Author Archives: Martin van Creveld

Something for the Mullahs to Think About

Posted on by

Against the background of the continuing Iranian-Israeli tensions, it may be useful to take another look at what is at stake. Iran is a large country comprising some 1,600,000 square kilometers, Israel a very small one with just about 28,000, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip included. In terms of population the difference is as 88,000,000 to 9,500,000. Short of dropping some nuclear bombs on a few key Iranian cities, how can David expect to fight Goliath and win?

For one possible answer, consider the following. Iran is a country of many mountains, quite a number of rivers—none very long, incidentally—and dams. Out of a total of 183 currently operational dams, 52 are related to the Caspian Sea catchment area. 12 are based in the Urmia basin further to the southwest, 68 are located in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman watersheds, 34 are in the Central Plateau, 11 are in Sarakhs catchment basin, and other dams are located across the eastern boundary basin (Hamoun). Most are serving one or more of the following four purposes. 1. Flood control. 2. Providing drinking water. 3. Agricultural irrigation. 4. Electricity-generation.

The biggest dam is the Karkheh Dam (capacity 5,900,000,000 cubic meters). Next come the Bakhtiari Dam (4,845,000,000 cubic meters), the Dez Dam (3,340,000,000), the Seimarem Dam (3,200,000,000), the Chamshir Dam (2,300,000,000), the Karun 4 Dam (2,000,000,000), the Marun Dam (1,200,000,000), the Lar Dam (960,000,000), the Sardasht Dam (545,000,000), the, the Daryan Dam (316,000,000), the Ashavan Dam (260,000,000), the Mamloo Dam (250,000,000), and the Al Kabir Dam (202,000,000). The maximum capacity of all dams combined is believed to be around 55,000,000,000 cubic meters.

Simply gathering the vast amounts of data needed to asses what a coordinated attack on these and other dams could do to the country would require entire regiments of experts. The more so because many of the details are unavailable to the public. It is, however, worth-while to bring up the following story. In May 1941 the officers at the Africa Corps headquarters were a worried lot. This is surprising, given that the corps, brilliantly led by General Erwin Rommel, had just completed a spectacular 1,100-kilometer advance that took it from the gates of Tripoli all the way to Sallum, a small village just east of the border between Italian Libya and British-ruled Egypt. Measured in terms of driving distance the figure was even larger. Should the German advance continue it would soon reach the Nile. And that was just what the Germans were worried about. Suppose the British, ere they abandoned Egypt and retreated into the Sinai and from there into Palestine, blew up the Aswan Dam; what would happen then?

A coded message—chefsache, nur durch Offizaier—went out to the General Staff. From there it was passed on to the experts of the newly founded Wehrtechnische Fakultaet, the newly-founded Military-Technological Faculty of the University of Berlin. It took a few days before a reply was received. When it did, it pointed out that the capacity of the Dam—meaning, the old British-built one that had been completed in 1902 and was by far the largest in the world until that time—was 5,300,000,000 cubic meters (5.3 cubic kilometers) of water. Just what so much water could do to the vulnerable land to the north depended on many variables. However, provided the demolition job was carried out in the right way (starting from the middle and working its way in both directions, rather than the other way around) and during the right season of the year (starting in July and lasting until November) it would occasion a monstrous wave, thirty to forty meters high, drowning everything in its path to the Mediterranean. Including, some 690 kilometers away, the capital of Cairo which at that time was a city of a million and a half out of a total of about 18,000,000.

In terms of capacity, several of the Iranian reservoirs are comparable with the one created by the Old Aswan Dam. Surely there must be something for the Mullahs to think about here?

They Are Defended and Supported by Men

Posted on by

Day by day, we are told how men, society, nature, and in some cases even women themselves conspire to keep women down and out. To convince yourself of this fact, all you have to do is open Google; just plain old Google, no AI needed. Next, type in some combination of men, women, and any bad thing you can think of. Here are just a few examples picked more or less at random from the Net in the course of a couple of hours’ work.

*

“Women remain grossly underrepresented in decision making forums related to conflict prevention and peace-building” (UNFPA, 13-15.11.2001).

“Women Suffer More than Men” (Live Science, 6.7.2005).

“Natural disasters lower the life expectancy of women more than that of men. In other words, natural disasters (and their subsequent impact) on average kill more women than men or kill women at an earlier age than men.” (“The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters,” Journal of the Association of American Geographers, 97, 2007, 3).

“Globally, women are more vulnerable to… economic shocks” (UNAIDS, 2012).

“Why is depression more prevalent in women?” (Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, July 2015).

“Genders experience pain differently, and women have it more” (The Conversation, 9.12.2015).

“Recent evidence suggests that biological factors, such as the variation in ovarian hormone levels and particularly decreases in estrogen, may contribute to the increased prevalence of depression and anxiety in women” (ibid).

“Women are twice as likely to suffer from severe stress and anxiety as men” (New York Times, 11.14.2018).

“Women suffer needless pain because almost everything is designed for men” (Vox, 22.9.2019).

“Almost 90% of Men/Women Globally Are Biased Against Women” (UNDP, 5.3.2020).

“Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)… occurs 1.5 to 2 times as often in women as in men. (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 20.5.2020).

“How Patriarchy and Capitalism Combine to Aggravate the Oppression of Women” (CADTM, 28.5.2020).

“College Classrooms Are Still Chilly for Women” (Dartmouth News, 27.1.2021).

“Why Nearly 80 Percent of Autoimmune Sufferers Are Female” (Scientific American, 21.9.2021).

“Inflation affects women more than men” (World Economic Forum, 2022).

“Societal prejudices against those with mental illness may more significantly impact female patients with schizophrenia” (General Psychiatry, 2022; 35(4).

 “Across the globe, women and girls are particularly vulnerable in times of war” (Georgetown Law, April 2023).

 “Women are more likely to want a job but not to have one” (ILOSTAT, 14.3.2024).

“Women in the developing world face dire job prospects” (ibid).

“When a woman does not know how to sell herself, her place will be taken by a man” (Ynet, Israel, 6.4.2024).

“ How the climate crisis fuels gender inequality” (CNN World, 9.4.2024).

*

It would never occur to me to doubt any of these and a zillion similar statements. Without exception, they are based on exhaustive research honestly presented sine studio et ira. Still I’d like to add a question of my own. Granted that men, society, nature and, on occasion, even women themselves conspire against poor helpless women. In that case, how come that, in practically all contemporary societies from Afghanistan up (or down), they enjoy a longer life expectancy than men do?

The answer—don’t tell anyone!—is: They are defended and supported by men.

Islam Revealed

Posted on by

As I am getting older, I find myself less and less interested in the kind of books—mainly academic, mainly about history—I’ve spent a lifetime reading. Instead, like some other authors around my age, I tend to wander off into fiction. Partly this is because good fiction can tell you as much or more about the manifold, endlessly varied and endlessly fascinating, aspects of human life as nonfiction can. And partly because authors of fiction tend to be better, often much better, writers than academics are. To adduce just one example, the Iliad as the ancient Greeks used to know it and as we know it today is almost entirely fiction. Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector and the rest never existed. Nor, presumably, did the beautiful Helene. Yet a book that can teach one more about fighting, war and life in general is very difficult, probably impossible, to find.

That said, I want to draw your attention to an extract from a two-decade old work of fiction that I happened to read just recently and that has resonated with me. For more information about the author and his work, go to the tags of the present post. The speaker is an Egyptian in his fifties. Described as an “intelligent and often funny man” he has long lived in England where he is “brilliantly successful” at his work, genetic engineering. But he still retains a soft spot for his native land.

“‘Islam,’ [he says to his French interlocutor] ‘was born deep in the desert amid scorpions, camels and wild beasts of every order. Do you know what I call Muslims? The losers of the Sahara. That’s what they deserve to be called. Do you think Islam could have been born in such a magnificent place?’ (with genuine feeling, he motioned again to the Nile valley). No, monsieur. Islam could only have been born in a stupid desert, among filthy Bedouins who had nothing better to do – pardon me – than bugger their camels. The closer a religion comes to monotheism – consider this carefully, cher monsieur – the more cruel and inhuman it becomes; and of all religions, Islam imposes the most radical monotheism. From its beginnings, it has been characterized by an uninterrupted series of wars of invasion and massacres; never, for as long as it exists, will peace reign in the world. Neither, in Muslim countries, will intellect and talent find a home; if there were Arab mathematicians, poets and scientists, it is simply because they lost the faith. Simply reading the Koran, one cannot help but be struck by the regrettable mood of tautology which typifies the work: There is no other God but God alone, etc. You won’t get very far with nonsense like that, you have to admit. Far from being an attempt at abstraction, as it is sometimes portrayed, the move towards monotheism is nothing more than a shift towards mindlessness… Note that Catholicism, a subtle religion, and one which I respect, which well knew what suited human nature, quickly moved away from the monotheism imposed by its initial doctrine. Through the dogma of the Trinity and the cult of the Virgin and the One God! What an absurdity! What an inhuman, murderous absurdity! … A god of stone, cher monsieur, a jealous, bloody god who should never have crossed over from Sinai. How much more profound, when you think about it, was our Egyptian religion, how much wiser and more humane … and our women! How beautiful our women were! Remember Cleopatra, who bewitched great Caesar. See what remains of them today …’ (randomly he indicated two veiled women walking with difficulty carrying bundles of merchandise). ‘Lumps. Big shapeless lumps of fat who hide themselves beneath rags. As soon as they’re married, they think of nothing but eating. They eat and eat and eat! …’ (his face became bloated as he pulled a face like de Funès). ‘No, believe me, cher monsieur, the desert has produced nothing but lunatics and morons… Nothing great or noble, nothing generous or wholesome; nothing which has contributed to the progress of humanity or raised it above itself.’”

This was published in 2005. But can anyone really maintain that things were different before—or that they have become different since?

A Tale of Three Crises

Posted on by

Back in 1938-39, Britain—heartland of the largest empire that ever was—found itself coming under attack in no fewer than three main theaters at once. One, the closest home, was Western Europe and the North Sea where Adolf Hitler was busily at work building up the Third Reich to the point it would be ready to challenge the empire. One consisted of the empire’s communications in the Mediterranean where Benito Mussolini was threatening to take over the Suez Canal, Malta and Gibraltar, “the bars in Italy’s prison,” as he called them. And one in the Far East where a succession of militaristic Japanese governments were preparing to attack Britain’s colonies such as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Things came to a head in September 1939 when Germany, invading Poland, ignited a world war. By the time that war ended six years later Britain was lucky in that it could count itself among the victors. However, its relative power, military industrial and economic, had been shattered and would never recover.

The same year, 1945, also marked the peak of American power. Alone among the main belligerents in World War II—Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China—the US neither had any part of its territory occupied nor was subject to bombing. Its losses, especially in terms of manpower killed or badly wounded, were also much lighter. Calculated in terms of value, fifty percent of everything was being produced in the U.S. Throughout my own youth in the 1950s and early 1960s, the best most people could say about anything was that it was American. This was as true in Israel, where I lived, as it was in the Netherlands which I occasionally visited; of movies (and movie stars) as of automobiles. As if to crown it all, alone of all the world’s countries the U.S not only possessed nuclear weapons but also, which was almost equally important, a demonstrated willingness to use them as its leaders saw fit.

However, what goes up must go down. In 1949 the Soviet Union tested its first nuke. This proved to be the starting point of a profound, if unexpectedly slow, process of proliferation, each of whose stages marked a downsizing of America’s relative advantage over other countries. Accidentally or not, 1949 also marked the opening of a long period, still ongoing, during which America’s balance of payments has almost never been positive. The decision, made by President Nixon in 1971, to take the US dollar off gold, simply highlighted the change and made the situation worse. Currently the American Government’s debt both to foreign countries and to its own citizens is easily the largest in the whole of history. The trouble with debts is that they must be repaid; putting a heavy burden on every economic decision made in the country, large or small.

The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to create what, at the time, was known as a unipolar world. Some went further still, announcing not just the end of power politics but of history itself. But the respite did not last. By 2010 Russia was beginning to come back, ready to resume the expansionist policies that, starting with Ivan IV (“the Terrible” or “the Dread,” as he was sometimes known) and ending with Stalin had been such a resounding success.  By the second decade of the twenty-first century American economic supremacy, which starting in the wake of World War I had been undisputed, was also being challenged by China in a way, and on a scale, never before experienced.

Nor is the state of that other pillar of American power, its armed forces, much better. Alone of all the great empires in history, starting already in the second decade of the nineteenth century the US has been in in the enviable position of not having a peer competitor—as the current phrase goes—in its own hemisphere. This enabled it to make do with what, most of the time and sometimes for decades on end, were almost ridiculously small armed forces. Specifically land forces or, again as the current phrase goes, boots on the ground. It was only immediately before and during wartime that the situation changed and full scale mobilization was instituted. Culminating in 1941-45 when the US waged what later came to be known as 21/2 wars: meaning one in northwestern Europe, one in the far east, and one—the ½—in the Mediterranean.

Enter, once again, the Nixon administration. The “21/2” disappeared from the literature. Its place was taken by 11/2, meaning, one full scale war against the Soviet Union on “the Central Front” (Western Europe) plus a smaller half -war in some other place: either the Far East, presumably Korea, or in the Middle East on which much of the world relied for its oil. Needless to say, the figures were never accurate or even meant to be accurate. Their only use was as a very rough guide for comparison on one hand and planning on the other. Still they did provide an index concerning the direction in which things were moving.

Hand in hand with America’s declining military ambitions and expectations went very deep cuts in the size of the armed forces. The process got under way when Nixon—Nixon again—ordered an end to conscription and a switch to armed forces composed entirely of volunteers. The outcome was a 34-percent cut in the number of military personnel between 1969 and 1973. As a combination of technological progress and inflation drove costs into the stratosphere, the cuts in the number of major weapon systems—missiles, aircraft, ships, tanks, artillery barrels, briefly everything the Ukrainians are currently begging for—were, if anything, greater still. Come 1991, these forces proved adequate to fight and win a conventional war against a third-rate power, Iraq. That apart, though, almost every time they tried their hand at fighting a 1/2 war anywhere in the world they failed. So in Vietnam; so in Laos and Cambodia, so in Somalia, and so in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Like Britain in the late 1930s, currently the US sees itself challenged on three fronts. The first is Eastern Europe where Russia’s Putin is trying to reoccupy a vital part of the former Soviet Empire and, should be succeed, get himself into a position to threaten any number of NATO countries, old or new. The second is the Middle East where Iran, using its vassals in Yemen and Syria, has been waging war by proxy on Israel while at the same time threatening Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean. The third is the Far East—where America’s main allies, meaning Taiwan on one hand and South Korea on the other, may come under attack by China and North Korea respectively almost at a moment’s notice.

Even for the greatest power on earth running, or preparing to run, three ½ wars at once is an extremely expensive proposition. Especially in terms of ammunition of which, in sharp contrast to 19141-45, there simply is not enough. So far the center, though experiencing growing domestic difficulties, has not yet caved in. With the wings tottering, though, how long before it does?

Guest Article: Why Hamas Will Lose

Posted on by

By

Colonel (res.) Dr. Moshe Ben David*

Professor Yuval Harari, who teaches modern history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has turned himself into one of the leading intellectuals of the Western world. His books, particularly Homo Deus, deal with important turning points in human history as well as our ability to survive into the future. In no small part thanks in part to President Obama’s endorsement, they reached the stop of the best-sellers list. As requests for articles and interviews came pouring in, they also made the author famous. True, many of his best known prophecies have neither materialized nor look as if they are going to be materialized. Instead of making progress towards a better, more peaceful and better off, world what we see is Covid-17, starvation in the Sudan, and war both in Europe and the Middle East; not to mention terrorism over much of the world. None of this has caused Harari to lose confidence in himself and his ability to look into the future. In particular, in an article just published on Israel’s most important news website as well as a CNN-interview with Christiane Amanpour, he discussed the future of Israel’s war against Hamas. Israel, so Harari, has no chance of winning the war. Why? Because, to do so, the government in Jerusalem would have to lay down clear objectives, something which, so far, it has been unable to do. Israel, he went on to say, needs a new government. One that would drop its “preposterous Biblical fantasies” concerning a complete victory and prepare for some kind of compromise. He ends by saying that Israel and Hamas have reached an impasse. Even in case the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) succeed in defeating Hamas and disarming it, the real outcome will be a defeat for Israel. The only way to prevent such a situation is compromise, negotiation and peace.

I’d like to use, as my opening shot, the work of the widely respected American political scientist Bernard Brodie (1910-78). To be viable, so Brodie, a military-political plan must take into account objectives and means; including, among the latter, the balance of armed force and society’s willingness to sacrifice some of its young men in the process of attaining them. Seen in this light, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement, on the first day of the war, that Israel’s objective is “the complete destruction of Hamas”—the organization which, on 7 October 2023, subjected Israel to a surprise attack and inflicted some 1,000 casualties in a single day—appears both reasonable and attainable. Reasonable, because it reminds one of the Allies’ highly successful “unconditional surrender” during World War II, a formula that proved highly successful. Attainable, because of the military balance in Gaza. Clearly, in case Israel fails to achieve Netanyahu’s stated objective it will have to change its policy. That is what the cabinet is for.

Here it is worth adding that there exists a fundamental difference between the attacker and the attacked. The former, in this case Hamas, can adopt any objectives he wants. The latter, in this case Israel, faces a simple choice: either fight or surrender. Supposing he decides to fight, his only objective can be to defeat the enemy. Everything else comes later and must necessarily depend on events on the battlefield—meaning that the relationship between objectives and means must remain flexible and cannot be nearly as rigid as Harari imagines. Indeed the whole idea of laying down the political objectives ahead of events on the battlefield, which is what he seems to say, is, to use a term I have used before in this article, preposterous.

Second, his claim that, to win the war or at any rate not to lose it, Israel must have a new government. One that will rid itself of all kind of all kinds of illusions concerning total victory and prepared for some kind of compromise. In this context it seems that Harari is unaware of the fact that, right from the beginning of the war, the IDF has been following the government’s guidance step by step. Not a single encounter with the IDF that did not end with Hamas being defeated, either by having its troops killed, wounded or captured or when those troops evacuated their positions, leaving its enemy in control or the battlefield. One does not change a winning horse in the midst of a race; doing so can only strengthen Hamas in its decision to fight on. Besides, what does Harari think a change of government could achieve? Suppose the Israel decides to change its objective as laid down by Netanyahu and aim at replacing Hamas’s rule in Gaza by one run by the (Palestinian Authority) in Ramallah; does anyone really believe that Hamas will tamely sit down and agree? Halil Shkaki, the Palestinian’s Authority’s number one expert on polls and polling, says that 73 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank support Hamas and are in favor of the atrocities it has committed. Furthermore, the Authority spends 1.3 billion shekel, or 7 percent of its annual budget, assisting the relatives of Palestinian casualties who died while fighting Israel. This on top of symbolic gestures such as naming streets and squares after them, praising them in the schoolbooks it makes children study, and the like. Ending the war with a compromise, such as Harari suggests, will only enable Hamas to take over the West Bank in addition to Gaza, putting Israel’s heartland within easy reach of some of the heavy weapons it already has.

Harari’s third claim, namely that Israel and Hamas have reached an impasses that can only end in an Israeli defeat, is also wrong. Soon after the successful massacre they committed on 7 October Hamas’ leaders announced they were expecting to follow up with additional measures of the same kind. Unfortunately for them but fortunately for Israel, so far it does not appear as if they are able to realize that threat. Here is another, and much more likely scenario: following its successes so far, and after a due period of rest and reconstruction, the IDF will enter the city of Raffia in the southern part of the Strip and do away with the residuals of Hamas’ organized units on land, in the air, at sea, and underground. The oft-heard comparisons with the IDF in Lebanon as well as the American adventures in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq are, in reality, irrelevant. Why? Because the Gaza Strip only comprises 1.42 square miles, equal to 0.00083 percent of Iraqi territory, 0.00055 percent of Afghan territory, 0.0011 percent of Vietnamese territory, and 0.034 percent of Lebanese territory. Once Raffia is dealt with, all Israel will need to defeat what remains of Hamas and completely dominate the country is three brigades.

Dominating the Strip on all sides will also isolate it from the external world and make it much harder to smuggle in the kind of arms, money, and logistic support terrorists and guerrillas require. In this context it is important to keep in mind the fact that Gaza’s population is not homogeneous. About one third, consisting of natives (as opposed to those who left Israel at one point or another), supports the PA and would like few things better than settling accounts with Hamas which has been maltreating them ever since the Israelis withdrew almost two decades ago.

To sum up, it stands to reason that, even after it completes its occupation of the Strip, the IDF will have to carry out sporadic anti-terrorist operations. In doing so it will be able to draw on half a century’s experience not only in the Strip but in the West Bank as well. Ending terrorism will not be easy and will take time. However, given the various types of specialist forces the IDF deploys as well the various innovative techniques it has devised, many of which are the envy of foreign farmed forces and are widely imitated, there is no reason why the struggle will not lead to a successful end. Finally a word about the “preposterous Biblical fantasies” that, says Harari, are dreamt up by all kinds of Israeli extremists, including not a few in the government itself.  Nietzsche in his Untimely Meditations says that those who condemn the past endanger both themselves and others. This is because we are all products of the past, complete with all its problems, passions, errors and even crimes. That again is why, for both individual and nations, to deny their past is tantamount to shooting oneself. This is true of Harari himself; but it is even more true of countless others the world over who think as he does.

Col. (res) Dr. Moshe Ben David, is a retired IDF infantry officer with much experience in counterinsurgency. He is also a former vice president of Amadox Inc.

A Madcap World

Posted on by

Stanley, The Promethean, Kindle, 2017.

A madcap world filled with madcap characters. A godforsaken English village called Tussock’s Bottom where the favorite drink is a kind of beer affectionately known as Old Stinker. A Christminster (i.e Oxford) Don named Habbakuk McWrath who is an expert on Extreme Celtic Studies and likes nothing better than a good old fashioned brawl of the kind his wild ancestors used to engage in. A British prime minister named Terry Carter, leader of the Conservative Democrats (ConDems, for short). Modelled on a real former prime minister whose name I shall not spell out, he is “a consummate liar and cheap publicity seeker, cravenly addicted to the latest media opinion polls and the number of his ‘likes’ on Facebook and Twitter, perpetually grinning, and with no sincere beliefs about anything except his own importance.” A highly polished French intellectual named Marcel Choux (cabbage) who has declared war on truth—yes, truth—as an instrument of racism, repression, discrimination and a whole series of similar bad things. And who, instead of being sent to the loony bin, is worshipped by the students and faculty of the London School of Politics (aka of Economics and Political Science) who have invited him to receive a prize and give a lecture.

Into this world steps Harry Hockenheimer, a young American billionaire who made his fortune by helping women satisfy their vanity when looking into a mirror. Now 39 years old, happily married to Lulu-Belle who does not make too many demands on him, he has reached the point where he is simply bored with life. Casting around for something significant to do, he hits on the idea of building a robot sufficiently human-like in terms of appearance, behavior and mental abilities to act as a factotum to anyone with the money to buy or rent it. To keep things secret, the decision is made to design and produce the prototype robot not in Hockenheimer’s native California but in Tussock’s Bottom. There he has his assistant set up a high-tech household where everything, from shopping through cleaning to regulating the temperature, is done by computers. At one point Hockenheimer returns to his home away from home only to find that mice, by gnawing on the cables and defecating on them, have turned it in a complete, dirty and smelly, mess. That, however, is a minor glitch soon corrected by a very willing elderly lady armed with a whirlwind of dusters, mops, polishers, sprays, buckets, and  similar kinds of mundane, but highly effective, equipment

Approaching completion the robot is christened Frank Meadows, as inoffensive a name as they come. He also goes through a number of tests that highlight his phenomenal memory as well as his ability to remember, articulate and do anything a human can, only much better and much faster. Meadows starts his career by visiting the local pub where he plays darts with his fellow visitors and wins the game hands down. Next he deals with an obnoxious policeman who, having attacked him, ends up in a muddy ditch and is subsequently fired from the force. He takes part in a TV show called A Laugh a Minute whose host, Jason Blunt, “a flabby stupid, greedy, and arrogant exhibitionist with a chip on both shoulders” ends up by physically attacking Frank and, for his pains, is dumped back into his seat like a sack of potatoes. He spends many hours listening to Hockenheimer who does his best to explain to him the way the world works. He… but I will not spoil the story by telling you how it ends. Nor will I let you have the author’s real name and identity; that is something you will have to find out for yourself.

Amidst all this political correctness, inclusionism, identitarianism, and any number of similar modern ideas are mercilessly exposed not just for the nonsense they are but for the way their exponents bully anyone who does not join them. All to the accompaniment of jokes, puns, wordplay and double entendres such as only Brits seem able to come up with. To be sure, Stanley is no Jane Austin and does not even pretend to trace the development of character the way great novelists do. However, almost any page of this book you may pick up will either make you helpless with laughter or, at the very least, bring an ironic smile to your face. Get it and spend a couple of hours—it is not very long—reading it from cover to cover. I promise you you will not be disappointed.

On Escalation

Posted on by

To most people, whether or not a ruler or country “uses” nuclear weapons is a simple choice between either dropping them on the enemy or not doing so. For “experts,” though, things are much more complicated (after all making them so, or making them appear to be so, is the way they earn their daily bread). So today, given Putin’s recent threat to resort to nuclear weapons in case NATO sends its troop into Ukraine, I am going to assume the mantle of an expert and explain some of the things “using” such weapons might mean.

  1. Making verbal threats. Almost eight decades have passed since the first nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima (without any kind of warning, nota bene). Since then there have been plenty of occasions when countries, statesmen and politicians threatened to use the nukes in their arsenal. Eisenhower did so in 1953 in connection with the Korean War; Khrushchev in 1956 in connection with the Suez Crisis; Kennedy in 1962 in connection with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nixon in 1973 in connection with the Arab-Israeli War of that year; India and Pakistan in 1998 in connection with the Kargil War; and so on right down to Putin today. Some of the threats have been overt and rather brutal, others more or less secret and veiled. Some were delivered directly, others with the help of a third party.
  2. To put some muscle behind the threat, weapons may be moved out of storage and put on display. Normally everything pertaining to nukes is kept highly secret. Here and there, though, countries have allowed their nuclear warheads, or replicas of them, to be shown, photographed, and celebrated for what they might do to opponents. In particular Russia, China and North Korea like to parade their intercontinental ballistic missiles. True monsters they are, any one of which can demolish almost any city on earth within, say, less than an hour of the order being given. Some such displays are accompanied by verbal threats, others not. At times the sequence is reversed in the sense that display precedes threats rather than the other way around.
  3. Raising the state of alert. Again contrary to what most people think, putting nuclear weapons to use, in other words commanding and controlling them, is by no means simply a matter of pushing the proverbial button. First, those in charge of the weapons must make sure they are always ready to be launched at a moment’s notice. Second, they must make sure the weapons are not launched by accident, or by unauthorized personnel, or by an authorized officer somewhere in the launching chain either deliberately disobeying orders or going out of his or her mind. The two requirements, speed (lest the weapons are targeted and destroyed before they can be launched) and reliability contradict each other; making the problem of nuclear command and control as difficult as any we humans have to face. Raising the state of alarm will cut through some parts of the problem—though just how, and to what extent, is rightly kept one of the most guarded secrets of all.
  4. Going a step further, weapons and delivery vehicles may be tested. Pace any number of computer models and exercises, ultimately the only way to make sure one’s nuclear weapons will work is to test them. Such tests, of course, may also be used in an attempt to influence the enemy’s behavior—as was notoriously the case when India and Pakistan both tested a number of weapons back in 1998. Some tests may be conducted in or over some outlying part of one’s own country as American, Soviet, British, French, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and North Korea ones all were. Others may take place over some part of the vast no-man’s world that constitutes the earth’s oceans; for example, the Israeli-South African bomb said to have been detonated over the Indian Ocean back in 1979. It is also possible to send some of one’s missiles hurtling over enemy country, as North Korea has often done in respect to Japan.Each of the above mentioned methods represents a different way of (hopefully) “using” one’s nuclear weapons in order to influence the enemy’s behavior without bringing about Armageddon. Historically all have been implemented quite often, some even as a matter of routine. The problem is that, since no country or leader has ever admitted giving way to a nuclear threat, it is hard to say how effective such threats were. There are, however, additional ways states might put their nuclear weapons to use.
  5. Launching a limited nuclear strike at some less important enemy target such as outlying, more or less unpopulated, spaces or else a ship at sea. All in the hope of scaring the opponents to the point where he’ll give way to one’s demands, but without, if at all possible, risking a nuclear response.
  6. Launching a limited nuclear strike at the enemy’s nuclear or, in case he does not have them, conventional forces. Targets might consist of early warning installations, anti-aircraft and missile defenses, troop-concentrations, communication centers, depots, etc.
  7. Launching a limited nuclear strike at the enemy’s industrial infrastructure.
  8. Launching a nuclear strike at all of the targets mentioned in bullets 5 to 7.
  9. Launching a full scale nuclear strike at the enemy’s main demographic centers.

One well known nuclear strategist, Herman Kahn, in his 1962 book distinguished among no fewer than forty different stages on the “escalation ladder.” In practice, there are two reasons why the ladder is largely theoretical. First, the various stages are likely to be hard to keep apart. Second, even if the side using the weapons does keep them apart in his own mind, the other is highly unlikely to share his views. In particular, a strike that one side sees as relatively harmless may very well be perceived by the other as a mere prelude. Thus bringing about the very retaliation he seeks to avoid.

As far as publicly available sources allow us to judge, up to the present Putin has limited himself to the first of these nine stages. That is less–considerably less–than some others have done before him. So the question is, will he stop there?

Concerning Gaza

Posted on by

The following is an interview I did for a leading Austrian magazine. Although, in the end, the text did not see the light of print, I considered it interesting enough to post it here.

How did Hamas come to be the leading political force in Gaza?

Hamas is an Islamic Movement with deep roots in Arab history, especially Egypt with its Moslem Brotherhood. It started its rise to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Ariel Sharon, serving under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, was Israel’s minister of defense. As he and his advisers saw it, the best way to oppose the growing power of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Movement and counter the First Palestinian Intifada (Arabic for “shaking off”), was by encouraging another, more religiously-inclined, and hopefully more moderate, movement in the southern, poor and backward, half of the West Bank. The focus was to be prayer, education and charity, not anti-Israeli terrorism.

Looking back, the policy never stood a chance. Instead of becoming less radical than the PLO Hamas, by refusing in principle any peace with Israel, became more so. Israeli efforts to suppress the movement, including the “targeted killing” of its first leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi proved unavailing. To the contrary: rather than watch its power declining, Hamas spread to the Gaza Strip. In 2007, a year after Israel withdrew from the Strip, it mounted a coup, killing some of the PLO’s officials in the Strip and driving out the rest.

Which historical errors need to be mentioned here?

I am not sure one can talk about historical errors here. The attempt to distinguish “good” Arabs (with who one could talk and, perhaps, reach some kind of compromise) and “bad ones” (who only understood the language of violence and war) has deep roots in Zionist/Israeli history. It is as if leaders on both sides, Israel and the Hamas, have been playing to a pre-prepared script. One similar to the tyche (fate) that carried the heroes of Greek tragedies to their doom.

You write that in the early 1980s, Ariel Sharon and his advisers believed that Hamas, with its strong emphasis on Islam, would be the ideal vehicle to redirect Palestinian energies from the fight against Israel to the practice of Islam. From today’s perspective, that sounds extremely absurd. According to this reading, are the “Hamasniks” less religious than previous, generations?

And asked provocatively: Does such a thesis also apply to the other side? How religious is Benjamin Netanyahu? His conduct of the war is now being criticized by his closest allies.

Whether or not the present generation of Hamas activists are more or less religiously-minded than their predecessors is hard to say. It seems, however, that, perhaps to a greater extent than their predecessors, they have succeeded in drawing on both Islamic religion and Palestinian nationalism. The combination is explosive. Along with dozens of similar organizations active in dozens of other countries, starting with Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq and ending in the United Kingdom where 75 percent of the security services’ workload is due to Islamic terrorism, it will continue to make its impact felt for a long time to come.

As to Netanyahu, he comes from a secularly-minded family—his father was a history professor. He, Netanyahu, has never practiced Judaism the way orthodox Jews do. Depending on the audience he is addressing, now he stresses that fact, now he tries to draw a thin veil over it. Truly a man for all seasons. One thing, though, appears certain: following in the footsteps of his principal mentor, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (served 1983–1984, 1986–1992) he is a hard liner. Even more so in private, I am told, than in public.

How do you rate Benjamin Netanyahu as a person? Is war a means for him to stay in power? Do you see a politician comparable to Netanyahu in history? What future does this man have in Israeli politics and in Israeli historiography?

As I just said, Netanyahu is a man for all seasons. He will tell anyone whatever he thinks will serve, first himself—he is in deep legal trouble–and then the cause. As has been the case with all his predecessors and will presumably be the case with his successors as well, that cause is to secure the continued existence of Israel. Nor do I blame him for saying e.g that an Iran-supported Palestinian State in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is incompatible with that existence.

The situation in Gaza is devastating. Israel has to justify itself. In my opinion, the role of the neighboring state of Egypt is neglected. Why doesn’t the international community put more pressure on Egypt to at least grant asylum to Palestinian women and children? Studies show that Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Why do so many supposed “brother states” turn a blind eye to this fact?

It was an Egyptian cleric, Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Islamic Brotherhood back in 1928. Egypt being under British occupation at that time, his message, consisted of two main parts. First, the need to reject anything Western and modern, from secularism to women’s rights; and second, the drive to replace them by a Koran-based Islamic State. With one exception—Mohammed Morsi, himself an Islamist, who only lasted for one year before the military overthrew him–since then every Egyptian ruler, hereditary or not, military or not, socialist or not, has experienced trouble with the organization. The number of Brotherhood activists who, over the years, have been imprisoned, tortured and/or executed must run into the tens of thousands, probably more.

The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty is now a little over forty years old. But this has not prevented the Egyptian government from turning a blind eye to the fact that many, if not most, of the weapons Hamas is currently using in Gaza were smuggled in from Egyptian-owned Sinai. Indeed the spectacle of Israel’s problems in Gaza, as long as they remain limited, may not unwelcome among certain circles in Cairo. But this coin also has a flip side. Opening the border between Egypt and Gaza, if only in order to enable refugees to reach other Arab countries (which may or may not let them in) could help destabilize Egypt. And that is the last thing President Abdel a-Sisi wants or needs.

Do you have any ideas about what will happen to the Gaza Strip in the long term? Who lives there in 2044? Will there ever be peace? If yes how?

As the famous Italian nuclear scientist Enrico Fermi is supposed to have said, making predictions is difficult, especially of the future. Still, let me try.

Ever since 1967, the year when the Six Day War was fought and Israel found itself in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, I personally have been on the Israeli left. Back in 2005 I even published a book, Defending Israel, to explain my position. I am afraid that, since then, that position has changed. With Iran actively involved in fighting Israel on four fronts—Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and the Red Sea—Israel has absolutely no choice but to retain some form of control over the first two of those. After all, from Tel Aviv to Gaza it is only about 55 kilometers; from Tel Aviv to the West Bank, about 30.

25 years ago you wrote in the NZZ that Israel needed someone in the Gaza Strip to whom it “could hand over the key”. “Experience shows that breaking up an organization leads nowhere.” From the Israeli point of view, you would then be dealing with an even worse organization. Do you still see it the same way in 2024? 

The greatest danger today is not another, even more radical, Palestinian Organization in Gaza but no organization at all. The outcome can only be anarchy and more bloodshed. A good foretaste of what will happen was provided on Thursday 29 February when Gazans, desperate for food, fought each other while at same time being fired at by Israeli troops who, caught in the middle, feared for their lives.

You went on to say about the 2006 Lebanon War: “So Israel’s disproportionate war may not be so bad. It can lead to calm and peace.” That sounds worryingly current… Would you say the same thing about the status quo in Gaza?

The best thing that could happen to Gaza would be for it to come to some kind of arrangement with Israel so that life can begin to return to normal, more or less. But things do not seem to be moving in that direction, do they?

You recently wrote in “Die WELT” that the winner of the current Gaza war has already been determined: Hamas. What do you mean?

It was Henry Kissinger who once said that the regulars, as long as they do not win, lose; whereas the guerrillas, as long as they do not lose, win. You can spell out the details for yourself.

Finally, are you for or against a ceasefire?

Who could be against a ceasefire? But not at any price.

Guest Article: His Majesty’s Birthday

Posted on by

By

William S. Lind*

As regular readers know, every year I telephone my reporting senior, Kaiser Wilhelm II, on his birthday, January 27, to offer my best wishes.  Such readers also know that His Majesty likes to surprise me.  Well, he did.  When I got out of bed the morning of the 23rd, I found out why: a naval Zeppelin, L-70, was hovering about twenty feet above my chimney.  Luckily, there were no sparks.  

I knew that meant I was on my way to Berlin.  I grabbed my seabag and went outside, where the airship had lowered its observation car for me to board.  I was quickly on my way, enjoying every minute of the smooth and silent air travel only an airship, not an airplane, can offer.

We landed at the Potsdam Zeppelinhafen the morning of the 26th, where a Fahnenjunker Kleinschmidt was waiting for me with an extra horse.  “They’re at the toy fort,” he told me as we cantered off.  “They?” I inquired.  Grinning, the Herr Fahnenjunker said, “you are about to meet some old friends.”

The toy fort is on the grounds of the Neues Palais, His Majesty’s preferred residence.  “Toy” is something of a misnomer.  It was a place for young Hohenzollern princes to play, but it was extensive and realistic enough so experiments with new battlefield tactics and techniques were carried out there.  As I rode up it was clear something along those lines was being conducted.

Dismounting, I saluted His Majesty, offering my felicitations for the morrow, and lit up in delight as I surveyed the rest of the party.  Bismarck was there, to whom I bowed very deeply, along with Moltke and, from a later time than ours, Field Marshal von Manstein.  And two old friends indeed, General Max Hoffman [a key German commander in World War I] and Hermann Balck [famed World War II Panzer commander].  I hadn’t seen Balck since we had dinner in the 1970s, and Max I knew only in spirit, but I also knew that with them present we would rock and roll.

“So, does this stranger have the password?” His Majesty inquired, grinning.  “Gott strafe England,” I replied.  “That always works,” Max said.  “And with you here, so does ‘Wurst und Moselwein’, nicht wahr?” I threw back.  “Immer,” said His Majesty. “But we also have some serious business to transact.  The problem before us is, how Ukraine  can win its war with Russia.  Field Marshal von Manstein was about to present his analytics.”

I again saluted the Field Marshal, who began with the failure of the Ukrainian summer counter-offensive.  “In effect, the Ukrainian operation plan was Barbarossa writ small.  It had no Schwerpunkt.  The Ukrainians launched three simultaneous, non-mutually-supporting thrusts. They led with armor, which, as we learned the hard way, always costs heavily in destroyed tanks.  By the way, their tanks, including the German Leopards, proved no more survivable than their Russian equivalents.  They then tried to lead with infantry, which, with infiltration tactics, could have worked, but it did not.  I’m not sure why.”

“I suspect their heavy losses in infantry left them without the high-quality troops attack divisions require,” His Majesty observed.  “It is difficult to do infiltration tactics with Landsturm.  But the question is not why their summer offensive failed, but whether we can come up with an operational plan that will work.  Any Ideas?”

Max spoke up.  “They need to break through at one end of the Russian lines, north or south, then roll up between the Russian front and the Russian border.  That will either bag or reduce to a rabble the whole Russian force in the east.  Having done that, they should offer to negotiate.  Russia has to get something still, certainly Crimea, but Ukraine would keep the Don basin with its industry.”

“They can’t break through,” Balck observed.  “They have to do an end run.”

“How?” Moltke asked, as always a man of few words.

Now Manstein showed his stuff.  “Ukraine should mass its forces in the north, as if to break through there.  Then, it launches into Belarus with the whole force.  The Schwerpunkt should drive north, then east, end-running the Russian northern line and driving down between the Russian forces and the border, just as Herr General Hoffman suggests.  But that’s not all.  Two other thrusts, both small in size, should be detached from the main force.  One should drive at Minsk, broadcasting the message that its only target is Lukashenko and asking Belarussian forces to come over.  That will pose not just an operational but a strategic threat to Russia just as she needs her operational reserves inside Ukraine.  The second Nebenpunkt should be a special operation to sieve the missiles with nuclear warheads Russia has positioned in Belarus.  If Ukraine grabs those, Russia loses the ace up her sleeve, the threat to go nuclear.  Russia will face one operational and two strategic disasters, without sufficient forces to deal with more than one, and become paralyzed by the choice.”

We stood around somewhat stunned.  For a while, no one said anything.  Then Bismarck spoke.  “Brilliant operational art, Herr Feldmarschall”.  You deserve the oak leaves.  But what none of you idiots have considered is the strategic picture!”

The Kaiser rolled his eyes.  “Now I know why my grandfather said, ‘Sometimes it is a hard thing, being Kaiser under Bismarck.” But please, Otto, enlighten us.”

“Why is Germany allied with Ukraine when Russia is far more important to us?  Yes, we need the grain of Ukraine.  But Russia offers vastly more: grain, oil and gas, strategic position, a large if low quality army, a decent navy and air force, the list is endless,” Bismarck went on.  “I have no love for the “Laws of History,” but there does seem to be a general rule that when Germany and Russia are allied, both do well, and when they are opposed, both do badly.  Is there really any need to discuss what the outcomes of the World Wars would have been if Russia had joined the Central Powers in a new Dreikaiserbund or the Axis?  Max?  Moltke?  Anybody?

“There would have been no Second World War, or probably First, in that case,” the Kaiser said.  “Peace is what I wanted, and peace is what Germany and Europe would have had.  Anyway, it has grown late, and we face a big party tomorrow in the Grotto – both Nicky and my friend Franz Ferdinand are coming, as are you, my American friend – and I promised Max more sausages and Mosel wine than even he can eat and drink.  Between now and then, we all have things to ponder, especially what you, dear Otto, have told us.  We Germans always want to subordinate the strategic to the operational, then wonder why it all blows up in our face.  Hopefully, someday we will learn not to do that.  May that day come soon.”

 

* William S. Lind is the author, among many other works on military history and strategy, of the The New Maneuver Warfare Handbook (just published). This article has been published earlier in Traditional Right.

Chasing the Sun

Posted on by

As those familiar with my work will know, I’ve always tried to avoid the trap of overspecialization. I’ve also tried to impress on my students that that there never has been, nor can there ever be, a good student of military history whose only interest is military history. Some took my advice, others did not. One of those who did, I am proud to say, is Yuval Harari.

Having risen to become publishing director of Hutchinson and Hodder & Stoughton, Cohen was never in danger of overspecialization. Instead he became the author of any number of books dealing with any number of topics; including, to mention but two, Israel; Is It Good for the Jews?  (2014) and How to Write Like Tolstoy (2021). Add the fact that he is a five-time U.K national saber champion and was repeatedly selected for the British Olympic Team, and one can barely suppress one’s awe in front of his achievement.

As the title suggests, Cohen spent years traveling. So much so that, when people tried to reach him by phone, his wife often had to say that he was, once again, chasing the sun. On his way he visited eighteen different countries. He witnessed eclipses, listened to explanation about the way tides work, and read ancient Greek and Latin works on astronomy. Above all, he listened—to astronomers, to physicists, to geographers, to anyone who seemed sufficiently well informed to be worth talking to. Of course he could have done even more; e.g by spending a few million dollars to go up in a spacecraft to see what the sun and its fellow stars look like from orbit. But enough is enough.

The way Cohen sees it, we humans have related to the sun in two different ways. One, which is the oldest (probably, by far) leads through religion and magic; unable to understand, people tended to use their imaginations and invent. The outcome was countless priests, temples, fables, myths, cults, hymns, re-enactments—possibly, the origins of the theater—and prayers. And sacrifices, including some human ones. On the receiving end of all this were sun gods, sun beings, sun spirits, and the like. Starting with the Egyptian Pharos, who claimed to be sons of the sun god Ra and many of whom were portrayed with his emblem, a disk, above their heads; and reaching all the way to the self-styled Sun King, France’s Louis XIV, who loved the idea of people and things revolving around him as few others did.

The other way to relate to the sun was by means of science. As far back as we can look, the earliest attempts to do so were made in ancient Mesopotamia, China and Egypt. All three were highly developed agricultural civilizations whose system of keeping themselves fed demanded close attention to the calendar. This caused all three to take a keen interest in astronomy as the basis for timing various agricultural activities such as planting, sowing, watering, harvesting and the like. At least equally important, astronomy was needed for astrological calculations to forecast the fate of people, cities and rulers. Either way, studying the sun as well as other heavenly phenomena was vital.

In all three of these civilizations, science, religion and magic long remained so closely related as to make any attempt to separate them almost impossible. Apparently the first to do away with religion and magic and adopt a purely scientific, meaning observation- and math based, approach were the ancient Greeks. Many “pre-Socratic” philosophers, but chiefly Democritus and Pythagoras, took part, coming up with impressive contributions. Among them was the idea, first put forward by Eratosthenes in the second century BCE, that the earth revolved around the sun rather than vice versa; the first attempt to calculate the distance between the earth and the sun as well as the latter’s size; the first attempt to determine the distance between the earth and the moon; and the first attempt to determine the radius of the earth as well as its circumference.

Ancient attempts to work out the nature, size and movements of the cosmos (as the Greek called it) and the various heavenly bodies culminated around 160 CE with the publication of Ptolemy’s Almagest. Originally written in Greek, later it was translated into Arabic which gave it the name by which it is known even today. It certainly contained some errors: including the idea that the earth is at the center of the cosmos, that it does not move, and that all other bodies, as well as the universe itself, move at constant speed and in perfect cycles around it. The trouble with the Almagest was not that it did not provide a mathematically-based model of the universe—it did—but that time exposed inaccuracies to correct which it was necessary to bring in changes that made it so complex as to be unmanageable. Until, in 1543, an obscure monk in Koenigsberg (today, Kaliningrad) proposed another model; one which, by putting the sun in the middle and making the earth move around it, got rid of many of the difficulties.

This is hardly the place to elaborate on the way Copernicus’ work made it from a mere mathematical theory into what we today see as a solid model of the way the solar system actually works. As it did so, increasingly it received support from the works of Tycho Brahe (who, though he himself stuck to the idea that the earth was in the center of the world, raised observation of the heavens to a completely new level of accuracy), Johan Kepler (who showed that the planets’ trajectories are not circular but elliptical), and Galileo Galilei (who, using his telescope, proved that the moon is not “perfect” but made of the same materials as the earth itself). Galileo himself was followed by Isaac Newton who, proposing a new mathematical model based solely on mass, force (gravity) and movement, completed the process by which astronomy became purely scientific.

As time went on Newton’s theories went from one triumph to the next, even to the point where they were used to predict the existence of previously unknown planets hundreds of millions of miles away. During the second half of the nineteenth century the incorporation into them, at the hands of Michael Faraday and James Maxwell, of magnetism and electricity led many physicists to the conclusion that man’s understanding of the cosmos was now complete and that only minor adjustments remained to be made. Never in history did predictions turn more wrong! First quantum theory, pronounced by Max Planck in 1900, showed that, contrary to Newton (but in line with Democritus and his “a-toms”) neither space nor energy were infinitely divisible. Also that, at the subatomic level, things did not behave the way Newton’s theories predicted. Next relativity, first introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905 and completed by him in 1915, completely overturned our ideas of the relationship between mass, time, energy and space, showing that, far from being independent and stable under any circumstances they were related and convertible into each other.

Whereas Planck’s theories were shown to work at the subatomic level, Einstein’s ideas referred to intergalactic space where distances are measured by lightyears. Notwithstanding that the two contradict each other, and notwithstanding too that very few people can be said to understand the true meaning, and hence the implications, of quantum theory in particular, taken together their work still underpins our present-day understanding of the universe. Complete with its hordes of subatomic particles, many of which are supposed to be both “real” and “unreal” at the same time; cesium clocks so accurate that they only miss “true” time by one second every 100 million years; black holes, gravity waves, and a great many other phenomena so strange that they can only be described, if at all, in mathematical language; and, as if to crown it all, nuclear weapons capable of putting an end to it all.

There are four other points that need to be made. First, Cohen is a physicist. As such he has a lot to say about physics but comparatively little about the sun’s impact on living creatures: in other words, biology. Yet it is photosynthesis alone which makes possible all life except for the kind recently discovered at the bottom of the deepest oceans; hence the rather short shrift Cohen give it constitutes a serious omission.

Second, until it reaches 1650 or so Cohen’s account gives about equal space to scientific astronomy on one hand and all kinds of other frames of reference the other. After that, however, such frames all but disappear from the text. That again is a serious omission. Just think of Japan’s sun-goddess, Amaterasu, and of Stalin having himself called “the Sun of Nations.” Today as ever, for every person who reads Einstein, let alone Planck, there must be thousands who believe the book of Judges (chapter 13) when it says that God made the sun stop in its orbit so as to assist the Israelites in their fight against the Canaanites. Countless others believe in astrology and consult astrologers; the fact that it is all nonsense makes no difference. A few chapters on these and similar topics would have completed the book and made it more balanced.

Third, as Cohen rightly points out many of the questions physicists ask today are the very same ones Democritus and Co. asked themselves two and a half millennia ago. Did the universe always exist, or did it have a beginning? If the latter, will it one day come to an end? What is it made of? How far does it stretch? Is there just one universe, or are there more? What is it made of (today’s scientists claim that over 90 percent of it consists dark of dark matter and dark energy, a mysterious something that neither our senses nor our instruments can register)? What is time? Does it “really” exist or is it—as some physicists believe—simply whatever our instruments record?

Finally, does the fact that many of the questions Democritus asked are still with us today suggest that, in trying to answer them, we have been moving around in circles and that it is all a waste of time?  Along with Cohen, I believe the answer to this question is negative. There is no doubt that we at present know far more about the universe than our elders did even a couple of decades ago; our success in reaching the moon as well as Mars provides sufficient proof of that. Nor can there be any question of progress coming to a halt any time soon. Each time a new discovery is made, causing a mystery to be solved, another and often greater one seems to present itself. The sense of wonder, which drives the questions, still permeates us. As long as it keeps doing so, human we remain.