The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 4 Oct 2024Was South Korea on the verge of invading North Korea in 1949? Today Indy looks at the bloody fighting across the Korean border in the years leading up to war. Then he asks the question, why did Kim finally decide to invade South Korea in the early months of 1950?
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October 5, 2024
Did South Korea Provoke the Korean War?
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October 3, 2024
QotD: Historical echoes in the American left and right
My initial impression is that the Juggs operate like the commies do/did. Fill in the boxes, even if nothing makes sense. Don’t take responsibility. It’s how one somehow gets a Brandon at the top.
The Trump movement does have some real [historical Nazi] characteristics. Many low-level people feel remarkably empowered to do things, to get creative to help the cause (and also make some coin; how many Trump medals, flags, and coffee cups does one buy?), and to get out there and just stir the pot for the Orange guy. Then we saw The Donald at the top not exercising real power, other than to exhort others to get shit done, whatever unnamed shit that needed doing.
My first run-through suggests that calling the Juggs and their minions “filthy commies” actually is not just a kneejerk response, but it lands mostly true, in the ways that matter. The Jugg argument that Trump and his people are a bunch of Nazis also has some real truthy elements to it as well (though the true elements are generally probably far afield from the Nazi stuff the Juggs have in mind).
Commies and Nazis gain traction when the basic job of governance is found lacking, and the caliber of people tasked with getting things back in line is not up to the task. Then the various totalitarian solutions become more popular. Even when the intentions are pure (I will give most of the Trump people that assumption), unfettered ambitions, allowed to flower, will go bad if the normal checks and balances of the system are all out of whack. It is just human nature.
Our systems are all out of whack. That is why AOC can call for impeachment of [six US Supreme Court justices] with a straight face, and there is no broadly based “hey, wait a minute, Bucko” response. Things might be too far gone, and there is no way to pull back into a system that actually well serves the average American (think of what constituencies the typical elected official actually serves — the deep state apparat, the ultra-rich guys, and the corporate lobbyists). It all means the Trump movement is a tool, not to restore something, but to accelerate the “get through it and start afresh”. With that in mind, the November results tend to be more of “six of one, half a dozen of the other” than people think they are.
“Dutch”, commenting on “How Juggs Think the World Works”, Founding Questions, 2024-07-02.
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October 2, 2024
QotD: Alternative history Operation Barbarossa
Knowing full well how dumb it is to bring up World War II on the Internet, consider that a pretty reasonable case can be constructed for Operation Barbarossa. Having purged all their competent, experienced officers, the Red Army had just gotten their clocks cleaned by the Finns in the Winter War. Yeah, the Soviets “won” in the end, but with that disparity of forces, there’s pretty much no possible “win” that doesn’t look like a loss … and the Soviets, to put it mildly, were nowhere near that best-case scenario. Moreover, even if you took the show trials for exactly that — kangaroo courts — their very existence showed there was a deep rift at the very top of the Soviet leadership. Anyone, not just Hitler, could be forgiven for thinking that the Soviet Union would collapse under one big sledgehammer blow.1
It works the other way, too. If we accept the “Suvorov Thesis”, that Hitler only attacked Stalin because Stalin was gearing up to attack Hitler, then we can easily construct a similar case from The Boss’s perspective: The Wehrmacht can’t play defense. The one time they came up against anything approaching a real opponent with technological parity (the Battle of Britain), it was at best a bloody draw, more than likely a stinging defeat. And the Hitler regime was reeling, internally. No show trials for der Führer, but Rudolf Hess, who was at least the number three man in the Reich and at the time Hitler’s heir apparent, had just defected to the British. Anyone, not just Stalin, could be forgiven for thinking that the Third Reich would collapse under one big sledgehammer blow.
See what I mean? Both of those cases are quite plausible, and fit with most known historical facts … and yet, they’re retcons. “Rationalizations” might even be a better word, because the thing is, even though those arguments are “logical”, and might indeed have been convincing to important people at the time, that’s not why Hitler did what he did, or why Stalin would’ve done what he would’ve done under the Suvorov Thesis. No, the truth is simpler, and much more horrifying: They would’ve done it anyway, because that’s who they were.
That’s what the Castle Wolfenstein people got right about the Nazis. Same deal with that Amazon show (which was interesting for a season) The Man in the High Castle. In the real world, there’s no possible way the Nazis could’ve invaded the USA, no matter how it turned out on the Eastern Front …
… but in the real world they would’ve tried nonetheless, somehow, because that’s just who they were. Everything Stalin, Khrushchev, et al did during the Cold War here in the real world, Hitler, Heydrich, and the gang would’ve done in the Castle Wolfenstein world where the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk went the other way.2 They couldn’t have done any different, without being different people, and while it’s fun to speculate on questions like “who would’ve been the Nazi Gorbachev, who self-destructed the Reich by attempting however you say ‘perestroika‘ in German”, it’s not really germane.
Severian, “The Man in the High Chair”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-07-05.
1. And Soviet losses were stupendous, utterly mind-boggling, in the first few months of Barbarossa. Tanks and planes destroyed in their tens of thousands, prisoners captured in millions. Even as it became clear that OKW had underestimated Red Army strength by orders of magnitude, it was still almost inconceivable that they had anything left to fight with. Just one more push …
2. This is actually the world of a fun novel, Robert Harris’s Fatherland.
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October 1, 2024
QotD: Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I
the houseRussia! — but even without knowing how horribly that turns out, you feel sorry for the guy. Napoleon thinks they have something important in common, and Alexander thinks Napoleon’s very existence is the enemy of the entire old world of authority and tradition and monarchy that he represents.Good thing the Russian Empire never gets decadent and unknowingly harbors the seeds of its own destruction!
John: Yeah, I think you’ve got the correct two finalists, but there’s one episode in particular on St. Helena that edges out his time bro-ing out with Tsar Alexander on the raft. It’s the supremely unlikely scene where old, beaten, obese, dying Napoleon strikes up a bizarre friendship with a young English girl. It all begins when she trolls him successfully over his army freezing to death in the smoldering ruins of Moscow, and after a moment of anger he takes an instant liking to her and starts pouring out his heart to her, teaching her all he knows about military strategy, and playing games in her parents’ yard where the two of them pretend to conquer Europe. Call me weird, but I think this above all really showcases Napoleon’s greatness of soul. That little girl later published her memoirs, btw, and I really want to read them someday.
Jane and John Psmith, “JOINT REVIEW: Napoleon the Great, by Andrew Roberts”, Mr. and Mrs. Psmith’s Bookshelf, 2023-01-21.
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September 21, 2024
The Dramatic Birth of Two Korean States
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 20 Sep 2024The United Nations plan is to reunite the divided Korean peninsula into a single state. But soon the USA and USSR have installed their own leaders, neither of whom are willing to compromise. By the end of 1948 Kim Il-Sung and Syngman Rhee stand at the head of separate North and South Korean states.
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September 15, 2024
The Occupation of Japan Begins – a WW2 Epilogue Special
World War Two
Published 14 Sep 2024The war is over and the occupation of Japan has begun. The country has largely been destroyed by Allied bombs, and shall be rebuilt, physically, economically, and even governmentally. But what will the new government be? What shall become of the Emperor? Who is to actually do the occupation? Today we look at all this and more.
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September 3, 2024
The End of World War Two – WW2 – Week 314B – September 2, 1945
World War Two
Published 2 Sep 2024The Japanese sign the official document of surrender and the Second World War is over. There are still some Japanese garrisons yet to surrender, but they begin doing so one after the other. However, war is not over — and there is serious foreboding for future events in places like Vietnam and China — where Mao Zedong is meeting with Chiang Kai-Shek, even as Josef Stalin lurks in the background to secure Soviet interests no matter which Chinese regime comes out on top.
00:00 Intro
00:59 Vietnam Declares Independence
04:04 The Importance Of Manchuria
06:28 Japan’s Surrender
11:22 The Final Surrenders
13:18 Casualties
15:50 The End
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September 1, 2024
Can Chiang and Mao Unite China? – WW2 – Week 314 – August 31, 1945
World War Two
Published 31 Aug 2024Mao Zedong takes his first ever journey by plane to go and meet with Chiang Kai-Shek. They begin what will be several weeks of talks and negotiations. However, Chiang is not aware that Josef Stalin is lurking in the background. And the Soviet Red Army is lurking in Manchuria, having defeated the Japanese there, and are giving tacit support to the Chinese Communists, whose power base is very strong in the north. As for Japan, a motley collection of Allied fleets arrives in Tokyo Bay, for Japan’s surrender document is to be officially signed two days from now.
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August 27, 2024
QotD: Who were the good guys?
A movie can get away with showing mostly shades of gray, but in the case of the Valkyrie plot, both shades are pretty damn close to black.
Nor was the 2008 movie, starring Tom Cruise, an isolated case. A few years earlier, Jude Law and Ed Harris squared off as dueling snipers in Enemy at the Gates … set during the Battle of Stalingrad. Who do you root for, the Nazi or the Commie? The producers opt for “commie”, obviously, but their attempts to humanize the Jude Law character are embarrassing — even if we accept Law’s character as totally apolitical, no movie featuring a political commissar in a vital supporting role, not to mention “cameos” by Khrushchev and Stalin himself, can fail to remind viewers that everyone involved was awful. Even the most gripping battle scenes (and to be fair, some of them were pretty good) can’t make up for the fact that the world would be a far, far better place if they somehow both could’ve lost.
Those are high-level failures, conceptual mistakes, the kind that professional storytellers simply shouldn’t make. Not only that, though, both movies have unforgivable mistakes in the execution, at almost every level. Tom Cruise, for instance, is comically miscast as Stauffenberg. I’ve written before about how weird it is that casting directors seem to obsess over finding actors who look like even obscure historical figures. Cruise looks a bit like Stauffenberg, I guess, but there’s simply no way a guy with his … ummm … distinctive acting style should be anywhere near a historical drama. Tom Cruise only ever really plays Tom Cruise, so “Tom Cruise dressed up as a Nazi” is really jarring.
And that’s before you consider the accents. Maybe Tom Cruise can’t do a German accent, I dunno. I seem to recall he did an Irish accent in a movie once, and that turned out ok, but again, whatever character he was playing was just “Tom Cruise with an Irish accent.” So maybe if you feel you must cast him as a German, letting him use his “natural” American accent is the way to go. But if you’re going to do that, please, for pete’s sake, make everyone else do an American accent, too. I know Kenneth Branagh can do one. So either cast guys who can do the right accent, or, failing that, who can do each other’s accent. Otherwise you get a huge, distracting mess.
Enemy at the Gates was actually worse: Law, Joseph Fiennes (the commissar), and Rachel Weisz (the love interest) all used their native British accents … but they’re different kinds of British accent, at least in Law’s case. Meanwhile, Ed Harris (the Nazi antagonist) uses the “neutral” American accent, while supporting player Ron Perlman, who is American, does a comically over-the-top Russian … as do the guys playing Khrushchev and Stalin. It’s just weird. In both movies, you’ve got supposedly tight groups of friends (or, at least, co-conspirators) talking to each other in wildly different accents. That kind of thing is bad enough in a movie like Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, which made no pretenses to historical accuracy; it’s movie-destroying in a supposedly serious, historically-based thriller.
Severian, “Storytelling Fail”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-07-13.
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August 25, 2024
Soviet Victory in Manchuria – WW2 – Week 313 – August 24, 1945
World War Two
Published 24 Aug 2024The Soviet Red Army completes its conquest of Manchuria and the northern half of Korea this week, although Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender already last week. Behind the scenes are machinations going on by Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong that they hope will lead to a Communist China in future. Vietnam might well be going communist right now, though, for the August revolution continues with the Viet Minh taking ever more control.
00:00 Intro
00:34 Recap
00:49 Chiang, Mao, and Stalin
07:32 Soviet victory in Manchuria
09:08 Viet Minh taking control
11:45 Summary
12:31 Conclusion
13:20 Julius Poole memorial
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August 18, 2024
Hirohito Announces Surrender – War Continues – WW2 – Week 312 – August 17, 1945
World War Two
Published 17 Aug 2024Hirohito broadcasts Japan’s surrender to the world- despite an attempted to coup to prevent it from happening, and much of the world celebrates, but the war isn’t really over. The Soviets are busy invading Manchuria, and there’s revolution in Vietnam and Indonesia.
00:00 Intro
00:22 Recap
00:49 Attempted Coup In Japan
04:12 Hirohito Surrenders
08:54 Japanese Surrender In China
12:05 Soviets In Manchuria
17:52 Revolution In Vietnam
20:33 Summary
21:07 Conclusion
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August 15, 2024
Yet another revisionist history of World War II
In the latest anonymous review at Astral Codex Ten, the book to be considered is How the War Was Won by Phillips Payson O’Brien:
To a first approximation, there are a million books about World War II. Why should you care about How the War Was Won (hereinafter “HtWWW”) by Phillips Payson O’Brien?
- It provides a new, transformative view of the conflict by focusing on production of key goods and what affected that production instead of the ups and downs of battles at the front.
- That particular lens used can (and should) be applied outside of just World War II, and you can get a feel for how that might be done by reading HtWWW.
- I have lectured about World War II and read many, many books about it. I have never texted friends more excerpts of a book than this one.
I have some criticisms of HtWWW, but if the criticisms dissuade you from reading the book, I will have failed. These complaints are like tut-tutting Einstein’s penmanship.
The Wikipedia-Level Story of World War II (and O’Brien’s Counterargument)
To understand why O’Brien’s argument is so novel, you need to know the modern-day conventional understanding of the story of World War II. Here is my summary of the conventional narrative of World War II:
- Germany conquered Poland and France. It tried to bomb the UK into submission/maybe enable an invasion. That effort failed when Germany was defeated in the Battle of Britain, thanks largely to the plucky efforts of British airmen (memorably summarized by Winston Churchill: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.)
- Stymied in the West, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, won a bunch of crushing victories, but then got turned back at the gates of Moscow. The Soviets moved all of their factories east of the Ural Mountains and produced a vast tide of T-34 tanks that overpowered the Germans.
- The Germans suffered a catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad and a bloody strategic defeat at Kursk, after which the Soviets relentlessly pounded Germany to defeat.
- The US and the UK sent a lot of material help and eventually fought the Germans too, most notably in the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. However, most of the fighting was done by the Soviets.
- It is very difficult to say how important the aerial bombing campaigns of the Western Allies were in defeating Germany. The Germans moved much of their production underground, insulating them from truly disastrous effects.
- The U.S. mostly fought alone against Japan, which won a series of impressive early victories (e.g., Pearl Harbor, the conquest of Singapore) until the decisive Battle of Midway, after which the vastly larger US industrial base outproduced Japan into oblivion.
- The US bombed the Japanese into submission by destroying Japanese cities, ultimately by dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
By examining where the Axis focused their productive capacities and how the Allies disrupted those capacities, O’Brien challenges virtually every part of that narrative:
- The Battle of Britain was not a close-run thing. The fact that British fighter planes were flying over their own territory meant their attrition rate of pilots and aircraft were far lower than the Germans’.
- American and British bombing mattered far more to the war’s outcome than the battles of the Eastern Front, which consumed a much smaller portion of German expenditures.
- American and British airpower made German battlefield victories on the Western Front virtually impossible and dramatically limited the force Germany could bring to bear in the East.
- Japan (really, Japan plus the giant empire it conquered at the beginning of the war) was an industrial behemoth to rival the Soviet Union. However, the destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet by American air and sea forces wrecked Japan’s economy.
- The firebombing of Japanese cities and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had an ambiguous strategic effect. American air power played a much more important role in severing Japan from the natural resources it had conquered in the early part of the war.
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August 11, 2024
The US drops two atomic bombs on Japan – WW2 – Week 311 – August 10, 1945
World War Two
Published 10 Aug 2024This week atomic bombs are for the first time in history dropped on cities — Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The bombs kill over 100,000 people and flatten large parts of the urban area. The Japanese government is actually meeting while the second bomb is dropped to consider their response to the first and to the demands for unconditional surrender. The response is not just to that first bomb, though, for on the 8th the Soviets tell the Japanese not only that they will not help them negotiate some sort of settled peace with the other Allies, they too are declaring war on Japan, and indeed invade Manchuria. With two atomic bombs and an invasion instead of mediating help, Japanese Emperor Hirohito cuts off any debate and says that Japan will surrender. This could happen next week.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Recap
00:44 Hiroshima Bombing
02:35 The Bombing Mission
04:19 Descriptions Of The Blast
06:38 The Nagasaki Bomb
07:37 The Tactics
08:31 The Japanese Response
12:55 Soviets Invade Manchuria
16:18 Splitting Korea
18:07 Operation Zipper
19:31 End Notes
20:08 Summary
20:30 Conclusion
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August 4, 2024
Mokusatsu! – WW2 – Week 310 – August 3, 1945
World War Two
Published 3 Aug 2024The Japanese reaction to the Allied ultimatum for unconditional surrender is … mokusatsu. This can be translated several ways, but all involve not giving a response. Meanwhile, materials for atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan are delivered to Tinian, though the ship making the delivery is sunk by a Japanese submarine days afterward. The active war continues in Burma and China, and the Potsdam Conference ends in Germany with the map of Poland very much re-drawn.
00:00 Intro
00:56 Mokusatsu
05:47 Delivering Atomic Material
07:22 Sinking The Indianapolis
09:26 Bombing Japan
12:22 The War In Burma And China
14:07 Potsdam Confernece Ends
17:02 Conclusion
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July 28, 2024
Allies Issue Potsdam Declaration – WW2 – Week 309 – July 27, 1945
World War Two
Published 27 Jul 2024China, Britain, and the US issue a Declaration demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender, and promising complete destruction if this does not happen and happen soon. The plan is to for the Americans to use their atomic bombs on Japan if she does not comply, but by the end of the week the Japanese have not replied. They still have hopes for the Soviets to mediate some sort sort of peace. What they don’t have is a navy, as its final destruction comes this week.
00:00 Intro
00:50 Recap
01:32 The Potsdam Conference
04:41 Japanese Hopes
05:56 The Potsdam Declaration
10:53 The Initial Reaction
14:48 The End Of The Japanese Navy
15:05 The War On Land
19:10 Summary
19:30 Conclusion
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