. 2021. Authors: Norman Polmar and Lee J. Mathers. Naval Institute Press. 304 pages. Price: $44.95 ISBN: 978-1-6824-7591-1 The United States Navy submarine branch has long carried the nickname as the “Silent Serviceâ€. During the Cold War that phrase referred to both how quiet the boats were as well as the often-clandestine nature of their work. While not as glamourous as the attack boats and boomers, research submersibles like the Trieste, Alvin and the NR-1 performed critical missions and often operated under the cloak of deep waters. Now, Norman Polmar and Lee J. Mather bring the origins of the deep submersible operations to the surface in their recent book Opening the Great Ocean Depths: The Bathyscape Trieste. The Trieste was one of the earliest of the submersibles designed from the pressure hull outward as a way for a human crew to explore the deep ocean and ultimately, to explore the very bottom of the sea. Trieste, and her crew of Jacques Piccard and...
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Posted on Jul 12, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
The Flutist of Arnhem: A Story of Operation Market Garden. Author: Antonio Gil. Publisher: Dead Reckoning. 152 pages. Price $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781682474631 I first encountered the defense of Arnhem bridge in Cornelius Ryan’s book “A Bridge Too Farâ€. Later came the movie with a cast of thousands and a number board games covering aspects of the operation. Antonio Gil revisits the events of this battle with his recent graphic novel “The Flutist of Arnhem: A Story of Operation Market Gardenâ€. Gil weaves a good overview of General Montgomery’s big push to end the war with a fictional tale of an SOE agent trying to deliver important documents to the Allied High Command. The two separate story lines intersect during the events of Operation Market Garden – the combined air assault and ground offensive designed to push the Allies over the Rhine and into Germany. The book retells the story Operation Market Garden with enough detail to understand the events, without getting bogged down within individual combat actions. While the...
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Posted on Jun 26, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
The birth of AI is coming, and it’s going to be messy.
You’re thinking about Skynet, aren’t you? Or maybe the visage of giant, self-aware autonomous armored vehicles rolling across the battlefield dealing death and destruction as they execute their instructions. Well, relax, because it’s not going to be a self-aware AI like Skynet or lumbering super tanks…well, probably not like...
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Posted on Apr 14, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
To Rule the Skies: General Thomas S. Power and the Rise of Strategic Air Command in the Cold War. 2021. Author: Brent D. Ziarnick. Naval Institute Press. 312 pages. ISBN: 978-1-68-2475874 The National Museum of the United States Air Force has an impressive collection of artifacts representing the Cold War and the Strategic Air Command. The hulking airframe of a B-36 Peacemaker heavy bomber dominates the hall. The Peacemaker is flanked by the sleek lines of the B-47 Stratojet and B-58 Hustler jet bombers. The adjacent missile gallery houses the silent pillars of ballistic missiles that made up a third of the nation’s nuclear triad. But you can walk the length and breadth of the museum and not find a mention of General Thomas S. Power. It’s surprising as General Power led the Strategic Air Command through both the trying test of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the transformation of SAC into a strike force encompassing both the bomber and the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Dr. Brent D. Ziarnick aims...
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Posted on Mar 20, 2021 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features
Rain of Steel is an indispensable reference for understanding the Okinawa campaign. Moore’s book leaves the reader with a good understanding of how the scope of the campaign extended well beyond the waters surrounded Okinawa. Reading the book, the reader gains an understanding of how both the tenacious Japanese defense as well as the cost in lives and material, shaped US planning for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.
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