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The Armed Forces blog
Six Arguments Against a Strong Navy, and Why Each One Sinks Carriers are obsolete, sea power is a relic, allies can cover for us. Six objections stated at full strength and answered from the record of sea power. A Thought Experiment, the Nation That Disarmed to Prove It Meant Peace A labelled satire about a country that disbands its army and sends a strongly worded letter, followed by the real record of the 1920s and 1930s. Peace Dividends Always Come Due, the 1990s Drawdown Reconsidered Both parties cut the force sharply after 1991 on the theory that history had ended. The bill came after 2001, and the 1998 surplus does not cancel it. How to Win a Nomination to a Service Academy, a Family's Step-by-Step Guide West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy usually need a nomination from Congress, and most families learn that too late. Here are the steps. Ending the Draft in 1973 Was a Conservative Idea, and It Worked Milton Friedman and the Gates Commission argued that conscription was a hidden tax on the young, and the all-volunteer force that replaced it proved them right. Desert One and the 1980 Disaster That Built Special Operations Command The failed 1980 rescue at Desert One killed eight servicemen and exposed a military that could not fight as one, and the reforms that followed fixed it. Grenada in 1983 Was Small, and It Mattered More Than the Critics Admit Operation Urgent Fury was messy and condemned at the UN, and it still rescued students, ended a coup regime and told the world America would answer. The POWs of the Hanoi Hilton and the Code They Tapped Through the Walls How American prisoners in North Vietnam kept faith and chain of command alive for years with a tap code, a blinked word on television and a code of conduct. The Weinberger Doctrine Set Six Tests Before Sending Troops to Fight Weinberger's 1984 speech set six tests for committing forces. The tests, Powell's version, Shultz's objection, and a check against Grenada, the Gulf and Iraq. Why Did We Lose in Afghanistan? Twelve Questions the Record Can Answer Twenty years of war left a public paper trail. Twelve plain questions about Afghanistan, answered from the inspector general's reports and the record. Abbey Gate and the Withdrawal From Afghanistan, the Record in Order Thirteen American service members died at Abbey Gate in August 2021. A dated record from the Doha agreement to the last flight, with what each decision cost. The Chosin Reservoir and the Marines Who Attacked in Another Direction Surrounded by far larger Chinese forces in brutal cold in 1950, the 1st Marine Division fought out of the Chosin Reservoir in good order with its wounded. Inchon in September 1950 and the Landing Everyone Said Could Not Work MacArthur's gamble at Inchon on September 15, 1950 saved a collapsing front and shows both the reward of boldness and the price of overreach. The Berlin Airlift Fed a City by Air for Eleven Months Without Firing a Shot In 1948 Stalin cut off West Berlin and America chose neither surrender nor war, keeping two million people alive by air and teaching a lesson in deterrence. Space Became a Battlefield in 2007, and the Space Force Is the Answer The Space Force jokes miss the point. China proved in 2007 that it can kill satellites, and the answer was always a service whose only job is the high ground. Five Medal of Honor Citations Read Closely and What Each One Asks of Us Five citations in flat military prose, from Fort Wagner to the Korengal Valley, read closely for what each act asks of the citizens it protected. The Third Amendment Is the Quietest Right and Still Teaches the Most The ban on quartering soldiers in private homes looks like an antique, but it holds the whole idea that a home is a castle against the government. Valley Forge, Bastogne and Chosin as Three Winters That Tested Americans Three winters 173 years apart tested American soldiers by cold, hunger and isolation, and a side-by-side table shows what they had in common. The Navajo Code Talkers Built an Unbreakable Code From Their Own Language Twenty-nine Navajo Marines built a spoken code in 1942 that Japan never broke, and the nation kept their service secret for decades before honoring it. Iwo Jima in Thirty-Six Days and the Two Flag Raisings on Mount Suribachi The famous photograph shows the second flag raised on February 23, 1945, and the full story of the battle and the men in it is larger and truer than the image. Zumwalt, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Lessons of Procurement Failure Two Navy programs, one cut from 32 ships to three and one retired early, show how requirements creep and concurrent design waste billions, and what to demand. D-Day Was Won by Sergeants and Privates When the Plan Fell Apart on the Beaches On June 6, 1944 the plan failed in a hundred places and small groups of Americans improvised their way off the beaches, which is what a free army is for. Midway and the Codebreakers Who Let the Navy Set an Ambush At Midway in June 1942 the Navy sank four Japanese carriers because a basement of codebreakers told Admiral Nimitz where to wait, and brave pilots did the rest. The Doolittle Raid Hit Tokyo Four Months After Pearl Harbor From a Carrier Deck On April 18, 1942, sixteen Army bombers flew off a Navy carrier to hit Japan, a feat never tried in combat, and it shifted the Pacific war. Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 Hour by Hour From Radar Blip to Declaration A timed account of Pearl Harbor from the first sub contact to the declaration of war, with the warnings missed, the courage shown and the vote that answered. The Harlem Hellfighters Spent 191 Days Under Fire and Came Home Heroes Handed to the French because the army would not use it, a Black New York regiment fought 191 days in 1918 and marched up Fifth Avenue to a hero's welcome. Operation Praying Mantis and the Day the Navy Answered Iran in 1988 After an Iranian mine nearly sank a U.S. frigate in 1988, the Navy answered in a single day, and the story is a lesson in proportionate force. Robert Smalls Took a Confederate Ship and Sailed His Family to Freedom The story of an enslaved pilot who steered a Confederate steamer past Charleston's forts in 1862 and then built a public career that outlasted the war. The 54th Massachusetts at Fort Wagner and the Soldiers Who Proved Doubters Wrong How a regiment of free Black volunteers, a young colonel and a pay strike answered the question of whether Black men would fight for the Union. How Congress once set out to make every American a rifleman in 1903 In 1903 Congress built a program to teach civilians to shoot and sold them surplus rifles. It still runs, and it says something about the Second Amendment. Gettysburg in Three Days and the Charge That Failed on July 3, 1863 A three-day account of Gettysburg, from Buford's cavalry to Little Round Top to Pickett's Charge, and why the battle marked the high tide of the Confederacy. Antietam Was the Bloodiest Day in American History and It Changed the War On September 17, 1862, more Americans fell in one day than on any other, and the battle gave Lincoln the victory he needed to announce emancipation. Admiral Rickover Built the Navy That Made Nuclear Deterrence Survivable Hyman Rickover's insistence on standards produced the Nautilus, a nuclear navy and the submarines that made deterrence survivable. Admiral Rickover's Navy Has Run Reactors at Sea for Seventy Years Hyman Rickover built naval nuclear propulsion, and its record at sea shows that reactor safety comes from culture, training and standards rather than luck. The War of 1812 Gave America a Burned Capital and a Second Independence A young republic fought the world's greatest navy over impressment and trade, lost its capital to fire, and came out of the war more united and more respected. Letters of Marque Are Still in the Constitution and Here Is Why They Matter A forgotten clause in Article I, Section 8 proves the Framers wanted Congress, not the president, to decide when America uses force, even on a small scale. How Congress Ended a War with the Purse, the Case-Church Story of 1973 The Case-Church Amendment of June 1973 cut off funds for combat in Indochina. It proves the spending power is a war power, and raises a hard question. Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold Show Two Ways an American Officer Could Choose Two Connecticut officers faced the same war and chose oppositely, Hale dying a spy at twenty-one and Arnold selling West Point, and character decided each fate. The Prize Cases of 1863 and How Lincoln Fought a War Before Congress Met The Court's 5-4 decision upholding Lincoln's blockade defined when a president may meet an attack without waiting for Congress, and where that power stops. Yorktown in October 1781 and How a French Fleet Helped Trap Cornwallis Yorktown was won by a march of hundreds of miles, a naval battle few remember and a textbook siege, and it shows why alliances need clear aims. Crossing the Delaware on Christmas Night and the Ten Days That Saved the Cause After losing New York in 1776 the Revolution was nearly finished, until a ten-day gamble at Trenton and Princeton brought it back to life. Valley Forge Was a Winter of Hunger That Turned Farmers Into an Army The Continental Army entered Valley Forge starving and untrained and left it disciplined, thanks to Steuben, Greene and Washington's patience.