Category: All Modern War

The study of war from the end of WWII to present day.

Cold War military history book – “Rough Draft” (Cornell University Press, 2019) – Amy Rutenberg interview

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Check out this book here https://amzn.to/3dHHiZ6

Dr. Amy Rutenberg studies gender history. Her first book is about the US draft during the Cold War, especially during the Vietnam War. We discussed the book.

0:56 – Amy talks about how she got into writing on the US draft of the early 20th century.

2:08 – Amy talks about the focus of the book on why it became socially acceptable for men to avoid the Vietnam War.

4:01 – Amy talks about how the draft was applied to various social classes in the US.

10:26 – Amy talks about what the active duty thought about DoD draft policies.

13:42 – Amy talks about when the draft was in place and when it was used.

14:30 – Amy talks about how the book is broken down. It goes chronologically starting with WWII.

15:32 – Amy talks about the idea of masculinity and the draft and enlistment.

18:35 – Amy talks about protests against the Vietnam War and draft changes.

19:51 – Amy talks about the ideas of nuclear war and the strategic goals of the draft.

22:27 – Amy goes into detail about the Selective Service Boards.

23:40 – Amy explains the interaction between the Selective Service and the draft.

26:20 – Amy talks the use of soldiers in testing nuclear weapons.

27:31 – Amy describes how the services requested draftees.

29:06 – Amy talks about the pros and cons versus being drafted versus enlisting.

31:49 – Amy talks about how she researched the book. She also goes into detail about

draft counseling and conscientious objection.

37:03 – Amy talks about the tension between supporting wars but not volunteering to go.

38:10 – Amy talks about new things she discovered about the draft during WWII and how people approached it.

40:22 – Amy talks about deferments.

43:02 – Amy discusses some of the issues women faced with the draft.

45:00 – Amy goes into details about conscientious objector deferments.

47:20 – Amy discusses who were getting these deferments created and changed.

55:57 – Amy can be found on twitter @amyjay401.

Links of interest

https://amzn.to/3dHHiZ6

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501739583/rough-draft/#bookTabs=1

https://twitter.com/amyjay401

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me at www.warscholar.org, on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar. Or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

Guests: Amy Rutenberg

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, gender, world war two, WWII, draft, deferment, STEM, McNamara, cold war, vietnam war, project one hundred thousand, infantry, selective service, US Congress, conscription, Carter, Afghanistan, National Archives, draft counseling, Lewis Hershey

Check out this book here https://amzn.to/3dHHiZ6

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Vietnam War history book – “Vietnam An Epic Tragedy: 1945-1975” (Harper, 2018) – Sir Max Hastings interview

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Sir Max Hastings reported on the Vietnam War early in his prolific career as a journalist. He’s been a BBC correspondent, editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, and editor of The Evening Standard. He’s written numerous books on military matters and has won numerous awards. We spoke about his most recent book on the Vietnam War.

1:01 – Sir Max explains how he got into writing on the Vietnam War. When he first reported on the war he didn’t think he’d end up writing a book on the war.

4:30 – Sir Max wants to make sure that readers understand the atrocities that the North Vietnam was inflicting on people that were hidden from view during the war.

6:39 – Sir Max discusses the problems with South Vietnam leadership.

9:00 – Sir Max talks about how Ho Chi Minh was able to control the situation in Vietnam. He also talks about the mistakes the French made in Vietnam.

12:43 – Sir Max talks about what he chose to tell in this 30 year story. He talks about he drove around the US to interview people who had been in the war, both veterans and Vietnamese.

15:01 – Sir Max talks about interviewing former Air Force navigator and Vietnam POW Norm McDaniel. He also discusses the touching reminisces of a nurse who was in Vietnam.

18:02 – Sir Max talks about the main themes of the book. He believes in the use of force to protect national interest but cultural and social links are needed between the US and the place they are operating in.

20:33 – Sir Max talked to retired Marine General Walt Boomer who provided Sir Max with important thoughts on Vietnam.

22:44 – Sir Max talks about the problems with sustaining public support for the Vietnam War.

24:42 – Sir Max compares British support for the Falklands Islands War to American support for Vietnam.

27:24 – Sir Max talks about the research he did. He used the Marine Corps and the Army historical archives. He also consulted with a retired CIA officer and Vietnamese linguist who has been translating Vietnamese documents, North and South, on the war for decades. Sir Max talks about Vietnamese information he got on a disastrous Marine battle at Di-do. He also came across a North Vietnam novel which was a thinly veiled history of the war from the North Vietnamese side.

31:38 – Sir Max has included material on what was going on in North Vietnam too. All the North Vietnamese thought about was food since they had so many problems with getting it.

33:10 – Sir Max also interviewed Doug Ramsey who was a Vietnam POW for seven years. Despite the ordeal, Doug had a couple of amusing anecdotes about his time.

35:14 – His favorite part of the research was talking to people.

36:48 – Sir Max talks about an interview he did with a former corpsman who often goes to the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, DC.

40:18 – Sir Max mentions having a good interpreter in Hanoi when he did research there.

42:24 – Sir Max mentions a sobering talk with a Holocaust victim.

45:00 – The Chinese and Soviets wanted out of Vietnam almost as much as the US did.

46:53 – Both North and South Vietnam became police states.

49:22 – Sir Max talks about how the media was handled during the war.

50:27 – Sir Max talks about the time he saw a dead soldier’s guts spilling out and how it affected him.

55:23 – Sir Max talks about the Troubles in Ireland which he covered extensively as a journalist. He mentions how US troops had not been taught street fighting even though they ended up having to do it.

1:02:45 – Sir Max had help from a Russian translator who helped with getting information on Russian air defense units in Vietnam.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, vietnam war, ho chi minh, france, United States, Irleand, the Troubles, POWs

Russian and modern war history book – “Russian Hybrid Warfare” (Oxford University Press, 2018) – Ofer Fridman interview

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Ofer Fridman is an academic who has studied Russian military thinking for many years. We discussed his latest book on the concept of Russian Hybrid Warfare.

1:45 – Ofer talks about how he got into studying this topic of Hybrid Warfare. He found that Russia and the West saw hybrid warfare in two different ways.

7:39 – The term hybrid warfare is relatively new, maybe ten years old. The word is new but the phenomena is not.

10:02 – Ofer doesn’t like the term the term hybrid warfare. Three different concepts fall uner the term hybrid warfare.

12:20 – Partisans used to have access to the same weapons the armies had. But now the technology used by each is very different.

17:10 – In WWII, Russian partisans were fighting in different spaces than the regular Army.

20:35 – Ofer talks about the problem with the term in that it covers everything and thus nothing.

24:00 – War is a very definite concept. To call economic sanctions a war helps with politics but it confuses people as far as what a military can do.

25:45 – Ofer discusses the Ukraine example.

32:20 – Ofer talks about how he did his research.

34:30 – Russians believe they lost the Cold War in a very non-military way. The best students of the last war are those who were defeated but not conquered as the Russians experienced and the Germans after WWI.

40:30 – Ofer discusses a funny story about an early NATO documentary on hybrid warfare.

43:00 – Ofer discusses an interesting person named Yevgeny Messner. He was born in the late 19th century and did a lot of research on military matters. He was a Russian who fought the communists and then joined the Nazis in WWII. He then escaped to Argentina. Ofer talks about how his writings led to formal thinking about hybrid warfare.

50:30 – The purpose of war has become an undermining the adversary’s society since nuclear war has limited other military options.

58:07 – Putin is very clear as to what he plans to do. The West seems to miss his messages.

1:03:46 – Russians have their own version of Clausewitz. Western analysis of Russia often doesn’t look before the Soviet Union. The Russians have three ways of thinking about war. Soviet, Russian Imperial and Russian exiles way of thinking. Many Westerners are unaware of lots of this writing.

1:08:55 – He has a page on academia.edu.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Ofer Fridman

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, hybrid warfare, Russia, the West, Ukraine, 2014, WWII, partisans, Hoffman, Cold War, Russian Revolution