If you ended up here via the Military History Carnival that Edge of the American West is hosting, welcome! This has already become my most trafficked day ever. And there’s lots more history here, with even more on the way.
If you didn’t get heah from theah, then I highly recommend checking out the other articles in this installment of the Carnival; they’re definitely worth your time (and a great way to discover new blogs).
The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany at dusk; March 31, 2010.
I’ve been back in London for a couple days now, and while I wish I could say it’s good to be here, it’s at least nice to be catching up on the news (2,000+ items in Google Reader)!
Health care reform passed, a new nuclear limitation treaty signed in Prague – things are looking pretty swell right now.
I’ve got a lot of thoughts from the trip – which by the way, was AMAZING – but they’ll come slowly as I reintegrate into the real world. Side note: get to Eastern Europe now, before it gets all Euroed and Westernized. Particularly Hungary and Poland. In order, my favorite cities:
I’ll explain them at some point. Oddly enough though, I think my favorite country is now Austria.
So much to do, so much to write, and you’ll have so much to read soon enough. Thanks for sticking around.
Buda Castle, Budapest, Hungary.
Today I’m en route to Hungary to kick off a grand central/eastern European trip, accompanied by an especially lovely lady. If you’re curious, the itinerary is Budapest-Vienna-Salzburg-Munich-Berlin-Warsaw.
I’ll be over there for two weeks, and while I’d like to pretend I’ll make occasional posts with pretty pictures I’ve taken, it would only take a couple of days for you all to see through the charade.
There’s a slight chance I’ll post every once in a while, but don’t hold your breath. Later today I’ll have Part IV of “Operation Tannenbaum” up, which will be the last for some time (and hopefully provide some needed closure). I’ll be back in April for sure.
And again, thanks so much for reading. If you haven’t already, this would be an excellent time to explore the links page and discover some interesting new blogs.
After only three months here, I’ve written 100 posts! (this being the 101st). I’m pleased with myself just for the near-regular output, and for finally finding an outlet to get some things off my chest. Otherwise I’d just be ranting to friends all the time.
I’m also glad so many of you are reading and enjoying Automatic Ballpoint. Since post #1 on December 6, 2009, there have been over 3,500 views of the site, and that’s a number I’m both proud of and hope to see grow. The most visitors in a day here were 131 on January 13th – presumably when I posted “Antisemitism, Dissent, and the LSE.” That same post is the most-viewed of all time, with “The London School of Embarassment” in second. Apparently you guys like that I’m reporting on the wave of intolerance and extremism in Britain, London, and LSE itself, and I’ll do my best to keep that up.
The “For Love of Country” series also seems to have been well-received. I’m hoping to adapt some other longer essays (mostly history) and put them up soon. Such gems to come include some alternate history on Hitler’s invasion of Switzerland, an overview of the Chinese navy, a little more in-depth exploration of the French in Africa, and a whole mess of stuff on the special relationship. Stay tuned; stay subscribed.
My apologies that this week has been a little thin. We’re hurtling towards the end of term much faster than I’d realized, and so I’ll be trying to finish everything in time. Don’t worry, though, this site isn’t going anywhere. And I hope none of you are either. Thanks so much for reading.
At the risk of sending this backup laptop to join my other in the great trash heap in the sky, I think I’m ready to make a comeback (but don’t call it that). The damage to the other one – melting – was a little too significant to make replacing the power assembly alone feasible. Here’s what the outside looked like:
So yeah, the end of an era it is. But now I have a spare up and running (though it has monitor/screen issues of its own), and hopefully can keep doing this for a while. I’ve got lots of ideas ready to go.
Right now I’m dealing with some serious computer difficulties. The key word here is ‘melting’, and you never want to hear that in conjunction with electronic equipment. I don’t know whether I’m in for repairs or replacements, but a heads-up: I might not be posting for a little while, or at the least, very infrequently. It won’t last months, but at least a week or more I should think. Thanks for reading; stay tuned.
Sorry for the incredibly long delay. Between flying, driving, holidays, and snow, I haven’t had much time to post or write much.
I have, however, had plenty of time to catch up on some reading. I finally finished Military Orientalism, and while it seems a bit rushed towards the end, it’s an excellent, insightful analysis that is well worth your time. I’ll have a review up shortly.
Rounding off an excellent Christmas, I received a ton of books for both the holiday and my recent birthday (which I’d otherwise prefer not to think about). The plane ride was enough time to finish Michael Crichton’s new posthumous Pirate Latitudes, which was a great, quick read. Yesterday I was still on a fiction kick, so I finally got around to Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. It’s even better than I had imagined, and my only regret is that I’d put it off for so long.
Currently, I’m in the middle of John Robb’s Brave New War (it’s about time, no?) and Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Impossible.
Other books that I now own and am waiting to dive into:
Marcus Aurelius – The Emperor’s Handbook: A New Translation of the Meditations
Allan Dulles – The Craft of Intelligence
Alistair Horne – The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916
Theodore Roosevelt – The Naval War of 1812
Russell Weigley – The American Way of War
Here’s some food for thought (before an absurdly huge links collection tomorrow): Ray Kurzweil declares solar power on the verge of providing 100% of human energy needs. One more benefit of solar? It’s decentralized and “safe from disaster and sabotage.” No more Iraqi pipelines?
This is a big step for me. For a long time now, I’ve been a military historian, but it’s only been recently that I’ve begun to explore the future of war, rather than just its past. Unlike some previous music blogs I’ve worked on, I hope for this to be almost entirely original content on a dynamic, evolving field that I’m just beginning to grasp some basic aspects of. It goes by many names: Fourth Generation War (4GW), ‘Futurewar’, another Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Whatever you call it, it’s obvious that something fundamental in the way mankind fights itself is changing dramatically, and at times rapidly. I’ll be posting research, interesting links, and keeping you up to date with essays I write for my various classes.
So who am I?
Right now I’m a graduate student at the London School of Economics, studying history and international relations. My background is much the same, but the main difference is that I’ve generally focused on the past. In this blog I aim to write about the present, and especially the future evolution of war, warfare, and conflict. Some of my past professors who have particularly contributed to my current intellectual state include Frederic Smoler, Jefferson Adams, Christopher Coker, and Michael J. Williams.
Much of the inspiration (and for the first little while, I assume, some of the content) for this blog comes from John Robb’s absolutely fantastic Global Guerrillas. Robb is really at the cutting edge of what he’s deemed “open-source warfare,” and while his politics and mine clearly differ, it’s irrelevant to the larger points he has. Shlok Vaidya is also one of the thinkers at the forefront of 4GW and network-centric war. I’m just beginning this journey myself, so as I find new people, new insights, and new blogs, I’ll be sure to share them all with you. Thanks for reading.
This should be an interesting ride.
Automatic Ballpoint 