Ep 060 "The Military Historian's Craft: Past Tense Imperfect"

With Western conflict possible in Yemen and Iran, I discuss the vagaries and verities of mountain warfare. The special hell of high altitude and colder temperatures and their effect on fighting and warfare.I assess how the RMAs rapidly displacing centuries-old conflict norms are going to look for the remainder of the century.Buppert’s Law of Military Topography:“Mountainous terrain held by riflemen who know what they are about cannot be militarily defeated.”References:Points of Resistance and Departure: An interview with James C. ScottLester Grau and Charles J. Bartles Mountain Warfare and Other Lofty Problems: Foreign mountain combat veterans discuss movement and maneuver, training and resupply (Helion Studies in Military History)Lester Grau The Bear Went Over The Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics In Afghanistan [Illustrated Edition]Lester Grau The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan WarMark Thompson The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919James C. Scott The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast AsiaSun Tzu The Art of WarCarl von Clausewitz On WarMiyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to StrategyH. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to WarfareChristian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareQiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy AmericaMy Substack:https://t.co/7a8jn2MmnxEmail at [email protected].

I am an un-credentialed amateur historian who has done very little archive work and lack the substantial infrastructure credentialed historians have to practice their craft. I have debated esteemed historians and won on stage (Daniel Walker Howe looked at my CV and did not prepare) but that doesn't make me better than them.I think my various detours in life mostly outside the formal academy gives me a unique insight into how history works and why I think I am more sober than university historians.I describe some of the reasons I do it and the techniques I employ to get the single most accurate picture of what happened then to determine what's going on now.I am the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute.Recommended Reading:Mortimer Adler How To Read a BookRobert Strassler The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika (Landmark Series)Mike Snook How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandlwana RevealedMike Snook Like Wolves on the Fold: The Defence of Rorke’s DriftDavid Stahel Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the EastDavid Hackett Fischer Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical ThoughtKeith Windschuttle The Killing of HistoryJohn Burrow A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth CenturyHarry Elmer Barnes A History of Historical WritingUS Army Center of Military HistoryMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

Here is Part One:Ep 058 "The Mexican Cartel Conundrum: War Without End Part One"We continue the inquiry into the implications and future returns on going kinetic in the drug war as elucidated by worthies in the new administration.I examine the implications and the second and third order effects of this endeavor which is, by extension, a declaration of war on the Mexican government.***Anyone attending the Special Operations Forces Week festivities in Tampa on 5-8 May 2025?If so, we should arrange a rendezvous.***References:Tom Wainwright Narconomics: How to Run a Drug CartelBenjamin T. Smith The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug TradeAnabel Hernandez Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their GodfathersIoan Grillo El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal InsurgencyDavid F. Marley Mexican Cartels: An Encyclopedia of Mexico's Crime and Drug WarsCarmen Boullosa A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”Patrick Winn Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Survived the CIAJesse Fink Pure Narco: One Man's True Story of 25 Years Inside the CartelsMark Santiago A Bad Peace and a Good War: Spain and the Mescalero Apache Uprising of 1795–1799Amy S. Greenberg A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of MexicoMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

Chasing Ghosts is back!There has been chatter and enthusiasm to use military means to take on the drugs and human trafficking organizations and cartels in Mexico (and I imagine the cartels in the north in Canada), this will not end well.I examine the implications and the second and third order effects of this endeavor which is, by extension, a declaration of war on the Mexican government.References:Benjamin T. Smith The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug TradeAnabel Hernandez Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their GodfathersIoan Grillo El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal InsurgencyDavid F. Marley Mexican Cartels: An Encyclopedia of Mexico's Crime and Drug WarsCarmen Boullosa A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”Patrick Winn Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Survived the CIAJesse Fink Pure Narco: One Man's True Story of 25 Years Inside the CartelsMark Santiago A Bad Peace and a Good War: Spain and the Mescalero Apache Uprising of 1795–1799Amy S. Greenberg A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of MexicoMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

I will be pausing Chasing Ghosts from its fortnightly cadence of issuance for the remainder of the year.I am taking the time to regroup and focus on the new occasional podcast series, WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast as a companion podcast focusing on conventional conflict and strategic thought.I think the new election results may be the time for the western military complexes to take a knee and refocus and re-calibrate strategic and grand strategic opportunities in addressing the real-time shortfalls in facing Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA) that are littering the battlefields of the 21st century.My first WarNotes series will be a comprehensive survey of how to fix the broken, shattered and most expensive paper tiger in the history of the world, the US military complex.The Fixing Fight Club series will be weekly until I finish the survey.The US is at a crossroads: continue to invest and spend on exquisite platforms that will simply be missile sponges in the emerging salvo competition landscape or retool a more thoughtful application of military power in concert with rationally extrapolating second and third order effects to stymie the pristine track record of military failure and stalemate since 1945.I suggest the American military complex has a mere generation to reset its arthritic, sclerotic and top heavy platforms and stratagems before irrelevance and abject systemic military failure becomes the sole avenue left.You can find the WarNotes podcast at my substack or look for it on your podcast vendor of choice.My SubstackEmail me at [email protected]

Mark Booher at Pearl Snap Tactical interviewed me discussing irregular warfare and the threat to the homeland.We discuss irregular warfare and the impacts of an up-sized catastrophic attack on the US homeland. We riff on and discuss my "Storming America" series (episodes 37, 41-43 and 49-50) on the CG podcast.The election results don't change the imminent danger but may alter the warp and woof of the probability and timeline of attack.Pearl Snap Tactical interview can be found here:https://substack.com/home/post/p-150848439?source=queueI talk about William Forstchen's "Day of Wrath" and Kurt Schlichter's "The Attack".References:William Forstchen Day of WrathKurt Schlichter The AttackMatt Bracken:Enemies Foreign and Domestic.Foreign Enemies And Traitors.Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista.The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun.Castigo Cay.Eric Frank Russell The WaspMichael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of FranceRobert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh MistressRobert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In HistoryMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]

I am the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute.They asked me to comment on the recent podcast interview between Ben Shapiro and Niall Ferguson which of course, was a reaction to Darryl Cooper's (Martyrmade Podcast) recent appearance on Tucker Carlson.I find members of the academic historian cartel (even "right of center" types like Ferguson) are horrified that non-credentialed historical observers are weighing in on the consequences of war in history. I urge everyone to deprogram yourselves and listen to the rogue but right historians like Martyrmade and ProfCJ's Dangerous History podcasts to get the better and more accurate view of what actually happened in the past that shapes our present.Here's what you must realize about war: wars are won by the least incompetent forces and the world will not be shiny and new at the conclusion but it will different.I address some of these issues.I would urge you to listen to CG podcast Episode 052 on Churchill for a more in-depth indictment of His Nibs.My blogging at the Libertarian Institute.My SubstackWrite me at [email protected]

The trillions dollar fragile American military complex is in big trouble in big war.It doesn't work.Robotics and drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platforms that are over priced and have the same provenance of battleships planet-wide in January 1942.Autonomous targeting will become more and more relevant as the speed of munitions increases and the salvo competition costs are driven down.Hypervelocity munitions are here to stay.The life of the light infantryman will change significantly since for the first time in human history, the cost of hunting individual soldiers and small groups of soldiers in an effective fashion has reached a cost in concert with technology [I will treat this with more detail in a future episode on the end of the legacy infantryman].In my next podcast, we will discuss how to recover from the current collapse."Quantity has a quality all of its own." - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.References:A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeArmy Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareDaniel Bolger Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan WarsCraig Whitlock The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the WarMy Substack.Email at [email protected].

Robotics and drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platform that are over priced and have the same provenance of battleships planet-wide in January 1942.The electronic emissions environment in future conflicts will be a two-way street that will put any active acquisition sensors and attached effectors in the hazards if they emit and remain in one place.Autonomous targeting will become more and more relevant as the speed of munitions increases and the salvo competition costs are driven down.Hypervelocity munitions are here to stay.The life of the light infantryman will change significantly since for the first time in human history, the cost of hunting individual soldiers and small groups of soldiers in an effective fashion has reached a cost in concert with technology [I will treat this with more detail in a future episode on the end of the legacy infantryman].The Russian Strike Reconnaissance Complex has come of age and the Russians have one of the most effective fires synchronization modalities on Earth. The system is now battle proven in the first near-peer and peer conflict of the 21st century.Fires synchronization is the effective coordination of sensors and effectors in near-real time or real time in a hostile non-permissive combat environment to bring the metal on target."Quantity has a quality all of its own." - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.References:A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of AgeArmy Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech WarfareLester Grau & Charles K. Bartles The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground ForcesDavid Glantz Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945 (Soviet (Russian) Study of War)David Glantz Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Soviet (Russian) Military Theory and Practice)Georgii Samoilovich Isserson G.S. Isserson and the War of the Future: Key Writings of a Soviet Military TheoristMy Substack.Email at [email protected].

This is an episode to examine what Churchill really did for the West after witnessing the emotional & ahistorical outbursts by the usual suspects after Darryl Cooper from the Martyrmade Podcast appeared on Tucker Carlson on 2 SEP 2024.I am simply addressing the claims of Churchill as "the chief villain" which I think was hyperbolic (Cooper accedes to this) because I think Churchill was one of many villains during WWII. I am a reluctant Anglophile and I think historical revisionism is a healthy reaction to triumphalist historiography in the West that has made questioning accepted narratives a scholar crime.Listen to the interview yourself before arriving at any conclusions.References:William Manchester The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965Andrew Roberts Churchill: Walking with DestinyDavid Reynolds In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World WarJohn Charmley Churchill: The End of Glory : A Political BiographyJohn Charmley Churchill's Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship 1940-57Gordan Corrigan BLOOD, SWEAT AND ARROGANCE: The Myth's of Churchill's WarMadhusree Mukerjee Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War IIThomas Ricks Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for FreedomPatrick J. Buchanan Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the WorldNicolai Tolstoy Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of the Allies: 1944-1947Robert A. Pape Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in WarRalph Raico on Rethinking ChurchillThe Libertarian Institute BlogMy SubstackEmail at [email protected]