Hand Grenade of the Week

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/ 

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.”

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  

Maritime Realities, Storms, and Discontent

By John T. Kuehn

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.

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!

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 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.

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”.

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.

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 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

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).

Chris Rein

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?

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.

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.

[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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 14, 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 15, 2014]

[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 19, 2014]

Hand Grenade of the Week—5/18/2014

The Enemy Gets A Vote