Afghanistan Operational Environment
Mogadishu Mission Command
The South China Sea
20th Century Perspective for Today
The Battle of 73 Easting
The Battle of Annual
Imperialistic Wars
MacArthur and Baseball
Cuban Missile Crisis
History of Al Asad Air Base, Iraq
Into the Special Forces: Rudi Horvath
The Fulda Gap
Borinqueneers: 65th Inf Regt
The Spanish Civil War
Nomonhan
Egypt Canal Guerrillas
Mexican Revolution and US Intervention
By Edward J. Langer
From the beginning of time man has been in constant conflict with his fellow man. War, death and destruction sometimes seem the norm and peace the exception.
Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, says “that the natural state of humans is constant war with each other and that their lives are nasty, brutish and short.”[1]
While we may or may not agree with Hobbes and hope that deep down inside man there is the desire for peace, from the time of Cain and Able in the bible to the present there have been many conflicts.
During the 19th century into the beginning of the 20th century up to World War One, there were many wars, large and small: wars of aggression, wars of independence, civil wars,
border wars and wars of imperialistic expansion. This paper will examine three conflicts caused by capitalist/imperialistic expansion and will demonstrate that in an imperialistic
war that the side that maximizes the latest weapons technology won the battle and ultimately the war and that control of the sea was essential to ultimate victory.
Book Review: The CIA War in Kurdistan: The Untold Story of the Northern Front in the Iraq War
A Review by Brian Williams
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by Bob Seals
The roar of the crowd, the crack of a wooden bat on a ball, the deep emerald green grass of the field, our national pastime of baseball has had a profound effect upon countless American youths over the years. One such youth so influenced by the sport was an Army cadet who played, advocated and remained a fan of baseball his entire life, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. As a young man in the latter years of the nineteenth, and early years of the twentieth century, MacArthur played varsity level baseball in high school and at the United States Military Academy at West Point. However, most are relatively unfamiliar with how the sport significantly influenced him, and ultimately his thinking, in regards to warfare.
by Edward J. Langer
On a routine U-2 reconnaissance flight over Cuba, to see what sort of mischief Fidel Castro was up to, the plane’s cameras caught images of the construction of missile launch pads for offensive missiles.
In October of 1962, the world held its breath as two nuclear superpowers squared off. Was this going to be the beginning of World War three and a nuclear nightmare? Did Khrushchev really have the nuclear capability that Tass claimed he had, or was it just a bluff? Fortunately, through many backdoor meetings, the issue was resolved without a missile being launched.
There have been many books, articles and narratives that have been written that describe the events and the backdoor negotiations that resolved the issue.
by Bryan Dickerson
From early 2004 until late 2011, Al Asad Air Base was one of the most important air bases used by Coalition Forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom. For most of this time, this sprawling base located in the Al Anbar Province of western Iraq was operated by the U.S. Marine Corps to conduct aerial operations and support ground operations throughout the province. The history of this base, however, dates back to the mid-1980s. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Al Asad Air Base was subjected to numerous air attacks, sustaining massive damage. Al Asad’s role in Operation Desert Storm is thus the subject of this paper.
By Bob Seals
Dr. Deborah S. Cornelius, a noted east-central European historian, has described the Kingdom of Hungary in World War II as being "caught in the cauldron." The nation faced a geographical dilemma between two implacable ideological opponents leading to widespread misery and destruction during the war. Unfortunately, after the fighting ended in May of 1945 Hungarians remained "caught in the cauldron," now, a postwar communist one. For some, remaining in a communist Hungary was not an option.
By Bill Wilson
For those NATO soldiers whose units were deployed in the vicinity of the Iron Curtain, these alerts were laden with additional tension because the nearby presence of the Soviet forces was palpable. As one responded to the alert and approached the Kaserne, thoughts inevitably assessed how “real” the alert might be. For the U.S. Army in Germany in general, and its V (Fifth) Corps in particular, the geographical focus of this concern was known as the Fulda Gap.
By Daniel Ramos
During his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus arrived on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493. The island was inhabited by an indigenous people known as the Tainos, who had migrated from South America to the Caribbean. At the time the Island had no official name. The Tainos referred to their home island as Boriken or Borinquen, which means “Land of the Valiant Lords.” Over the years, many traders and sailors began calling the island Puerto Rico (Rich Port). Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce De Leon served as lieutenant to Columbus during his second voyage. In 1508, Ponce De Leon established the first Spanish settlement on the island and became the first governor of Puerto Rico.
By Christopher Weeks
At the end of the Second World War, Britain faced the increasingly difficult prospect of maintaining control over the Suez Canal in the face of rising Egyptian opposition and the economic realities of the post-war world. In attempting to exert its authority over the Canal Zone, Britain came up against a guerrilla movement fed both by nationalist and religious sentiment, and facilitated by a weak monarchy and a confrontational opposition government. The 1950-54 battle over the Canal Zone set the stage for the creation of an independent Egypt and the 1956 Suez crisis.
By Timothy Neeno, M.A.
The young lieutenant and his squad of men advanced through the arid Chihuahuan scrub
toward the adobe walled ranch house. All was quiet. There was a chance that a top
Villista commander was inside. The lieutenant and two men moved up along
the north end of the building. Six others took the south side. As the lieutenant
came around the corner to the east side, three men on horses dashed around out of
the gate, coming straight at him. The horsemen wheeled, only to find the rest of
the Americans coming around the southeast corner of the house. Turning again, they
charged toward the lieutenant. A crack shot with a pistol, he fired, shooting a
horse in the belly and wounding its rider in the arm. The lieutenant ducked back
around the corner to reload his pistol, emerging again just as a second rider swept
down on him.
