Why A Nations's Military is so Important

Show me a nation that is great and I'll show you a nation with a great military.  If you look at all the great nations or empires of the past you will see a common thread:  a great military.  No nation can call itself great without an efficient military.  Let's look as some examples:

1. The United States has been a world power since the late 19th century.  After the defeat of the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippines in 1898 you had the beginning of a new world power.  World War I and II put a definite stamp on it.  There is no stronger power in the world than the United States.  There are many reasons for this, but a strong and efficient military is one of the biggest reasons.
2. Great Britain ruled the world through its empire for two hundred years.  One of its biggest assets was and still is the efficiency and prowess of its military forces.
3. Japan has been a strong nation on the world stage for the last hundred years. Japan's military was feared for its prowess.  They conquered most of China, Malaysia and the Korean peninsula prior to World War I, then they made a fatal mistake:  They dared challenge the strongest military power in the world:  The United States in World War II and were destroyed in the process.
4. Germany lost two world wars in the period of 20 years but no one will laugh at the German military for its efficiency and power.  For a small country, it nearly defeated the rest of the world.  the German military was next to none in efficiency and prowess. German soldiers in World Wars I & II were considered some of the best soldiers in the world.
5. The Ottoman Empire ruled a large part of the world from the Middle East to the borders of Russia to the north and North Africa to the south from the 14th Century to World War I. One of the strongest reason - the Ottomans had one of the best military in the world.

Let's look at some countries who do not have a strong or efficient military.  The military may not be the only reason why a nation is weak but it is one of the biggest reasons.

1. Italy has had a weak military since the unification of the country in 1860.  After 150 years it still has a weak military.  As a descendant of the great Roman Empire which ruled the world for nearly 1500 years, Italy has little to show for it now. The Romans defined military science and tactics.  Most modern militaries still use the Roman Army method of military structure.  Roman military tactics are still studied today in war colleges.  In World War I, the Italian military was less than stellar.  At the battle of Caporetto, Italian forces were defeated and many of them deserted.  A huge embarrassment for the country.  Although they managed to finish the war with their victorious allies, the Italian military failed to impress anyone. In World War II they were inept at best.  The Italian military did show some flair in their conquest of Ethiopia in 1935, but this was a very short lived exception. Today, Italy is not a significant player on the world stage militarily.  
2. France was a big military power starting in the Napoleonic period. Next to Germany, they still have the strongest military in Europe. With the huge cost of fighting World War II and then the Vietnam war which culminated with their loss at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, France began a decline as a military power.  The French fought brilliantly in Vietnam but lost for reasons other than their military efficiency.
3. Greece became a great empire before the Romans because of their military prowess. The Greeks defeated the greatest empire of their day, Persia.  Later on Alexander the Great conquered the known world all the way to India.  For hundreds of years Greece ruled the world.  When Jesus was born, Greek was the spoken language of commerce in the world.  Greece eventually declined.  First the Romans took over from them;  when the Romans declined, Greece was swallowed by the Eastern Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire.  The Byzantines were conquered by the Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1453 and Greece became part of the Ottoman Empire. Greece finally got its freedom from the Ottomans in 1821.  To this day, Greece is still secondary to Turkish military prowess as evidenced by the 1974 Turkish conquest of the half of Cyprus.  To this day, half of Cyprus is still occupied by the Turks.  In 1922 Greece was defeated by the Turkish Army as it tried to conquer Turkey after the defeat of the Ottoman Turks in World War I.  

A House Divided Cannot Stand: The Struggle Between Islam and Christianity

Islam has been on the march against Christianity since the death of Mohamed in 632 AD.  Two of the main goals of Mohammed's followers were to convert all infidels (non-Muslims), and conquer the world, not only to gain land but to win everybody else to Islam.  The Middle East and North Africa were the first areas to fall to the forces of Islam.  Once North Africa was taken, the Muslims set their sights on Europe.  They started with the conquest of Spain in 711 AD when the governor of Tangiers, Tariq ibn Ziyad landed in Gibraltar with 10,000 troops.  Within months the Muslims had taken most of the Iberian Peninsula.  It was not until the 11th century that the Spaniards started to drive the Muslims back, starting in Northern Spain and pushing south.  The final battle was won in 1492 when the Muslims were completely driven out of Spain by the forces of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

In 740 AD Sicily fell to the forces of Islam after a long struggle with the Byzantine Empire.  The Normans, led by a brilliant military commander, Roger de Houteville, drove out the Muslims from Sicily for good in 1071. De Houteville became Roger I, the first king of Sicily. If you go to the seacoast resort of Cefalù you will find a Cathedral there built by Roger II, the son of Roger I.

The Muslims became dominant, not only in the Middle East, but in Southern Europe. The Ottoman Turks created one of the greatest empires since Rome.  By the 15th century the Ottomans had conquered the eastern Roman Empire in 1453, known then, as the Byzantine Empire (modern day Turkey), with its capital in Constantinople.   Constantinople was then considered the center of Christianity.  The Byzantines made many pleas to fellow Christian nations around them but no one responded to help them. The Republic of Venice promised ships but none ever appeared. One exception was a private army of 7,000 troops led by the brilliant commander, Giovanni Giustiniani who was from Genoa. Giustiniani and his men fought bravely but were overwhelmed by the superior Turkish forces.   Click here for a map of Ottoman Empire at this time.  The Ottoman Empire reached from the Middle East, North Africa, the former Yugoslavia, Greece and the Balkan states.  A fine book on the history of the Byzantine Empire is Lost to the West by Lars Brownworth.

The Ottomans never stopped trying to conquer Europe by military force.  After the defeat of the Byzantine Empire, they set their eyes on the rest of Europe.  Soon, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece and the Balkan countries fell to the Ottoman onslaught.  The Ottomans had the best trained, the most efficient, army in the world.  Brutality was their calling card.  The Ottoman Army had two sets of special forces which specialized in brutal tactics and sow fear in their enemies, the Tartars and the Janissaries. They spread fear everywhere they went. These troops fought to the death because they knew that if they failed they would suffer a brutal death themselves at the hands of their leaders.  On approaching a location, they would ask the people to surrender.  If they failed to surrender they would kill every man, woman, child and animal and then burn any city or village to the ground.  After slaughtering the locals, they would cut off the heads of the men and stick them up on poles along the road to sow fear among the rest of the territory who failed to surrender.  This is described in great detail in a book about the Ottoman siege of Vienna of 1683, titled, Enemy at the Gates by Andrew Wheatcroft, Most of what I describe here related to the Ottoman military is from this book.

Enemy at the Gates, chronicles the final siege of Vienna in 1683.  The Ottomans first attempted to conquer Vienna in 1521.  They were driven back and Europe was spared.  Between 1521 and 1683, the Ottomans constantly attacked Europe.  They had many successes and many defeats.  The Ottomans reached as far north as Poland and Russia before being driven back.  By 1683, the Ottomans had Vienna in their eye again.  They figured that if Vienna fell then the rest of Europe would be theirs.  They put all their resources to accomplishing this goal.  At the time Vienna was part of the Habsburg Empire, later called Austria-Hungary Empire. World War I started here, in the Austria-Hungary Empire.

The Ottomans were feared all over Europe.  Their wars were a combination of religious fervor and desire to dominate the world for Islam.  The Christians also saw this as a religious war on them.  Although most Europeans were Christian, they rarely ever cooperated or supported other European Christians under attack by the Muslim Ottomans.  When they did cooperate, as when they created a coalition with the Holy League, Venice, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain and the Papal States for the purpose of stopping the Turks from attacking them.  On October 7, 1571 this coalition defeated an Ottoman fleet at Lepanto, in southern Greece.


The fact that the Christians failed to help each other had disastrous consequences.  The list is endless:  Byzantine Empire defeated in 1453; Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Armenia, to name a few all fell to the onslaught of the Ottoman Turks while their fellow Christians sat on their hands.  The Turks were so confident of success that in 1683 they attempted to conquer Vienna for the second time.  The Habsburg Empire was on their own. After months of a fierce siege, the Ottomans were close to victory when their neighbors, led by the king of Poland, John Sobieski  organized a relief army.  After gathering his forces Sobieski arrived just in time to save the exhausted and nearly beaten Viennese.  Without this help, most of Europe would have been Muslim then, and perhaps today.

The Ottoman army, led by a brilliant military commander, Kara Mustafa, performed incredibly well and the Habsburg troops fought brilliantly with heavy losses, however, they also inflicted very heavy casualties on the Turks.  After the Habsburgs were relieved by the coalition led by the King of Poland the Ottomans were finally defeated.  When the defeated Ottomans returned home, their commander was called in and told he had been condemned to death.  Wheatcroft, describes what happened:  "Kara Mustafa met his death with stoic Ottoman calm, as befitting a Koprulu.  First he removed his rich-trimmed robe, then his turban, then, with practiced ease, his executions flipped the soft cord over his head and tightened it around his neck, pulling steadily with all their strength." After his death they cut off his head. They continued to brutalize his body in detail that I'd rather leave off, because of its gruesomeness.  A man who had dedicated his life and talent to his country and was defeated through no fault of his own was rewarded by being executed like a common criminal.

The Failure to Learn From History

Economics can be complicated but there are plenty of historical data that is easy to follow; a second grader can understand it.  I'm referring to the historical facts about the failure of government spending and tax increases to solve economic troubles such what we're experiencing today.

It is a well-documented fact that all the government spending of the Great Depression of the 1930s failed to do any good.  Case in point:  The unemployment rate in 1932 was 23.6%.  After eight years of massive government spending the unemployment rate was 19%.  The great American economist, Thomas Sowell,  explains what happened in the Great Depression and how government spending had the opposite effect of what was intended.  Watch this four-minute YouTube video.

In a Wall Street Journal article of November 21, 2010 economists Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder describe the results of their study of what happens when there is a tax increase.  Most people believe this will solve the problem of deficits, or at least help.  What Vedder and Moore found was that from World War II to 2009 (a 66-year span), for every additional dollar increase in taxes, government spends $1.17.  Does raising taxes solve the problem?  No.  The answer has to be reducing out of control spending.  Why do we fail to learn from history?  Again, I'll go to one of my favorite philosophers, George Santayana:  "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."  Case closed.

The Rape of Japanese Americans in World War II

World War II stands out as an example of man's inhumanity to man as no conflict in human history.  There are too many to describe here but here are a few examples that stand out:  The murder of over six million Jews by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis; The Rape of Nan king, China by the Japanese Army; the Soviet Dictator,  Josef Stalin's  murder of over 1.2 million of his own citizens during the "Great Purge" of 1936-38.  In the siege of Stalingrad, the German Sixth Army was destroyed by the Russian Army and Hitler's refusal to see the futility of the operation.  When his Field Marshal, Friedrich Paulus, relayed the hopelessness of his situation Hitler refused to let him withdraw, thus leaving over 500, 000 soldiers to die, either in battle, from the brutal winter weather (many froze to death) or capture.  The Soviets captured over 100,000 German soldiers, all but 6,000 lived to return home.

In the United States, one of the most tragic and appalling act was the forced internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast of the United Sates.  After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt ordered the arrest and deportation, to what can only be described as concentration camps, of all American citizens or resident aliens of Japanese ancestry.  What makes this a most despicable act is the fact that this was done with no proof of any threat by these innocent people. No due process, no trial.  Their only crime was to be of Japanese ancestry.

Just imagine, if you will, you're an African-American, for instance,  the U.S. is attacked by an African country and all African-Americans are arrested and driven to prisons surrounded by soldiers. Would you say that this was a rational thing to do?

Did any Americans who were not Japanese complain?  There is no record of any demonstrations in support of the Japanese Americans.  In fact, a hysteria of hate toward the "Japs" was unleashed on innocent and loyal Americans.  Today, we're attacked by radical Muslims and the President will not even call them what they are:  terrorists.  This was the insanity of what President Roosevelt did.

Now, you might ask, how did the courts react to this insane act by President Roosevelt?  Good question.  Read the U.S. Supreme court case of Korematsu vs. The United States:  The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling sided with President Roosevelt.  This heinous act was "constitutional." 

Now, you might think that this act by an American President would diminish his status in history.  You would be wrong.  Roosevelt is still revered to this day as the ideal Democrat.  Some survivors of this era still call themselves "Roosevelt Democrats." Some even regard Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of the greatest presidents of all time. No one ever mentions the rape of the Japanese Americans by FDR whenever they speak of him.  Historical amnesia is rampant; especially among the left. It was not until 1988 when President Ronald Reagan apologized for this most heinous act.

To add insult to injury the Japanese Americans lost most of their property, personal and real estate.  Some, very few, were successful in getting neighbors to look after their farm, for instance, but the majority, lost everything, farms, houses, personal belongings.  At the end of the war the U.S. Government made a feeble attempt to reimburse these people but very few got very much.

A few years ago, David Ono, a news anchor for the local news at KABC Channel 7 in Los Angeles presented a compelling documentary on one concentration camp, Heart Mountain, outside of Cody, Wyoming.  Click here to check it out.  This is great film-making.

Land Transfers that Defy Reason

Have you ever wondered what the Russians were thinking when they decided to sell Alaska to the United States for two cents an acre in 1867?  Or how about the Louisiana Purchase, 828,000 square miles for $11.2 million in 1803?  The Louisiana Purchase, equalled about 23% of the entire United States; a land area that stretched from present day Louisiana in the south to Canada to the north.  Suffice it to say that this exchange was practically a free land exchange.  These represent some of the largest land transfers of all time.

 In Europe there are also some mystifying transfers as well.  In 1860, at the time of the unification of Italy, the Italian government, based in Sardinia, with Torino as its capital, ceded an entire Italian province of Savoia (Savoy) to France in exchange for military support for a military campaign in Lombardy.  To put in in modern-day terms, let's say that the United States ceded San Diego County to Mexico in exchange for support in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  What would you think of our leaders?  Exactly!  That is the same rage I feel for the incompetent leaders of the Italy of 1860, led by the inept Camillo Benso di Cavour.  In researching this I believe that one of the reasons the Italian government made this deal was due to the inner conflict between the Italian leaders of the time and the charismatic leader of his day, Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the best military commander since Julius Caesar.  Garibaldi was from Nizza, present day Nice.  This was a way to stick it to Garibaldi, to give away his home town to the French.  This has to be one of the most pathetic action ever undertaken in history.  Garibaldi was, perhaps singly, responsible to the unification of Italy.  Rather than thank the great Garibaldi, they insulted him by giving up his home town, along with the entire province where it stood.

The other major land transfer also happened in Italy, the sale by the Genoese in 1764 of the Island of Corsica to France.  Can you imagine, in today's terms, if all of the sudden the United States said, hey we don't need Hawaii anymore, let's sell it to Japan.  Land deals such as these are bizarre in the least and criminal at the most.  This year Italy celebrates its 150th anniversary as a united country.  These land deals will haunt them forever.