Category: All Modern War

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

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

Modern warfare book – “The Decline of European Naval Forces” (Naval Institute Press, 2018) – Jeremy Stöhs interview

Jeremy Stöhs is an Austrian-American defense analyst at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University and its adjunct Center for Maritime Security & Strategy. I interviewed him about his new book “The Decline of European Naval Forces.”

1:28 – Jeremy talks about where his interest in history started. His parents were his first inspiration. He did mandatory military service in Austria and then joined the police for a short time. Then he left the police and studied history. He joined a think tank about intelligence matters, historic and contemporary security matters.

3:52 – He studies the period of the 80s to the end of the Cold War. Much information is classified so he needs to use other open sources.

6:50 – There is no comprehensive overview of European navies since the end of the Cold War.

9:07 – Some nations at the end of the Cold War prudently saw the end of the Soviet Union coming. But many did not. Most were focused on waging a conventional or nuclear war against a peer adversary. They were focused on controlling sea lines of communication. The US naval strategy was to put pressure on the Soviet flanks and the NATO countries followed the US lead. Sea control and sea denial and controlling SLOCs.

13:22 – Jeremy includes 11 European nations in his study. Denmark and Germany quickly shifted to out of area deployments. Britain switched from anti-submarine warfare to focusing on out of area deployments.

15:23 – Maritime traffic increased year by year after the end of the Cold War. A lot of maritime traffic has moved to Asia. Small conflicts popped up after the Cold War and European navies started deploying to areas they hadn’t been before. The Mediterranean, red Sea and the Horn of Africa. But many focused on territorial defense.

17:52 – Greece and Turkey began building similar naval forces to counter each other.

18:52 – Jeremy’s book is budgetary and platform specific. He looks at the physical make up of the navies. He also looks at men and material. Many have realized they’ve under-invested. But too many focus on the big Navy idea that the US has developed.

23:52 – Many of these navies have experienced a steep decline in their navies. However individual ships are of much higher quality than individual ships from 25 years ago. Current ships have much more battlespace awareness and are more proficient at war and other tasks.

25:37 – Through the 1990s, high intensity conflict skills atrophied, whereas low intensity conflict capabilities grew. European navies are much better at low intensity than they were 30 years ago.

27:24 – He looked at official grand strategy, military strategy, naval strategy and then naval maritime doctrine open source documents. He also used official statements about the navies. There is also a lot of secondary sources for military technology.

30:08 – The maritime research community is small and very helpful among its members. A lot of governments and citizens don’t understand the importance of maritime issues so maritime researchers feel the need to work together.

35:04 – Europeans are no longer as connected to the oceans as they used to be. But people are beginning to realize the importance of the navy again. They have more than a military role. Navies also have a constabulary role. The 2007 debt crisis hurt a lot of these navies.

39:22 – European navies are highly professional. They can really work well together especially among NATO countries.

42:26 – However Jeremy was surprised by how steep the decline was in the navies. Navy capabilities take decades to develop but the politicians haven’t thought in this time frame. Governments didn’t have the money for navies. The Dutch navy for example was slashed. Germany has decided to become more expeditionary but they can’t build the platforms they need for this.

46:52 – Jeremy will continue to focus on European naval forces. His book will become dated as soon as it is published. He wants to find out what the internal conversations were in these countries. He wants to speak with more decision makers. Some sources up to 1996 and 1998 are being declassified.

50:33 – There’s a huge focus on the US and Chinese navies but no one is studying European navies as a whole. Even landlocked countries can help with maritime security. He hopes the book will raise eyebrows in the US. He also wants to highlight his think tank in Kiel.

53:25 – It’s becoming increasingly difficult for young scholars to get books published. Jeremy feels very fortunate that the naval Institute would publish his book.

54:44 – The Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University can be found www.kielseapowerseries.com. They are in twitter as kielseapowerseries. They have a big conference every June.

 

Links

https://www.kielseapowerseries.com/en/

https://www.ispk.uni-kiel.de/de/mission-statement

Twitter: @SeapowerSeries

 

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: Jeremy Stöhs (Jeremy Stohs)

Host: Cris Alvarez