What's the /k/ assessment on this guy as a military historian and thinkpiece writer? Obviously focused on Middle Eastern conflicts and the Israeli Army.
>>64579348I read his history of the IDF. It was pretty interesting. He doesn't like chicks in the military and is a big Nietzschefag.
>>64579348His theories make sense. Peer war is not likely on account of MAD, so things past the mid 20th century have shifted to proxy war and insurgencies. Seems clear, desu
>>64579352What's his professional academic take on chicks in uniform and why they're bad? Genuinely curious cause I'm a Swissfag who had to do mandatory army service while my sisters escaped it, which I always thought was BS.
>>64579383He wrote a book about it, which I haven't read. But from some articles and mentions of it in the IDF book, it's various stuff, but a lot of the usual that armies would have to lower standards. Also one thing is that men's protective instincts towards women would override their training so it messes with combat psychology. Then another thing is that armies having more women is a sign of peacetime but that's bad because it leads to the military losing sight of its purpose. I don't know if this is true or not (don't really care). I guess women in the IDF mostly do paper pushing tasks anyways:https://youtu.be/SV4ptfyaQFABTW on the IDF book, it was written in the 90s when he described eroding morale. One of his theories is that young men want to test themselves, but really since the invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s, the IDF was no longer facing conventional armies but guerrillas, and were also doing occupation duty in the West Bank, but that's a different kind of challenge. If you are fighting a weak person, and you beat him up, that makes you look like a monster, while if you let the weak person get one over on you, you look like an idiot. So fighting the weak is actually a fast track to becoming weak yourself. (You can see how this ties into his Nietzschean outlook.)He had some interesting comments about the "en brera" attitude of the IDF in the 50s-70s wars. I think that came back immediately after 10/7. It's like an existential do-or-die psychology when the will of the military and civilian population align. Israel is a small country with widespread military service. I'm still not quite sure how it works but it is patterned on a popular militia that semi-professionalized. It's very weird but when those things align, it's like, watch out. They'll just smash you.
>>64579427Ngl I despise the effect Israel has on my country and I am pro-Palestine for the same reasons I'd be pro-Ukraine or pro-any other oppressed nationality, but the IDF is probably the most interesting army to read about in the modern world if only because it seems to be the only real "total war mindset" army left around where the whole of society can be mobilized for it
>>64579556We hadn't seen that since 1973 (which is before I was born) until 2023 when we saw something like that. In October 2023 I saw this Israeli musician put out this and I was like oh Jesus here they go, they're just going to destroy Gaza (which is what they did), like a coiled-up spring being suddenly let go:https://youtu.be/hefC-uwULy0You see all the civilians throwing in. It's like that. Or Harbu Darbu, they got zoomers out there doing party rap about killing their enemies, it's that mentality in the population aligning with the military and political leadership:https://youtu.be/1rk3n9V-aQsWhere else would you see that? It's psychological. That whole civilian backbone and the relationship with the military which is decisive I think. Van Creveld wrote about this but, again, he was writing in the 90s when he felt Israel had lost that. At any rate most of those people serve in the military, their parents did, they have friends who did (and have friends who were killed or knew people who knew people who were killed). In the Arab-Israeli wars there was also an improvisational, very aggressive mindset on the part of the Israeli commanders. It's like their military culture about being a really well-armed raiding force. The Gaza war lasted a long time but they'd raid in and out. There's also rapid escalation. They had fought a "war of attrition" for a year along the border with Hezbollah but once Israel escalated, it did it fast with overwhelming force. That is a bit different from the old-style method of mass mobilization for total war though.
Van Creveld in 2007:>Nearly a year has passed since Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, and 40 since the June 1967 war. Those familiar with last summer’s war might well rub their eyes in disbelief. Given how badly the Israel Defense Forces performed in Lebanon, where it was stymied by a guerrilla organization numbering just a few thousand fighters, is it really true that once upon a time the IDF routed four Arab armies in just six days? Indeed it did. There was a time when the Israeli people, to quote Moshe Dayan, was “small but brave.” The IDF was the only thing keeping Israel from death at the hands of its much larger and supposedly more powerful neighbors. The outcome of the 1967 war was a feeling of “ein brera” – no choice – that used to permeate all layers of Israeli society, resulting in extremely high motivation. That motivation meant the IDF was able to attract the country’s best manpower. Though pay was meager and conditions often difficult, people were eager to serve in the IDF, and did so proudly.That motivation made possible training, selection and promotion procedures that were, or at least were widely perceived as, just and fair. The final outcome was the creation of a general staff made up of men – no women yet – who were clear-headed and determined to win even at a high cost in casualties. The ever-present fear of the future generated national unity, and national unity generated truly tremendous fighting power ... Forty years after June 1967, the point remains that an army is only as good as its opponent. A force that beginning with the 1982 invasion of Lebanon has fought only opponents much weaker than itself has become weak; a sword, thrust into salt water, will rust ... [The 2006 war] also proved that as long as the Israelis go on fighting the weak, they risk leaving themselves unprepared to resist the strong who may still come at them.
"Supplying War" is full of citations and numerical data, making it tiring to read. Since it is an aggressive book that challenges criticism of Liddell Hart and others, did the author pay particular attention to providing evidence?
>>64579945>Where else would you see thatUkraine. It's the standard small country in a major war reaction. Creveld was a boomer who oohed and aahed over muh Jews.
>>64580006... he IS jewish, so yeah.
