Realism and Policy

By Michael F. Duggan

On the evening of November 8, 2016, I started watching the election returns. It was early and all of the pundits on the cable propaganda stations for both sides were charged and upbeat. After about a half hour, I decided to watch a movie, so I put a DVD in the player. It was the 1995 Robert Downey, Jr. historical comedy-drama, Restoration.

I would check on the election coverage every half hour to 45 minutes. Around 10:00 (I don’t remember the exact time), some of the experts noted that things were not going the Democrat’s way in a couple of key states. I read a lot of Marcus Aurelius, and know that most things are out of my hands, and so I went to bed.

The night was quiet, darker and more quiet than usual, and during the few times I woke up overnight, I knew what had happened.

Then I had this crazy idea: perhaps if I did not listen to the news, perhaps the election would remain in a state of superposition, like Schrodinger’s cat in quantum mechanics, and that if I turned on the radio in the morning, it would decohere into a fixed outcome I did not like (it was a little like an infant who believes that the world goes away when he closes his eyes in a game of peekaboo). When I got up, I did not turn on the radio. I left the house to go to work, and drove to the train station in silence, but I knew. That was eight years ago.

Last night I tried to watch a movie again (an old American Experience documentary about Alexander Hamilton), but I grew edgy and wend upstairs early to read (some Marcus Aurelius, but also a biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.). Around 10:30, I came down and saw that the PBS coverage was calling North Carolina. I had seen this play (or one very much like it) before. I went back upstairs and read for a couple more hours and went to bed.

Again, the night was unusually dark and quiet. Again I had this crazy idea that if I didn’t check the news, that events would be suspended in superposition. I got up and did not turn on the radio. I checked my Facebook account and the second thing I saw was a friend who posted, “I guess this is who we really are.” Events had de-cohered once again. In a conversation a week or more ago not specifically on politics, a friend of mine who knows a lot more than I do about Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, told me that the only real dignity in life is to accept the world as it is without complaint.

I know that elections aren’t like particle physics.

By Michael F. Duggan

Do you talk to the dead when you visit the grave of a friend or relative alone? I do. 

And yet I am an agnostic (really an open-minded atheist) who believes that this life is all that there is.  What else are you supposed to do? As with a belief in an afterlife, many of us are quick to ascribe special meanings to coincidences. We notice them because they are so striking, so much against the odds. I am also an agnostic (bordering on an atheist) when it comes to the supposed higher meanings of serendipity: at every moment something must happen. Why not a coincidence?   

But I am nostalgic, some might say sentimental, and every few years on a Sunday, I buy flowers and put them out on the graves of lost friends.  It had been a long time since I had visited these particular friends.

There was Richard, a friend of mine from third and fourth grade and the first person I knew my age (11 days older) to die.  He was a mischievous kid who loved sports, the only autumn child of older parents. He died when he was 10. 

The second was Maureen, a girl I liked in elementary and junior high school, who died in a car accident when she was in college.  

The third was Dan, a free-spirited rogue from high school who loved The Beatles and Stones. Gone at 39. I had heard the song “Paint it Black” earlier in the week, and decided to look him up.

The fourth was the mother of my best friend from high school.  She lived for 93 years, raised two boys who became remarkable men, and was one of the finest people I have known. An aristocrat in the best sense of the word.  

The day was beautiful—56 degrees and sunny—the continuation of an open-ended, high pressure system that has given us 25 days without rain in the Mid-Atlantic states.  I turned into the cemetery and saw several groups of people.  There were two or three families with chairs and blankets and appeared to be having small picnics (it was the Sunday before All Souls Day).  

This struck me as normal and in no way morbid.  My mom’s family (German Catholics), would make a day out of going to the cemetery to visit the graves of lost relatives.  Although the tradition was waning when I was a young child, I remember going to the cemetery in an attitude that was a joyous as it was solemn. I have loved cemeteries ever since.  As a historian, I especially relish old boneyards as cultural time capsules that change remarkably little, where the yews and other decorative flora planted in grief may live to ripe old ages. 

I got out of my car and in the cool breeze and strong autumn sunshine. The place seemed like a Platonic plane, complete with does with fawns, almost yearlings, some mellow Canada geese, and a handful of crows large enough to be ravens.  

The first problem with my visit is that, although I had the specific numbers for all four graves, I only had section numbers for three of them.  The second problem was that, although the sections are well-marked, the numbers are not given on the stones or the section markers. 

Maureen is in Section 9.  This is a large section, but I was able to find her grave in about 20-25 minutes, walking softly amongst the geese, and left some pink carnations there.  I did not have a section number for Dan, so trying to find his marker was a nonstarter.  I knew Richard was in Section 1, which I estimated to be 20 or more acres.  I started at the far end and systematically worked my way back to where my car was parked.  

After about 20 minutes, I came across a marker with the distinctive name of a friend of mine who is still quite alive.  I never knew that he was a “Jr.,” and that his father was buried there.  After about an hour of looking (and feeling a little like the Eli Wallach character, Tuco, searching a specific grave among the multitudes at the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), I gave up looking for Richard, and was walking back to my car, defeated.  When I was 40 or 50 yards away, I came upon his marker quite by accident.  Apparently I had started my search at the wrong end of Section 1.

For some reason, Section 1 abuts Section 8, where my friend’s mother rests.  My car was parked between the two sections.  I walked over to the edge of Section 8 and looked out across its rows upon rows before me.  Clearly I had another hour or two of walking ahead of me.  I looked down at my feet at the first marker.  It was my friend’s father who had died two years before I met the son.  Next to it was the marker I was looking for. I halved the remaining bunch of flowers and put them on the two graves. There is nothing more emblematic of the limits of human agency than the placing of flowers before a headstone, and there is nothing more striking than a coincidence of this sort.  

There is a notion of speaking the names of the beloved dead.  I don’t know if this was something that was coined recently to call out official violence, or if it is a traditional custom in some communities. The idea, I think, is that as long as people are remembered, we acknowledge their humanity, and they live on in a certain sense, and perhaps literally. I do not believe in an afterlife, but the idea of keeping the dead alive in memory for as long as we live, appeals to me.  And so Richard, Maureen, Dan, and Mrs. ______, I say your names, and am grateful for the fortuitous coincidences in life.  

By Michael F. Duggan

“Democracy dies in darkness.”
-Slogan of The Washington Post

Last week The Washington Post announced that it would break from its tradition and would not endorse a candidate for president in 2024. The decision was reportedly made by Jeff Bezos. History is watching, Mr. Bezos, and it is difficult to see this as anything other than cowardice.

By Michael F. Duggan, Ph.D.

I readily concede the promise and potential peril of AI, but as of now, it appears to be a real dumbass. I searched my 2023 article, “The Progress of a Plague Species, a Theory of History,” just to see what artificial intelligence would make of it, and got this summary:

“”The Progress of a Plague Species, a Theory of History” is a concept that suggests major historical events and societal shifts can be significantly influenced by the spread and evolution of infectious diseases, particularly plagues, which act as a kind of “plague species” that can drastically alter population dynamics and social structures over time, often leading to major historical turning points.”

Talk about missing the point (which is that humans are a plague species, and that history should be interpreted in light of this). If an undergrad had written this synopsis, he/she would have gotten an F along with the comment: “Did you even read the article?”

It is unsettling how human-like this new technology is.

By Michael F. Duggan, Ph.D.

All periods of modern history have been transitional, intermediary. In periods of great technological change, this is especially true of great powers wars (and sometimes of high-intensity civil wars in powerful nations). This fact underscores the reality of scientific and technological progress (but not necessarily of social progress).

The American Civil War and German Wars of Unification saw the shift from muzzleloader to repeaters (one can see the full transition from the Crimean War to the end of the Franco-Prussian War, with the added developments of smokeless powder and modern machine-guns following in the 1880s). World War I began as a 19th century war of mobility at the First Battle of the Marne, quickly transitioned into “trench lock” and attrition as the modern Defensive Revolution arrived at tis apex, and arguably ended with something like a nascent combined arms campaign during the last 100 Days.

The Second World War saw the first jet combat aircraft (compare the fastest plane in the world in 1938 with the fastest planes in the world in 1948), the first cruise missiles (the V-1), the first long range ballistic missiles (the V-2), and assault rifles (the FG-42, MP-43 and MP-44).¹

The Russo-Ukrainian War has introduced a new sort of defensive revolution–a digital and drone revolution–that has rendered the sweeping “big arrow” offensive operations of WWII and Cold War planners all but obsolete (or at least problematic between powerful, state-of-the-art armies), and has apparently reintroduced attritional impalement offensives, small unit tactics and raids, and the grinding “bite and hold” advances of WWI.

Note
The Russian Federov Model 1916, or “Automat,” is possibly first assault rifle (i.e. a selective-fire military rifle), but it was not produced in quantity. It was further developed by the Soviets as the Simov Model 1936, which proved to be unsuccessful. The German FG-42, MP-43, and MP-44 by contrast, are configured like modern assault rifles, and the MP-43-44 was produced in numbers. See W.H.B Smith and Joseph E. Smith, Small Arms of the World, 10th edition., New York, NY: Galahad Books, 1960, 1975. 420-427, 583.

By Michael F. Duggan

Remember when progressives were pro-organized labor? Believed in a vigorous domestic manufacturing economy? Believed in protecting vulnerable domestic markets and their workers? Acted on behalf of ordinary Americans in “flyover country”? Believed in actually talking to potential adversaries and people we didn’t like (e.g. Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Mao) in order to prevent great powers conflicts? Embraced a foreign policy based on diplomacy rather than on undeclared wars? Were critical of Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex? Were antiwar?

Why the hell did the Dems let someone like Trump co-opt these things, and in doing so, make them disreputable to modern liberals?

By Michael F. Duggan

One can only assume that Western foreign policy makers and diplomats these days are not poker players.

If news stories from the past few days are correct, it is likely that US-made, long-range, tactical ballistic missiles fired from Ukraine, will soon be hitting targets deep inside Russia. The Kremlin is warning that this would be regarded as a direct attack by the United States and NATO on Russia and therefore, an existential threat. They are saying that it would mean a great powers war between the US/NATO and Russia.

In other words, the West would be pursuing a policy that could result in World War III based on the assumption that the other side, which has until now been portrayed as an unreasonable, murderous aggressor, will now act with caution, moderation, reason, restraint, and perhaps timidity. It assumes that all of the warnings coming from Russia are just bluffs. Thus the decision of whether or not to go to war is being surrendered to the discretion of a potential adversary.

But as any competent poker player will tell you, the problem with a strategy that assumes the opponent is always bluffing, is that it only works until it doesn’t. It only works if the opponent is bluffing. As the great Prussian realist, Otto von Bismarck, is supposed to have observed, “Russians are slow to saddle, but fast to ride.” If Western policy is based on the “rational choice” assumptions of game theory, then Western policymakers would do well to examine how well such theories served the US during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, and unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis, there is little conspicuous evidence that the US and Russia are even talking to each other. What could possibly go wrong?

At this point, with Russia winning the war in eastern Ukraine, they may not retaliate directly and disproportionately against the West (especially, as other have noted, in light of the many other ways they can retaliate less dramatically). Why upend the chessboard if you are winning? But again, this assumes that people are predominantly reasonable, and as some commentators have observed, we now stand closer to thermonuclear war than at any other point in history. The US and Russia have a little under 6,000 nuclear warheads each, with 1,419 and 1,549 (respectively) deployed on land based missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles, and on strategic bombers.

The relevant question to those who believe that Russia is bluffing is: What if you are wrong?

By Michael F. Duggan

The Summer Olympics is over. It seemed shorter this year, which is fine with me. I have always been ambivalent about the summer games. I never watch it on my own, and yet if it is on a television in a restaurant or bar, I cannot look away. If there was one thing that Jefferson and Nietzsche agree upon, it is the admiration for human excellence in all of its forms, and I concur. It is also a distraction of healthy competition in a troubled time, with “controversies” of little consequences outside of sports.

On the other hand, as a generalist, I find the idea of young lives obsessively devoted to single activities that come down to a few zero-sum moments of triumph or tragedy to be grotesque, and not infrequently a waste. Such focus to the exclusion of so much else in life is likely to cause harm. The loss to a young life in terms of opportunity costs (and later in dollars spent on psychiatrists) may be significant. I will still watch boxing and some of the daredevil sports of winter, but overall I take little interest in sports that are determined by the scoring of judges. Regarding the competitive sport of “breaking,” I will maintain a Buddha-like silence.

Of course I will not deny the pleasure of watching hard-fought competition between physical geniuses, people who can do things that I cannot, and achieving difficult success through physical prowess and training against the best opponents in the world. The problem, I suppose, is that outside of endurance, durability, longevity, and certain precision activities (e.g. diving, pitching, gymnastics), the physical exceptionality of humans is pretty mediocre. We are among the physical scrubs of the animal kingdom, and demonstrations of our physical prowess, such as they are, are among the lest interesting things about us.

Take Simone Biles: this phenom of women’s gymnastics can supposedly jump 12 feet, vertically, something that few, of the world’s other 8.1 billion people can do. And yet if she had the proportional abilities of an ordinary house cat, she would be able to leap 25-30 feet vertically. If she was a flea, she could clear the Eiffel Tower with room to spare.

And then there is swimming. The fastest swimmers in the 50 meter freestyle can move an around 5.6 mph (Michael Phelps once clocked an amazing 8.8 mph with a mono fin). By contrast an Indo-Pacific sailfish can move at speeds up to 68 mph underwater. The fastest human being can sprint to around 27.5 mph, relative to a cheetah’s bursts of 70 mph (or 10 mph slower than the underwater speed of some dolphins). A harbor seal (an animal roughly on the scale of a human) can dive to around 1,500 feet (more than 500 feet deeper than the Eiffel Tower is high) and can stay underwater for 30 minutes with no ill effects. How does unaided human performance compare to that? Even flies and gnats can do something we can’t without technology: flight. Ayuh, we’re a pretty pathetic animal, athletically speaking.

But within our limited parameters, there is also something that I call “annoying perfection.” On the one hand, the precision of platform diving is impressive to the point of disbelief (some of the dives look like they had been engineered by AU, and I still can’t figure out why some were judged higher or lower than others). On the other hand, if I saw another perfect physique (male or female) on the high board, I think I would have thrown a saltshaker at the TV set over the restaurant’s bar. And please don’t get me started about basketball, and other amateur events.

There is value in knowing the physical limits of what people can do (which might explain my youthful interest in the Guinness Book of World Records). Still, I can’t help wondering if athletics might have been more interesting during a time when sports was about naturals without all the added science and obsession.

So much of this perfection and the hair-splitting differences of new world records and sports victories of recent years come as the result of scientific training, diets, and a big-money, institutional approach to training (and today’s athletes who cheat are marginally better after taking performance-enhancing drugs, than the greats of yesteryear, some of whom used performance-hindering drugs, like alcohol [See Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle]).

There is also the ridiculous, disproportional count of medals by nation, a kind of metallic arms race, and the inspirational stories of the athletes themselves (except for Sea Biscuit, there are few things more beaten-into-the-ground than the genre of the inspirational sports story, especially if it has a slo-mo footage and a guitar or piano soundtrack). If I saw another picture of some athlete biting a gold medal, or heard another against-the-odds story about overcoming obstacles in the pursuit of excellence that make Victorian melodrama look understated… where’s that saltshaker?). The real story is that large nations with well-endowed programs seem to have an exponential advantage over small, poorer countries. This is why I find myself cheering for smaller nations rather than the ones who throw big bucks into the sports perfection business, like the U.S. and China. Cheering for a large, vastly-favored nation, sometimes feels a little like cheering for the Roman Empire (or, given the relative resources of modern world powers, perhaps the absurdity of cheering for them is its own metaphor). For the men’s 10 meter platform dive, I ended up pulling for the Mexican diver, who came in fourth.

Well, it’s over until next time. Sorry for such a grouchy posting. I’m not really against sports. On to that other contest in November.

By Michael F. Duggan

During the summer of 1943, the Germans and Soviets fought the Battle of Kursk, the largest battle in history. Like so many battles on the Eastern Front, it was a contests of salients, counter-salients, and the reductions (and attempted reductions)of salients.  The Germans lost fewer men, but the battle was a strategic victory for the Soviets.  It was the last German offensive on the Eastern Front.  It was also the largest tank battle and the costliest aerial battle ever fought.  

Eighty years ago this December, the Germans launched an offensive on the western front, in the Ardennes.  The strategy, to strike hard where the enemy did not expect it, was initially successful. Although it took the Allies by surprise, and the Germans appeared to be making a beeline for Antwerp, it was stopped, and the salient was reduced. It was the last German offensive of the war.  A fraction of the size of Kursk, it was the costliest battle for the Allies in western Europe in the Second World War. 

In the summers of 1862 and 1863, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia went on the strategic offensive and crossed the Potomac River, the border between North and South in the U.S. Civil War. The result of his taking the war into Union territory, were the battles of Antietam (September 17, 1862) and Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863). Antietam was the bloodiest single day in U.S. military history, and Gettysburg was the largest land battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere.

In the spring of 1918, German forces smashed through the allied lines in what is called the Michael Offensive. It was a brilliant initial effort that outran its planning, supplies, and logistics and the Germans were pushed back and the lines, restored.

This week Ukraine launched cross-border operations into the Kursk oblast of western Russia.  Unlike the Ukrainian spring and summer offensive of 2023, this one was not advertised. Striking when and where it was not expected, the attack was brilliant in its operational planning, execution, and surprise, and caught the Russians completely off guard (how is it possible that a stretch of the Russian-Ukrainian frontier was so thinly protected; how is it possible that Russian intelligence did not see it coming?). Although nowhere near the scale of its WWII predecessor (this one appears to be a divisional-size operation) it is the largest Ukrainian incursion into Russia of the present war and has created an irregularly-shaped salient several miles deep. 

Unlike the Kursk offensive of 1943, the Ardennes offensive of 1944, and the Confederate offensives of the Civil War, the attack does not appear to have a specific military objective other than the hope of drawing Russian troops away from hot spots on the front (one wonders how Ukraine can afford such an operation given Russian advances in the Donetsk region, especially in the area east of the city of Pokrovsk). Otherwise the area involved seems to be of no military value, and the attack is unlikely to have any impact on the outcome of the war. Its purpose appears to be psychological and to send the simple message that Ukraine can still hit back. The war will not be won in the north by attacking Russia there, but such diversions contribute to defeat by thinning out manpower and sending resources to what now amounts to another costly front.

This attack is different from all previous attacks of the war. This is a ground assault on Russian soil. The attack might have caught the Kremlin off guard, but surprise does not by itself guarantee a collapse in morale (did the U.S. give up after the Fort Sumter or Pearl Harbor attacks? Did Israel give up after the October 7 attacks?). Given the symbolic importance of Kursk in Russian history, does anybody think that the they will fight with less intensity and determination now?

By Michael F. Duggan

It is good that the United States and other Western nations were able to get their people out of Russia. Still, it seems a little odd that the Russians exchanged were all spies and assassins where the Westerners were all wrongly-accused innocents.