Ep 040 "The Middle East: Shuffling to the Apocalypse (Part Two)""
In the next American conflict, the fight will come home and the likelihood becomes more and more probable every day. Atomics may be in our future.
Publishers Note: This episode will be an addendum to my initial coverage in October 2023 of the Gaza-Israel conflict in Episode 027 and riffing off the domestic implications in Episode 037 of a similar attack on CONUS. If you wish to listen to those before you do this one, you may but I have crafted this so that isn’t necessary.
I finished reading “Sand and Steel: The D-Day Invasion and the Liberation of France” by Peter Caddick-Adams, and I am now reading his follow-on book, “Snow & Steel: The Battle of the Bulge 1944-45” in which he also highlights the victory fever that fatally compromised Operation Market Garden in Arnhem in Holland and seriously compromised the Allied response to the Ardennes offensive in December 1944. Like Ian Toll’s Pacific trilogy, this is a masterful treatise with the depth, scholarship and footnotes that give new insights.
History rhymes and we see the same thing with the tremendous triumphalist narrative in the west right now that they can best any martial opponent on Earth despite a near perfect record of military failure since 1945.
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Some housekeeping:
I have taken a break from Gab and Twitter; I returned to Twitter after years away to help promote the podcast and I have had to tame the vampire by severely restricting the time I spend on it. I will surface to periscope depth on both social media accounts on Sunday mornings but not between to better focus on projects I am tackling. Please use the messaging function on those if you wish to chat.
And I am leveraging the Notes feature here at Substack to post my brain-zephyrs occasionally.
I wanted to personally thank my sixteen paid subscribers: RW, BB, Craig B, Kurt K, Pete, Will, John, John H, GS65, GW, R5, KK, V1Z, DC, PO and OLM.
I wanted to thank my personal correspondents who reach out to me at cgpodcast@pm.me.
I encourage everyone to use the comments function here at substack to tease out the conversation.
Like the podcast, let me know via gentlemanly correspondence if there is an issue you’d like for me to ponder or make recommendations for improvements or episodes. -BB
References:
William Forstchen Day of Wrath
Kurt Schlichter The Attack
Enemies Foreign and Domestic.
Foreign Enemies And Traitors.
Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista.
The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun.
Castigo Cay.
Eric Frank Russell The Wasp
Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (and the entire Freehold series)
Ernest R. May Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France
Robert Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History
Write me at cgpodcast@pm.me
Another great listen Bill! I think part of American hubris is most people truly don't understand what a victory or defeat is. We, as a nation, see a F35 stock photo and then a bomb blowing up and think 'we are winning!'. If your listeners are interested in hearing more of the plight of our defense manufacturing point em over to 'America's Waning Power'.
Another wild point on the Vertical launch systems i recently discovered (forget the source), They cannot be re-armed at sea!!! They have to return to specialized ports to rearm and the Navy's answer was to make 'mobile ports' to cover this gap for now.
https://www.eomar.news/p/americas-waning-power?r=b9f3l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Excellent. I'm reading The Devil's Chessboard at the moment. It's disheartening actually. And not very kind to Eisenhower. I'll have to read the book Ike's Bluff, perhaps as an antidote.