Category: United States

US Naval history book – “The Free Sea” (Naval Institute Press, 2018) – James Kraska interview

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James Kraska was a Judge Advocate General for the US Navy and has extensive experience on defense issues and Freedom of Navigation issues. He’s currently a visiting Professor of Law at the Naval War College. He has co-authored a book on the history of US enforcement of Freedom of Navigation and we spoke about the book.

1:56 – Professor. Kraska was a Navy Judge Advocate lawyer and in this capacity he learned and practiced the law regarding Freedom of Navigation. He taught at the Naval War College and completed a degree on the subject. Raul Pedroza, the other author, is also a retired Navy JAG and a professor of law.

3:55 – It has been imperative for the US to protect the sea for economic and security purposes. The book is a mix of history and law on Freedom of Navigation. The book starts with the Quasi-War with France and continues all the way through the current Chinese attempts to assert unlawful control of regional seas.

6:55 – The US defends Freedom of Navigation globally because no one else will do it. Many countries depend on the US to maintain order at sea. The Dutch enforced freedom of the seas in the 1500s and then the British took over enforcing these global rights.

8:57 – The US took over from the British around the 1880s. By 1945, the US had fully assumed the role of protecting freedom of the seas.

11:00 – Freedom of navigation is a continuous struggle to maintain these freedoms. The Gulf of Tonkin and Pueblo incidents are examples of violent conflict involving freedom of navigation.

12:37 – Political will and military capability are needed to maintain freedom of navigation. Territorial seas are part of the global commons. The US has operated on territorial seas and also on high seas to protect navigation freedoms. Surveillance aircraft are also used to maintain freedom of navigation on the seas.

17:31 – Using international airspace to protect the seas has been developing for the last hundred years. The International Civil Aviation organization also supports airspace use to protect Freedom of Navigation.

19:00 – The threat of piracy greatly declined by the 20th century as states have cohered into stronger entities. Piracy existed around Somalia because it was a failed state. Before the Treaty of Paris in 1856, many states used privateers to attack enemy shipping. After the treaty, states agreed to stop using privateers. Since then, threats to freedom of navigation come from nation states.

21:40 – Chinese actions now are the greatest threats to freedom of navigation since Germany’s U-boat wars. During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union worked in tandem to preserve navigational freedoms.   The Soviet Union needed it more than the US due to the location of their bases. China wants to undo parts of the international agreements on freedom of navigation and keep others out of the waters close to their territory. They want to dominate the seas within the first island chain including the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

27:56 – During WWII, Japan wanted to control the seas around East Asia through war. China is trying to achieve the same goal but through a “Finlandization” of its neighbors. China has used fishing claims to try to assert control in these areas but that doesn’t work within the existing international agreements.

32:57 – The main focus of the book is that freedom of the seas is not a condition that [exists] can exist without promotion and protection. If the US stops exercising rights over global seas, then these rights will erode for all nations.

34:45 – Wilson called for a protection of freedom of navigation by all nations and for all nations. Roosevelt also insisted on maintaining these global rights. A group of united nations met during WWII to maintain rights and later they met after the war to form the United Nations.

37:27 – Both authors have extensive experience in this field especially for events over the last 15 years and beyond. They used CIA archives and presidential libraries to do some research.

39:00 – Washington saw the US as a liberal actor that supported all nations and conducted trade with all as well. But European politics continued to drag the US into conflict and affected trade.

42:50 – He was most moved by the sacrifices made to protect US interests. John Negroponte made an impassioned speech on freedom of the seas to remind people how much US security depended on freedom of the seas.

44:58 – His next writing project might be on the free seas from the British perspective. He’s also working on a project about Japan’s relationship with sea.

45:35 – Many of his articles are on the SSRN.

Links

https://www.ssrn.com/en/

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: James Kraska

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, freedom of the seas, freedom of navigation, China, US, Britain, Germany, Japan, East China Sea, South China Sea, Quasi-War, Pueblo incident, WWII

US Civil War history book – “Ambivalent Nation” (Louisiana State University Press, 2018) – Hugh Dubrulle interview

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Dr. Hugh Dubrulle is a Professor in the Department of History at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. He has studied British history and US Civil War history extensively and has written a new book about British attitudes towards the US Civil War. I interviewed Dr. Dubrulle about the book and his findings.

2:00 – Dr. Dubrulle’s family grew up in France during WWII. The stories they told of that time inspired him to study history. When he grew up in the US, his family took trips including one to Vicksburg when he was a small child that inspired him. He then began studying British history and eventually became interested in studying British history alongside the American Civil War.

5:00 – He wrote a dissertation on this subject some time ago and that began to turn into the book.

7:17 – Past scholars have divided the British into two factions – pro-North and pro-South. Dr. Dubrulle wanted to write about the complexities of British attitudes towards Americans and the war. During the war, America was still heavily dependent on Britain economically and in other ways. The war was very disruptive to British trade.

10:47 – John Bright, pro-North, was one of the few British leaders who were whole-heartedly behind one side. But most leaders were of two minds during the war.

13:38 – Some British thought that middle-class Yankees would just pay Irish and Germans to do their fighting for them. They thought that the American middle class reflected their own middle class.

16:25 – Many British people thought New York was the financial and cultural capital of the US.

18:52 – The British were very concerned with Canadian security during the Civil War. They worried that if the North lost, they would turn north and attack Canada.

20:44 – Several British military missions traveled to the US during the war to observe. These were overwhelming Army officers and few Navy officers.

22:52 – The UK contemplated getting involved in the war on the side of the South at various times.

25:23 – After the war, the British were worried about what the US would do next. The US had raised an army larger than any that could be sent to protect Canada. But some British also worried the US would become a military dictatorship. They wondered if it would pay its debts and so on.

27:04 – Many British people were critical of Lincoln. But many lower class British people liked that a working man could become President. The British press liked Jefferson Davis. They saw a Northern middle class attacking a government of gentlemen in the South.

29:37 – British people were ambivalent about Sherman’s campaigns. They admired the military maneuvers but they were also appalled by the material destruction of the campaign. Sherman was liked more than Grant was.

31:32 – Dr. Dubrulle read many books and newspapers that were contemporary to that period. He also read personal correspondence. He found materials all over Britain for documents. The British Library has a huge collection of historic newspapers.

33:40 – The London Times was the most important newspaper at the time right before the war. But then paper became cheap and then a number of newspapers for the middle and working class rose up during the war. The Illustrated London News was the pioneer newspaper in the UK for illustrated news. Their artist worked in the North at first and then in the South afterwards. Emory University has a lot of his work.

38:48 – Dr. Dubrulle found a number of Southern newspapers and a diary of a British person who visited New York during the war.

40:49 – Dr. Dubrulle was surprised at how divergent British opinions were in public and in private.

42:31 – Frank Lolley was a very pro-South British person in public but in private he was very troubled about the Confederacy.

48:37 – The British had a problem with Northern nationalism. They didn’t believe there was a basis for American unity. They thought it was all based on the size of the country.

51:45 – He’s hoping that the discussion of British attitudes towards the US Civil War will focus more on the bigger picture than on who thought what.

Links

http://iln.digitalscholarship.emory.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: Dr. Hugh Dubrulle

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, US, Civil War, Grant, Lincoln, Sherman, Davis, North, South, London, New York, antebellum

WWII history book – “Advocating Overlord” (Potomac Books, 2018) – Phil Padgett interview

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Phil Padgett has worked as a political scientist in the field of security studies for much of his career. He turned his skills to writing a book on the WWII Operation Overlord, the atomic bomb, and the relationship between the US and UK during the war.

2:21 – Phil Padgett is a political scientist and has long been fascinated by a meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt during WWII.

4:30 – Phil found a letter by a Naval officer who said big things were being discussed by Roosevelt on a small boat on a lake in Canada during WWII.

6:15 – The book goes over Overlord more than on the discussions for cooperation between the US and UK on the Manhattan Project.

8:10 – The crux of the book is about the UK and the US reestablishing trust during the war.

10:00 – The US Joint Chiefs of Staff had to deal with many military leaders turning against Overlord in favor of a Mediterranean strategy.

12:45 – The US wanted a quick war and a quick strike in order to then move against Japan.

14:48 – Phil talks about the secrecy and knowledge of all parties about atomic bomb research.

19:53 – Both the US and UK knew the atomic bomb was a very powerful weapon and both were concerned about who would control atomic bombs after the war. Nations also felt that strategic bombing could have strong political effect on warring nations.

22:42 – Churchill liked to feed information to Roosevelt before the US joined the war that British bombing was having an effect on Germany.

23:55 – Canada is involved heavily in Overlord. General thinking about the[n] war was that a major amphibious assault would not work.

29:49 – His quid pro quo idea is very controversial. He used primary records at the US National Archives and at the British National Archives.

31:54 – Phil found one of Churchill’s papers with a scorch mark from a cigar burn and it brought him to the moment when history was happening. He also enjoyed going to the war rooms, Hyde Park and being on the battleship Texas.

34:45 – Phil was surprised by the amount that WWI influenced WWII. Especially with air power and a fear of repeating trench warfare.

36:16 – There didn’t seem to be a contingency plan if D-Day didn’t go well. If it failed, they probably would only have been able to conduct a Mediterranean operation afterwards. In late 1943, there was a US threat of a railroad strike over wages and hours. If it occurred, D-Day would have been delayed six months.

39:33 – Roosevelt was pretty much his own Secretary of State on these issues. The Secretary of State ran day-to-day diplomatic operations.

43:33 – Transcripts of the phone calls between Churchill and Roosevelt would be useful to historians. The Germans had cracked the allied system from 1940 to 1943 and kept transcripts of the calls. The records were kept in Berlin and appear to have been destroyed during the bombing of Berlin.

46:42 – Phil is happy he’s started the conversation about the quid pro quo idea.

48:44 – Phil has a website at www.philpadgett.com for the book. The website also has answers to frequently asked questions plus it has more photos.

Links

www.philpadgett.com

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: Phil Padgett

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, WWII, world war 2, D-Day, Normandy, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, US, UK, Soviet Union, Berlin, scientists, Joint Chiefs of Staff, war plans