An Appropriate story for Military History buffs to read about on Christmas Eve; this happened 71 years ago today. An Amazing Piece of History! -SF Editor’s Note: In honor of Christmas Eve, we proudly publish the text of Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe’s 1944 Christmas letter to the U.S. 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne. An image of…
Category: Military History
The Truth About SpyWar and How 21st Century Espionage Really Works
Espionage is a constant in human civilization. Spying features prominently in theOld Testament and it’s often called the “second oldest profession” with good reason. The ancient Chinese sage Sun Tzu wrote eloquently about the strategic importance of espionage and counterespionage fully 2,500 years ago. As long as people have lived in anything resembling societies, they…
Military History: The Legendary Christmas Truce of 1914
This month’s original Task & Purpose comic is in the spirit of the season. During the Christmas Truce of 1914, German and British soldiers laid down their arms and met in no man’s land to play a spirited game of soccer. An incredible story that’s hard to imagine ever occurring. Read the Remainder of the…
Russia Using the 4th Dimension of Warfare (Space) to Gain the Upper Hand in the Syrian War
While Space has been called the final frontier, it is also an untapped resource in regards to warfare. Why is America always last to know in these matters while China and Russia are first in line? The answer is quite simple: BHO. -SF Russia is employing a significant portion of its space assets to gather…
Thinking About War Underground
No one has done better than the great British comic illustrator Heath Robinson to illustrate the intrinsically reciprocal dynamic of military engineering in general and mining and countermining in particular. This cartoon is from a collection Heath Robinson at War I found in a rummage sale years ago–no doubt there are abundant reprints. I would guess,…
Peering into the Past and Future of Urban Warfare in Israel
I traveled recently to Israel to visit a state-of-the-art military training facility in the southern Negev Desert opened by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) last year. The facility, at the Tze’elim army base, is meant to simulate urban operations of the kind the Israelis have so often faced in their conflicts with Palestinian and Lebanese…
Military History: History’s Last Left Hook?
Military Envelopments with Strategic Implications “Left hook” is a boxing term for a short, sideways, inside punch which often lands on an opponent’s jaw. Left hooks generally come as a surprise because for most people it is much harder to punch with their left arm. So, while boxers may continuously jab, cross, and uppercut, the…
Military History: WW2-era 914mm Mortar “Little David”
Whoa!!
Quirky Diplomacy: 9 Wars that were technically “Ongoing”
Throughout history, a number of conflicts, due to the quirky nature of international diplomacy, never officially ended. Of course, these “extended wars” have never actually had any bearing on international relations. Instead, the ongoing de facto peace overrode any technicalities on the world stage. However, the patching up of these diplomatic irregularities has been used…
74 Years Ago Today: Attack on Pearl Harbor Remembered
At five minutes to eight o’clock, on a Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, in Hawaii, Japanese planes attacked the United States military base at Pearl Harbor. An hour later, a second wave of Japanese planes continued the attack. By 9:45 a.m. (local Hawaii time), the attack was finished, with all but 29 Japanese planes…