The DUSTY SHELVES series welcomes Mitchell Klingenberg to dust off Victor Davis Hanson’s The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny. Klingenberg examines Hanson’s analysis of the human personalities of Epaminondas of Thebes, William T. Sherman, and George S. Patton. Looking at the nature and character of war through the actions of these three leaders, Hanson illustrates the imperative of a nation to exercise moral authority through armed conflict when confronted with evil.
Tag Archives: Civil War
THE ARMY’S ROBERT E. LEE PROBLEM
On 5 February, 2021, newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed military leaders to lead a one-day stand-down within the next 60 days to address extremism within the nation’s armed forces. That same afternoon our Editor-In Chief, Jacqueline Whitt sat down with Ty Seidule in the virtual studio to record this episode. Seidule, a prominent figure in the conversation about extremism, has long fought against the veneration of Robert E. Lee and the Confederate cause in the Army, specifically at the United States Military Academy. His 2015 video on Prager University, “Was the Civil War About Slavery?” has been viewed over 34 million times. And his newest book Robert E. Lee and Me is drawing both praise and anger. Their discussion ranges from his childhood in the south to his time at West Point as the Head of the Department of History, and what he’s been doing since his retirement as a brigadier general in 2020.
LESSONS FROM SYRIA’S LOW-PROFILE NARRATIVE WAR
These accounts and portraits exemplify a conflict fought parallel to, but distinct from, the fight for physical territory… As the threat of disinformation enters the public consciousness, the scale of the problem already confounds the effective implementation of counterstrategies. There is evidence of incremental progress within the ongoing information arms race against high-profile, government-led disinformation […]
BATTLE CRY: A COMPREHENSIVE CIVIL WAR STUDY (DUSTY SHELVES)
Before speculating about another civil war, one should properly understand the first – the reasons for it, its conduct, and its legacy. Many of the tumultuous events in the past few months can trace their origins to the Civil War. Long-simmering racial tensions, rooted in America’s slave-owning past, boiled over after George Floyd died. Protestors […]
GREAT WAR IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION OF AFRICA
It’s very hard to implement a long term development project when rebels might overrun and destroy or steal whatever you’ve implemented. To say that Central Africa has been a tumultuous region for the last three decades is an understatement. Genocide, civil and proxy wars and disease have lead to a death count that numbers in […]
THE PARTNERSHIP OF ROBERT E. LEE AND STONEWALL JACKSON (GREAT CAPTAINS)
As the Campaigns of 1862 move forward, Lee turns to Jackson more and more for counsel A BETTER PEACE continues its Great Captains series with a look at a leadership team, rather than an individual. In this episode, U.S. Army War College Professor of History Christian Keller argues that the strategic teaming of Generals Robert […]
WILLIAM T. SHERMAN: THE FIRST ‘MODERN’ GENERAL (GREAT CAPTAINS)
He understands the psychology of war matters, and he is intent on trying to get the war over as quickly as possible. We continue our series on Great Captains with a look at William Tecumseh Sherman, one of the more controversial figures in the Civil War due to his actions in the South during the […]
THE VEXING AND COMPLEX CIVIL WAR IN SYRIA
It is difficult to describe just the unbelievable amount of destruction that Syria has gone through… since 2011. WAR ROOM welcomes Dean of the U.S. Air War College Christopher Hemmer to the studio to explain the historical and present-day contexts of the on-going civil war in Syria. With possibly over 500,000 killed and untold […]
BELIEVING IS SEEING: ON STRATEGIC IMAGINATION
American national security strategy is generally unimaginative. It is too often constrained by a rigid, unimaginative pursuit of optimal objectives… It needs the constructive, creative impulse that characterizes great strategy. On May 7, 1864, the battle-weary soldiers of the Army of the Potomac awoke expecting to retreat north (yet again) from their nemeses – the […]