Author Archives: Martin van Creveld

It Used to Be Called, BS

Posted on by

I love the Internet. Why? Because, surfing it more or less at random without any particular purpose in mind, one almost invariably comes up against something that is both unexpected and interesting. This passing week it was neuropedagogy, a new field of whose existence I had previously been unaware, which caught my attention. What follows, based on a variety of sources, is an attempt to make sense of it all.

What is neuropedagogy?

“The European definition” of it: “The European definition of neuropedagogy is when science and education meet, and whose scientific aims are to learn how to stimulate new zones of the brain and create connections. It is targeted at stimulating the brains of all types of learners, not only those with students who have learning disabilities.” It “combines knowledge in the fields of education and teaching with brain research and neural science.”

“Neuropedagogy of the mind starts with the premise that the mind…  is complex.”

The supposed advantages of neuropedagogy:

For teachers:

“Classroom observations” of the technique being used are said to have revealed “increased inquiry-based pedagogy and improvements in the classroom cognitive environment characterized by increased higher-order thinking, deep knowledge, substantive conversations, and connections to real world problems.”

“Changes teachers’ views or practice.” on the meaning of teaching, how to teach, and so forth

Is said to have “a powerful impact on [teachers’] thinking about the nature of effective pedagogy.”

It made teachers “able to acknowledge that students’ physiology when entering the classroom, whether through hunger, lack of sleep, stress or emotional state, influences their learning capacity. This understanding led to pedagogical decisions that respected students’ physiological and emotional needs.”

It empowers those who are exposed to it “to be thinkers and owners of their actions and choices by giving them knowledge from the world of neuroscience… They utilize the principles of Neuropedagogy to guide and inform their instruction, interactions and interventions… From initial classroom set-up to end of day classroom clean up, they create and continue an atmosphere of curiosity and intellect, which always seems to start and end with the brain.”

Teachers who are familiar with it and apply it “essentially have x-ray vision, which provides them the insight to ask the questions that will reveal the iceberg.”

For students:

It “helps students develop a so-called growth rather than fixed mindset … on average, such interventions improved students’ motivation,”

It “triggers the growth of neurons in the brain: This improves the cognitive ability, particularly in early childhood.” 

It “introduces students to elementary brain sciences so as to give them some understanding of how the brain works”

“Simple modifications such as state changes, strategically planned brain gym breaks or yoga ball chairs have shown to improve the executive functioning skills of sustained attention and task persistence. Additionally, when inserting brief yet planned breaks of any type, students are given an opportunity to work on set-shifting a skill in high demand in the modern digital-world.” Also, for the introvert “include quiet spaces in the classroom or projects with an option to work alone. Simple modifications such as state changes, strategically planned brain gym breaks or yoga ball chairs have shown to improve the executive functioning skills of sustained attention and task persistence. Additionally, when inserting brief yet planned breaks of any type, students are given an opportunity to work on set-shifting a skill in high demand in the modern digital-world.”

Also, “for the introvert, include quiet spaces in the classroom or projects with an option to work alone.”

 It used to be called, BS.

How Empires Fall

Posted on by

As the philosopher Plato (428-348 BCE) and the statesman/historian Polybius (200-118 BCE) knew very well, empires come and go. The Babylonian Empire rose and declined. The Persian Empire rose and declined. Alexander’s Macedonian Empire rose and broke up. By the first century BCE the idea that the Roman Empire, too, would one day decline and fall had become commonplace among its educated inhabitants; as one of them, the Roman historian Livy, wrote, the empire was “struggling with its own greatness”. However, there was no agreement as to when this would happen, let alone how.

Over time many different reasons were invented to explain the decline. Speaking of the Graeco-Roman world, perhaps the most common one was the idea that power and prosperity undermine themselves. The more powerful and prosperous an empire, the softer its citizens and the more addicted to wine, song and women and the less inclined to serve, fight and die they became. During the late Roman Empire this reached the point where soldiers mutilated themselves so as to avoid military service and, if brought to justice, might be burnt alive. Sooner or later the point was reached when those in charge had to turn to foreigners in order to defend the empire against its enemies. Sooner or later those foreigners would become a liability, either because they did not fight hard enough or because they turned against their employers.

Since then many other explanations have been put forward. Sin or, in most non-Abrahamic religions, insufficient attention to the kind of religious rituals that make the world tick, caused God to turn His face away. Civil war, often the result of religious differences or excessive taxation or both, caused public order to break down. Egoistically-minded people, especially those belonging to the upper classes, refused to have children and raise them, preferring to use contraceptives or engage in homosexual sex. “Imperial overstretch,” a term made popular by the historian Paul Kennedy in his 1987 volume, The Rise and Decline of the Great Powers, created a situation whereby the Empire’s resources, material and human, were inadequate to support its commitments. Excessive use and abuse of natural resources caused the deforestation and desertification, not to say poisoning, of entire districts, even countries. Natural disasters increased in frequency and severity. Often more than one cause, or set of causes, were involved—all mingled with each other and now reinforcing, now contradicting, each other.

Fast forward to the present. As George Orwell in Nineteen-Eighty Four foresaw with uncanny precision, the world in which we live is divided among three gigantic empires: the US and its vassals (Oceania), Russia (Eurasia), and China (Eastasia). The first is defined by its wealth, the liberal-democratic way of life on which its members pride themselves, and its willingness to foster and adopt scientific/technological progress. The second, by its sheer geographical size, its military power, and the ability of its inhabitants to endure and suffer. The third, by the vast number and sheer industry of its people which, some researchers feel, are also the most able of the lot on the average. Again all these factors mix with each other and reinforce each other in a myriad of different ways. Too many by far to allow much more than a bare mention in the present essay.

Now to the hundred trillion dollar ($ 100,000,000,000, the world’s annual GNP) question: since no empire lasts forever, which of them is likely to collapse first? My answer would be, Russia. First, its population of 143,000,000 is by far the smallest and shrinking fast. Second, slightly over a fifth of this population are non-Russian, non-Slav, and even non-Christian. Originally subdued by force of arms, given the right circumstances parts of it may rise against the center, Moscow, causing the empire to break up. In which case, to quote Ukrainian head of state Volodymir Zelensky, only Muscovy will be left.

Third, Russia is immensely rich in natural resources and possessed of a huge arms industry. However, for reasons ill-understood has never been able to develop a strong consumer-driven industry such as, starting in the nineteenth century, has formed the backbone of modern economies and the kind of prosperity they alone seem capable of generating. Fourth, it still lacks the kind of access to the sea, hence to world trade, which first Britain and then the US has enjoyed for centuries.

Last not least, geographically speaking Russia is stuck between the other two empires. At the moment those empires are bitter rivals, quarreling over almost everything from Ukraine in the West to Taiwan in the east. However, that was not always the case. Remember President Nixon’s “opening of China” back in the early 1970s. The Soviet Union’s fear of collusion between Washington DC and Beijing—the sort that could only be, and was, directed at Moscow—even played a role in the Soviet Union’s collapse less than twenty years later. Another such rapprochement constitutes Putin’s nightmare. Should the US and China join forces, as they did against Japan in 1941-45, then there will be little the Kremlin will be able to do about it except threaten others, and hence itself, with nuclear annihilation.

Next, the US. The US has about two and a half times Russia’s population. Add its NATO allies, and the difference amounts to almost six to one. Add Japan, South Korea and Australasia, and it grows to about seven to one. Practically all these people are where they are because, unlike those of Russia, they are willing. They are kept loyal by consent rather than by force; this being an advantage very few previous empires enjoyed.

True, American industry in particular is no longer what it was between about 1945 and 1970 when it easily overshadowed the rest of the world. But it still remains enormously capable in terms of innovation in particular. Attention should also be attracted to the fact that the core member of the Atlantic alliance, i.e the US, is a global island. On the positive side, this means that any attempt to invade the Continental US must remain a pipedream. On the negative side it means that, to complement its own resources and retain its global influence, the US depends on maritime communications. Not only are such communications more vulnerable than land ones, but America’s Navy is even now in the process of losing its supremacy in favor of China. The closer one approaches China’s own shores, the more true that is. Another one of America’s weaknesses is the horrendous deficits it has incurred both in terms of foreign trade and in terms of the budget. Deficits which, unless they are addressed, will surely end up by bringing on the economic collapse not only of the US but of much of the rest of the world as well.

Finally, China. As anyone who has traveled in China can easily see for him- or herself, China’s industrialization over the last decades is one of the greatest, perhaps even the greatest, miracles in the whole of history. During that period its share of world GDP (ppp-calculated) increased more than tenfold, from 2.26 in 1980 to 27 percent at present. The most important constraint on China’s ability to make its weight felt in the world is geography, especially maritime geography. Reaching out for the Pacific Ocean, Chinese merchantmen and men-of-war are flanked by Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; reaching out for the Indian one, by the Philippines and the Strait of Sumatra. Each of these is an unsinkable aircraft carrier. Xi Jinpin himself is well aware of these facts. As proved, above all, by his launching of the so-called belts and roads initiative whose objective is precisely to bypass his country’s problematic maritime communications by going by land instead.

Furthermore, China’s ascent has led to a loose, US-led, coalition of other countries forming around its borders; whether through its own fault or that of others, Beijing now has territorial disputes with every one of its fourteen neighbors. Other weaknesses include a declining birthrate that will soon cause its population to be surpassed by that of India; following decades of a “one child” policy, a shortage of young people to man its industries and a corresponding increase in the number of old ones who have to be supported; horrendous ecological problems that led to a shortage of water and made the air of many cities unfit to breathe; and, judging by the ubiquitous and enormously expensive measures used to safeguard internal security, a widespread fear that the Communist regime may not last forever and that, breaking up, it will drag much of the country with it.

These are serious problems that may well lead to the kind of crisis that has many predecessors in Chinese history and which, during the last 200 years alone, killed tens if not hundreds of millions of people. Still, what by now is a highly industrialized country of 1.3 billion—more than that of the US, the rest of NATO, and Russia combined—able and ambitious people will not be easily thwarted from pursuing its imperial goals.

Most important of all, China is and has always been not just the kind of political structure known as a state but a civilization. As such it is about as old as the pyramids; for that reason alone, there is a good chance it will last as long as they have done.

So It Has Been in the Past

Posted on by

I only met Prof. Peter W. Singer, currently 38 years old and at the University of Arizona, once. As far as memory serves this was ten years ago at a conference hosted by the Norwegian Air Force where he gave a talk that impressed me both for its contents and the skill with which it was presented. Clearly here was a man to watch. And watch him I did as, just yesterday, I came across an article of his in Defense One. The title? One Year In: What Are The Lessons from Ukraine for The Future of War?

It is a question in which defense analysts and officials, officers, and commanders are vitally interested. So here is a point by-point summary of Peter’s article, along with my response to each point.

Point A. “The most obvious type of inflection point in the story of war is when a new weapon is introduced that fundamentally changes or even ends the fighting, such as the atomic bomb’s debut in World War II.”

Response: In the long run, the impact of technological innovation on war tends to be superficial. From the time when groups of men (there were few, if any, women among them) went for each other to the time when they started doing so with the aid of AI and drones, neither the essence of war, nor the principles of its conduct, nor even the methods by which it is waged, have changed very much. Attack remains attack, defense remains defense, and so on and so on. Or else how to explain the fact that some of the greatest works on war, such as those by Sun Tzu, Thucydides and Clausewitz, remain as fresh, as relevant, as they were when first written 2,500 or 200 years ago?

Point B. “One area [where technology is changing war] is the use of artificial intelligence, or AI. The conflict in Ukraine has seen various forms of AI deployed in a growing variety of ways—from using face recognition software to identify enemy soldiers to deploying machine learning to make military and aid supply chains more efficient. AI has been harnessed to advance propaganda and information warfare: Russia’s invasion in Ukraine is the first war to see the use of ‘deep fake’ videos, which blur the line between the real and machine-generated.”

Response: Soldiers have always needed to identify both friends and foes and used a variety of methods to do so. AI may perform the job faster, go through larger numbers, and (perhaps) do so more reliably; however, it does not change the essence of the problem. It can make logistics more efficient, but it does not affect either the role they play in war as a whole or the principles on which they are organized. As to information warfare: has there ever been a war in which both sides did not do their damnest to gain as much information as possible as fast as possible while at the same time endeavoring to prevent the enemy from doing the same?

Point C. Hacking, specifically including computer attacks on enemy physical assets, will play, is already playing, a growing role in warfare.

Response: True enough. However, a clear line between new-style hacking and old-style intelligence operations and sabotage is difficult to draw. Sabotage-by-computer may well be able to hit more targets, faster, at greater range, and more effectively than used to be the case when it was still carried out by humans running about. Using the right means against the right targets, it may even go some way to make the tiger, ordinary war, change its spots. But turn a tiger into, say, an ostrich?

Point D. Drones, provided with AI, will fight similar drones.

Response: Almost certainly true. But will drones change the principles of air warfare, the need to command the air above all, as laid down a century ago by Giulio Douhet? Also, the air presents those who use it to pass through with a relatively simple environment. However, given the extremely complicated environment in which infantrymen operate, will they too one day be replaced by drones/robots?

Point E. Enabled by the social media in particular, information warfare will become even more intense and even more important than it already is

Response: As I’ve said before, information has always been absolutely vital for the conduct of war. Why? Because without it no kind of organized, let alone purposeful, action is possible. Furthermore, in war as in civilian life the objective of gathering and analyzing information is to gain certainty. Judging by the countless predictions concerning the war that have not come true, technology has not made that task any easier—perhaps, to the contrary.

Point F: In response to the ubiquity of information Open source intelligence (OSINT) will gain in importance.

Response: Yes, it will. But it is useful to remember that intelligence services have been using newspapers ever since the latter were invented late in the 17th century. Since then newspapers were, and still are, used in two different ways. First, to gain information about the enemy; and second, to cheat the enemy concerning one’s own intentions.

Point G. In terms of GDP, at the time the war got under way Russia and Ukraine only ranked 9th and 56th respectively. Yet such is the effect of the media/social networks on one hand and international trade on the other that much of the world is holding its breath. This kind of thing will only increase.

Response: Of all the points Wilson makes, this one seems to me the weakest. Why? Because he overlooks the fact that these are not just two countries. Neither Russia nor Ukraine may be exactly wealthy. However, such are the size and sheer military power of Russia that its role the in the international system far exceeds its share in the latter’s GDP. Furthermore, the region they are fighting over is precisely the one geopoliticians of an earlier generation used to call “The Heartland,” control over which meant world domination. And while Ukraine may not have nukes, Russia has enough of them to wipe any other country off the map within a few hours of the order being given.

Conclusion: Technology plays a vital role in war. However, it is not everything. War will cause any new technology to quickly fall into the enemy’s hands; which in turn means that it will be quickly copied. As, for example, happened in 216 BCE when Hannibal, following his great victory at Cannae, had his fighters adopt Roman armor. Hence it is not true that, as the famous British pundit General (ret.) J. F. C. Fuller once wrote, that “weapons, if only the right ones can be found, make up ninety percent of victory.”

So it has been in the past, and so it will be in the future.

Good Questions

Posted on by

As a few of you may remember from my previous posts on this blog, some years ago I took an interest in the question, what things do not change. The idea was to write, not just history but a new kind of history. One that would focus, not just on change—which is what every serious historian has been doing at least since Polybius commented on how important, how utterly fascinating, change was and is—but on its absence; in other words, continuity. This project kept me busy for about eighteen months ere I realized that it was beyond my powers. So I gave up and moved to more modest projects such as I, Stalin (2022).

There things remained. Recently, however, my interest in the topic was rekindled by a book, The History of Philosophy by Oxford professor A. C. Grayling (2019). Delving into the first part, which deals with Greek philosophy, I quickly realized that I had been barking up the wrong tree. Burying my nose in search of things that have remained the same always I had overlooked the fact that the most important continuities were not to be found in the answers the ancient philosophers came up with. Instead, they consisted of the methods they used—a combination of observation with rational inquiry, without any resort to the supernatural—and, above all, the questions they asked. Questions which, originating in pre-classical Greece, keep preoccupying people right down to the present day.

So follow a few examples of the very different questions in question. Here presented in a more or less chronological, much simplified, fairly non-repetitive way. And with hardly any more detailed exploration of their background, meaning, implications, or the links among them.

Thales of Miletus (ca. 666-585 BCE)

What is the primeval thing, or material, of which all others are made and into which they will ultimately revert?

What is the origin of movement (in other words: what and who was the earliest prime mover)?

Observation teaches us that only animate things can grow on their own accord. Does that mean plants have souls?

Does the universe, or kosmos have limits, or does it go on indefinitely?

Anaximander (ca. 610-546 BCE)

Is the observable kosmos the only one, or just one of many?

Is there a single principle that governs the observable changes in the kosmos, both in the heavens and here on earth, and, if so, what is it?

Are those changes cyclical or linear? If the latter, will they go on forever, or will they come to an end?

Anaximenes (?-526 BCE)

How to predict earthquakes?

Pythagoras (570-495 BCE)

Does the soul perish with the body, or does it persist? Is there such a thing as reincarnation?

How does the kosmos relate to numbers and mathematics, and why?

Xenophanes (570-478 BCE)

Are there gods (or is there a god) and, if so what are they?

How are the gods/god related to observable reality? Did they create it, or are they part of it?

What is time? Does it really exist, or is it merely something we experience? Will it go on forever, or does it have a beginning and an end?

Heraclitus (540-ca. 480 BCE)

How are change and continuity related to each other (the original question I was hoping to answer)?

Parmenides (515-after 450 BCE)

What is true knowledge?

Is there an infallible method for obtaining true knowledge about the kosmos and everything inside it that will prevent us from being misled by opinion, or belief, or our own senses (all philosophers from antiquity down to the present day)?

Antisthenes (466-366 BCE) Socrates 470-399 BCE), Plato (424-348 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE

What is virtue, and how can it be attained?

What is happiness, and how can be attained?

What is a good society and how can it be built and made to last?

How do/should individual and society relate to each other?

What is beauty? Does such a thing as beauty really exist, or is it only present in the viewer’s mind? (especially Plato and Aristotle)?

How did the myriad things that comprise physical reality come into being, and how do they function and interact (Aristotle)?

Does such a thing as the future exist, or is it a figment of the imagination (Aristotle)?

Does such a thing as the afterlife exist and, if so, what is it like (especially Plato)?

Democritus (ca. 460-370 BCE)

What is matter made of?

Does it consist of a multitude of almost infinitely small, indivisible particles, or is it continuous?

How are dead matter and mind related?

Diogenes (ca. 400-323 BCE), Crates (365-285 BCE) and Epicurus (341-270 BC)

What kind of life is the best and most appropriate (oikeion) for a human being?

Is there such a thing as the free will?

Do universals (e.g. “redness” or “catness”) really exist, as Plato says, or are only particular things real?

What is the purpose of philosophy?

Zeno (334-262 BCE) and the Stoics

Is there such a thing as fate? If so, what is it and how does it operate?

What is the best way to cope with the hardships of life, such as illness or disaster?

To Conclude –

As my mother, quoting an old proverb, used to say, a single fool can ask more questions than ten wise people can answer. That is true; but it is also true that Thales, Anaximander and the rest were anything but fools. Certainly it is true that, without questions, finding answers is impossible to begin with. Which is why, over two millennia later, we still keep thinking about them.

Day by day.

Let’s Keep It That Way

Posted on by

These days when much of the world is closely watching events in Israel, I want to say that, numerous and serious as the problems are, I remain proud of my country. Here is a short list of the reasons why; for a longer one see my 2010 book, The Land of Blood and Honey.

Back in 1914 there were only about 50,000 Jews living in the small, backward, badly neglected and badly governed, country that was then part of the Ottoman Empire. As late as the 1950s, so thinly populated were the environments of Tel Aviv that, visiting my grandparents, I could hear the jackals howl at night. The jackals have long disappeared, a fact that I, recalling the well-publicized cases of rabies among children in particular, can only call a blessing. The Jewish population has grown to about seven million (Arabs and other nationalities included, the total number of Israeli citizens living in-country is about nine million). Few if any other countries have done as well.

Back in 1914 Palestine’s Jews only formed a tiny fraction of the world’s Jewish population, which probably stood at about 13,500,000. Now, if the figures are correct, they form slightly over half of the total. Meaning that Zionism is well on its way to realize its great dream. Namely, in the words of Israel’s national anthem, to make Jews a free people in their own land: the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

In developed countries where contraceptives are easily available and women have a choice, one very good index of people’s confidence in the future is their willingness to have and raise children. Today the average Israeli Jewish female will have 3.05 children during her lifetime, as against the OECD average of 1.65.

Back in 1914 the Zionist Movement’s leading economic expert, Arthur Rupin, estimated that per capita product here in Palestine stood at only about 4 percent of the American figure. 99 years later, the figure is 75 percent. Almost 40 percent of Israel’s GDP are exported—a figure very much like that of a heavily industrialized modern country such as Germany.

As well as having a strong economy, which for a number of years before COVID threw everything out of gear was widely held up as the most successful in the world, Israel built up a powerful military. One armed with the most up to-date weapons and weapon systems and capable, as it has repeatedly shown, of defending the country against larger powers and even combinations of such powers. Considering that the first Jewish self-defense organization in Palestine peaked at just 40 members who rode horses and were armed with nothing but rifles and shabarias (a type of Arab curved knife, much beloved by Bedouin in particular), this has been an amazing achievement.

The Quran calls Jews “the People of the Book.” To practice their religion Jewish males, and to a lesser extent Jewish women, need to be literate so they can read from the Pentateuch as well as the prayer book. As a result, Jews have always tended to be much more literate than their gentile neighbors. Zionism, an urban movement par excellence, embraced this tradition. With the result that, starting from the movement’s early days, Jews in Palestine/Israel were much more literate than non-European peoples in practically any other part of the world. Today Israel is the fifth most-educated country in the world. From kindergarten to universities and research institutes, its education system can compete with practically any of its opposite numbers elsewhere.

At my home, in a mountainous area west of Jerusalem, I have in my possession some photographs taken by the German air force during World War I. As they show, at that time there was not a tree in sight; nothing but rocks and more rocks. As German Emperor Wilhelm II noted when he visited in 1898, “a terrible country, without water and without shade.” Since then Israel has become the only country in the world that, in spite of repeated setbacks (some of them occasioned by Arabs, Israeli or Palestinian, who deliberately set fire to forests) has more trees in 2023 than it did a century earlier.

A British-written guidebook to Palestine, issued by the War Office in 1941-42 for the use of British soldiers on leave from fighting the Germans in the Western Desert, said that “the first thing you’ll notice is how arid the country is.” Today, thanks in part to the use of large-scale desalination, this basically arid country has enough of the previous liquid not only to meet its own needs but those of other countries as well. Some of the water in question is exported, notably to Jordan. The rest is distilled on the spot with the aid of Israeli technology.

Like practically every other country, Israel is no stranger to corruption. Sources put it at the 31st place out of 180. Nothing to be very proud of, but better than five out of six countries in total.

Of well over a hundred countries that got their independence since 1948, Israel is one of the very few that has always been democratic in the sense that regular elections were held. Except in 1973, when the Arab-Israeli War of that time led to a short postponement, all the elections were held on time. All were held following lively electoral campaigns in which almost every point of view was represented and could be freely uttered. That even includes the notorious ones of November 2022. Not once were elections marked by serious disorder, let alone violence. Not once was there any question of the large-scale stuffing of ballots and the like. For me personally casting my vote has become something of a ritual—a slightly festive occasion to meet friend and neighbors whose existence one might otherwise have forgotten.

True, Israel does not have a constitution. But neither does Britain, “the mother of democracies.” True, Netanyahu & Co. want judges to be appointed by politicians. But that is exactly the way American supreme justices ones are. True, he wants to pass legislation that will prevent prime ministers from being prosecuted as long as they remain in office; but that is just how things are done in France. This list could be extended almost indefinitely.

Meanwhile –

Week after week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been taking to the streets in an effort to preserve what they (and I) see as their liberal-democratic way of life. So far, the presence in the cabinet of some true firebrands notwithstanding, without any serious violence.

In terms of happiness, Israel occupies place No. 12 out of 180.

Let’s keep it that way.

Not as New as It Seems

Posted on by

While the world is going ape over chatgpt, the possibilities it opens and the dangers it carries, I recall that this device is by no means the first of its kind. Indeed stories about so called “brazen heads,” as they were called, have been with us for a millennium, if not more. What follows is a short list of the best known men (there seems to have been no women among them) who were rumored to have built or otherwise obtained such heads, each one complete with a few details.

The Roman poet Virgil (70-18 BCE). Widely recognized as perhaps the greatest Roman poet, he entered the picture in January 1245. That was when a French priest, Gautier of Metz, published Imago Mundi, later translated into French as L’Image du monde. Mixing facts with fantasy, it is an encyclopedic work, based on a great many different sources, about the creation, the earth and the universe. Gautier credited Virgil with having created an oracular head that answered questions. Seventy-four years later, in 1319, the story was retold by Renard le Contrefait. The latter may also have been the first to specify that the head was made of brass.

Pope Sylvester II (original name Gerbert of Aurillac). Pope from 999 to 1003. A true polymath who had plenty to say about both ecclesiastical and secular topics, he studied in Spain, a country then under Muslim rule which was considered the cutting edge of civilization. The English historian William of Malmesbury in his History of the English Kings (ca. 1145) says that he took with him a load of secret knowledge whose owner, who went in pursuit, he was only able to escape through demonic assistance. Among the “secrets” was a bronze head that would answer yes/no questions on a variety of topics, but only after having been spoken to first. Later it told Gerbert that if he should ever read a Mass in Jerusalem, which at that time was controlled by the Crusaders, the Devil would come to get him. Whereupon Gerbert cancelled a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. To no avail: reading Mass in Rome’s Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, he fell ill and died soon afterwards.

Robert Grosseteste (1168-1252) was an English clergymen who rose to become bishop of Gloucester. Of him John Gower, in his long didactic poem Confessio Amantis (1390), wrote the following lines (1390):

For of the grete clerc Grossteste
I rede how besy that he was
Upon clergie an hed of bras
To forge, and make it for to telle
Of suche thinges as befelle.
And sevene yeres besinesse
He leyde, bot for the Lachesse,
Of half a minut of an houre,
Fro ferst that he began laboure
He loste all that he hadde do.

The lesson is clear. Lovers, do not tarry but seize the moment. Or else you may lose everything just as Grosseteste lost his talking head.

Roger Bacon (1220-1229) was an English monk who was credited, among other things, with the invention of gunpowder as well as a number of other devices. An anonymous 16th-century prose romance,The famous historie of Fryer Bacon, describes one of those as a precise brass replica of a “natural man’s head.” Including, not least, “the inward parts.” It tells how Bacon, struggling to give it speech, summoned the Devil to ask him for advice. Satan announced that the head would speak after a few weeks, as long as it was powered by “the continuall fume of the six hottest simples,” a selection of plants used in alchemical medicine. Over the next few centuries the story caught on and was retold many times. In 1589 it was adapted for the stage by Robert Greene and incorporated into The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay, one of the most successful Elizabethan comedies. Greene’s Bacon spent seven years creating a brass head that would speak “strange and uncouth aphorisms” to enable him to encircle Britain with a wall of brass that would make it impossible to conquer.

Unlike his source material, Greene does not cause his head to operate by natural forces but by “nigromantic charms” and “the enchanting forces of the devil“:[i.e., by entrapping a dead spirit or hobgoblin. Bacon collapses, exhausted, just before his device comes to life and announces “Time is,” “Time was,”” and “Time is Past” before being destroyed in spectacular fashion: the stage direction instructs that “a lightening flasheth forth, and a hand appears that breaketh down the Head with a hammer.”

As late as 1646 Sir Thomas Browne in Pseudodoxica Epidemica wrote that “Every ear is filled with the story of Frier Bacon, that made a brazen head to speak”.

*

I doubt whether many people alive today take the story seriously (if our predecessors ever did). Still it is nice to know that Dublin boasts a pub named The Brazen Head, said to go back all the way to 1198. May chat gpt one day play a similar role?

Tertius Gaudens

Posted on by

These days when everyone is talking about Chatgpt, I find myself thinking of Pablo Picasso. Computers, he is supposed to have said, are completely useless. They can provide answers, but they cannot come up with questions. That is why, this time, I have chosen to put my thoughts in a question/answer format.

What was China’s original stance vis a vis the Ukrainian war?

In February 2022, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed a “friendship without limits” which would bind their two countries together. One sign of this friendship is the fact that, during the first year of the war, Xi has spoken to Putin four times—but did not speak to Zelensky even once.

What came of it?

There has been some cooperation. But not as much as the above statement might imply. So far the most important form of aid China has given to Russia has been to act as a market for the latter’s exports. Including, besides minerals, oil (both crude and distilled), wood and wood products. Also, apparently, some dual use (military and civilian) technology. Also, political support at the UN, in the rest of the world, etc. Recently US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised Beijing’s ire by accusing it of preparing to provide arms to Russia. If the accusations are true, then that would mean a step closer towards direct intervention in the war. But whether they are true, and how extensive and significant the resulting aid would be, remains to be seen.

Why has China submitted a peace plan just now?

Hard to say. One thing is certain: it is not because of Xi’s tender, loving heart. One Chinese objective may be to save as much as possible from the general secretary’s belt and road initiative, which depends on peace in Eurasia and was disrupted by the war. Or simply because China, as a great power, feels it cannot afford not to submit some kind of plan for peace. Just as America did in 1905 (the Russo-Japanese War), 1917 (World War I) and 1974 (the Arab-Israeli War), to mention but a few.

God, Napoleon once said, resides in the details. So what are they?

China’s peace proposal consists of twelve rather general points that can be summed up more or less as follows. First, the need to “create conditions and platforms” for negotiations to resume, a process in which China is prepared to “play a constructive role.” Second, the need to avoid the threat or use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Third, the need for all parties to exercise “rationality and restraint” by respecting international law, avoiding attacks on civilians or civilian facilities as well as women and children. Fourth, China hopes to avoid “expanding military blocs–an apparent reference to NATO–and urges all parties to “avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions.”

Why does the West oppose the plan?

First, because it does not trust Putin to carry out any agreement he may sign, especially in regard to withdrawing his forces from Ukraine so as to restore the latter’s territorial integrity. Second, in the case of Europe in particular, because allowing Putin to retain at least some of his conquests would mean the end of the post-1945 world order which was based, if on anything at all, on the non-use of force in order to change borders. Third, in the case of Washington, because it comes too early and would not lead to a decisive loss of Russia’s power.

How likely is it to succeed?

Not very. Not just because the details remain unknown. But because Zelensky insists, in my view correctly, on the Russians withdrawing their forces from every inch of his country before serious negotiations can get under way.

So what does the future look like?

As both sides gird their loins for a long war of attrition, we shall see blood, toil, tears and sweat. Ending, perhaps, in bankruptcy; as happened to Britain in 1945 and as may yet happen to both Russia (should if suffer from more Western sanctions) and the US (as a result of its huge balance of trade and current account deficits, which the current war does nothing to reduce). And the EU? Just type “EU” and “bankruptcy” into your Google, and you’ll get your answer.

And where does China fit into all this?

Tertius gaudens.

Guess What That Is

Posted on by

As at least some of my readers surely know, Israel has long been all but unique in that, starting in 1948, it has conscripted women. Not all women, mind you, but only those who, simply by not declaring themselves to be religious, agreed be taken. Once they had been taken they were assigned to all kinds of auxiliary jobs like administration, logistics, and the like. Young and healthy, ere the feminist-mandated Love Police swung into action many had some fun with their male fellow conscripts as well as their commanders who, during Israel’s “heroic” period, were considered good catches. Their period of service—amounting, at one time, to 22 months instead of 36 for males—over, they got  out, married—those already married were exempt—had 2-3 children, and went on to live happily ever after. Happily, also in the sense that they did little if any reserve duty and were hardly ever killed or wounded in action.

Next came the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt, Israel’s largest and most powerful enemy. As the danger of large-scale warfare receded, the overall number of casualties went down. Partly for that reason, partly under the influence of the American model, a mighty wave of penis-envy swept over Israeli women. In- and outside the military they decided that, unless they filled every kind of male slot and did every kind of male job, ground combat included, they would never be as fully human as they claimed to be.

One of the most interesting examples, which first started making waves in 2017 and is still drawing attention, was a case of some IDF women made to serve as guards in one of the prisons where male Palestinian terrorists are being held. Not just women, but blooming lasses 19-20 years old. Inevitably there was some frater- sorora—nizing. Frater- sorora—nizing being prohibited, when caught the women blamed the prisoners who had allegedly harassed them by using coarse language, exposing their genitals, and the like. One or two even claimed to have been assaulted; making people wonder what kind of prison it is that, assuming the allegations are true, made such things possible.

Other female guards accused their superiors, claiming that they had been “pimped off” by the latter in the hope of gaining information for the prison authorities to use. Given that the prisoners were not just males but such as had been suffering from sexual deprivation for a long, long time, there is nothing surprising in any of this. Investigations were launched, commanders fired, prisoners moved to other facilities, and the like.

The latest idea? Straight from the mouth of the horse (former minister of defense and chief of staff General Ret. Beni Gantz). Replace all prison personnel, both male and female, by older professionals. As critics were quick to point out, though, doing so would mean three things. First, since professionals are much more expensive than conscripts, a considerable rise in cost. Second, an increase in the already large number of female conscripts the military does not know what to do with. Third, and to some most important, the loss of an opportunity for women to realize their full potential by imitating men.

And so the merry-go-round keeps turning. One just cannot satisfy those feminist ideologues. Not given what they want, or claim they want, they complain. Given what they want, or claim they want, they also complain. Why? Because, as Freud once said, what they really lack is one thing and one thing only.

Guess what that is.

Pussycats, Again

Posted on by

Intended to spotlight some of the weaknesses of the modern Western militaries, this book was written in 2014-15. Judging by publicly available material, however, during the years that have passed since then many of the problems have become worse rather than better. Consider the following.

1. Subduing the Young

“Anxiety and depression [are] becoming more common among [American] children and adolescents, increasing 27 percent and 24 percent respectively from 2016 to 2019. By 2020, 5.6 million kids (9.2%) had been diagnosed with anxiety problems and 2.4 million (4.0%) had been diagnosed with depression. About 5 million kids also experienced behavior and conduct problems in 2020, a 21 percent increase from the previous year.”[i]

“39.2% of [British] 6 to 16 year olds had experienced deterioration in mental health since 2017.”[ii]

“Mehr-psychische-Erkrankungen-bei-Kindern-und-Jugendlichen,” in Deutschland.”[iii]

2. Defanging the Troops

“The U.S. and NATO exit from Afghanistan may seem simply an episodic defeat. In a broader context, however, the Afghan withdrawal adds to a series of U.S. failures, from Lebanon to the Arab Spring, Iraq, Somalia, Syria—all these adventures ended badly, and the situation left behind was worse. We find ourselves today with the same security problems we had 20 years ago.”[iv]

“In Berlin and other German cities, some Bundeswehr personnel say they prefer not to wear their uniform when traveling to and from work, in order to avoid aggressive stares and rude comments. And in Potsdam, a regional capital near Berlin [which, historically, has been closely associated with the Prussian military], local politicians have been debating whether it’s appropriate for city trams to carry recruitment advertisements for the Bundeswehr.”[v]

Last time my wife and I went to Gatow, the Luftwaffe museum near Potsdam, we were the only visitors. With Ukraine in flames, let’s hope that such attitudes at any rate are going away.

3. Feminizing the Forces

In Finland, we are told, “conscription was opened to women on a volunteer basis” [sic!!!].[vi]

“The [Norwegian] military women in our study reported physical illness and injuries equal to those of military men, but more military women used pain relieving and psychotropic drugs. More military women aged 20–29 and 30–39 years reported mental health issues than military men of the same age. In the age group 30–39 years, twice as many military women assessed their health as poor compared to military men. In the age group 40–60 years, more military women than men reported musculoskeletal pain.”[vii]

“Over 7,000 U.S. service members… have died in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere” (as of July 2021).[viii] Now Women form about 16 percent of the U.S military, but only a little under 3 percent of those killed in action. Yet there are proportionally more female officers than male ones.[ix] Clearly, when it comes to gaining a commission women, very few of whom engaged in combat, have an advantage over men, many more of whom do.[x]

Compared with their male colleagues, female soldiers have it easy; less exposure to enemy bullets, less strenuous training, less hazardous work, various measures intended to help them cope with pregnancy and childcare, etc. American military women, unlike many civilian ones, are regularly screened for both physical and mental health. Nevertheless, we are told, “women in [the American] military more than twice as likely to die by suicide as Civilians.”[xi]

4. Constructing PTSD

By one 2020 study, “83% of all US veterans as well as active duty service men and women have experienced PTSD since the 9/11 attack, as a result of their military service.”[xii] Nevertheless, to this day no one has been able to define just what PTDS is, what causes it, who is more (or less) susceptible to it (and why), how it should be treated (assuming, indeed, that it is a medical problem at all), and so on. Other problems associated with it are overuse, overlap with other psychological problems and, last not least, the very real danger that, turned into a political issue, it will lose any scientific meaning it may have; which, as this volume has argued, in Germany it did.

Statistics on the prevalence of PTSD among military personnel do not show that the problem is getting worse. On the other hand, it is not getting better either.

5. Delegitimizing War

Some people hold that killing is a worse sin than allowing oneself to be killed. However, that only applies to individuals. Those responsible for the lives of others cannot afford to adopt it; for them, in fact, doing so is a crime. Now that any illusions about the future disappearance of war (e.g. F. Fukuyama, “The End of History,” 1989) have themselves disappeared, that remains as true as ever.

Conclusion: Hannibal intra Portas

We live in a period when life without terrorism, some of it internal, some international, has spread to the point where it has become almost unimaginable. True, a look at the statistics will show that, globally speaking, the number of casualties due to terrorism has not increased over the last decade.[xiii] However, measures taken to prevent it a certainly have. Not a port, not an airport, not a power station, not a mine, not a large-scale installation anywhere that is not being protected against it. Sometimes successfully, but perhaps more often not.[xiv]

Finally –

In 2014-15 American troops were still holding out in Afghanistan and Iraq and French ones, in Mali. Now, having achieved absolutely nothing, they are all gone. Meanwhile major war has broken out in Europe—the very Europe which for decades on end, was widely regarded as so peaceful as to be almost completely war-proof.

Need I say more?

 

[i] Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, Research Update: Children’s Anxiety and Depression on the Rise,” 24.3.3022, at https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2022/03/24/research-update-childrens-anxiety-and-depression-on-the-rise/

[ii] The children’s Society, “Children’s Mental Health Statistics,” at https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work/well-being/mental-health-statistics.

[iii] www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/124350/, 3.6.2021.

[iv] S. Pontecorvo, “How Western Errors Let the Taliban Win in Afghanistan,” 2.10.2022.https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/02/kabul-airlift-taliban-win-afghanistan/

[v] M. Karnitschnig, “Germany’s Soldiers’ of Misfortune,” Politico, 15.2.2019, at https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-biggest-enemy-threadbare-army-bundeswehr/

[vi] YLE News, 4.11.2021, at https://yle.fi/news/3-12169597.

[vii] BMC, “BMC Women’s Health,” 17.10.2019, at https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-019-0820-4.

[viii] Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, “Costs of War,” at https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/military/killed

[ix] See Council on Foreign Relations, Demographics of U.S Military,” 2020, at https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military.

[x] See, for the figures, “United States Military Casualties of War,” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war.

[xi] W. Huntsberry at https://voiceofsandiego.org/2022/07/25/women-in-military-more-than-twice-as-likely-to-die-by-suicide-as-civilians/

[xii] Cumberland Heights, PTSD, at https://www.cumberlandheights.org/blogs/ptsd-statistics-veterans/.

[xiii] See H. Ritchie and others, “Terrorism,” 2022, at https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#how-many-people-are-killed-by-terrorists-worldwide.

[xiv] P. Knoope, “20-Year Fight against Terrorism Proves a Costly Failure,” Clingendael Spectator, 6 September 2021, at https://spectator.clingendael.org/en/publication/20-year-fight-against-terrorism-proves-costly-failure

 

Tanks Here, Tanks There

Posted on by

Now that, following decades of non-use, tanks are once again making headlines in Europe, readers rightly demand a short explanation of their origins, development, and role in modern warfare.

Tanks, meaning mechanically-propelled, tracked, weaponized and armored, fighting vehicles, first made their appearance on the battlefield when the British and French armies deployed them in 1916. They went through their greatest days of glory in 1939-45 when the principal belligerents—Germany, the Soviet Union, Britain and the US—all produced them by the thousand (Japan also had them, but in nowhere like the same number or quality). Tanks took a prominent role both in the Arab-Israeli Wars (1948-1982) and in the two Gulf Wars (1991 and 2003-2011). At times, so great was their hold that popular opinion in particular tended to see them as the very symbol of warfare.

1916-1918. Almost from the beginning, tanks fell into two basic kinds: heavy ones, intended to lead the infantry as it tried to occupy and cross the enemy trenches, and light ones meant for follow up operations once those objectives had been achieved. The former moved slowly and were armed with cannon. The latter were faster and were often armed with no more than machine guns. The Germans also built tanks. However, so small were the numbers that came off the assembly lines that they hardly affected the conduct of the war.

1919-45. As World War I ended all the world’s main armed forces experimented with tanks. The outcome was a very large number of different models, including one with no fewer than five turrets and another that could move on rails as well as roads and open terrain. Nevertheless, by the mid-thirties the basic elements that make up a tank had been determined and become well-nigh universal. Including a single turret-mounted gun, a hull, and a suspension system; a configuration that, later on, came to be known as a main battle tank.

During the 1930s Germany pioneered armored divisions. Tanks apart, they were made up of artillery, anti-tank guns and infantry. All under a single headquarters, and all provided with the necessary supply, maintenance and repair services. Strongly supported from the air, they enjoyed their most spectacular successes in 1939-42 when they overran most of Europe and came within a hair of winning World War II both in Russia and in North Africa. Later, in 1943-45, they played an equally important role both on the Eastern and the Western Fronts. The tank’s development may be gauged from the fact that, by 1945, some Soviet ones mounted an awesome 122 mm. gun, a far cry from the 37 mm. that had been the norm even as late as in 1936-37. As guns grew so did the turrets that carried them, the hulls and suspensions that carried the turrets, the armor that protected them, and the engines that drove the lot.

1945-73. Tanks continued to increase in weight and power, finally stabilizing at about 60 tons. Increasingly during this period, it was the Israelis who took the lead in waging modern, mobile, tank-centered warfare. Not only did they fight and win two wars—1967 and 1973—but they started building their own tanks from scratch. Other tank-building countries, Germany with its Leopard II included, sought some kind of balance between firepower, protection and mobility. Not so Israel which, as befitted its limited manpower, put protection first. This approach proved itself during the 1982 Lebanon War when not one Israeli tankman was killed inside his tank.

1973-2022. The period saw any number of technical advances, starting with smoothbore cannon (instead of the traditional rifled one) and ending with the kind of anti-missile missiles designed to prevent enemy missiles from hitting the tank’s own armor. Both in 1991 and 2003, tanks spearheaded the Western invasions of Iraq, easily defeating the fleets of older, Soviet-built, tanks fielded by the latter country. However, even as the tracks churned away in the desert warfare was changing. As more countries either acquired nuclear weapons or the ability to build them relatively quickly, large-scale conventional war appeared to be on the retreat. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, its place was taken by asymmetric war, insurgency, guerrilla, terrorism, or whatever it may have been called. As these forms of conflict showed, in them the role tanks could play was limited, often almost nonexistent.

2022-23. When Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 his generals used tanks to spearhead their forces. And rightly so because Ukraine, with its wide-open, flat terrain, presents invaders with ideal tank country. But that did not mean a return to World War II. As also happened to the Israelis in Gaza e.g, Russia’s tanks were not used in their “classic” role of taking on enemy tanks and opening the way to large-scale maneuvering deep behind the front. Instead they served as close artillery support, helping infantry to advance street by street, building by building, in urban terrain; more like Stalingrad than like the vast maneuvers that led up to it and, now carried out by the Russians, followed it.

The future. Do current events in Ukraine harbor the return of large-scale conventional warfare and, with it, of tanks? Some experts think so and are even now designing all sorts of futuristic fighting vehicles. All this is good and well, but it ignores the fact that the one reason why the current war can be waged at all is because Ukraine’s arsenal, like that of Iraq before it, is limited to conventional weapons. One can hear the hard men in the Kremlin say:

Tanks here, tanks there. We’ve got

The atom bomb, and they do not.