U.S. and Poland set missile deal - International Herald Tribune
A senior Pentagon official described an unusual part of this quid pro quo: an American Patriot battery would be moved from Germany to Poland, where it would be operated by a crew of about 100 American military personnel. The expenses would be shared by both nations. American troops would join the Polish military, at least temporarily, at the front lines — facing east toward Russia.

The second volume in a new series providing ship modellers with all they need to know about a famous class of warship and associated model kits.
The five battleships of the King George V Class were the most modern to serve the Royal Navy in World War II; all rendered invaluable service in the war effort, and, indeed, the first two could be credited with influencing the very course of the conflict. Instrumental in the sinking of the battleship Bismarck, they bought about a fundamental shift in German naval policy, the emphasis moving away from heavy surface ships and towards the U-boat arm. With its unparalleled level of visual information- colour schemes, models, line drawings and photographs-it is simply the best reference for any model-maker setting out to build one these great battleships.

If you’re going to apply that logic, then you should also credit PRINCE OF WALES with changing the course of the war in the Pacific, sealing the loss of Singapore, and ending the British Empire.

That being said, I’d love to have a copy of this book!

The book is available from Nimble Books via CreateSpace or via Amazon.com and will soon be available via Ingram (ISBN 1934840386).





Here are a few of the beautiful images included.

As we look at the terminations of these two great global struggles with Versailles in mind, one crucial difference becomes apparent: there was no treaty to end the Cold War. It simply ended, marked perhaps most clearly by three events: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the success of the American-led coalition that reversed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States in December 1991. To be sure, it’s not at all clear that the absence of a treaty is a bad thing. Many historians have blamed World War II on the harsh terms imposed on Germany at Versailles.

I take a more austere view; I believe corporate and individual responsibility are rightly allocated to the agents who made irrevocable choices for direct action, namely, the German people and Hitler. To say “the nasty peace terms made them do it” is to blame the victim … just as to say that “American policy made Osama blow up the World Trade Towers” is to blame the victim.

If we look at what’s happening in today’s Russia, it tends to argue against the historical argument that a more lenient set of terms at Versailles would have prevented the resurgence of German nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Even with an avalanche of international good will and a far more favorable financial situation than the Germans enjoyed, the “revanchist” forces in Russia still aren’t happy about losing the Cold War! Leaving his merits aside, Putin does seem to command a solid national consensus that supports his earnest efforts to re-establish Russia’s role as a great power. It is easy to imagine a “Weimar Putin” who might have led Germany in a similar direction.

The other major difference between Versailles and 1991, of course, is that the Treaty of Versailles did include most of the major powers who had participated in the global struggle. I learned while researching this book that China was the only country which opted out of Versailles – could that have happened in 1991? Could that happen today? In a word, no … which is a backhanded compliment to the life’s work of someone that Americans don’t like to praise, namely, Mao Tse-Tung, the bloody-handed nation-builder of the People’s Republic of China, which hasn’t taken much crap from the international community since November 1950.

The “settlement” terms reached in 1991 essentially called for a much-weakened and territorially shrunken Russia, not unlike post-WWI Russia, with America as the sole hegemon of the New World Order, extending its military reach throughout the globe, including the Middle East and the heart of Islam. It has now become apparent, of course, that a major weakness of the 1991 settlement was that it utterly failed to address the concerns of a politically significant and militarily capable group of players: Islamic terrorists. Indeed, one might say that America is so self-absorbed that we outdid even the “vindictive” French at Versailles: we imposed harsh peace terms on an enemy without even being aware that we were doing it! For it is well documented that the mere presence of American soldiers on Saudi, and now Iraqi, soil is one of the most inflammatory issues to the other side in the global “war” that we are now engaged in.

(more TK)

To be sure, the current struggle is different in many ways. To name just one, non-state organizations like al Qaeda and Hezbollah have played a major role in the most dramatic events of the period. But one might argue that the very reason non-state organizations have been so active is that the Western powers enforce a world system in which the power of the formerly “colonial” states is severely limited. In this light, the new power of non-state organizations is, fundamentally, a reaction to the system of international relations. In this view, it is no accident that the formerly colonial nations of the world have produced most of the angry non-state actors.

Furthermore, one must acknowledge that in many ways the current era is quite familiar, as conventional nation-states are working assiduously to recast the world system to their advantage. In that respect, the current period seems a lot like other periods of convulsive global change such as the Napoleonic era, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

At the micro level, some things are familiar, some things are not. Just as in WWII, G.I.s are riding around in trucks and relying on superior firepower while America sends expeditionary forces to the far corners of the earth in pursuit of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But the “coalition of the willing” is a lot less robust than the Allied Coalition in World War II when either the United States or the Soviet Union, standing alone, had enough industrial power to overwhelm any combination of the Axis powers. Similarly, despite the flip David Shrum coinage of the phrase “Axis of Evil,” the “Axis” in the current struggle is in many respects different from the actual Axis of World War II. Palestinian homeboys being crushed by Israeli bulldozers are a lot more sympathetic than Nazis wearing the double lightning bolts of the Waffen SS.

I will argue in this book that there is a great deal that can be learned about the current struggle from looking at World War II at the “micro” level of individual battles and campaigns. The simple reason why this is true is that, as Ecclesiastes observed, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Of course, things do change, but many fundamental principles of war, politics, technology, and human nature remain the same. When we look closely at the campaigns and battles of World War II, it will not be difficult to find patterns and phenomena that give pause for thought about today’s situation.

One might argue that other historical periods are, in fact, more similar to the current period than World War II. For example, the Napoleonic period can be seen as a ruthless effort by a single “hyperpower,” governed by an ambitious, aggressive militarist, to export its radical social model throughout the “civilized” world, on its own terms, in a completely un-collegial manner. Sound familiar?

Let me conede at the outset that other historical periods may well shed equal or more light on the current struggle. There are sound practical reasons why I have chosen World War II as the jumping off point for my discussion.

WW II has been the subject of exhaustive study. Hundreds of thousands of books and monographs have been published. Official records and archives have been opened for scrutiny. We think we know most of what actually happened (unless we have read too many Jack Higgins novels). Most people who are interested in military history know at least something about the military history of World War II. Yet for almost everyone, there’s still plenty to learn! Finally, there is a ready-made community that should find the premise of this book provocative and interesting. At the end of the day, publishing is a practical art.

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