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>On the Cold War, I find it useful to think about the Cuban Missile Crisis. What ultimately solved it was not signaling through force (indeed, that almost killed us all) but rather people who were skilled at understanding the political context the various actors were moving within. Absent that, I think we escalate in the face of Khrushchev's hardline message, Castro takes over missile command, and we all die.

I'd argue that Khrushchev actually won the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sure, we reached a diplomatic solution and the West rejoiced, but what wasn't public at the time was that the West made an important concession for this, the withdrawal of missiles from Italy and Turkey, which were much more important strategically than the Cuban missiles.

Additionally, the US all but conceded the existence of Cuba and promised not to invade it, which is another diplomatic setback in the sense that once such a promise is made, it's very difficult to take back if the situation changes. I'm not saying Kennedy's decision was wrong or that I would have done things differently, but overall, the USSR came off better from that engagement than the US did.

>On the effectiveness of the message, I'm not so sure. I broadly agree with you about Putin, with the caveat that he understands that Russia is in an inferior position vis-a-vis the West. That's behind his asymmetric tactics from mercenaries to electronic disruption to his attempts to split the western alliance through provocation.

Yes he understands, he's an incredibly smart man. However that's his game, see how far he can push before pulling back, creating frozen conflicts to maintain Russia's sphere of influence. But states communicate not so much by words as by actions. Whether those strikes were a calculated strategic option by Mattis and co. or them giving in to Trump wanting strikes as his fancy of the week, that's all going to factor into Putin's plans as to how much he can push, because we've proven we are willing to stand by at least some of our commitments. It's an important message to send IMO and the logical escalation after the economic sanctions. We won't take military options off the table.

That's probably the main point we disagree on, and ultimately it's a question of perspective, especially the general view of international relations you might have vs mine.

>Vis-a-vis taking our chips and going home, with Assad about to wrap this thing up, aren't we going to have to do that soonish anyway? The other option (it seems to me) is to plunge Syria into a more-or-less permanent civil war, and I'm not entirely sure that gets us anywhere.

Yes, you're correct, eventually we'll either have to commit or take our chips and go home. I prefer the second option, but we need to spin it in a way that doesn't make us look weak. To be fair, we could probably freeze the conflict and keep a small rebel held area. It's good training for fighter pilots and SOF. But that's neither here nor there at the moment.

>I've really enjoyed this discussion, and I hope you do read that book. It's fantastic and changed my perspective on the issue of credibility on a fundamental level.

Thank you, I have enjoyed it as well. I will add it to my reading list. Allow me to recommend something closer to my field of expertise, Field Artillery and Firepower by Mgen Bailey. Wonderful book if you're interested in really understanding the basics of artillery and gunnery doctrine throughout history.

Yes and no. That is: yes, I do, but none of these launched any kind of such military interventions like Cuba has.

For example: no matter how much encouraged by the Soviets to 'provide their share in internationalism', the East Germans haven't had that much to provide. Correspondingly, and just like Hungarians and Bulgarians, they usually limited themselves to provision of vehicles, small arms, and/or advice in regards of organising intelligence services.

If I'm to ask, it's the Czechoslovaks that were 'much more interesting' - and nearly always mis-identified as 'East Germans' - at least during the (I) Cold War: one should keep in mind that by early 1970s, Czechoslovakia was one of five top arms exporters World-wide; that the Czechoslovak (and not Soviet) advisors were crucial for (re-)establishing and training the Syrian armed forces for all of 1960s and much of 1970s; that they were exporting their arms all over Africa too, and training lots of local armed forces (see Libya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana etc., etc., etc.). Indeed, in Libya of 1980s, the Czechoslovaks run at least three pilot-schools, plus a COIN asset equipped with Aero L-39s (and thus became involved in the War in Chad); most of Libyan T-72s and BMP-1s were made in Czechoslovakia etc.

Poles came second, well after the Czechoslovaks. They constructed the Syrian Air Force Academy air base at Kweres AB, were selling T-72s and similar stuff to Iraq, Syria and few other countries.

North Koreans are their own story: one that has to be seen in its own light - because they were never as tightly controlled by the Soviet s as East Europeans were. They were usually deploying their advisors - and sometimes combat troops - on invitation from the host government. For example:

• A group of up to 40 North Korean pilots was deployed in North Vietnam during the Op Rolling Thunder. Quite a few of them got killed (for example: in Operation Bolo), and buried in Vietnam, but Hanoi then simply deleted all the related files (ironically, the NSA did the same with its recordings of intercepted radio messages in Korean...).
  
  
• A group of about 40 North Korean pilots, cooks and translators served in Egypt during the October 1973 War. Due to language differences, they flew CAPs over the Aswan area and - despite some Israeli claims of the contrary - never saw any combat.
  
  
• Slightly later (writing this from memory), Mobutu contracted North Koreans to help him build-up the Zairian armed forces ('Zaire' was the official designation of the DR Congo from 1971 until 1997). They helped train multiple big and 'heavy' units in mid-1970s (for details, see Kolwezi), though with only meagre success: their and the temperaments of the Congolese were quite 'incompatible'. Moroccans - who deployed to Zaire in 1977 and again in 1978 - and even Egyptians, seem to have been slightly more successful (and influential) in this regards.
  
  
• The North Korean advisors were present in the DR Congo under Kabila of late 1990s, too, when they trained one of newly-established units of the reconstructed Congolese armed forces (for details, see Great Lakes Conflagration).
  
  The Chinese are also 'their own story': in essence, Beijing was acting entirely independently from the USSR, solely in its own interest, which - contrary to the Cuban and Soviet interests - was frequently rather 'commercial' than 'ideological' by nature. The Chinese have played a crucial role in the establishment of the Tanzanian armed forces (for details, see Wars and Insurgencies of Uganda), and they were supporting and advising the UNITA of 1970s and 1980s. Much less is known about their involvement in the Zambian armed forces of 1970s.
  
  In other cases, the Chinese appeared as contracted support personnel for local arms acquisitions. For example, in early 1980s, there was a Chinese team helping the Sudanese become operational on their Shenyang F-6s around the same time Americans were training the locals on Northrop F-5s and the British on BAe Strikemasters. Around the same time, another Chinese team was present in Somalia, which bought about 30 Shenyang F-6s, and - and thanks to the influence of the Pakistani advisors contracted by the Zimbabweans - the Chinese also helped the local air force acquire their Shenyang F-7 interceptors.

>the lower castes have to bow to them out of respect for the sacrifices they made.

But Kshatriyas still have to bow to Brahmans.

>The Kshatriya are described as being appointed by Brahma and other Hindu Gods as defenders of Earth

So does every other warrior caste or group in every other nation being appointed by gods and blah-blah

>Where Ksahtriyas actually thugs who raped and pillaged Indian villages

Yes - but it was a heroic deed back then. There were no 'Indian' though. Every nook and cranny has its own tribe. Also take into account that norm were quite different from a norm of modern ethics.

>Or are they genuinely heroic castes

They were victors, who wrote the history. In their history, they are genuinely heroic. Try to find an example of national epic in which its own heroes weren't noble (again, taking into account prevailing mores of the time).

>It draws parallels to medieval romances and Tokugawan haikus

True. Also, it parallels with vikings, condottieri, bogatyrs, pekhlevans, cossacks, Shaoling & Taoist warrior monks, Hussars etc. Almost every nation came thru that phase - when a special group of highly skilled warriors existed inside it. Usually it was during a period of feudal strife. Similar traits were a code of conduct, prowess in mano a mano combat and some artistic inclinations.

Sources

1. The Younger Edda
   
   
2. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
   
   
3. Ilya of the Murom
   
   
4. Condottiere - Encyclopaedia Britannica

>I don't think so. Britain, France, Germany, and Italy obviously stood no chance of challenging Japan in its own sphere. The Soviet Union could eject them from the Asian mainland but didn't have the navy to challenge Japanese influence in the Pacific. Only America posed an existential threat - and that really wasn't evident until America decided to get its shit together and mobilize all its resources.

The UK was perfectly capable of dealing with japan as long as it didn't have to fight a war in Europe simultaneously. France I'll give you. the russo/japanese border conflicts showed how much stronger the USSR was than the Japanese, and while they had no fleet, they also had no interest in pacific power projection.

>Which was a great power. Not of the first rank, but definitely counted among the great powers.

By courtesy and tradition only.

> Japan's strategic position was much better than Italy's, and like Britain, their navy was capable of offsetting whatever army or industrial weakness they had.

the first half of this is true, Japan's geographic distance from the other great powers was a large advantage. The second half, however, is not. naval warfare depends absolutely on industrial/financial/maritime base. far more than land warfare, sea wars are won with money. The UK in 1939 was not industrially weak. It had several times the industrial capacity of Japan, twice that of France, and was on a level with with the USSR and Germany, with a much higher per capita level than both.

>The large industrialists opposed Roosevelt at every turn and his agenda was severely rolled back by the time the 1939 elections came around - it was the closest he came to defeat. Those same industrialists largely had sympathies with Nazi Germany as well, seeing "national socialism" as a much more palatable form of stability than regular democratic socialism.

this is very bad history. First, roosevelt was not, at first, some sort of anti-fascist crusader. the early new deal was, in fact, explicitly modeled on italian fascist ideas. If you were a fascist sympathizer in the US in the early 1930s, you SUPPORTED Roosevelt, you didn't oppose him. Roosevelt only became an anti-fascist crusader when it became politically useful for him to be in the later 30s, when the blush wore off the early love affair with Mussolini.

Second, FDR's agenda was not "rolled back" by 1939. There were some reversals of his policy around '35, but following his court packing scheme and the death of a few judges, he managed to re-impose much of his initial efforts in slightly modified form from 35-37. The wagner act, for example, was largely a rehashing of the labor half of National industrial recovery act, and it explicitly inherited all the labor legal precedents established under the NIRA.

>IMHO, if American chose a voluntary war with Japan, I don't know if the public will would have survived 6 months of defeats, like what occurred beginning with Pearl Harbor. A voluntary war would require a string of victories to motivate the people.

The first 6 months of the pacific campaign were able to go as well for the japanese as they did because they began at the time of japanse choosing, and they chose right after their plans for said campaign were ready to go. A war launched by the US would have started with both sides ill-prepared instead of just the US, and would have been a much more even affair.

For the First World War I strongly recommend Richard Holmes' Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918 which is both comprehensive and accessible. Holmes' masterpiece Soldiers: Army lives and loyalties from Redcoats to Dusty Warriors is excellent, but has a much broader scope so may offer less detail.

For a view on how Junior Officers and NCOs interacted you can try John Lewis-Stempell's Six Weeks: The short and gallant life of the British Officer in the First World War. I must caution that I am only half way through it and so far have found it to be rather sentimental and lacking in critique, but it is a good read nonetheless.

On a point of order Colour Sergeant is a rank specific to the infantry and Royal Marines, in the Household Cavalry it is Staff Corporal (or Company Quartermaster Corporal) and in other cap badges the rank is Staff Sergeant: something to bear in mind if you're interested in broader research. Also The Rifles spell it as serjeant.

Sorry, but I disagree with the analysis. To start with, even the title is absurd.

The PT boats, while cheap and well armed, were rarely good for more than harassment. In encounter after encounter in the South Pacific, especially the Guadalcanal campaign, they rarely sunk or even disrupted enemy naval forces - and we generally seen by Big Navy as a nuisance. They MTBs weren't called the "Hooligan Fleet" for nothing. Good for supporting operations - including search and rescue and scouting - they never really lived up to the hyperbolic glory they seem to enjoy, surely in no small part because of JFK's heroics and post-war TV shows. There is a good reason the Navy scrapped the entire idea of MTBs after the war and never really took it up again with any enthusiasm, even with the advent of anti-ship cruise missiles.

If you're looking for small craft that were really unsung heroes of the USN in WWII, look at the Navy's gunboats. They guided and provided close fire support to nearly all amphibious landings and many amphibious reconnaissance operations from 1943 on, did the exact same anti-barge patrolling the PT boats did, and even served as anti-aircraft pickets against the waves of kamikazes at Okinawa, right there along with the destroyers.

A nice counterpoint to the original linked and promoted article: http://www.historynet.com/the-truth-about-devil-boats.htm

This sort of thing is going to have some pretty big variations depending on the country in question, and even the individual commanders too.

For Germany, you might try reading "Achtung, Panzer!" by Heinz Guderian, which was his book about armored warfare.

It would also help to learn what kind of forces exactly make up a Division, so that you can gain an insight into how they would be used, and what the Division itself is capable of.

Channels like "Military History Visualized" are pretty good for gaining an overview of such information.

Here's his video on the Panzergrenadier Division.

Here's his video on the German tank Division.

Soviet Red Army Tank Division

US Army Tank Division


Of course these are brief, but I hope you find them interesting!

Yeah, the major battles of the Southern theater were all conventional. I'm not convinced that guerrilla warfare played a very major role in defeating the British army directly.

The militia in the South (whether Loyalist or Whig) participated in every battle between regular forces, and some of the most notable battles of the south (e.g. King's Mountain) was fought between Southern Whig militia against Loyalist militia--but it was a conventional battle and not a guerrilla action.

The various raiding parties and guerrilla actions that took place were useful in the grander strategic scheme of things though.

1.) They intimidated any neutral residents into either non-support of the British or into supporting the rebels. They prevented Loyalists from actively supporting British troops.

For example, one notable attack by the Whig militia was against a public loyalty ceremony being organized by the British. People were supposed to come and publicly declare the loyalty to the Crown forces and the gathering was also going to be used for recruitment. The Whig forces in the area attacked the gathering, killing and wounding a few of those who were there and preventing the event from taking place. This pretty conclusively demonstrated to locals that the British had no power or authority in the area and helped to dry up support for them.

2.) They denied the British the use of the land. This was especially important when it came to supplying the army in the field. During one long march after Greene's army a British soldier recorded that a day's meal was an ear of unripened corn split between two men--quite a different picture of the British Army than we're used to.

3.) Alternatively the active nature of the Whig militia also meant that the Continental Army had an easier time moving through the backcountry. Also in being supplied with food, but also guides.

This isn't to say that there wasn't intense fighting going on in the South by partisan groups. It's just that most of their effort was directed against each other. Whig militias attacked Loyalist homes (or suspected Loyalists), and Loyalist militias did the same to Whig militias.

Edit:

One other thing I forgot to mention. The militia were also very effective at maintaining political control for the Whigs. In most of New England this didn't matter so much, because the vast majority of the population was anti-British. In other states it was important. In NJ pro-Whig militias fought with pro-British ones. In New York at some points the militia was deemed as so unreliable politically, that Washington brought in neighboring militia to enforce control.

In the South this happened too. The militia would act as the enforcement arm of the various Committees of Safety/Correspondence (which were in effect governing town councils) and intimidate and harass locals who had uncertain loyalties. This freed up regular soldiers for actual battle, instead of having to tie down men in police action.


The Day it Rained Militia:: Huck's Defeat and the Revolution in the South Carolina Backcountry May-July 1780 is a really good look at the way the militia operated in the South.

[With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783] by Matthew Spring is probably the best tactical overview of the way the British operated during the war.

American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People by T.H. Breen is a fantastic look at how Americans went from loyal citizens to insurgents. Breen spends a fair amount of time on the various Committees and their wartime operations.

I'd like to recommend first as a sterling source John English's On Infantry. It covers all of your questions in excellent detail, including the (in)accuracy of infantry fires, and the motivation for shifting between closed-order (what you describe as linear tactics) and open-order.

Now, it seems you're asking two questions; infantry accuracy, and the transition in tactics. I'll attempt to answer them in turn.

To begin, modern infantry weapons are very accurate, and are only getting more accurate. An AR-15 family weapon can easily hold a 2" group at 100 yards, which is good enough to hit a standing man out to 600 yards. The mass-issuing of 4x and 6x optical scopes only helps this. The primary issues that limit the accuracy of infantry fires are then shooter skill, as you allude to, and then the difficult of detecting and engaging targets who do not wish to be seen and are anything but static. While modern methods of training such as shooting pop-up silhouettes at unknown distances have certainly helped, rifle fires are still far below the mechanical accuracy of the weapons. The US ACR program trials documented this quite well, in my opinion. Obviously these are rifles without optical sights, but the research is still insightful. Even simply seeing a target long enough to aim and hit him reduces the effective range. Anecdotally, the rule of thumb to measure this has been that rifle fires are only truly effective within 100 yards, and the US Army has a decent body of research supporting this, especially drawing from Korea. (Reproduced in The Black Rifle: M16 Retrospective, my copy of which is not with me at the moment.) The Army was so disappointed with the accuracy of its rifle fire that radical programs such as SALVO and SPIW were devised, which aimed at delivering multiple projectiles with a single trigger pull in order to compensate for the rifleman's inaccuracy.

While I'm less comfortable discussing the open-order transition (seriously, read John English's book), one of the main advantages of moving in an open-order is that individuals can find cover and concealment as best as possible. Drawing from what was said earlier, this can make it harder for the enemy to see, engage, and hit them, negating the inherent accuracy of modern weapons. The sheer weight of fire modern weapons can produce, demonstrated quite well in the water-cooled machine gun, certainly makes avoiding these fires more important. It's worth noting that the belt-fed weapons of an infantry squad are considered its prime casualty producer, as they can produce a beaten zone of sustained fire, and are obviously less reliant on single aimed shots than an infantry rifle.

(That may be a touch incoherent, please feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes.)

Great answer

> elements in US politics had embraced a more “ethnic” narrative of nationalism in mimicry of the Europeans.

In fact, it went even further than just a European-style national chauvinism to an identity as representatives of the "white race", predicting and fearing a conflict with "non-whites", first the Chinese and then the Japanese after the Sino and Russo Japanese wars. Drawing the Global Colour Line is a fascinating look at this phenomenon across the Pacific. It has a chapter about how the Great White Fleet was seen by both Roosevelt and Australians/New Zealanders as a message to the non-white Japanese

> But, also like many other totalizing unfalsifiable theories, it was a big success in popular thought of that era. Though it’s always hard to draw a straight line between an idea written in a book and a national policy, the popularity of this thesis was a major motive behind the rise in naval expenditure by several powers during this era

In the American sense, I would also point out that Teddy Roosevelt was personally a big proponent of the book, and had an enormous amount of influence over US naval policy throughout his public life

Thank you.

Here is some stuff on SOF:

• A cool video showing how they view tactical risks differently
  
• A good book on the subject
  
• The second half of this article focuses on SOF
  
• This article explores the kinetic parts of SOF link
  
• Another article on the subject link
  
• Dated, but does a good job at explaining how Russians view special reconnaissance. link
  
• Touches on EW and SOF link
  
  That should help guide you on SOF. EW is harder, as it involes going through Russian stuff.

\> probably military historians *surprise* LIKE navies and LIKE ships. They are believers in the application of Seapower, that navies should be well funded etc. This is understandable and im not suggesting they are wrong.

Of course they're sometimes wrong. Why wouldn't you suggest such a thing???

You need

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fall-Glory-Sank-U-S-Navy/dp/0684832267

USN spending during the Reagan years was knowingly based on a huge over-estimate of Soviet strength. (I'd have prosecuted the US admirals involved for treason.)