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Ukraine War Frontline Update – Combat Footage
One of the most interesting aspects of the Ukraine War is the widespread use of technology to record combat. Everything from individual soldiers wearing GoPro cameras to drones with thermal imagery capability are a constant presence on the battlefield. Many of the images and combat footage has been posted to various official and unofficial media…
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Britain’s World War II “Kamikaze” Pilots
While most of the 878 British Commonwealth merchant ships lost during the first year of the war are chalked up to U-boat attacks, few people realize that 172 of those transports were the victim of long-range attack aircraft. During the interwar period German firms developed long range aircraft, ostensibly for civilian use as it would…
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World War II in the Pacific Part II – MacArthur and the Philippines
The key to arresting the Japanese offensive early in the war, as far as U.S. territories were concerned, hinged on the defense of the Philippines. The islands, which gained independence from the United States on July 4, 1946, were the largest of all the U.S. territories at the time. When Japan launched her war of…
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Victory Day – Then and Now
In what has evolved into a national holiday of celebration and remembrance, on May 9, 1945, Soviet propagandists organized the first massive celebration and military parade marking the end of World War II. The date, still commemorated throughout the Russian Federation and most former Soviet Republics, is simply known as Victory Day. Since 1945 the…
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World War II in the Pacific Part I – Recipe for War
The 1941-1945 clash between the Empire of Japan and the United States was inevitable for various reasons. The winds of war began to blow with Japan’s disregard of the sovereignty of neighbors and imperialistic ambitions. Japanese aggression in China took place on a scale that equaled the barbarity and disregard for human life that took…
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Ukraine War – Year One
On February 24, 2022, after weeks of media hype and repeated warnings from numerous western intelligence services, the Russian Federation launched what was supposed to be a 72-hour anschluss that would bring Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence. Confident in imminent victory, Russian soldiers brought along dress uniforms. Many who participated in the…
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High-Profile Russians Who Died in 2022
2022 was a deadly year to be an influential Russian, especially one who opposed the Ukraine War. Aside from numerous high ranking military officers who have been killed in the Ukraine war, a string of Russian oligarchs, politicians, and bureaucrats passed away unexpectedly. All had close connections with the Kremlin, many had immense wealth, most…
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The Allies and the Holocaust: What they knew, when they knew it, and what they did about it
The idea that Germany, during World War II, would attempt to completely eradicate the entire Jewish population of the territories under their control was initially inconceivable to the Allies. Even though the Nazi’s hate of Jewish people and other groups of “undesirables” was well known, nobody could have imagined that Germany – a modern nation…
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Holocaust History: Auschwitz – Evolution of a Killing Factory
In Claude Lanzmann’s famous documentary film Shoah he interviewed SS guard Franz Suchomel who called Auschwitz a “killing factory.” There could not be a more adequate description of the hell that was Auschwitz-Birkenau. However as with most events of the Holocaust its purpose as a killing center did not emerge overnight. Rather, it evolved in…
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The Crimean Bridge Will Cease to Exist: Interview with the Head Ukrainian Military Intelligence
Recently Ukrainskaya Pravda’s Roman Kravets sat down with Kiril Budanov, head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense. Since the beginning of the war, Budanov has become one of the most authoritative Ukrainian sources on the conflict. He accurately predicted that Russia would initiate hostilities with Ukraine a year before the…
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Holocaust History: A Sinister Organization
By the time Operation Barbarossa kicked off in June 1941 and rolled across the East, Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel, or SS for short, controlled law and order in the police state that was the Third Reich. It all began in 1936 when Hitler appointed Himmler Chief of the German Police; he also retained his position as…
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Holocaust History: Legislation – Propaganda – Intimidation, the Nazi Trifecta of Persecution 1933-1939
The conditions in Germany at the time of Adolf Hitler’s ascension to power were ripe for exploitation to advance the sinister causes of National Socialism. Hitler and his high-ranking Nazi associates were acutely aware of existing sentiments and prejudices; they moved quickly as soon as they took power to exploit them as far as was…
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Holocaust History: Nazi Zeitgeist – The Spark the Set Europe Ablaze
The tragic and horrifying events of the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany was a process. There was no main event that kicked off the mass murder perpetrated by the Third Reich. Rather, it was a complicated series of events that built one upon the next.… Read More Holocaust History: Nazi Zeitgeist – The Spark the…
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Ukraine War Update (Day 200)
For many in the West, the Ukraine war has now become an afterthought with blue and yellow yard signs fading in the sun or blown away in the wind. However, the war continues to grind on in what has become the largest and longest conventional war in recent decades. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of…
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The Evolution and Influence of the “Annales” School on Modern Historiography
Nineteenth Century historiography was dominated by the Empirical Model espoused by German historian Leopold von Ranke in which history was a narrative based on documented facts. Historians wrote volumes on wars, battles, great men, leaders, political institutions, and the rise of nations. Very few works were produced on the poor working class or peasants -…
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Response to Editorial “The Voice of the Unheard”
The following is a response to an editorial titled The Voice of the Unheard by Managing Editor Nathaniel Arroyave, published in the Desert Review. In his June 9th editorial The Voice of the Unheard Mr. Arroyave made some excellent points regarding the low voter turnout in our local elections, and the importance of voting to…
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Response to Op-Ed ‘Illegitimate Institution’
The following article is a response to an Op-Ed titled The Supreme Court: An Illegitimate Institution by Yomar Aguilar published in the Holtville Tribune and Calexico Chronicle. In the May 5, 2022, opinion piece published in this paper titled The Supreme Court: An Illegitimate Institution, the author made several assertions that I wish to challenge…
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Herodotus and Thucydides: The World’s First Historians
The Greek pattern of writing “mythtory,” the fabrication of a rhythmic “history” loosely based on legends and performed for audiences, was broken by two Greek contemporaries: Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Thucydides. For the first time historians attempted to use scientific methods and evidence to… Read More Herodotus and Thucydides: The World’s First Historians
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Book Review: The Strange Career of Jim Crow “Historical Bible of the Civil Rights Movement”
During the tumultuous times of the American civil rights movement of the 1950s a work emerged that challenged and eventually helped transform the historical narrative on interracial relations in the South. C. Vann Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow was born of the author’s concern that at the time the current national discussion regarding…
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Citizen Soldiers: Militia in the American Revolution
The everyday men and boys who served in colonial militias during the Revolutionary War played a vital and often overlooked role in the conflict. They came from all walks of life and varied in age from teenagers to men in their sixties. Many were farmers and their sons, others were apprentices, tradesmen, or merchants. They…
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Ukraine War: Russian Comms Update (Day 118)
Ukraine State Security Service continues to intercept Russian communications and post excerpts on its YouTube channel. If the intercepts are accurate, the situation for Russian federation forces on the front line is anything but ideal. Among other things, Putin’s troops complain of poor rations, living under constant artillery bombardment, and refusal to follow orders. The…
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Stalin, FDR, and the Truth about U.S. Lend Lease Aid to the USSR
U.S.-Soviet relations prior to U.S. involvement in World War II, in particular the relationship between President Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin, are often overlooked. FDR proposed the idea of assisting the Soviet Union a full nine months before Pearl Harbor after he received intelligence that a German attack on the USSR was imminent. After Operation Barbarossa…
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Unsung Heroes: The 81st Infantry Division “Wildcats” at Angaur and Peleliu
Operation Stalemate II has gone down in history as one of the bloodiest and most controversial American actions in the Pacific during World War II. The fighting on Peleliu is enshrined in Marine Corps history as one of its most difficult and savage battles. Today Peleliu rightly holds a place alongside Iwo Jima and Tarawa…
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Ukraine War: Interview with Ukrainian Head of Military Intelligence – Kirill Budanov
Ukrainskaya Pravda reporter Roman Kravets recently interviewed Kirill Budanov, Head of the Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense Intelligence Directorate. Appointed in 2020, Budanov has risen to become one of the most influential and authoritative sources of information about the war, cited in many international news articles. He was one of only a few Ukrainian government officials…
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Ukraine War: Russian Comms Update
Ukrainian State Security continues to intercept and publish audio of intercepted communications between Russian servicemen in Ukraine and family members in Russia. The nature of the topics discussed in these calls varies from talk about the commission of potential war crimes to insubordination and mutiny. Intercepts posted portray the occupying Russians in a negative light;…
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Unsung Heroes: Ukrainian Fishermen Save Thousands Behind Enemy Lines
Ukrainian Pravda recently reported that a handful of fishermen saved 2,000 of their countrymen trapped behind Russian lines. The ad hoc operation began in early March 2021 after the Ukrainian government organized evacuation and humanitarian assistance efforts in unoccupied areas near the Kyiv reservoir and local fishermen decided to pitch in with their motorboats. The…
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Book Review: War Without Mercy
In his award winning work War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1986) historian John W. Dower explores the racist attitudes prevalent on both sides in the Pacific War of 1941-1945. Dower exposes the hypocrisy of the belligerent powers in which both were equally guilty of racist attitudes while accusing the enemy…
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Ukraine State Security Service: Disgruntled Russian Troops Ready to Rebel Against Commanders, Ukrainians Inflict 70% Casualties on Russian Units at Mykolaiv
Russian forces operating in Ukraine have been plagued with logistical problems since the onset of hostilities. Inability to effectively evacuate casualties, resupply, and refuel frontline combat units were certainly a major factor in the Russian decision to withdrawal from northern Ukraine and Kyiv. In part, it also explains why the Russians shifted their main effort…
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Air Power: 21st Century Evolution – Russia Left Behind
As an Air Force veteran this post topic is especially interesting. I will start by committing what some of my airmen colleagues might consider heresy – conventional strategic air power has never won a war on its own and is not likely to do so in the future. I recall discussing the subject with my…
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Ukraine Missile Strike Scores Hit on Flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet
Earlier today Maxim Marchenko, head of the Odessa Regional State Administration, announced that Ukraine naval forces hit the Russian flagship inflicting heavy damage. In the first days of the Ukraine-Russia war the Moskva made the news when its captain demanded that Ukraine servicemen on Snake Island surrender to which they responded, “Russian ship – Go…
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History Repeated – Russian Servicemen Commit Wholesale Rape in Eastern Ukraine
The atrocities that Russian soldiers and militia are committing in occupied areas of eastern Ukraine are reminiscent of those perpetrated by Red Army soldiers during World War II. In addition to mass murder of Ukrainian civilians discovered in liberated areas around Kyiv, there is now evidence that Russian men are raping women and children in…
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Intercepted Russian Ground Force Comms Confirm Troops Ordered to Shoot Civilians
Today Der Spiegel reported that the German Foreign Intelligence Service intercepted and recorded communications of Russian military units on the ground in the area north of Kyiv. It is possible that some of these comms may be linked with the horrifying images that have emerged from Bucha and other areas where civilians were shot, many…
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Russian State Media Pundit Calls for Genocide in Ukraine
In an April 3, 2022 article that has not been retracted, Timofei Sergeitsev, a prominent Russian political consultant, made an open call for the Russian Federation to commit genocide in Ukraine. The article published in the state-controlled RIA Novosti news magazine is titled – What Should Russia Do With Ukraine? In an address to the…
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Could Trump Impeachment 1.0 Lead to Biden Impeachment 1.0 After 2022 Mid-Term Elections?
In late 2019 my students and I had the unique opportunity to witness in real time a fourth chapter in the history of U.S. presidential impeachments unfold. The first being the impeachment of Andrew Johnson (1868) followed by the almost impeachment of Richard Nixon (1974) and the salacious Bill Clinton affair (1998). Unlike the first…
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Former U.S. Navy Captain, Russia Expert: American Weakness, Lack of Leadership, Caused Putin to Invade Ukraine
Tatiana Popova, former Ukraine Deputy Minister of Information and Policy and former Adviser to the Ukraine Minister of Defense (2014-2015), recently interviewed former U.S. Navy Captain Gary Tabach. Russian-born Tabach served for over twenty years as a Foreign Area Officer in Eastern Europe. During this time, he worked out of Moscow where he served as…
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2007 U.S. Shift in Iraq Warfighting Policy: The “Ideal” Counterinsurgency Strategy?
After the initial success of the conventional war against Saddam Hussein’s regular army, the situation rapidly deteriorated into a vicious civil war that pitted rival Sunni and Shia militias against each other and against coalition forces. Initially the U.S. military response was to wage a “kill and capture” battle that largely relied on heavy conventional…
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Guerrilla Warfare – Weak vs. Strong: Why do some insurgencies succeed while others fail?
The differences between conventional and unconventional warfare are numerous, however the most obvious is the fact that irregular/unconventional/guerrilla warfare pits a strategically more powerful conventional army against a weaker enemy force – weaker in personnel, materiel, technology, weaponry, etc. Historically, conventional armies have attempted to use their tried and true conventional warfighting methods such as…
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Ukraine War – Useful Sources
After watching the tragic events of the last few weeks unfold in Ukraine, being the news junkie that I am, I found myself wanting for more direct sources of information about the situation. All of the information on major news outlets in the United States and European Union nations all seemed, for the most part,…
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Judging the Past
The tendency in contemporary education to emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history has caused many young people to believe the only way forward is to destroy America’s remarkable past and restart with a new set of ideals. However, if they are given the opportunity to objectively examine all of the information and think for themselves,…
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Book Review: A People’s Army
Provincial regiments that enlisted to fight the Seven Years’ War reflected the society and cultural attitudes from which they were recruited. The collective experience of these men in the service of the British Crown during the war was an important contributing factor to the anti-British sentiment prevalent in Massachusetts in the years leading up to…
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