Adam Smith Institute
Published 3 Jan 2025In November 2023, Argentina elected Javier Milei, a libertarian economist armed with a chainsaw and a bold plan to rescue the country from decades of decline. Facing 142% inflation, a crumbling peso, and 40% poverty, Milei slashed spending, deregulated markets, and delivered a historic budget surplus — all within a year.
Sam Bidwell dives into Milei’s radical reforms, exploring the challenges that have made them necessary. He traces the country’s rise as a global economic powerhouse in the early 20th century, its decline through years of government intervention and Peronism, and its resurgence under Milei’s leadership.
Discover how this fiery libertarian turned Argentina’s economic fortunes around — and what the world can learn from his audacious blueprint for recovery.
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00:00 Start
00:53 Golden Years
02:59 Decline of Argentina
05:20 Peron
08:47 The Legacy of Peronism
11:56 After the Falklands
15:38 Javier Milei
18:17 Challenges
24:31 Lesson for the UK and the wider world
January 4, 2025
December 24, 2024
The Korean War 027 – The US General Dies! – December 24, 1950
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 24 Dec 2024UN forces commander Douglas MacArthur continues to insist more troops are needed to fight the Chinese Communists. They aren’t coming anytime soon. But UN troops in the North do at least pull off a miraculous evacuation from Hungnam and arrive in South Korea and begin defensive preparations, as Eighth Army commander Walton Walker embarks on an ill-fated trip north of Seoul…
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December 18, 2024
The Korean War 026 – Chinese Victory in North Korea Complete – December 17, 1950
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 17 Dec 2024The last UN forces still in the northern half of Korea begin their frantic retreat by sea. The evacuation is a huge operation involving over 100,000 men, and needs to go off smoothly if the UN want any hope of halting the Chinese advance. Eighth Army, who spend this week retreating, are certainly not up to the task on their own.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:50 Recap
01:07 Failures of Command
05:36 Hungnam Evacuation
09:02 Eighth Army Situation
13:07 National Emergency
14:12 Conclusion
15:48 CTA
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December 13, 2024
Modern (western) armies never seem to have enough infantry, no matter how high-tech the battlefield gets
Over the last century, one of the apparent constants in military doctrine has been that the latest and greatest technical innovation has somehow eclipsed the importance of boring old infantry units. Tanks were the future! No, tactical airpower was the future! No, nuclear weapons were the future! No, airmobile and helicopter units were the future! No, drones are the future! Yet every time the guns started firing, the limiting factor always seemed to be “not enough infantry” (at least among western militaries). You definitely needed more specialist and support units to handle the latest whizzy toys being deployed, yet it was still the infantry who mattered in the end. That’s just me noodling … it’s only loosely related to the rest of the post.
In my weekly recommendations list from Substack, they included this post from Bazaar of War which discusses the changes in organization of tactical and operation level units over time to best meet the needs of the modern battlefield:
Command post for a single battalion-sized element in a brigade combat team.
Photo by Sgt Anita Stratton, US Army.
Modern ground forces are torn between two competing demands, for infantry and for enablers. Urban operations and large-scale combat over the past decade demonstrate that infantry remains just as essential as ever. Yet that same infantry needs a lot of low-level support just to survive and remain effective: drone operators, EW, and engineers, not to mention armor and artillery. This poses an obvious dilemma for force management—not least when faced with competing demands for air, naval, and missile assets—but also raises questions about force structure.
Organizing the Force
One of the key decisions in how future wars will be fought is what will be the primary tactical unit. Inevitably, certain command levels are much more important than others: those which require greater freedom from higher headquarters than they allow their own subordinates. This partly comes down to a question of where the combined-arms fight is best coordinated, which in turn depends heavily on technology.
This has varied a lot over time. The main tactical formation of the Napoleonic army was the corps, which had organic artillery, cavalry, and engineers that allowed it to fight independent actions with a versatility not available to smaller units. The Western Front of World War II was a war of divisions at the tactical level and armies at the operational, a pattern which continued through the Cold War. The US Army shifted to a brigade model during the GWOT era, on the assumption that future deployments would be smaller scale and lower intensity; only recently has it made the decision to return to a divisional model. Russia also switched to a brigade model around this time, although more for cost and manpower reasons.
Tweaking the Hierarchy
At the same time, certain echelons have disappeared altogether. The subdivisions of Western armies reached their greatest extent in World War I, as new ones were added at the extremities of the model standardized during the French Revolution: fireteams/squads to execute trench raids, army groups to manage large sections of the front. At the same time, cuts were made around the middle. Machine guns were pushed from the regimental level down to battalions over the course of the war, reducing the number of these bulkier regiments in a division; this accordingly eliminated the need for brigades as a tactical unit.
This continued with the next major war. More organic supporting arms and increased mobility made combat more dispersed, creating the need for supply, communications, intelligence, and medical support at lower levels. As units at each echelon grew fatter, it became too cumbersome to have six separate headquarters from battalion to field army. Midway through World War II, the Soviets followed the Western example of eliminating brigades, and got rid of corps to boot (excepting ad-hoc and specialized formations). During the Cold War, the increasing use of combined arms at a lower level caused most NATO militaries to eliminate the regiment/brigade distinction altogether: the majority favored the larger brigade, which could receive supporting units to fight as a brigade combat team, although the US Marines retained regiments as brigades in all but name (the French, by contrast, got rid of most of their battalions, preferring regiments formed of many companies).
December 10, 2024
M47 – The Most Boring Tank Ever? | Tank Chat #178
The Tank Museum
Published Aug 9, 2024The US built M47 probably isn’t the most interesting tank in history – but it was a vital part of NATO’s Cold War tank force.
Rushed into production at the outbreak of the Korean War, it never saw active service with the US military and was quickly superseded by the M48.
But large numbers were supplied to US Allies around the world – with Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Jordan, Pakistan and Austria being among the most significant users.
Probably the most famous M47 crewman of all, Arnold Schwarzenegger, served on the tank during his National Service.
00:00 | Intro
01:05 | M46 Sees Service in Korea
02:56 | Development Problems – And a Stop Gap
10:57 | Short Lived US service
12:47 | But An Export Success
15:24 | M47 plugs the gap for the US Army – goes on to serve abroad
15:46 | The Tank Museum’s M47 Restoration Project
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QotD: Nuclear deterrence and the start of the Cold War
Understanding the development of US nuclear doctrine and NATO requires understanding the western allies’ position after the end of WWII. In Britain, France and the United States, there was no political constituency, after the war was over, to remain at anything like full mobilization and so consequently the allies substantially demobilized following the war. By contrast, the USSR did not demobilize to anything like the same degree, leaving the USSR with substantial conventional military superiority in Eastern Europe (in part because, of course, Stalin and later Soviet leaders did not have to cater to public sentiment about defense spending). The USSR also ended the war having annexed several countries in whole or in part (including eastern Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Finland and bits of Romania) and creating non-democratic puppet governments over much of the rest of Eastern Europe. American fears that the USSR planned to attempt to further extend its control were effectively confirmed in 1948 by the Russian-backed coup in Czechoslovakia creating communist one-party rule there and by the June 1948 decision by Stalin to begin the Berlin Blockade in an effort to force the allies from Berlin as a prelude to bringing all of Germany, including the allied sectors which would become West Germany (that is, the Federal Republic of Germany).
It’s important, I think, for us to be clear-eyed here about what the USSR was during the Cold War – while the USSR made opportunistic use of anti-imperialist rhetoric against western powers (which were, it must be noted, also imperial powers), the Soviet Union was also very clearly an empire. Indeed, it was an empire of a very traditional kind, in which a core demographic (ethnic Russians were substantially over-represented in central leadership) led by an imperial elite (Communist party members) extracted resources, labor and manpower from a politically subordinated periphery (both the other Soviet Socialist Republics that composed the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries) for the benefit of the imperial elite and the core. While the USSR presented itself as notionally federal in nature, it was in fact extremely centralized and dominated by a relatively small elite.
So when Western planners planned based on fears that the highly militarized expansionist territorial empire openly committed to an expansionist ideology and actively trying to lever out opposing governments from central (not eastern) Europe might try to expand further, they weren’t simply imagining things. This is not to say everything they did in response was wise, moral or legal; much of it wasn’t. There is a certain sort of childish error which assumes that because the “West” did some unsavory things during the Cold War, that means that the threat of the Soviet Union wasn’t real; we must put away such childish things. The fear had a very real basis.
Direct military action against the USSR with conventional forces was both politically unacceptable even before the USSR tested its first nuclear weapons – voters in Britain, France or the United States did not want another world war; two was quite enough – and also militarily impossible as Soviet forces in Europe substantially outnumbered their Western opponents. Soviet leaders, by contrast, were not nearly so constrained by public opinion (as shown by their strategic decision to limit demobilization, something the democracies simply couldn’t do).
This context – a west (soon to be NATO) that is working from the assumption that the USSR is expansionist (which it was) and that western forces would be weaker than Soviet forces in conventional warfare (which they were) – provides the foundation for how deterrence theory would develop.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Nuclear Deterrence 101”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2022-03-11.
December 4, 2024
The Korean War Week 024 – Marines Attacked at Chosin Reservoir – December 3, 1950
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 3 Dec 2024On and around the frozen waters of the Chosin Reservoir, the US Marines and the Chinese Communist forces fight out a brutal battle. In the west, the Chinese offensive continues. For the UN forces, there is no chance of victory, but living to fight another day may yet be possible.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:48 Recap
01:11 Chosin Reservoir Prelude
03:58 Yudam-ni
06:32 Task Force Faith
08:25 Hagaru
12:58 The Aftermath of Chosin
14:49 The Tokyo Conference
15:56 Wawon and Kunu-ri
20:30 Summary
20:42 Conclusion
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November 26, 2024
The ghost airport of Nicosia: Rare glimpse inside the abandoned 1974 battleground
Forces News
Published Jul 20, 2024Nicosia International Airport was once a busy hub full of holidaymakers but since the Cyprus conflict of 1974, it has been frozen in time.
Today, the disused airport resembles a ghost town as it sits abandoned in the 180km buffer zone dividing the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish-occupied north.
On the 50th anniversary of the conflict, Forces News goes inside the eerie airport and learns how it became the site of a major battle.
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November 24, 2024
How Allied and Nazi Generals Created the Clean Wehrmacht Myth
World War Two
Published 23 Nov 2024After the fall of the Third Reich, many of Hitler’s generals are convicted as war criminals by the Allies and condemned to prison and disgrace. Yet, within a few years, the Western Powers embrace them Cold War partners against the Soviet Union. In this new alliance, they rewrite history and create the enduring myth of the “clean Wehrmacht“.
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November 23, 2024
How the US Paranoia of Leftism was Born
World War Two
Published 21 Nov 2024Elizabeth Bentley’s defection in 1945 didn’t just expose a Soviet spy network — it fueled America’s second Red Scare and a wave of anti-communist paranoia. Her revelations about Soviet infiltration within the U.S. government became a catalyst for McCarthyism, reshaping American politics and society in an era defined by fear and suspicion.
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November 19, 2024
WF-51: A Swiss Intermediate-Cartridge Copy of the FG-42
Forgotten Weapons
Published Aug 5, 2024After World War Two the Swiss needed a new self-loading military rifle to replace their K-31 bolt actions. Two major design tracks followed; one being a roller-delayed system based on the G3 at SIG and the other being a derivative of the German FG-42 at Waffenfabrik Bern. Bern, under the direction of Adolph Furrer, had been experimenting with intermediate cartridges since the 1920s, and they used this as a basis to develop an improved FG-42 using an intermediate cartridge (7.5x38mm). The program began in 1951 and went through about a half dozen major iterations until it ultimately lost to the SIG program (which produced the Stgw-57).
Today we are looking at one of the first steps in the Bern program, the WF-51. The most substantial change form the FG42 design here is the use of a tilting bolt instead of a rotating bolt like the Germans used. It is a beautifully manufactured firearm, and a real pleasure to take a look at …
Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film and disassemble this rifle! The NFC collection there — perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe — is available by appointment to researchers:
https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:
https://royalarmouries.org/collection/
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November 9, 2024
Did US Indecision Encourage Stalin in Korea?
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 8 Nov 2024In March 1950, Stalin finally approves Kim Il-sung’s plans for an invasion of South Korea. But why now? Today Indy looks at the wider Cold War context that fed into Stalin and Mao Zedong’s decision making. He also examines whether the lack of a clear and public commitment from the US to defend the Asian theatre helped to invite the invasion.
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History of SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) use in the US Army
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jul 26, 2024The first squad automatic weapon used by the US Army was the French Mle 1915 Chauchat, which was the primary LMG or automatic rifle for troops in the American Expeditionary Force in World War One. At that time, the Chauchat was a company-level weapon assigned where the company commander thought best. In World War Two, the Chauchat had been replaced by the BAR, and one BAR gunner was in each 12-man rifle platoon. The BAR was treated like a heavy rifle though, and not like a support weapon as light machine guns were in most other armies.
After Korea the value of the BAR was given more consideration and two were put in each squad instead of one, but the M14 replaced the BAR before it could gain any greater doctrinal importance. The M14 was intended to basically go back to the World War Two notion of every man equipped with a very capable individual weapon, and the squad having excellent flexibility and mobility by not being burdened with a supporting machine gun. The M60 machine guns were once again treated as higher-level weapons, to be attached to rifle squads as needed.
After Vietnam, experiments with different unit organization — and with the Stoner 63 machine guns — led to the decision that a machine gun needed to be incorporated into the rifle squad. This led to the request for what became the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, and its adoption in the 1980s. At last, the American rifle squad included an organic supporting machine gun.
Today, the USMC is once again going back to the earlier model with every rifleman carrying the same weapon, now an M27 Individual Automatic Rifle. The Army may also change its organizational structure with the new XM7 and XM250 rifle and machine gun, but only time will tell …
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November 2, 2024
The Short SA.4 Sperrin; Britain’s Back-Up, Back-up Nuclear Bomber
Ed Nash’s Military Matters
Published Jul 9, 2024No, I have no idea how you pronounce “Gyron”.
October 25, 2024
How a Soviet Clerk Took Down a Spy Network
World War Two
Published 24 Oct 2024Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet cipher clerk in Canada, defected in 1945, bringing with him documents that revealed a massive Soviet espionage network in the West. His actions forced the world to confront Soviet infiltration, shifting global politics and igniting early Cold War tensions. This episode uncovers how one man’s bravery exposed a hidden war.
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