03 October 2010

Short Break

Since foreign policy has been (relatively) slow as of late, I'll be resuming my studies on the American Revolution, as well as doing some much-needed reading on the Falkland Islands War of 1982.  I also have some reading on the topic of conscription for an upcoming paper I'll be writing for Offiziere.ch.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the debate on the civil-military relationship at Joint Forces Quarterly, Small Wars Journal, Themistocles' Shade, and the Wall Street Journal.  You might also want to take a look at Elisabeth Bumiller's latest article on Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan.

(I can just see the Great Satan's Girlfriend writing about FETs in a blog post entitled "Grrrl Power".  What says you, GSGF?)

7 comments:

Michael said...

What are you reading re: Falklands? I read Sandy Woodward's memoir on it but not much else. I learned quite a few things from it but the one major point of horror had to be how they learned that polyester is not a good material for uniforms when there are ship fires...

Starbuck said...

It's called "Battle for the Falklands" by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins. (it's linked to in the post)

Only a few pages into it so far, so it's hard to judge.

Sabers8th said...

Watcha reading for the American Revolution?

Kelly

Starbuck said...

Piers Macksey's "The War for America" (also a link to it in the post). Tom Ricks recommended it a while back, claiming it's an excellent book on grand strategy, written from the British point of view.

It does a good job of examining the difficulty in countering an insurgency overseas, while also balancing against more pressing threats from nation-states.

Sabers8th said...

I have leafed through that for my class seems very interesting. Have you looked at TH Breen American Insurgents American Patriots? http://www.amazon.com/American-Insurgents-Patriots-Revolution-People/dp/0809075881 A excellent book on the grass roots of the American Revolution.

Herbal said...

Starbuck, that's the book on the Falklands they gave us at USNA back in '88. I've gone back to it many times to explain to people why airborne early warning aircraft are important and to explain why invincible navies aren't invincible.

courtneyme109 said...

Oh Snap!

http://greatsatansgirlfriend.blogspot.com/2009/08/grrl-power.html

"To Rule The Waves" by Arthur Herman has a great chapter on the Falklands too