Failing Kindergarten

For 25 years, my job consisted in large of part of sitting down with people and encouraging genuine dialog, GIVE and take, to settle sometimes horrendous challenges without the use of force. Maybe I'm just getting old, or perhaps just tired of getting annoyed and angry, but we're not going to make our lives better, all of our lives better, if we cling to the overly human tendency to "otherize" people we don't know, and refuse to engage in dialog, to see others (even those we do know) as just after our slice of the pie.

Let those with issues and concerns talk, truly talk, to one another. And work to make the pie bigger and shared out fairly.

I hope that's my last word on the subject.

July 1914 and the "Draconian, Unacceptable" Austrian Ultimatum

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

I am reading another book on the outbreak of World War I (July 1914: Countdown to War, by Sean McMeekin), and again there is the assertion that Austria drafted its ultimatum to Serbia so as to ensure that it would be rejected, leading to war between the two states (although not inevitably a Europe-wide conflagration). The usual clauses are cited:

5. to agree to the cooperation in Serbia of the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the integrity of the Monarchy;

6. to institute a judicial inquiry against every participant in the conspiracy of the twenty-eighth of June who may be found in Serbian territory; the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government delegated for this purpose will take part in the proceedings held for this purpose; 

McMeekin asserts: "No sovereign state could reasonably be expected to turn over the operation of her police and justice systems to representatives of an outside and hostile power." McMeekin's summary of the clauses' effect is typical for the genre. But still wrong. The ultimatum doesn't demand the usurpation of Serbian state organs in favor of Imperial and Royal (i.e., Austro-Hungarian -AH) state organs, not even in the present investigation, limited to the assassination of the heir-designate to the AH throne and the associated movement. It requests only that Belgrade permit the involvement of AH officials in those proceedings. Vienna did not ask for control over, or even a veto over, those proceedings. Just direct participation.

Surely, in hindsight, such a minor infringement on Serbia's sovereignty would have been preferable to the occupation of the entire state by hostile forces for over two years, and the deaths of 750,000 to 1,250,000 Serbs - out of a population of only 4.6 million! Let alone the millions of other deaths globally from 1914 to 1918.

Simply put, to argue once again that since Belgrade rejected the clauses proves that no state could have agreed to them, and therefore Vienna meant for the ultimatum to be rejected in order to provide a casus belli, is an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

As to why Belgrade refused the ultimatum: clearly, the Serbs did not expect such a ruinous war. Presumably they expected the head of Hungarian government, Count Tisza, to check the rush to war, or some other intervention to halt Vienna's military involvement in the Balkans, as happened in 1912 and 1913 during the First and Second Balkan Wars. 

Update I: A few chapters later (the book is arranged chronologically), McMeekin asserts that Serbia rejected the ultimatum on the direction of Russia, who also instructed Serbia to not defend Belgrade from the Austrian army. This appears to be part and parcel of McMeekin's thesis that Tsarist Russia bears the "war guilt" for 1914 (not Germany), and Russia was looking for a casus belli to seize the Straits in Turkey.  In any event, why would Serbia yield her sovereignty to Russia and territory to Austria, rather than accept Austria's lesser demands?
Update II:  So, I did finish the book.  I can't really suggest that anyone else do so. McMeekin has no discernable professional experience outside of the writing and teaching of history, which is to say he is out of depth writing about politics, let alone diplomacy and military affairs, as he does repeatedly in July 1914: Countdown to War. 

The real kicker is his Epilogue: The Question of Responsibility. First he absolves Germany and Austria on the grounds that their initial offensives (vs Belgium and Serbia) were so poorly coordinated with each other as to prove the states could not have premeditated such a war. I respond that planning can easily include bad and incomplete planning.

He then faults Germany for attacking through Belgium, and assumes that since the "Schlieffen Plan" failed to knock France out of of the war while bringing Britain in, that it could not have possibly worked. McMeekin ends his narrative on August 4th, with the commencement of hostilities. So he ignores that the key fault with the German plan of attack in 1914 is that it required France to repeat the errors of 1870 by engaging in a decisive battle too far forward. The fault is magnified by a much larger French army than in 1905, when the German plans were first drawn up. (McMeekin also entirely ignores the existence of multiple war plans.)

McMeekin doesn't stop there. At the very end, with no foundation or analysis, he asserts: "As indicated by their earlier mobilizations (especially Russia's), in 1914 France and Russia were far more eager to fight than Germany ...." To argue that the time of mobilization indicates which countries are to bear the guilt of war, requires more than mere assertion. McMeekin's story assumes that the leaders of 1914 had neither intelligence (smarts) nor intelligence (information). The leaders of Germany, France and Russia all knew that Germany could mobilize the fastest of the three, Russia the slowest. All assumed (wrongly, but unanimously) that interstate war in 1914 would move at the pace of Prussia's wars in 1864, 1866 and 1870 - and that a failure to deploy reserves would allow an opponent to deliver a knock-out blow in the opening weeks. Once war appeared inevitable, Russia had to mobilize first, given its vast size and backward (if improving) rail system. Germany's interior lines and highly efficient rail and military staff system allowed it to decide and go last. McMeekin earlier notes that the political leadership in all three countries were hesitant to declare mobilization. But in the Epilogue he only recalls the hesitations of Germany's political leaders.

Did Russia and Germany make political and diplomatic errors in July 1914. Absolutely. So did all the other European states. Did Germany have grandiose war aims? Absolutely. So did other combatants - and Japan, Serbia, France, Italy all attained much of theirs. McMeekin's account is unsatisfying, incomplete, and unsatisfactory.

Mosby's Rangers, by Jeffry D. Wert. pub. 1990

Book published in 1990

A concise account of one of the most renowned units of the US Civil War, and certainly the most successful partisan unit of the South. Wert argues, with amble justification in his text, that the romantic image of the Rangers, "knights, dressed in plumed hats and red-lined capes," who "rode away barely scathed" (p. 292) was "very much different" from reality.  Wert concludes that while Mosby and his men "earned a place among some of the finest guerilla warriors in history," they "neither prolonged the war in (Virginia), nor had they kept thousands of Union troops away from the front." (p. 293).  

In reaching this conclusion, Wert covers the actions of the Rangers in detail: who they were, individual actions, their hosts and opponents.  The Rangers' targets were isolated outposts and under-guarded wagon trains - their early capture of a Union general in his bedclothes on a late winter's night was an anomaly - glorious, but not their typical fare. Like many insurgents, the Rangers struck at weak targets, using superior knowledge of the countryside to approach their target and then disperse, relying on the hospitality of locals to feed and house themselves and their mounts; the actions of the occupying army only served to encourage their hosts, until in late 1864, the Union army began to burn out the "seccesh", civilian and armed alike, by root and branch. For Mosby and his men, success or defeat would not come at their hands, but depending on whether the North tired of the conflict before gathering the strength to crush it.

Wert's comprehensive account of Mosby and the Rangers is exhaustive, almost exhausting, in its detail. A worthy addition to a Civil War bookshelf, Wert's volume neither glorifies nor detracts from Mosby's record, but sets it out cleanly and plainly.

(Some of) The Real Waste in the DoD Budget

John McCain sent me a letter on behalf of "Citizens Against Government Waste," claiming that the world's largest military is being "hollowed out" by waste. The "survey" asks which of five (piddling) expenditures I would eliminate. I'd add three others to his list: The V-22 Osprey (which costs more and crashes more than the helicopter its supposed to replace), the F-35 (ditto) - and congressional delegation (CODEL) flights on military aircraft, which cost $10,000 an hour to run and simply don't go anywhere not serviced by commercial and charter aircraft. Oh, and we have too many nukes, too - and that costs more billions.

Book review: Montgomery as Military Commander

Montgomery as Military Commander

Author: Ronald Lewin.  For many, Montgomery is to the UK and the Royal Army what Patton is to the US and the American Army: the finest military commander in World War II. Yet, American evaluations of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery are generally dismissive, if not scathing. Lewin, who served under Montgomery in North Africa and NW Europe, appraises his former superior's service impassionately, examining both his merits and flaws.

For merits, Montgomery scores high on his ability to defeat the Germans while conserving rapidly dwindling British manpower. Clearly, Montgomery's battlefield and staff experience in World War One plays a key role here. It would have been useful, however, if Lewin had made a statistical comparison between Montgomery and other British and Allied leaders.  As it is, I was left wondering if Montgomery was more parsimonious with lives than his Allied contemporaries. 

Lewin also credits Montgomery with playing THE key role in restructuring Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Lewin notes that Montgomery's predecessor as chief planner for the invasion operated under strict shipping limits, constraining the initial landing to three divisions, a limit promptly (and properly) raised to five (plus three airborne) by Montgomery. But, again a question arises: Wouldn't any commander have sought the extra divisions? The key was that Churchill listed to Montgomery, since he had won at El Alamein.

Ah, El Alamein. Lewin describes Montgomery's exacting planning to ensure the first notable British land victory against Germany in WW2, while noting Montgomery's failure to plan for the expected exploitation of the breakthrough.  It doesn't appear Lewin even considered whether the battle was necessary at all, in light of the Operation Torch landings in NW North Africa which would have likely compelled Rommel's retreat in any event.

I agree with Lewin that criticism over Montgomery for the "failure" of the July 1944 Operation Goodwood, east of Caen in Normandy, is misplaced. Goodwood was designed to pin down the vast bulk of German armor, a role the Brits and Canadians had played since June 6, to free the way for Bradley and Patton's right hook - Operation Cobra. Lewin implicitly notes that Montgomery drew some of the criticism for overselling the results, however. Lewin blithely skips over Montgomery's failure to close the Falaise  Gap, allowing the German Army to escape - and criticizes Patton for his eagerness to charge from the south if Montgomery won't close from the north.

The worst case of Montgomery overselling his efforts came after the Battle of the Bulge, when he took far too much credit for stopping the last German offensive in the west. A senior general in an Allied fight should watch his words. He certainly shouldn't need his Prime Minister to cover for him, or prompt his superior (Ike in this case) to start writing a letter: "Either he goes or I do."

Lewin briefly but accurately faults Montgomery for failing to clear the approaches to Antwerp and Rotterdam promptly, leaving the largest port complex in NW Europe closed to allied shipping for three months.  But, foreshadowing his later argument, Lewin also spreads blame to Montgomery's boss, Ike.

Lewin is excessively apologetic, even deceptive, in blaming almost everyone else for Montgomery's most glaring mistake: Operation Market-Garden. It's Ike's fault for not diverting supplies from Patton. It's Patton fault for "stealing" supplies. It's the fault of the RAF for not dropping the 1st Airborne directly on the Rhine bridge at Arnhem. It's the 1st Airborne's commander's fault for not challenging the RAF. It's the US Army's fault, for not drawing off enough German forces from Montgomery's advance. UK XXX Corps was not handled properly. Only three actors are excused: the US 82nd and 101st airborne divisions; allied intelligence's "pardonable error" in missing TWO German panzer divisions on the drop zones (?!?) ; and Montgomery himself.  Lewin calls Market-Garden "a tactical mistake" (emphasis in original).  In my view, you can't, as Lewin does,  credit a general for daring and dash if he wastes the efforts of his men. Market-Garden wasn't so much a tactical mistake as bad planning of a bad concept. And that lies, entirely, at Montgomery's feet.

Lewin covers Montgomery's interwar service as well, highlighting his laudable service in educating and mentoring junior officers.

In conclusion, what I draw from Lewin's useful account is that Montgomery was a fine divisional commander, would have functioned well as a battlefield corps commander (a role he never had), but was out of his depth at the Army and Army Group level.  But that perhaps the UK had no one else who could have functioned even as well as Montgomery at those rarefied heights. Thankfully, we had Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton.

Fun and Games with the Serbian Police

So, a few Decembers ago (2006), Tessa and I were returning to Montenegro when our flight was diverted from Belgrade to Nish, in southern Serbia, due to heavy fog. More than a few tales hang on that, but today's concerns the nine-hour taxi ride home in the middle of the night through Serbia and into Montenegro, across mountains on narrow two-lane roads through numerous little towns.

Usually, local cops leave diplomats alone on the highways - no upside, and your superiors may get upset that you were bothering someone who a) you can't ticket or arrest anyway; and b) has an in with the Minister of the Interior (equivalent to a US Attorney General). And since diplomats' cars have very distinctive diplomatic plates, ignorance ("I didn't know he was a diplomat") is no excuse.

Usually.

It's different when you are riding in an ordinary Ford Mondeo taxi.  And it's the middle of the night, And the traffic cops are bored out of their minds with no traffic to flag over (well, wave a "lollypop"* at).  But an ordinary taxi? Hey, cops don't need (to make up) a reason to stop a car in the Balkans (or most of Europe) - no Fourth Amendment.

So, we got waved over, asked for IDs:  the driver shows his license, and we pull out diplomatic passports, with entry stamps and residence visas. All is good, so after a couple of minutes, we're rolling.

And get stopped 20 minutes later, next small town, same drill.

And again 20 minutes after that. This time the cop (who I figure was let into the fun little game of "let's harass the American diplomat while pretending it's all coincidence" after a radio call from the previous stops) wants to see our luggage, "since the stamps say you just flew into Serbia from France, you must have luggage." Ok, says I, but I want to watch your search (to make sure the cop neither adds nor subtracts from what's there). He agrees.

Recall the taxi is Ford Mondeo, a mid-size hatchback I've never ridden in before (it's not sold in the US). It's about 1 am, we've been riding for about four hours in the taxi, we got up about 6 am the previous day - tired, and just want to go home to Podgorica. Not play games with bored Serbian cops in the cold alongside a highway somewhere near Raska (I think), not far from Kosovo.

I look into the hatch alongside the cop, pick my head up - and slam it into the edge of the hatch. Blood instantly pours off my scalp, onto to my face, into my eyes, cakes in my beard. (Scalp wounds LOOK nasty as heck.) The cop hears the thud, looks at me - even in the dim light of the street lamp, he goes pale. "Uh-oh. Even if I can defend the stop as random, I don't think I can defend injuring or killing a foreign diplomat. Not even an American." Or at least - "think of the paperwork!" The cop quickly - very quickly - lets us go.

And for the rest of the way to the border, another 90 minutes or so - not a single bored cop flags us over to lighten his night. And border immigration and customs waves us through, post-haste.

* See, e.g., http://italianintrigues.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-lollipop-guild.html

Book Review: The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross

This was the second book I've read by British SF/Fantasy author Charlie Stross, the first being The Family Trade.  The Atrocity Archives has two stories, "The Atrocity Archives" and "The Concrete Jungle", both featuring darkside hacker Bob Howard and his (mis-)adventures in The Laundry, a super-secret UK agency struggling to hold back the Lovecraftian apocalypse.

The Atrocity Archives is a better effort by Stross than Family Trade, largely because the stories hang together better, and there are fewer moments where a discontinuity or mistake jarred me out of the text. Perhaps that's because Atrocity Archives posits multiple universes, not just two like Family Trade, and differences in larger policy and law can be ascribed to the central universe in the story not being this one. 

Stross notes that one of his inspirations, besides the obvious one of H.P. Lovecraft (and if you haven't read Lovecraft, you will be confused by  Atrocity Archives), is spy thriller master Len Deighton. The inspiration is clear; so clear, in fact, much as reading Lovecraft is a must before picking up this book, reading Deighton's spy fiction is a brief detour that I would highly recommend.

I have read a later Laundry story by Stross as well. His writing improves, in no small part because in the later story ("Equoid") Stross emphasizes the bureaucratic hurdles before his hero Bob Howard as much or more than the supernatural foe.  It is the humor that Stross brings out in the absurdity of bureaucratic business-as-usual while attending to the urgent business of throwing back the forces of darkness that sets The Laundry apart from the usual spy or horror tale.

Book Review: Doves and Diplomats: Foreign Offices and Peace Movements in Europe and America in the Twentieh Century, Soloman Wank, ed. Pub. 1978.

Doves and Diplomats collects 13 essays (introduction and twelve topical essays), nominally about  Foreign Offices and peace movements in Europe and America, from 1867 to 1975. Contrary to the title, only one essay (on American peace movements and the State Department in the 1920s) actually addresses the role of career diplomats; in the other essays, only the role of the political leadership in foreign offices is addressed, or the role of Foreign Offices is minimized or even ignored. The essays on European states and the U.S. are dissimilar, in that the European discussions focus almost exclusively on the roles of Radicals and Socialists in forming and leading peace movements. Such a focus on the Left leads to repeatedly attributing the failure of the peace movements to constrain military buildups, avoid war, and end hostilities, to a refusal by Radical and Socialist leaders to embrace confrontational stances against the government, and the Left's failure to enlist and co-opt the working class into such action (i.e., general strikes, refusal of military service, etc.)

The essays on America look at opposition to a possible war between Mexico and the US after Wilson landed troops in Vera Cruz in April 1914; the lack of influence upon the State Department from "popular" "internationalist" "peace reformers" in the 1920s, and the efforts of SANE and the Committee for NonViolent Action against nuclear testing and the Vietnam War.  The first sketches the wide variety and acceptance of peace movements in pre-global power America, only to dismiss them as having had no effect on Wilson's decision to not go to war with Mexico in 1914. (The essayist asserts Wilson did not want armed conflict when he landed troops, and was dismayed when deaths and other injuries ensued.) The second underscores the relative lack on influence of public organizations on closed governmental bodies like the State Department. While noting the objections of senior State officials to the 1924 Foreign Service Act, which opened the Service to those without family ties, wealth, or Ivy League degrees, the essayist declined to address whether that reform had, then or later, made State more susceptible to public opinion. The third attributes notable success to the two organizations, but was not clear on how that success was obtained. It also saw a rosier future for the influence of SANE and organizations of its ilk upon future American policy that has occured over the past 35 years.

On the one hand, Doves and Diplomats did address, at least in part, my curiosity as to why the European Socialist parties rallied behind the nation-state at the outbreak of World War I, when the Second International was clearly on record calling for general strikes to oppose a capitalist war. Partially, it was the success of ruling classes and governments in all combatants to depict the various patrias as the wronged party, and the war as defensive. Most Radicals and Socialists (except the oxymoronic militant pacifists) supported wars in defense of the nation. Decisively, the Radicals and especially the Socialists bady over-estimated the attraction of their policies, particularly their more leftist policies, for the working class. The last essay on the UK notes that mismatch continued through the 1960s, with fluctutating support from Labour for nuclear disarmament.

On the other, little in Doves and Diplomats is useful to a 21st century peace advocate, looking to avoid the mistakes of past movements and raise political and governmental support for arms control, arms reduction, smaller defense budgets, and ultimately disarmament.  

Book Review: The Family Trade, by Charles Stross.

Incomplete. Simply put, this novel, the first in a series by UK SF author Charles Stross, is incomplete, in two senses. First, it simply ends after 300 pages, with no resolution of any plot elements. Some  research reveals that Stross asked his publisher to split The Merchant Princes trilogy into six books. So the book just stops, mid-story.

The "Family" " Trades" in a particular high-value item (which I'll call "Substance A"). The author again leaves his book incomplete by utterly failing to explain how the Family obtains its supply of  Substance A in the first place. The omission is all the more curious as Stross has the Family rejecting trade in another high-value item as there is no feasible way to obtain it - yet, the same obstacles (and more besides) should also be in the way of the Family getting Substance A as well. Sure, this is a fantasy or SF novel - but the Ferengi of ST:DS9 had an explanation for their trading business. Even Cyrano Jones had a back story for the tribbles.

Skipping over some minor factual and continuity quibbles - I still wonder why there were four pages of what appears to be another story all-together around page 200. In the old days, I'd guess it was a publisher's mistake - it really HAD stuck four pages of somebody else's manuscript into the text. Now? No clue. It is as if Tolkein broke away from The Two Towers for four pages from an Agatha Christie novel. Meanwhile, the protagonist's first challenge is merely discarded after she meets up with the "Family", even though the two challenges could have been played off each other.

The blurb compares Stross to Roger Zelazny, H. Beam Piper and Philip Jose Farmer. If you haven't read those authors, read them instead of this. If you have ... don't let the comparison get your hopes up.

How Not Win Friends and Influence People

An article on AlterNet claims the House defense budget, at $601 billion, "dwarfs spending during the Vietnam War." Even the source cited gives 1968 defense spending as $554 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars. 1968's defense budget was 8.7% of GDP. The current proposed defense budget is 3.6% of GDP. (GDP % calculated personally from available data.)

I agree defense spending is currently too high, given the size and nature of the threat now and for 20 years out. But fudging the adjectives and numbers the way AlterNet did is a sure way to lose the argument, you're preaching to the choir, which gets you no new support. And the opposition will quickly point out that your presentation of the data is not reliable, and put the same label on you.

http://www.alternet.org/world/endless-war-5-disturbing-things-americas-military-budget

Book Review: The History of White People, by Nell Irvin Painter.

Painter's The History of White People is a well-written, thoroughly-researched account of how the definition of "white people" changed though history, from ancient Greece to northern Europe to the United States. (Note that as she moves forward in time, Painter's geographic scope narrows.)  As a tall, blonde, blue-eyed (male) of northern European ancestry but born of native-born US citizens for a couple generations back (one great-grandfather served in the Union Army, 1864-1866), I was prepared for this book to annoy,  insult or belittle me, to "call me out on my privilege."  That was not Painter's goal, and instead her book helped me think some more about the role of "others" in society, particularly American society.

I will agree that the title is misleading,  to those who wish to be mislead. This is not so much a history of folks with white skin, as it is (as described right on the spine of the dust cover) an examination of race theory, as "constructed by dominant peoples to justify their domination of others." 

Painter's tale is that of the ever-changing "other" - of European stock, but not "white" at a given time in history. Of particular interest to me was Chapter 6, "Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Names White People 'Caucasian'"; how a remote group gave its tribal name to an entire "race", on account of the beauty attributed to some of its women. (I do disagree with Painter, who on the basis of one 1946 photo asserts that Georgians are (no longer) beautiful; Painter's judgment indulges the same stereotyping as Blumenbach's 18th Century generalizations.)

Painter's device of linking an era's definition of "whiteness" to its particular proponents makes her story more accessible, but at the same time weakens its validity.  The History of White People is anecdotal, not analytical. 

Notably missing from Painter's account is why the dominant peoples began to accept, in stages, other "non-white" Europeans as white, and just where the source of the push to "enlarge" "whiteness" lay. Was it with the dominant class/race, who sought to co-opt others to hold back different groups of, shall we say, inferior "others"? Was it the "new" "whites" pushing for inclusion?  She also at most only briefly examines the effects of exclusion from "whiteness," except in the case of wholesale near-exclusion of "non-whites" from immigration to the US between 1920 and 1965.

Nor does Painter give us good markers by which to distinguish "bad" science, like "race science" from good. If we want policy-makers to make good policy on the basis of good science, it would be useful to examine the history of "race science" not just for what it said, and how its proponents came to their views (both of which Painter does well), but also to look at those who disagreed with "race science," and whether and how that disagreement affected the decisions of contemporaneous policy-makers.

These are more than quibbles; they are deficiencies in the text. But as Painter herself notes, she had to limit her focus if she wanted a managable text.  In the end, her book is a valuable, readable account for anyone who wants to understand how Americans have viewed "race," particularly before the beginning of the Civil Rights Era in the 1960s.

Book Review: Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914. (2013)

I read MacMillan's earlier work, Paris 1919: Six Months That Ended the World, with interest and found it a valuable account of the negotiations that led to the Versailles Peace Treaty ending World War I.  The War That Ended Peace? Not really worth the time to read. MacMillan really adds nothing to either the analysis or narrative of the first years of the 20th Century in Europe. I must admit, she warns her readers that the book was not her idea.  She viewed "the path too well-trodden" and so she "resisted" the suggestion to write War.  (p 648).

She views the events through an Anglocentric lens; often the thoughts of foreign decision-makers (and that is her focus, the Great Men of History) are depicted as  "How will the UK react if I do this?"  This is especially true for Austria-Hungary, Germany and most of all Russia, which she paints as near dictatorships under the thumb of their hereditary emperors. Oh, except of course when new-fangled public opinion forces their  hand, that, and "honor." 

 I am writing this on Montenegro's eighth anniversary of renewed independence (May 21, 2008), an independence lost to Serb military occupation and French connivance as WWI ended. MacMillan is not kind to Montenegro's King Nikola,  (whose name she insists on spelling as Nicholas, even as she uses the local spelling for Serbian PM Nikola Pasic), viewing his well-married daughters (to the future King of Italy and to the Russian imperial family) as impediments to peace. And in her brief summary of the war and the aftermath itself, she merely ellipses Serbia's forceful annexation of its ally. Perhaps because it does not fit her thesis.

Again, we are warned of her thesis. "Some ... were more culpable than others. Austria-Hungary's mad determination to destroy Serbia in 1914, Germany's decision to back it to the hilt, Russia's impatience to mobilize, ...." (p. xxxv) The old standbys on the origins of the Great War.  MacMillan also subscribes to the hoary view that Austria's ultimatum to Serbia after the death of the Emperor's heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated in Sarajevo June 28, 1914, was an intolerable affront to Serbia's "sovereignty", a pretext for war. She neatly glosses over the clear evidence that the Archduke's death was planned in Belgrade, by Serbian Military Intelligence, which trained, armed, and conveyed the terrorists to Sarajevo. The "intolerable" clauses, that Austria participate in the investigation in Serbia, and that the accused be extradited to Austria to stand trial, are surely a lesser affront to sovereignty than killing the heir to a dynastic throne.  But of course the head of Serbian Military Intelligence had already tried that before: twice, unsuccessfully, against Montenegro, and once against his own King and Queen.

Unfortunately, MacMillan's Anglocentric lens does not give us any insight into the UK's decisions.   It is reduced down to the "balance of power" and an unexplained if repeated assertion that German domination over France or Belgium would be intolerable to British interests.  We are never told why - and this after all was the Germany of the Kaiser, the grandson of Queen Victoria who held the rank of Admiral in the Royal Navy - not the Germany of Hitler.

The all-too brief chapter entitled "Dreaming of Peace" whetted my appetite to read more of the efforts of the Socialists and advocates for disarmament in the twenty or thirty years before the War.  For that, I will have to turn to her sources. (Reviews forthcoming once I have received and read a few key books in her bibliography.)

As others have noted, I too wearied of MacMillan's overly facile comparisons of the challenges faced by modern leaders to those faced in The Road to 1914.  Those similes will rapidly yellow and age - perhaps not an ill effect, if it removes this work from the standard literature on the outbreak of WWI.

Term Limits (Federal Elective Office)

For a long time, I opposed term limits, as I saw them as a smokescreen covering efforts to eliminate politicians who had the support of other voters in other districts. But with 318 million people in this country, (about half eligible for office), there is no reason to let the same handful run (or mis-run) things year after year, decade after decade. Let's allow an individual 12 (or 18) years in Federal elective office, excluding the Presidency. VP is a freebie, given VP Garner's accurate description of the office. Oh, and no government pensions for elected officials. That's for career folks who put in 20 to 40 years, and political office shouldn't be a career. The pols get enough to fund their own retirements.

Send in the Marines (?)

Senator McCain said he would send in US troops to rescue the girls in Nigeria kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. “If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country,” McCain told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan,” he added, referring to the president of Nigeria.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/13/mccain-send-u-s-special-forces-to-rescue-nigerian-girls.html

I'd like to rededicate the following to Senator McCain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93n-EmGknEU

(Tom Lehrer's Send in the Marines.) 

Guns at Last Light - a book review

Guns at Last Light is Rick Atkinson's final installment in his "Liberation Trilogy", a history of the US Army in World War II in the European Theater of Operations (North Africa, Italy and France & Germany).

Guns at Last Light is the conclusion to a well-written story of World War II as experienced in 1944-45 by members of the US ground forces in Europe, for a reader who is willing to read through 600+ pages on just that one narrow topic, without analysis, judgment and evaluation. What we learn from Atkinson's book is that the infantry rifleman at the very front edge of battle is often cold, tired and confused, that his officers in the field have lives in America to which they wish to return, often in vain, and that US generals tried their best, but that often was not good enough. We also learn that British General Montgomery and  French General de Gaulle were prima donnas, trying to advance national interests (oh so unlike the US Army), with inflated notions of their competence. Of the decisive Yalta conference in February 1945, we learn of arrangements for transport, liquor, banquets, and the insights of Churchill's personal physician regarding the dying FDR. Of even the results of negotiations we hear but very little. We do get six pages on Task Force Baum, the late March 1945 fiasco wherein General Patton oped to rescue his son-in-law, a POW sixty miles behind the lines. But even with the author's access to the son-in-law's papers, we learn nothing not recorded and released elsewhere.

I note that the back cover has "praise" for the earlier installments of the trilogy (which I read when they came out, in 2002 and 2007). Four of the six blurbs feature the word "narrative." It is a very apt adjective to employ. Narrative is the art of story-telling, the core of entertainment. It creates social identity through its use of description and focus on specific anecdotes over analysis. But I do not, cannot, agree that narrative is history.  History is the study of the past that allows us to understand, it analyzes the why, not simply the who, what and when. Atkinson, in his narrative tale, never scratches at the why, and has not written a history, but merely a story.

I have read, and own, copious amounts of World War 2 and military history, from memoirs and official histories, quasi-fictional retellings, mythological biographies, dry technical manuals, interactive fiction, contemporaneous news stories (did you know the Germans flew the attacking aircraft at Pearl Harbor? So asserts the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year for 1942). I am glad I finished Atkinson's book, and his trilogy. But I can't recommend it. It is too long and too narrow for the newcomer to WW2, and too anecdotal, too merely assertive for the seasoned reader.

Iran's Nuclear Program in Rollback

So, two decades ago when I was the (first-ever)  political-military advisor in the State Department's Bureau of South Asian Affairs, we set a broad strategy for our approach to nuclear proliferation in India and Pakistan: we would seek the two countries' agreement to cap, then roll-back, and finally, hopefully, eliminate the nuclear weapons on the subcontinent.

That has not gone so well.

On the other hand, noted nuclear proliferation expert Joe Cirincione has just said, in The Atlantic, that Iran is rolling back its stock of medium enriched uranium. Not just capped. Rolled back. And Tehran appears open to rejiggering its plutonium plant to render it far less capable of producing enough weapons-grade material, as well.

Diplomacy works - if you can get the politicians to simply quit pandering.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/the-iranian-nuclear-deal-is-working/361066/

Risking One's Life in Interesting Ways - Part One of ???

So, shortly after arriving in Jamaica in August 1984, as the US Embassy's political officer, I was invited to attend the annual meeting of the youth wing of the ruling political party (PNP). I said, great, sounds like fun, but I don't have a car (yet), and it's all the way across Kingston. 

"No problem - we'll pick you up and bring you back." Yeah, ok.

Guy shows up more than little after the arranged time that Sunday afternoon. (My introduction to "Soon come.") My contact isn't with him, but he does have a note from her. Ok. Off we go. In a well-used Lada. But contrary to the standard jokes, this guy can really get the Lada moving. Speed limit is generally about 30 MPH in Kingston, but glancing over, the speedometer reads 50, 60 - and looking outside it feels like we're world champion rally car racing.

We get to the elementary school just a little late (as if it mattered), but intact (which mattered a lot, at least to me).

After that ride, the rest of the tour was a lot less scary.  Sure, audible gun shots, the Cuban ambassador being pistol-whipped and carjacked on the road just 400 yards west of my house - but I never rode in another Lada.

The Taxman Cometh

(Some) Key changes in Federal taxation and spending:

• In 1912, the US spent just over 1% of GDP on defense (13% of Federal spending); now, 4.6% (22% of Federal spending). 

• In 1950, corporate income taxes were 26% of revenue; now, 7%. 

• Excise and especially estate taxes were 20% of revenue in 1950; now, excise taxes are 3% and estate taxes just 0.7%.

• If you spend more money on defense, and let the rich lower their tax burden - well, the money has to come from somewhere.

Thus, We The People get to open our wallets.

No, wider.

Poor Math Skills in the Media

So, there's a Daily Kos story ("Americans increasingly rejecting the stock market, cuts Wall Street profits") wherein the author asserts that a significant drop in NYSE trading volume ("lowest in 15 years") is due to "mom-and-pop investors" leaving the market.  Hmm. Let's see, using just his data.

Peak NYSE trading volume, in 2006: about 1,900 million trades a day. Now? About 700 million a day. Then a graph with 65% of Americans invested in stocks in 2007, and now 52%.  So the author wants us to believe an exit of 18% of the number of investors is responsible for a 63% drop in the number of trades? That could only be if the "mom-and-pop" investors were trading at MUCH higher rates than the "big" investors. Indeed, if the DK author is right, the "mom-and-pop" investors would have had to been trading at THREE times the rate of big investors. 

More likely, then, is the 2012 Reuters story that asserted, "Gone are the days when Nasdaq was NYSE's only competition. There are now 13 U.S. exchanges and at least 50 alternative trading venues." http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/06/us-nyseeuronext-results-idUSBRE8A50AF20121106

As even Fox Business points out, another factor is the Volcker Rule, which curbed internal hedge funds in the brokerage firms.

Overall, the lower volatility is likely a good thing for the investors who've stayed. A train through the mountains rather than a roller-coaster.

Weapons Elimination in the Former Yugoslavia: Part One: Bosnia

Private weapons ownership was severely constrained in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war, and the NATO-led peacekeeping force, SFOR, had a major role in securing and eliminating the now-excess weapons. As I was briefed c. 2001 by the British contingent, the Royal Army had struck on a highly effective approach to gathering weapons: they would ask the housewives about unwanted arms, when their menfolk weren't around. The Brits would pick up the weapons and the women, when asked where their gun had gone, would say NATO grabbed it, and isn't amazing how good their intel is?

Best example was one day a British patrol stopped by an isolated farmhouse in the north of the Republika Srpska. The housewife was home, her husband and her brothers and brothers-in-law off working and/or drinking. She asked the troops to come out to the barn, where hubby had kept a couple of weapons from his "time with the boys." The soldiers thought, "nothing unusual; probably the normal couple of rifles, maybe a grenade or mine or two."  They walk in after her, and she points to a pile of hay, on top of a large tarp. Once they clear the covering aside, there it stands in all its glory: a T-55 tank. In running condition. Ok, the patrol thinks, THAT's certainly not allowed under the peace accords!

Crimea is Not Montenegro, Kosovo etc. 

Ignoring the members of the He-Man Women-Hater's Club and their adoration of Putin's manliness (looking at you, Fox News and Stephen Seagal):

Crimea is Definitely Not Montenegro

In 2003, Serbia and Montenegro agreed to form a State Union to replace the increasingly moribund Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. That agreement (Article 60) specified that after three years, either republic could hold a referendum on independence. Montenegro, after careful planning and with widespread participation in the vote, voted for independence on May 21, 2006. Serbia was among the first states to recognize Montenegro's independence, acknowledging that the vote (closely monitored by the OSCE and other democratic states) was legitimate and in accordance with the 2002 agreement.

There is no agreement between Ukraine and Crimea, or Ukraine and Russia, that permits an independence referendum. The vote last month in Crimea has no more legal force than the online  poll in Venice that "also" declared "independence" (from Italy).

Crimea is Not Even Kosovo

Serbia, citing historical claims dating before 1389, annexed Serbia in 1912, after the First Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire.  The International Commission established by the Carnegie Endowment in 1914 said the heavy death toll among Albanian civilians in Kosovo was deliberate, resulting from Serb policy.  Oppression of the Kosovar Albanians continued, with thousands killed and tens of thousands forced out even before World War 2. Kosovo's autonomy, finally granted in 1974, was unilaterally revoked in 1989 by Slobodan Milosevic, the first abortive step towards a Greater Serbia and the Balkan Wars of 1990s.  Kosovo's 1990 declaration of independence was largely ignored, and Milosevic, believing himself to have a free hand in Kosovo after the 1995 Dayton Agreement, began to again crack down on Albanian separatism, leading to a flare up of armed conflict by 1997. In 1999, after (heavy-handed) efforts to impose a diplomatic solution failed, NATO intervened, with a race between NATO air strikes on Serbian armed resistance, and Serbian efforts to ethnically cleanse the region.

Kosovo is currently recognized as an independent state by 107 of 193 UN states, and as an autonomous self-governing region by Serbia.

Crimea was not best by government oppression directed by Ukrainian policy, and Russia rejected efforts by the international community to investigate, mediate and ameliorate such human right conflicts as may have existed.

Nor is Crimea Like Skane, East Prussia, etc.

Across the globe, there are many regions that used to be part of another state, much as Crimea was part of Russia before 1954.  E.g., Germany and East Prussia, Denmark and Skane (southern Sweden), Sweden and Finland, U.S. and New Mexico, U.S. and the Virgin Islands. In no way does international law recognize a right by the former owner state to reclaim its former territory, particularly if the state uses or threatens the use of force - as Russia did.

Long Time No Post

So, McCutcheon v. FEC further opens the flood gates to money in election campaigns, squelching the voices of ordinary voters in favor of the exceptionally rich.

The problem, as I see it, is that judges and justices employ shorthand in their thinking, e.g., money=speech,", "corporations=people," the shorthand gets embedded, and then the courts forget that this was, originally, just an analogy.

Beyond that, what I have seen of Roberts' opinion makes no sense. How can government NOT have an interest in precluding the purchase of access to decision-makers? Justice Breyer's dissent is spot on: "It is an interest in maintaining the integrity of our public governmental institutions. Where enough money calls the tune the general public will not be heard."

I saw a lot of government corruption in my past career, much of it grounded in people buying special access to politicians. This decision just facilitates that.

I want all the big money out. It corrupts, plain and simple.