Previous War Research Articles

СУЧАСНІ ВИКЛИКИ В ПОЛІТИЦІ США ЩОДО ТАЙВАНЮ

The article analyzes a wide range of current challenges in US policy toward Taiwan, including populist slogans, economic potential, and security threats. Interpreting the understanding of the US national security strategy, it should be noted that it is based on two pillars: the first pillar promotes “freedom, justice, and human dignity, i.e., working to end tyranny and promote effective democ- racy,” while the second pillar confronts “the challenges of our time by leading the growing community of democracies.” This is part of the tradition of American foreign policy, often referred to as the “American project.” This project aims to “protect our homeland security by building a peaceful world order of democratic nations bound by shared values and the idea of common prosperity”. The Pacific region has become the main testing ground of the twenty-first century to determine whether China and the United States will be able to build a new model of relations between superpowers and preserve the existing international security order. While some Americans criticize China for its increasing assertive- ness in its foreign policy and urge China to avoid the expansionist world order of the old imperialist powers, many Chinese believe that building this new rela- tionship depends to a large extent on the United States changing its approach to US-China bilateral relations and adapting to the new reality of China’s interna- tional rise. It should be understood that strategic distrust between the two countries is inevi- table, as US-China relations have always been characterized by varying degrees of contact that cannot be completely resolved by any modern diplomatic instru- ments. Justifying each other’s actions and lack of empathy can only intensify the strategic rivalry between China and the United States. If leaders in both Washing- ton and Beijing do not attempt to engage with each other on issues of common concern, working separately to protect their interests by maintaining a delicate balance of power, a mixture of self-justification and miscalculation could turn the China – U.S. rivalry into a new Cold War, which would be even more dangerous than the previous US-Soviet Cold War, as it lacks a single center of confrontation and has many more hotspots, including the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, and the South and East China Seas. Thus, the Asia-Pacific region has become one of the most dangerous areas for regional and geopolitical state relations in the twenty-first century.

Peacebuilding strategy in training of young scientists In conditions of information risks

The relevance of the topic of this paper is determined by the transformation of information society which creates both benefits and risks. Hybrid wars are one of the information risks consequences. In the scientific theory the informational challenges of hybrid warfare include informational occupation of regions, spread of disinformation and propaganda. The strategic information confrontation is a real instrument which is used by Russia in its previous hybrid war against Ukraine as well as in its current real aggression in Ukraine. In conditions of the real war in Ukraine this instrument is continued to be used by Russia and creates new social challenges for the whole world. The subject of the study is an overview of scientific publications in the field of development of information society, information risks, peacebuilding strategy in the training of young scientists etc. The aim of this study was to conduct a thorough analysis of the publications and legislative documents devoted to the countermeasures of Ukraine in hybrid war with Russia on the information sphere, especially in the work with young scientists. The analysis revealed that the formation of peacebuilding strategy with countermeasures against information risks should be implemented by higher education establishments in the training of young scientists such as PhD students and closely connected with both national legislative documents regulating PhD studies and international legislation in the field of human rights protection.

The intimate geopolitics of evidence gathering in war crime investigation in Ukraine

The intimate geopolitics of evidence gathering in war crime investigation in Ukraine

How Family History Helps Ukrainians Face the War

Ukrainians displaced by the current Russian invasion frequently turn to family memories of a previous war to understand and cope with their situation. In an oral history project, Ukrainian refugees often compared Russian actions to World War II–era war crimes perpetrated in Ukraine by Nazi Germany—and many assert that the Russians today are worse. These experiences have fueled an intense hatred of the Russians, even among Russian-speakers. For these Ukrainians, the idea of the Russkii mir, or “Russian world,” binding post-Soviet countries in a common civilization, has been discredited.

An Introduction to and Evaluation of the 2019 Belgian Companies Act – Preparing for the Previous War?

Abstract 109This article discusses some aspects of the completely new Companies Act (“BCCA”) adopted in Belgium in 2019. Even though the reform touched upon all aspects of company law and all company types, its main goal was to roll back Belgian goldplating of EU company law Directives and to turn the hitherto very rigid Belgian private company into a very flexible, contractual vehicle with little mandatory law applicable to it, except for rules on creditor protection. As part of this reform, the concept of legal capital (not just minimum capital requirements) was abolished for the private company. In order to allow a Belgian company to better compete in the light vehicle competition, Belgium moved from the real seat doctrine to the incorporation theory. For public companies, the main reform was probably the introduction of loyalty shares, which (so far) did not succeed in attracting more listings to the Brussels stock market, but did allow existing controlling shareholders to cement their control with a smaller stake than before. The reform was very successful in increasing legal certainty about many issues about which no authoritative case law exists. But in a way, the reform fought the last war (the light vehicle competition) while arguably not enough attention was paid to enabling venture capital and private equity contracting and the capital structures that go with these investments.110

Psychiatric Morbidity Among Older Hospitalized Patients.

Globally, life expectancy is increasing, leading to an equal proportion of elderly and young individuals, which carries extensive implications. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the average age at death in 2021 was 77 years, positioning BiH in the middle of the global list of average life expectancy. Current studiesinvestigate whether the prevalence of psychiatric disorders increases or decreases with age, but results are inconsistent regarding the role of age.There is no prior research on mental disorders in the elderly population in BiH. The experience of the previous war in BiH and the post-war complex "transitional period" have been associated with specific challenges to the mental health of this population, inspiring our research topic. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychiatric morbidity in hospitalized individuals aged≥55 years. The sample consisted of all patients over age 55 treated at the Department of Psychiatry in Tuzla between January 2018 and December 2020 (N=637), divided into four age categories. Data were obtained from medical records, and for research purposes, a specific questionnaire was constructed. The predominant psychiatric morbidity stemmed from the category of affective disorders, most common within the "55-64 years" age group, while organic mental disorders were more prevalent in other age groups.Substance use disorders were present in patients aged "55-64 years", with a sharp decline in their prevalence in older age. Female participants had a significantly higher prevalence of affective, psychotic, neurotic, and stress-related disorders, whereas male participants exhibited an increased prevalence of organic mental and substance use disorders. In total sample, the most prevalent diagnoses belong to the category of affective disorders. Female were most frequently diagnosed with affective disorders, whereas organic mental disorders and substance use disorders prevail in male.

ПАМ’ЯТЬ ПРО ДРУГУ СВІТОВУ ВІЙНУ В УМОВАХ РОСІЙСЬКО- УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ВІЙНИ: ПОСТАНОВКА ПРОБЛЕМИ

Today, in the conditions of a full-scale brutal war unleashed by the Russian Federation, Ukraine is experiencing the greatest upheaval since the World War ІІ. The memory of the previous war on Ukrainian territory played and continues to play a significant role in the scientific, political, and cultural spheres. The purpose of this article is to highlight the main aspects of the study of the memory of the Second World War in the conditions of the Russian-Ukrainian war (since 2014). We believe, that the proposed directions are relevant today and in the future. Before the Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of the Russian aggression in 2014, post (Soviet) and national narratives of the politics and culture of remembrance of the Second World War existed simultaneously in the Ukrainian discourse. After the mentioned events, and especially after the legally enshrined refusal of using the term "Great Patriotic War" and other changes, the national paradigm of war memory was finally established. There have been decisive changes in the politics of memory, historical politics, commemorative practices, the teaching of the events of World War II history in school, etc. This article proposes and briefly analyzes problems that, in our opinion, may be of interest to Ukrainian and foreign researchers of enshrined refusal memory, memory politics, historical politics, etc. That is Euromaidan, the beginning of Russian aggression and a rethinking of the previous paradigm of commemoration of the war, in particular the "decommunization laws" of 2015. The impact of a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, legislative changes in 2023. Russian instrumentalization of commemoration of the Second World War in the conditions of hybrid and full-scale wars and the Ukrainian response. "Places of memory" dedicated to the war in urban space and changes in commemorative practices. Memory of the Second World War in toponymy - the dynamics of changes. Images of war in the educational process, etc.

“theirs is a kind of ecological esthetics”: Three Mountain Poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen

“theirs is a kind of ecological esthetics”Three Mountain Poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen1 Todd Giles (bio) I In 1957 West Coast poet Kenneth Rexroth published “Disengagement: The Art of the Beat Generation” in New World Writing No. 11. The Beats, according to Rexroth, were “interested in Far Eastern art and religion; some even call themselves Buddhists. Politically they are all strong disbelievers in State, war, and the values of commercial civilization” (53). West Coast poets were not just turning toward East Asia for inspiration, they were also turning away from their own country— away from McCarthyism, racism, complacency, sprawling Levittowns, thermonuclear detonations, and suburban fallout shelters. They were in, as Rexroth explains, “a state of revolt so absolute that its elders cannot even recognize it. The disaffiliation, alienation, and rejection of the young has, as far as their elders are concerned, moved out of the visible spectrum altogether” (42). While this disaffiliation drew them spiritually and philosophically toward the East, it also, through their study of Chinese rivers and mountains poetry, Zen philosophy, and meditation practices, brought some of the younger West Coast poets back into the American landscape with a profound understanding and appreciation for their place in (and responsibility toward) the environment. In a way, they were following their Modernist predecessors such as Stein, Hemingway, Pound, and Eliot who moved to Europe after the previous world war to help redefine themselves and their nation. [End Page 285] The year 1957 also saw the publication of Alan Watts’s influential book The Way of Zen, which pointed out that the time was right in America for a spiritual awakening: Our very history has seriously undermined the common-sense assumptions which lie at the roots of our social conventions and institutions. Familiar concepts of space, time, and motion, of nature and natural law, of history and social change, and of human personality itself have dissolved, and we find ourselves adrift without landmarks in a universe which more and more resembles the Buddhist principle of the ‘Great Void.’ The various wisdoms of the West, religious, philosophical, and scientific, do not offer much guidance to the art of living in such a universe, and we find the prospects of making our way in so trackless an ocean of relativity rather frightening. For we are used to absolutes, to firm principles and laws to which we can cling for spiritual and psychological security. (vii–viii) As Watts points out, the post-atomic age has brought us face-to-face with the very real potential destruction of the world and everything we hold so dear— “assumptions,” “conventions,” “institutions,” “concepts,” and so forth. “This is why,” he says of the burgeoning counterculture’s engagement with Eastern philosophy, “there is so much interest in a culturally productive way of life which, for some fifteen hundred years, has felt thoroughly at home in ‘the Void,’ and which not only feels no terror for it but rather a positive delight” (viii). This Void of which Watts speaks is another term for the Buddhist notion of śūnyatā, or emptiness, where western binaries such as this versus that, right versus wrong, and us versus them give way to suchness, interconnection, and perpetual unfolding; where, as Dwight Goddard— who Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder were reading at the time— put it in his translation of The Heart Sutra, “form is emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, neither is form different from emptiness, indeed, emptiness is form” (85). Rexroth likewise speaks of the intellectual and cultural break in the western mind keenly felt by Snyder, Whalen, and other members of the counterculture who turned to the nondualist “ocean [End Page 286] of relativity” and new (older) conceptions of “nature and natural law . . . and social change” posited by Eastern philosophy in the concluding chapter of his 1971 American Poetry in the Twentieth Century: Twenty years before ecology became a fashionable evasion, Snyder and Whalen . . . were talking about the ecological revolution and the community of love and learning from the mountains and rivers and the Indians of the Northwest and studying Buddhism and Hinduism. . . . With Snyder, Whalen, Rothenberg, Bill Knott, Leonard Cohen, we are already deep into...

Improving Care During Peacetime, War, and Disasters: A Call for Agile Military Civilian Strategic Alliances.

Improving Care During Peacetime, War, and Disasters: A Call for Agile Military Civilian Strategic Alliances.

Liminal Liberalism? Ivan Kats, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and the Obor Foundation in Cold War Indonesia

The story of the Obor Foundation is important for several reasons. Firstly, it covers the contribution of an up-till-now largely overlooked Western philanthropic enterprise to promote a cohesive national cultural identity for Indonesia in the wake of the fall of Sukarno. Secondly, Obor was an attempt to move beyond previous Cold War efforts to spread liberal ideas globally, most notably by the Congress for Cultural Freedom. To overcome critiques of top-down Westernization and neocolonialism, Obor sought to establish local control over the publishing process in a reciprocal arrangement of shared responsibility. Thirdly, it was symbolic of the move of the Ford Foundation, which had invested a great deal in the modernisation (i.e. Westernization) of Indonesian education, towards introducing a greater level of autonomy in their operations from the late 1960s onwards, expressing a general confidence in (and sufficient monitoring of) Western-trained and/or -oriented local leadership.

Notes from the Editors, April 2022

buy this issue
 As we write these notes at the beginning of March 2022, the eight-year limited civil war in Ukraine has turned into a full-scale war. This represents a turning point in the New Cold War and a great human tragedy. By threatening global nuclear holocaust, these events are also now endangering the entire world. To understand the origins of the New Cold War and the onset of the current Russian entry into the Ukrainian civil war, it is necessary to go back to decisions associated with the creation of the New World Order made in Washington when the previous Cold War ended in 1991.

G. V. Ivanov’s Essays Across Europe by Car: The Image of Germany in the 1930s

G. Ivanov’s essays Across Europe by Car describing the circumstances of the author’s real trip from Riga to Paris have signs of the genre of travel notes or travelogue. The theoretical basis the author uses to study Ivanov’s essays is the idea of the travelogue as a synthetic genre existing in a variety of forms. In the essays the article examines, travel turns into a political pamphlet. The essays meticulously reproduce the itinerary, place names, peculiarities of the way of life, architecture, and everyday details. However, the main content of the cycle focuses on Germany in the 1930s seized by the ideology of fascism. The caricature nature of the sketches borders on grotesque. Not only the leaders of Germany, but also Russian fascists (Bermondt-Avalov, Vonsyatsky, Pelhau) are depicted satirically. Describing the history of the Russian National Liberation Movement, a fascist union of Russian emigrants, Ivanov shows the reasons that attracted poverty-stricken emigrants to the organisation: the union promised protection to its members, gave them the illusion of a common cause, and seduced them with the hope of returning to Russia. The position of the author himself is quite unambiguous — he hates fascism which turns people into an obedient crowd, hypnotised by the speeches of the leaders. Sketches about Germany are framed by sketches about border towns and villages: the narrator enters through Lithuanian Šiauliai, and the description of the journey ends with his arrival at a border post in France. The beginning and the end of the essay cycle echo each other: on both sides, there are visible traces of the previous war, and the two places share a somewhat disordered but charming everyday life which is described with good humour. The main character is happy to leave Germany. However, the nation engulfed in the propaganda of its own greatness, full of belligerence already casts a shadow of threat on the neighbouring countries. At the same time, the old story of Duke Biron recounted in the essays indirectly expresses the author’s hope that every almighty despot will have to pay for his atrocities sooner or later.

Symonds on fear and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Prominent English neurologist Sir Charles Symonds, during World War II service with the Royal Air Force, published a series of articles emphasizing the role of fear initiating psychological breakdown in combat airmen (termed Lack of Moral Fibre). Having served in a medical capacity in the previous war, Symonds re-presented the phylogenetic conceptualizations formed by his colleagues addressing 'shell shock'. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) re-classified Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), removing the diagnosis from the category of Anxiety Disorders. This was the view introduced a century ago by the trench doctors of World War I and affirmed by Symonds' clinical experience and studies in World War II.

Turkish Foreign Policy in the Chaos of War, 1939-1945

ABSTRACT The World War II marked an important watershed for Turkey’s foreign policy. It caught Turkey in the middle of a nation and state-building processes as well as still recovering from the damages of the previous war. Thus when the war started, its main concern was to survive it without damage to its territorial integrity. To ensure this, Turkey signed non-aggression agreements with all the major powers and tried to steer a course between the clashing interests of belligerents. Its main strategy was geared towards staying out of the war as long as possible as it did not have the means to ensure its security. While the Italian threat appeared paramount early in the war, this was neutralized by maintaining friendly relations with Germany, which was balanced by developing closer relations with Britain. But the main source of apprehension to Turkey during the war was the Soviet Union, which remained as the defining feature of its foreign policy after the war, and motivated the Turkish leaders to secure Allied guarantees that would ensure its safety at the end of the war.

TOPIC: THE CHALLENGES OF RUSSIAN CONTEMPORARY ENGAGEMENTS IN SOUTHERN AFRICAN STATES 1991-2019

This paper deals with the challenges of Russian relations with thirty years of Russo- Southern African relations between 1991 and 2019, following the closure of several diplomatic services and questionable engagements of nuclear extension in the region with a hiding agenda of the 21st Century. Her incapacity to continue running some of her embassies in the region was due to lack of financial resources which resulted from the collapse of the Cold War and disintegration of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) into Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1991.The devastated Russian economy could only left her behind unrealistic foreign agenda that was perfectly destroyed by Mikhail Gorbachev’s hasty declaration of Glasnost and Perestroika as new international norms which facilitated the United States of America (U.S.A) to re-gain a unique prominent position as the Policeman of the World. This meant that Russian engagements with SubSaharan African countries were now in a handicap and dangerous stance towards the 21st Century. What then constituted Soviet Union’s lateness of foreign policy initiative towards Africa’s, challenges of the 1990s and new patterns of Russian relations and initiatives of exploiting natural resources and setting up of nuclear agenda in Southern African States are the main concerns of this study. With the adoption of a historical approach, the scrutiny of specialised sources concerning this question enabled us to come out with finding that, contemporary Russian attempt to aggressively reinforce relations with specific Southern African countries pave the way forward of Great Fear in case of any nuclear war in the 21st Century. That Southern and Central African leaders of Sub-Saharan Africa should be aware that the previous Cold War Super-Power competition was over but it took a new form in the face of a unique Hyper- Power position dominated by the United States in the Post-Cold War era which the crumbled Russia is recently bend to correct some of her mistakes through deeper penetration of main strategic zones of Africa as a means of preparing and multiplying her networks of attacks and defense in the Atlantic and India Oceans. This engagement with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is very pertinent after thirty years of the collapsed of USSR and new orientations in international relations and international political economy with the challenges of the 21st Century Unite States.and China Hyper-economic positions in the global economic system with U.S Hyper-Power position in international politics as a unique policeman of the World.

РАБОТЫ П. СОРОКИНА ПЕРИОДА ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ: ОПЫТ СОВРЕМЕННОГО ПРОЧТЕНИЯ В РОССИИ И США

The article attempts to analyze the experience of the present-day perusal in Russia and the United States of the works of outstanding sociologist P.A. Sorokin, written by him during the Second World War. P.A. Sorokin, a well-known Russian-American sociologist, has always attracted the attention of the scientific community with his extraordinary works that have opened new ways of development for social sciences. One of the issues of interest to the scientist was associated with the identification of the nature and essence of wars. The sociologist substantiated the relationship between the war and the subsequent militarization of society; viewed the fact of depletion of the nation’s “biological fund” as a result of the war; using concrete material, he demonstrated the relationship between wars and revolutions. Defending a sociological approach, the scientist suggested that a specific event should be correlated with the analysis of the war phenomenon as a whole. In his book “The Crisis of Our Time” (1941), P. Sorokin showed that the cause of World War II should be sought not in the peculiarities of totalitarian leaders, but in the disorganization and value disorientation of both international and internal relations of states after the previous war. In the book “Russia and the United States” (1944), P. Sorokin substantiated the idea of close cooperation between military allies as a necessary condition for maintaining a long post-war peace. All of Sorokin’s books have caused and still cause an ambiguous reaction in the American sociological community: from full acceptance to the rejection of his “marginal thoughts”. Our domestic discourse is built on the idea of preserving Sorokin’s heritage (Russian and American), deep study and popularization of his sociological concept.

АКТУАЛИЗАЦИЯ В РУССКОЙ ПОЭЗИИ ВОСПОМИНАНИЙ ОБ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ ВОЙНЕ 1812 ГОДА В КОНТЕКСТЕ КРЫМСКОЙ ВОЙНЫ 1853–1856 ГОДОВ

. In the minds of contemporaries, the Crimean War of 1853–1856 and the Patriotic War of 1812 that preceded it were closely linked. The author of the article examines the image of the French and France as an enemy familiar to the Russians from the 1812 Patriotic War. The article analyzes the system of images, motives, memories associated with the events of 1812–1814 and reflected in the poetic works of the Crimean campaign contemporaries. The author of the article points out the reasons for the actualization of memories, shows how and in what way the perception of the French as military adversaries has changed in comparison with the previous war. Particular attention is paid to the depiction of Napoleon I and his nephew Napoleon III in Russian poetry. If Napoleon I is described by Russian poets of the 1850s. in a respectful manner as a mature politician, the image of Napoleon III is firmly associated with the motives of betrayal, ingratitude for the mercy of Russians towards France in 1814 war. No less attention is paid to the images of the 1812 Patriotic War veterans who appear in the poems of the Crimean War period both alive, eager to rise again to defend the homeland, and dead, tacitly calling on their descendants to repeat the victory over the French. Apart from the images and motifs reflecting Russian-French relations in the historical context, the author finds motifs of feasting and entertainment unrelated to the theme of war in the poetry contemporary to the events of the Crimean War.

Lebanon’s Faulty Governance and Elitist Political Participation

Belatedly, just before the tenth anniversary of the Arab Spring and Lebanon’s centennial, the country witnessed its anxiously awaited Arab Spring uprising, or what came to be known as the ‘17 October 2019 WhatsApp Revolution’. This watershed event coincided with an unprecedented collapse in the economic, political and financial system. Since 17 October 2019, the Lebanese streets and public squares have been burning with revolutionary youth fervour. Disenchanted youth, unions, Islamists and civil society organisations have been demanding an overhaul of the entire political system, coupled with the ousting of the corrupt politicians – the previous civil war (1975–1990) warlords and ruling power elite – who have been in power since the early 1980s. Why did this call for dignity and freedom come about, and how is it evolving? Is it a phase in the unfolding of the ‘Arab Spring Revolutions’? What is the role of various Lebanese political, civil society, and Islamist organisations in this ongoing process? How could the strong state known as the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ degenerate into a weak state – a ‘deep state’ and a ‘Banana Republic’ governed by the omerta of ‘vetocracy’ (consensual democracy) and ‘mafiocracy’ (crony capitalism)? This meltdown led the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to appeal to the Lebanese to ‘help us to help you’, warning of the disappearance of the Lebanese Republic if swift and drastic measures were not taken to stamp out the rampant culture of corruption and clientelism (patron-client relationships). Seen through that lens, Lebanon’s 17 October WhatsApp Revolution and mass mobilisation was a reaction against faulty governance and elitist political participation.

Civil War Supply and Strategy: Feeding Men and Moving Armies by Earl J. Hess

Reviewed by: Civil War Supply and Strategy: Feeding Men and Moving Armies by Earl J. Hess Thomas F. Army Jr. Civil War Supply and Strategy: Feeding Men and Moving Armies. By Earl J. Hess. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020. Pp. xiv, 432. $50.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-7332-9.) Once again, Earl J. Hess offers us an innovative approach to Civil War writing in his groundbreaking new book Civil War Supply and Strategy: Feeding Men and Moving Armies. Hess investigates the connection between armies’ strategic movements and their critical ability to feed and supply their men and animals. His argument is succinct: commanders who placed strategic operations ahead of supply and logistical concerns did so at their own peril. The author covers critical campaigns in the eastern, western, and trans-Mississippi theaters, although he pays particular attention to Union operations in the West where great distances, inhospitable civilians, and challenging environments hampered movements. Overcoming these obstacles to feed men and animals deep inside Confederate territory, Hess argues, was an “achievement...unprecedented in American history” (p. 21). Railroad management figures prominently in Hess’s book. Both the Union and Confederate armies used extensive wagon trains to supply their men, and both lived off the countryside. However, the Federal army quickly learned how to successfully manage the railroads. The North developed a remarkable system of railroad transportation, maintenance, and repair. By 1865, the United States Military Railroad, under the direction of Daniel C. McCallum, had become the largest railroad company in the world. For the North, operating on external lines of communication, the supply problems were enormous. To reach the tip of the spear, the North developed a supply chain that extended from major depots such as Cincinnati and Louisville to front-line units sometimes 350 miles away from their supply base. Confederate cavalry and guerrillas operating behind Union lines often ruined miles of track, bridges, and tunnels. Such damage threatened to leave an army vulnerable to starvation and capture deep inside Confederate territory, as nearly happened to General William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga (1863) and General Nathaniel P. Banks’s Army of the Gulf at Grand Ecore on the Red River (1864). Only the ingenuity of quartermasters allowed these armies to escape total disaster. Hess argues that the Union could not have won the Civil War unless its armies could maintain mobility and meet the challenges that otherwise would have impeded Union operations deep inside the Confederacy. The author’s insightful strategic and logistic analysis of the movements of Union and Confederate armies offers scholars and general readers a fresh approach to the way historians should consider, study, and write the Civil War’s military history. For example, the author points out that during the Kentucky campaign of 1862, although General Braxton Bragg “continued to rely on wagon trains and foraging to feed both the Army of the Mississippi and the Army of East Tennessee,” he had no real supply line; and consequently, after the battle of Perryville he was forced to retreat through the mountains of East Tennessee, his men living off parched corn (p. 45). This lesson of moving rapidly and living off the countryside was not lost on Union general William T. Sherman, who later commented that he would “imitate” Bragg’s example but make sure his army remained tethered to a supply line (p. 47). [End Page 730] As in his previous book Civil War Logistics: A Study of Military Transportation (Baton Rouge, 2017), Hess pays more attention to Union operations because far more information is available and because building functioning supply lines was particularly challenging when attacking deep inside the Confederacy. Hess points out that the Confederacy’s institutional and administrative problems in feeding its soldiers created a number of strategic disadvantages. What Hess does not offer is a reason why those institutional problems existed in the South and not in the North. Hess has written an important book. Military histories look at the strategic movement of armies but often discount the problem of supply. The author has shown us a different way of writing about war. Strategic operations must be considered within the framework of supply, and...

Surface Ships: The Kriegsmarine’s Downfall During the Second World War

This manuscript details the German naval plan against the UK, and explores the statistics as well as leadership in the Kriegsmarine that prove why the German naval strategy during the Second World War was majorly flawed. Germany was a surprisingly powerful nation in the late 1930s and early 1940s. As a nation under National Socialism, Germany had defeated and occupied large swaths of mainland Europe. Germany had taken control of France, Poland, Austria, and a majority of Scandinavia, as well as advancing allied interests in the area through Spain and Italy. The only problem that Germany had was the United Kingdom. As it is an island, the Germans could not employ their usual Blitzkrieg tactics, but instead made an attempt to reverse the British World War 1 strategy of starving the nation out of the war by eliminating any incoming trade. This was an even larger challenge for the Germans than it was for the British in the previous war, as the Germans had to eliminate the UK before the United States joined the war.