June 22, 1893, in the Eastern Mediterranean; Vice Admiral George Tryon, Commander-in-Chief of Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet, was at sea with his 8 pre-Dreadnought battleships and 5 cruisers, conducting maneuvers. Tryon was a believer in drills and maneuvers, ever more complicated maneuvers; 22rd of June was no exception.  And so, on that calm, sunny Thursday […]

First, a tip of the hat to President Biden; his comments that the US will defend Taiwan from attack are an excellent first step towards preventing war in East Asia. However, comments by members of his cabinet and other members of his staff attempting to explain “what the President meant to say,” are at best […]

There was a very entertaining movie made in 1967 that was a satirical attempt to “tap” into the growing paranoia that the “Government” was spying on Americans. The movie was “The President’s Analyst, and the evil antagonist in the movie was “TPC,” “The Phone Company,” a huge, all knowing, omnipresent technological marvel that worked hand-in-glove […]

 When I was in college I had a pal who was a few years older than me; he had been in the Army and did an 11 month tour of duty in Vietnam. He told me a story about how he had returned on a flight to the US in a plane filled with GIs, […]

General’s and theoreticians five millennia have insisted you must “know your enemy.” Yet, the list of those who’ve failed to take that advice is long and distinguished. One of history’s truly magnificent failures in understanding the enemy was committed by perhaps the greatest field commander in history: Hannibal. Hannibal invaded Italy in 218 BC and […]

Congress is struggling to pass a budget. President Biden, with a Democratic House and Democratic Senate, still hasn’t passed a budget or the huge infrastructure bill, with several key senators balking at this huge bill; they’ve good cause to balk. The story now coming out of Washington, both the Speaker’s office and the White House, […]

What is it about the French? Or, at least French leadership. True, much of US leadership hasn’t been terribly stellar over the past century, but there’s something about the arrogance of French leaders that’s remarkable. >> >> In July 2017, just two months after assuming office as President of France, Emmanuel Macron canceled the traditional […]

Well before being sworn in as President, Eisenhower was considering options to end the fighting in Korea. Eisenhower’s solution was to make it clear to the leadership in Russia, China, and North Korea that South Korea was now firmly under the US nuclear shield, the nuclear umbrella, as it came to be known. Consideration of […]

There is a wonderful scene in the movie “the Wind and the Lion,” a fictionalized account of the kidnapping of Ion Perdicaris by Mulai Ahmed el Raisuli, Emir of the Jebala tribes, that asks an important question. At the very end of the movie, the Raisuli (played to perfection by Sean Connery) has lost his […]

Editor’s Note: So there is the excitement on The Hill this morning, and we could talk about that. The minutes are fading away in a vista abruptly truncated by the hands of the clock tonight. We oldsters have a saying for that, but I can’t remember what it is. In terms of The Hill, there […]