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And Still It Continues
It is always hazardous to suggest when a war might end, as experience shows that people have been extraordinarily bad in their estimates, especially early in wars. And yet, I thought I saw a reasonable end to the Russia-Ukraine war just a month or so after it started. Russia’s progress was slow and its military …
Peace of Westphalia in the news, April 2022
I’m not sure what I expected from these alerts, but they turn out to be more depressing than anything. Most of the references are in obscure online journals and have nothing interesting to contribute, even by way of reference. Here are some from the first part of April: The first one is not so bad: …
Mercenaries, Continued
The Thirty Years’ War is famous for the use of mercenaries; it has even been called “a war between the Scots and the Irish, fought in Germany.” (I love this quotation but I have been unable to locate its source.) We can look at mercenaries in the war on three levels: individual, unit, and army. …
Mercenaries and Volunteers
The Peace of Westphalia Google alert brought my attention to a surprisingly thoughtful article on the subject of mercenaries, something that is highly relevant to the Thirty Years’ War and the Congress of Westphalia. The article groups the two categories in the title of this post, mercenaries and volunteers, under the general header of “foreign …
Victory Day
I read an interesting article recently arguing that Putin may be planning a major offensive of some sort leading up to May 9th, when Russia celebrates Victory Day commemorating its victory over Germany in World War II. The idea is that the Russian people expect some show of strength on that day, and recent comments …
Not Quite a Ceasefire
As you probably know by now, Russia is pulling back from Kiev “in order to create conditions for successful negotiations.” The withdrawal seems to be real, although the reasons for it probably are not. I would imagine that Putin has given up on seizing Kiev, so by pulling back he can avoid further attrition to …
On War Crimes and Trials
Alan Dershowitz has a very interesting video up in which he discusses the possibility of trying Putin in absentia. The gist of it is, he probably won’t be tried in absentia, but Dershowitz thinks we should still have a tribunal of some sort to gather and evaluate the evidence, just so it will be available …
Rembrandt’s Elephant
I was excited to find an article yesterday about an elephant named Hansken that Rembrandt painted. I had previously read that there was an elephant at the Congress of Westphalia, possibly brought for or with Madame de Longueville when she came to Münster in 1646. She was beautiful, wealthy, and far more important socially than …
NATO Expansion
I am not an expert on modern international relations, but I know something about how states act and I have an interest in the subject insofar as it can affect my own life. I have been sceptical of NATO expansion since back in the 1990’s, when I was at Yale and NATO’s expansion was a …