Operation Southern Focus
Handgrenade Feb 2022
Did Air Power achieve the objectives?
Handgrenade Feb 2022
Did Air Power achieve the objectives?
The Irony of Air Power
By John T. Kuehn
Should the Gipper get all the Credit, or some of the Credit, or little of the…?
John T. Kuehn
November 2022--no Handgrendade yet as Veterans' Day approaches.
The process usually occurs at the end of the previous month but a bit late right now.
So, take an issue near and dear to my heart, let us say the series of arms limitation (and other) treaties signed in Washington D.C. 100 years ago by the major powers (except for the pariah states of Germany and the Soviet Union, 1922's version of Iran and Russia today). The conference actually started 101 years ago this month.
October 2022 Handgrenade
The Myths of the “Few…”
September 2022 Handgrenade.
August 2022 Handgrenade
Chinese Narratives
Hoary Myths About the Boy from Lorain Ohio
July 2022 Handgrenade.
The Real Top Gun--In Memoriam of LT Richard A. Thompson, USN
His callsign was “RAT,” for obvious reasons. But the fact he even had a callsign was an indicator of the obstacles he’d overcome in becoming a naval aviator.
Handgrenade of the Month for May 2022
The Light and the Dark of American Exceptionalism in WW II.
John T. Kuehn
The Admirals Talk
By John T. Kuehn
March 2022 Handgrenade
Insights from the Past and Current Events
The Myth of the Battleship Admirals (Again?)
By John T. Kuehn
The Myths of Vietnam—Number One
John T. Kuehn, grasshopper in training to Dr. James Willbanks (LTC, USA, retired)
The War on Terror and the Militarization of the US Navy
Handgrenade December 2021
November 2021 Handgrenade
Red Storm Dissipating?
Handgrenade Hiatus
All---since I have been posting the McMulllen wrap up posts on the main H-WAR discussion thread, I will be delaying my next handgrenade (which is already half written) until November. See you in about 4 weeks.
John T. Kuehn
Fort Leavenworth KS
The Cold War, the United States, and NATO
This may have been posted arleady, if so, I apologize in advance.
Soren Kierkegaard and Existential Realities as tied to Time (and Tense): Implications for Military History
King of the Battlefield or Queen of the Battlefield?
John T. Kuehn
June Handgrenade 2021
Popular Culture, History, and Social Justice
May Handgrenade 2021
John T. Kuehn
COCOMS BEHAVING POORLY—SOME NAVAL EXAMPLES
John T. Kuehn
The Secret Sauce:
How to Put Together a Historical Handgrenade
Attention Grenadiers!
February Handgrenade
Full-on or Full Off or Something Else?
January 2021 Handgrenade
Naval Warfare and an American Way of War—Needs Work
Time For Another Washington Conference?
John T. Kuehn
The Pharaoh Effect and Small Innovative Organizations
November2020 Election Day Handgrenade (which has almost nothing to do with election)
Handgrenade October 2020
Is the “Carrier Club” the New “Gun Club”?
September 2020 Non- Handgrenade of the Month
What's in a Noun?
John T. Kuehn
Just a quick one folks: Let us look at a typical sentence written in professional military education these days (PME):
"General George Patton was a maginficent Soldier. His Troops performed magnificently during World War II and brought great Honor on themselves, our Nation, and for the gratitude of their Families."
Aside from other possible grammatical errors and the triumphal style, how many unnecessary formal nouns?
Who was the father of the United States Navy?
by John T. Kuehn
June Handgrenade 2020
By
May Handgrenade 2020
By
April 20 2020 Handgrenade of the Month
March 2020
Handgrenade of the Month
February 2020
Handgrenade of the Month
January 2020
Handgrenade of the Month
December 2019 Handgrenade
Sir Michael Howard and the Moral Imperatives of War
November 2019 Handgrenade
October 2019 Handgrenade
The Doolittle Raid: How Important?
Handgrenade of the Month*
September 2019
John T. Kuehn
Handgrenade Fans, Meant to post a handgrenade on August 31st, but holiday weekend distracted
"handgrenade" maker in chief. Should be available on Monday.
best,
John T. Kuehn, Platte City, MIssouri (a suburb of Kansas City)
Thucydides Trap: Whose Trap?
Graham Allison, among others, has proposed something known as the Thucydides Trap--which relates to a species of historical determinism based on the classic history of the Pelopponesian War by the Greek historian Thuycydides (who might be regarded as the father of analytical history as well as military history).
Quoting Allison from his book Destined for War:
July 2019 Handgrenade
Lend Lease -- More Important than Air Power?
A necessary but not sufficient factor in victory in World War II.
By
John T. Kuehn
MAY HANDGRENADE 2019
War versus Warfare—The Problems of Conflation
By John T. Kuehn
No, this is not April's fools.
caveat declaimed.
Popular Military History: A Need for Outreach?
John T. Kuehn
MARCH HANDGREANDE 2019
Aircraft Carriers—the New Battleship?
Yes and No.
John T. Kuehn
Handgrenade February 2019
Can On War serve as an Anti-war Treatise?
January 2019 Hand Grenade
Did Strategic Bombing lengthen the war?
Handgrenade December 2018
By
John T. Kuehn (Curmudgeon-in-chief wannabe)
Handgrenade for 11cNovember 2018
All: November's handgrenade will be posted on Armistice Day, 11 November 2018.
best, John T. Kuehn
Fort Leavenworth KS
October 2018 Handgrenade of the Month
What IS applied Military History?
Handgrenade of the Month – September 2018
The Ongoing Injustices of National Narratives:
The Case of Robert Calder v. Horatio Nelson
John T. Kuehn
The Ongoing Injustices of False Narrative:
The Case of Frank Jack Fletcher
John T. Kuehn
Handgrenade of the Month – July 2018
Revolution-ary Problems
Handgrenade of the Month – June 2018
The Cult of the Warrior - Helpful or...Silly, or...Dangerous?
By John T. Kuehn
Handgrenade of the Month – May 2018
Case Closed?
By John T. Kuehn
As the VE (Victory in Europe) anniversary approaches another anniversary also approaches as well…that of the bloody conclusion of the campaign in Okinawa and the subsequent denouement of the Greater East Asian War (aka World War II in the Pacific/Asia).
April 2018--Korea, Historically Troublesome?
by John T. Kuehn
All eyes, or at least many eyes, are focused on Korea these days, especially its northern component. Recently, I, too, wrote about a war that might erupt, although not the one many forecaste. https://taskandpurpose.com/china-russia-2020-war/
Hand Grenade of the Month – March 2018
Wars of Choice?
By John T. Kuehn
Recently someone tweeted: “saying some wars are wars of choice implies that some are not.” This person (a historian), contested that; implying that neither Clausewitz nor he believed choice played little role in the matter. Or put in a different way, all wars have some element of human choice in them.
Fear—The Common link Between the Two Great Trinities of War.
“Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends”
Emerson Lake and Palmer, perhaps “on war.”
Handgrenade of the Month January 2018
The Impact of Trans-Oceanic Flight on Maritime Consciousness (in the US in particular)
Bonne Année Mes Amis
A sudden loft, from the trench, for the December 2017 Handgrenade
Operational History
Okay, listen, or rather, read, up. Or down.
Operational history, you know, the kind of stuff Jon House and Rob Citino write, is fabulously successful with readers, yet disesteemed by academic critics, not just inside the tribe of military history, but by the larger historical community. My evidence, a review of the table of contents of Journal of Military History.
Why is this so?
Best, John T. Kuehn,Platte City, Missouri
Also on Twitter @jkuehn50
WHO REMEMBERS PROVIDE COMFORT?
John T. Kuehn
Maritime Realities, Storms, and Discontent
By John T. Kuehn
Handgrenade of the Month September 2017
Why the South Won
Just as I was wondering what I might write about next, the recent “Confederate Generals Statues” controvery reared its long-neglected head in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. How about that for a polemic start?
This handgrenade, as so many do, wrote itself. First, some historiography. There are a number of books, a civil war hands and others know, entitled similarly to the title of this month’s handgrenade, let us review them.
Dr. Michael Pearlman --- Farewell
All, In addition to Roger Spiller, we at Fort Leavenworth also lost another alumnus from the same era who taught almost as long inside Combat Studies Institute (CSI) and then the Department of Military History—Dr. Michael Pearlman. Mike passed on 15 August 2017 in Lawrence Kansas, where he had retired to in 2006.
This month I am doing as the Europeans do, I am taking a vaction for the whole month...but only for the handgrenade deal. But if someone wants to post something, please go right ahead using the blog tab on the main H-WAR page.
best, John T. Kuehn
Fort Leavenworth Kansas
Hand Grenade of the Month July 2017
By John T. Kuehn, written circa 23 June 2017
What Comes Next? Phases--Winning the Wars and Losing the Peace (plural)
Stand by, this is a long one. Could almost be a chapter in a Wick Murray anthology!
All: I have July's hand grenade ready to publish...and will.
However, I am soliciting topics from you, the H-WAR readership in an effort to perhaps broaden my pool of targets.
I have opinions on just about everything out there, but specifically military and warfare related topics, so send 'em my way and I will weigh in on them with explosive prose--or whatever passes for the writing I do. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Will any pick it up?
vr, John T. Kuehn
Fort Leavenworth KS
June 2017 Handgrenade
Faithful Readers (or those who stumbled on this by accident):
this month's offering is not a hand grenade per se, but rather a rumination inspired by memorial day, a time when I try to recall not just those who gave their lives in active service for the United States, but also those whom I knew personally that died on active duty in the line of duty.
Here goes.
Handgrenade of the Month May 2017
The Hitler Problem
Just as I was wondering what I might write about next, especially since April’s hand grenade appears to have been a dud (as far as generating some dialog), Mr. Sean Spicer of the Trump Administration brings military history and the fundamental a-historicism of American society into focus with a very public “gaffe.”
The facts first. Here is what Mr. Spicer said, I tried as much as possible to avoid the “cherry picking” context error we see made so much in American discourse these days:
Handgrenade of the Month April 2017
By John T. Kuehn
As one of my intellectual heroes wrote: "Theory should be study, not doctrine." (Book 2:Chapter 2, ON War, Carl von Clausewitz with Marie von Clausewitz.)*
He might have written that "Theory should be study, not emotional outbursts."
Oh wait, he did write something about that entitled "Other Emotional Factors." And just a few pages prior.
All: Just a quick hand grenade for March 2017
HGOTM-February 2017
Problems with the word and concept of “threat” in national security punditry
John T. Kuehn
A response to: NationalInterest.org ,June 2, 2016, "What America's Big New Defense Plan Gets Wrong, Five points on which the Pentagon’s "Third Offset" deserves scrutiny." By Jeffrey P. Bialos and Stuart L. Koehl
One of the problems with how we think about the future has to do with the word “threat”.
To invade or not to invade, that was/is the wrong question (Iraq Redux number 666)
December 2016 Handgrenade of the Month
A Short, Personal History of the Inefficacy of No-Fly Zones
Picking up where I veered off last month (into an esoteric discussion about what history is? when it comes to student sources and topics), I return to my original idea. That is, an anecdotal reach into the recent past to discuss the issue of “no fly zones” (NFZs for you acronym crazy-folk out there) and by extension air power.
November 2016 Handgrenade of the Month
A Short, Personal History of the Inefficacy of No-Fly Zones
But first….
We do not need a handgrenade this month, do we? We all get more than enough of one on November 8th, unless of course we already voted. However, I have taken this burden on willingly, with no encouragement or discouragement, and it is mine alone to see through. I made a commitment to myself—so here goes.
Handgrenade of the Month October 2016
Point A to B or A over X as a Function of Time? Steady states versus endstates in military planning.
by John T. Kuehn
All: I realize many of historians may eschew mathematics as a way to think about history, well maybe not all of us, or even most us. Thus, the title here requires some explanation.
What you read next has been percolating for some time, and I have run it by my students at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) for the last couple years or so.
Handgrenade of the Month September 2016
Guest Posting -- Defining Victory
John T. Kuehn
Handgrenade of the Month August 2016
by
John T. Kuehn
Tell the Truth (Frail Facades of Reality)
“There is a simple answer for every complex problem, and it’s wrong.” Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
“Our problem is not that we know too little history to understand the present but that we know too much, and most of it is wrong.” N.A.M. Rodger, Naval War College Review (Winter 2013)
Colloquial tone—strap in, this one is kind of long.
Handgrenade of the Month July 2016
by
John T. Kuehn
The Warrior Ethos versus the Professional Officer Ethos
(This one wrote itself)
Warrior-Schwarrior. A recent article extolled the warrior ethos in today’s military. #Essays on War: Warrior Ethos by Zach Mierva—which riffed off of the _Warrior Ethos_ by Steven Pressfield. Recently there have been some grumbling about the so-called decline of this ethos.
Handgrenade of the Month
June 2016
The Lost Art of Editing
John T. Kuehn
Exhibit A for the prosecution: Army History Magazine, Winter 2016 issue, published by the Center of Military.
This is a fine magazine/journal and almost always presents high quality scholarship and book reviews in its issues, but…
One finds the following on page 32-33 about the operations of Nathanial Greene AFTER Yorktown and after his own battle at Eutaw Springs (a tactical defeat but an operational victory).
Handgrenade of the Month May 2016
by
John T. Kuehn
More Maps, Please
What is up with maps in books and scholarly journals these days? Especially in military history books?
I'll give John Kuehn a break and lob the hand-grenade this week.
"Remarkably, neither Neer (personal communication) nor Little (so far as I can tell from her blog) consider themselves 'military historians.'"
March 2016 Handgrenade of the Month
John T. Kuehn
Primary Sources and Military History
I said I would do it and now I am. One of the problems I find I have with military history students, both inside Professional Military Education (PME) and outside of it in programs such as that Master of Military History Program at Norwich University or the University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom is this issue of what is an acceptable primary source?
Handgrenade of the Month February 2016
by
John T. Kuehn
Popular versus Scholarly Military History
Just a short one this month. Popular military history versus scholarly military history, ideally one should try to write both, right? Or wrong?
Gray Zones and Gray Matter
A new year, a new handgrenade.
Handgrenade of the Month December 2015
With the Paris, Lebanon, and Tunisian bombings, plus the Russian airliner downing, it might seem inadvisable to talk about bomb throwing, inappropriate even.
However, the metaphor-- really a way of stirring up discussion of unchallenged myths, assumptions, legends, and other pieces of various folks’ confirmation biases—still applies. Or put another way, the show must go on.
Handgrenade of the Month November 2015
What Does Veterans' Day Mean?
Hand Grenade of the Month for October 2015
Trafalgar 210 Years On—Why WAS it decisive?
October 21, 1805.The winds were light and variable, but at last the game was afoot, after two years before the mast sailing day after day, week after week, month after month, the British fleet had cornered its prey.
Hand Grenade of the Month -- September 2015
Refusing to Learn
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.”
Georges Santayana, The Life of Reason
Hello hand grenade fans (and those souls who dislike this forum but are drawn to it by a morbid sense of curiosity, to see what nonsense that Kuehn fellow is spewing forth this month).
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on March 9, 2015]
Hand Grenade of the Week 27
(March 8, 2015)
Lam Son 719 and the Upcoming Offensive to Retake Mosul
All: Springtime is almost here and with it a return to the hand grenade of the week, seeing that many weeks have passed since the last one. Note I have dated this one so all can see when in time these things were “lobbed.” Apologize for the sabbatical.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on May 12, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on January 20, 2015]
Hello All, have been absent, back east doing research and hanging out with my brother and cistern "wizards" of the DC area.
Something came up as I examined the General Board of the US Navy files prior to the beginning of the Great War (ie. World War I).
Here is the hand grenade (maybe a dud for some of you).
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on December 7, 2014]
Hand Grenade of the Week 25
Pearl Harbor--Revisiting the Efficacy of the Attack: December 7, 2014
On this, the 73rd anniversary of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor I want to revisit the efficacy of this engagement-- a “big” word that means both the effectiveness and utility as relates to the accomplishment of the mission ends.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on November 25, 2014]
All, In one final effort to make this work I am trying post this the way I have been directed to by the powers that be.
Given that it appears there was little response to the posting on the USS Arizona Band (Hand Grenade 23), I want to continue the discussion by posing a question about the force levels in the Pacific and how significantly they were affected by the Pearl Harbor raid by Admiral Nagumo's Dai Ichi Kido Butai.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on November 16, 2014]
All, Hand grenade of the week 22 was the prefatory to a speech I gave at a dedication of an artifact in Acheson Kansas to the memor of the USS Arizona on Memorial Day several years ago. As Pearl Harbor Day approaches, here is the second part of that speech.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on November 10, 2014]
I have posted this in a number places. It started out as a speech I gave several years ago. I think it goes well in the venue.
Acheson Kansas Memorial Day Speech
Thank You, ____________ …
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on October 20, 2014]
Okay, So here we are, 209 years later after the Royal Navy defeated the combined fleet, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet that is on 21 October 1805. Nelson was killed, but not before literally annhilating the French and Spanish fleets to the tune of some 20 ships elminated or taken and nearly 20,000 casualties.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on July 29, 2014]
No HGOTW this week. Happy holiday, summer is half over.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on October 6, 2014]
All: Just back from a quick trip around the nation--Kansas City to Dallas and then to Jacksonville and back to KC by way of Chicago Midway airport (an experience these days, Midway that is).
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on September 22, 2014]
Hand Grenade of the Week #18
Someone once said, “You can get a lot done in this town [Washington DC] if you don’t take any credit.” (It may have been Donald Rumsfeld.)
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on September 15, 2014]
Hand Grenade of the Week #17
By John T. Kuehn
This week, while discussing the origins of the Peloponnesian War as outlined by Thucydides in his timeless classic in one of my classes, the issue of why fear was the chief reason that the Athenians went to war arose. Here is the famous passage:
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on September 8, 2014]
HGOTW 16
Report from the Fleet
All: Just back from lovely San Diego, once upon a time the home of the US Fleet whose commander was known as CINCUSFleet. Bonus points to the first (and possibly only) reader to id who changed this acronym and why.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on August 25, 2014]
HGOTW 15
It is NOT the book we WOULD have written!
This week’s topic has to do with one of military historians’ favorite (and sometimes contentious) topics—Carl von Clausewitz.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on August 18, 2014]
It seems that everyone is interested in militarization these days, or at least they should be. Of course, much of the recent interest is of the negative sort, the whole idea that police forces in the United States are too militarized and that this is an underlying explanation for the violence/tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri over a shooting there.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on August 12, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on August 4, 2014]
Today’s topic, as it should be, addresses the contentious topic of the end of World War II in Asia.
Although some have argued that the war in Asia sputtered on (to 1979 in some cases), the unifying element of Japan as the principle co-belligerent against the Allied Powers came to an end during August-September 1945 because of three (four) major events:
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on July 21, 2014]
NO FLY Zones and No SAMS Zones and the MH17 Shoot down
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on July 14, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on July 6, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on June 30, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on June 22, 2014]
What IS operational art?
Okay, this seems to be a hand grenade of sorts these days. There are doctrinal definitions in places like Joint Pub 3.0 and FM 3.0 or the Army Doctrine Pub (ADP) 3.0.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on June 15, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on June 8, 2014]
All: I just finished up an essay wherein I took the following position:
"Was the U.S. – led coalition justified in invading Iraq in 2003?"
No, circumstances after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center did not justify the U.S.-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on June 2, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on May 26, 2014]
[Editor Note: This blog was originally posted by John T Kuehn on May 19, 2014]
Hand Grenade of the Week—5/18/2014
The Enemy Gets A Vote
All, Still trying to get a handle on this medium, but decided we needed something that was better "truth in advertising" than "inaugural posting." The next HGOTW, therefore will be posted as a response to this new blog thread.
John T. Kuehn, Ph.D., William A. Stofft Professor
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS