Posting will be light here in March and probably in April as well. Before going silent for a while, however, I might as well link to a few things:
*This article by Kalyvas and Balcells (from 2010) is something I'll be reading in the next week or two.
*A review (h/t HC) of James Hershberg's 900-page tome about a missed chance to end the Vietnam war in 1966.
*The continuing toll of chronic childhood malnutrition: here.
Also: Cynthia Ozick & Henry James.
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11 comments:
The K&B article is a must-read. My dissertation is on the lack of an international structural theory of domestic political (dis)order.
Your dissertation sounds interesting.
(I'm giving a guest talk [of course I hope the students will talk some too] in an intro IR class later this month on the decline of war, and I'm going to read K&B as part of preparing for that. Though I think K&B's distinctions btw different kinds of civil wars gets to a level of detail that I won't get to in the talk.)
P.s. I left a comment on one of your posts; I assume it's in moderation, though it may not have gone through at all.
Thanks for reading! I think it was your second one that got through. I'm still battling a bit with the comment settings and the spam tracker. It should be up now.
Yup, saw it (and your reply). Thanks.
LFC
The K&B article is excellent.
The strong and weak point is the coverage of Logisics in a Civil war. he covers it much better than most but I think it deserves more coverage.
LFC
Relted
So as to not immitate LBJ's retorical style I think I should skip a commnt.
It's well known that LBJ had a penchant for profanity; also well known that he feared Chinese intervention if the US were to take overly 'provocative' steps. Hence not too surprising. The author obviously (and irritatingly) likes Nixon as much as he dislikes LBJ, but the article fails to make clear exactly what the "bomb Hanoi" recommendation meant ('area bombing' a la WW2? Presumably not but I don't know). Anyway we've probably refought the Vietnam War too much here as it is.
How this relates to K&B I'm not precisely sure but perhaps that's b/c I haven't yet closely read the article. (As it happens, just getting over a v. bad cold.)
P.s. In hindsight one cd argue that the jt chiefs' advice looks reasonably good. This was the kernel of the Powell Doctrine, no? Overwhelming force, all or nothing etc. But given LBJ's mental map, his strong recollection of Chinese intervention in Korea and reluctance to do anything that he thought might draw China in, one can see how he might have thought the advice amounted to "start WW3". (Which is not to excuse the profanity or the behavior.)
Last note: Not that I agree with the revisionist 'Sorley thesis', but as I understand it (without actually having read Sorley), it argues that the war was being won on the ground post-68, i.e. via the ground ops, not mainly via the increased bombing (which rose in intensity after mid-'66 when Rostow became the nat'l sec. adviser).
LFC
If I had been clearer I would have said related to Hirshberg. If it seemed possible to make such an agreement with North Viwet nam, who ever presented it to the President probably would likley have received the same treatment if it did not match LBJ's perceived domestic requirements.
The thing that ticked me off about it was not the proposed (but certainly debatable) plan was rejected but that even after people with some knowledge pointed out the current plan was not viable that made it clear the President only wanted to hear what he wanted to hear. It would have been easy to say "come back with a third option" as set it up so he could totally humiliate the chiefs.
I would not be surprised if they were the last people who gave him an honest opinion on any subject, who likes to be treated like that. Which may explain some of the last half of his term.
Hank’s Eclectic Meanderings
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