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The Bazaar of War Profile picture
The Bazaar of War
@bazaarofwar
Warfare, past and present. Read 'Saladin the Strategist': https://t.co/KT9cGzHRIj More writing: https://t.co/47yApgaler
13 subscribers
Nov 6 • 26 tweets • 12 min read
FORTRESS MANHATTAN

It’s easy to overlook New York City’s military geography since it hasn’t faced a live threat in over 200 years. But it is perhaps the finest natural naval bastion in the world, one of the major reasons for its place as America’s economic capital.
🧵 Image Any good naval base has traditionally had a few key elements: a defensible harbor, a large roadstead for assembling the fleet, and access to deep water. All major naval bases have this: Yokosuka on Tokyo Bay, Southampton on the Solent, Brest and Sevastopol Roadsteads… Image
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Oct 27 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
There’s a lot of overlap between the concepts of “small wars” and the “little war” of the 16th-18th centuries—the regular skirmishes and raids that took place during lulls in the action of major wars. Both in the nature of the fighting and their roles in the broader context.🧵 “Small wars” occupy a pretty wide conceptual horizon—from old-school colonial wars to large-scale insurgencies to periodic border skirmishes between large states. Yet in all of these, combat is usually limited to the tactical or lower operational level.
dispatch.bazaarofwar.com/p/the-chain-of…
Sep 23 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
The strategic logic that governs tensions over Taiwan today is analogous to the British and French struggle over Antwerp: a sea power motivated by the need to protect allies and contain a naval rival vs. a land power seeking freedom of maneuver.🧵 Image After French naval strength peaked in the 1690s, Britain was able to blunt the threat of an invasion fleet. She quickly gained an absolute advantage in sea power, and land wars consumed too much of France’s resources to actively contest both domains.
Aug 29 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Lots of focus on the difficulty of creating a breakthrough in a long-range precision strike regime, but that’s only half the problem. Assuming it can be done, pushing exploitation forces up from the rear would be another challenge in itself.
🧵 Image A basic element of combined arms is their simultaneous offensive and defensive function. Hitting an objective in several ways increases the odds of success, while making it harder for the enemy to hit vulnerable troops at the point of attack—an overwhelming pulse of combat power. Image
Aug 26 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
Saltpeter, or crystallized potassium nitrate, was the most important component of gunpowder. It naturally occurs in deposits around the world, but for countries like Sweden that lacked them, it could be created through an involved and somewhat disgusting process.🧵 Image Saltpeter provides the oxygen for rapid combustion, giving gunpowder its bang. Early formulas were more fast-burning incendiaries than explosives, with pitch or oil mixed in, until the optimal ratio was discovered: 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur
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Aug 24 • 23 tweets • 9 min read
OTD 1814, the Battle of Bladensburg: the British defeat an American force defending Washington, DC.

Although not a terribly interesting battle in itself, American tactics resemble Hannibal’s at Zama—and both lead to the sacking of their respective capitals (sort of).🧵 Image The first two years of the War of 1812 overturned expectations: on land, the American invasion of Canada made no headway, but at sea her privateers & frigates had great success—the Napoleonic Wars were raging, and the Royal Navy could not spare the effort.
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Aug 24 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
Despite being small and poor, Sweden became a major player in the 17th century through the feats of its superb army. But military power depended in turn on the extremely efficient organization of all society and expansive investment in industry.🧵 Image Sweden's disadvantages were partly offset by some critical natural resources. Much of the crown’s revenues came from raw material exports: iron, timber, naval stores, and above all copper.

The enormous Falun mine supplied up to two-thirds of Europe’s copper in the 17th century. Image
Aug 18 • 16 tweets • 7 min read
Chinese bureaucracy was a sort of intangible infrastructure that made their military more effective—preserving and disseminating techniques, driving weapons development, etc. But Europe was developing its own intangibles which by the late 1700s completely surpassed this.🧵 Western writers began seriously recording military knowledge only a little before the Chinese developed countermarch musketry (although at first much of this was more humanists’ naively searching for classical precedence than practical techniques: )dispatch.bazaarofwar.com/p/paperback-ed…
Aug 10 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Really enjoyed this one, on the evolution of gunpowder weapons from their first appearance in the 9th century through the 19th.

Rather than simply narrate the divergence of China and the West, however, it analyzes the dynamics driving their parallel evolution. Image Andrade takes seriously the hypothesis that endemic warfare among semi-stable states is what drove European military advances, and applies that model to China.
May 24 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
The role of cavalry in the Greco-Turkish War is fascinating. It demonstrated the tactical futility of horse against modern weaponry—already seen in World War I—but also proved capable of extraordinary operational results when employed correctly.🧵 Image Both sides used mounted units extensively for scouting, a complement to aerial reconnaissance—it was Turkish cavalry that spotted the Greek flanking maneuver at the Sakarya, allowing them to reposition forces in time for the battle. Image
Apr 7 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Hattin was a singular battle. It’s hard to think of any other where so large an army (~23,000) was so thoroughly destroyed—only a few hundred escaped at most. Yet the Kingdom of Jerusalem endured for another century, showing the limits of straightforward “annihilation”. Image In the months after Hattin, Saladin exploited his victory by sweeping up the towns and castles of the Kingdom, including Jerusalem itself.

One major city held out, however: the eminently defensible port of Tyre. Saladin initially bypassed it to pluck easier targets. Image
Feb 8 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
How the Confederates (of the Grand Alliance) stopped the Union (of the French & Spanish crowns).

The War of the Spanish Succession is known for its battles (Blenheim, Ramillies) & campaigns (Marlborough's march). But most interesting is the strategic relations among theaters.🧵 Image The WSS was fought by two blocs:
-Bourbons: France, Spain, Bavaria (plus Portugal and Savoy, which defected in 1703)
-Grand Alliance: England, Holland, HRE

Unlike the later wars of Louis XV, these were very coherent coalitions that fought for united ends.
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Jan 18 • 19 tweets • 9 min read
Louis XIV & Louis XV were very different in character, but both fought 3 major wars that followed a remarkably similar arc:

1. Small war over points of honor that rapidly expanded
2. Large war that saw many victories but no real gains
3. Large war that saw defeats and losses
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Image 1. The Franco-Dutch War (1672-78) & War of the Polish Succession (1733-35)

These were the smallest large wars of their reigns. Both started out limited conflicts over points of honor, then spread to other parts of Europe as natural rivalries with the Habsburgs took over.Image
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Jan 16 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
The wars of Louis XIV are criminally neglected in popular anglophone historiography. They were enormous in scope and consequence, shaping the map of modern Europe arguably even more than the Napoleonic wars.

But something else makes them worthy of study. Image In the American market, the two most popular topics by far are WWII and the Civil War. The reasons are obvious: the scale, personal connection, US involvement, etc. But there's another reason they continue to draw more scholarly and professional military attention...
Jan 13 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
The gap between operations and strategy is tough to bridge because it usually overlaps with the civil-military divide. This was even harder when armies were composed of mercenaries.

The Venetians did it by employing officers resembling communist political commissars.🧵 Image Every Venetian army was accompanied by two officers called provveditori. This is sometimes translated as “commissioner” or “commissary”, as they oversaw army administration of the army. But they also had a political and strategic role.
Jan 8 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
The internationalization of wars in the 16th c. made strategy dependent on events far away. This meant that states needed not just accurate information, but effective analysis. But how good was their intelligence?

A 1532 report to the Venetian College gives some indication. Image Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino and an experienced condottiere, had just been contracted as captain-general of the Republic’s armies. While he was in Venice that spring to celebrate his confirmation, he was asked about the military situation in Europe. Image
Dec 12, 2024 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
The takedown of a 2017 London Bridge terrorist could serve as a lesson in combined arms:
-Artillery (fire extinguisher) suppresses
-Cavalry (narwhal tusk) turns his flank
-Infantry closes

Done on the fly by three total strangers using improvised weapons.🧵 Tactics are almost always simple in their essence, an obvious response with the means available—even animals show tactical instinct: ambushes, flanking attacks, swarms, feigned retreats, etc.

The real difficulty lies in executing these maneuvers with large bodies of men. Image
Dec 3, 2024 • 30 tweets • 10 min read
The War of 1812 is too often overlooked in the study of warfare: it was ill-considered, poorly managed, and vaguely embarrassing for everyone involved. Yet for precisely these reasons, it’s an excellent study in how grand strategy is shaped by politics.
🧵 Image A funny confusion you sometimes see around the phrase “war as an extension of politics” is when people think “politics” refers to domestic elections, not statecraft.

But grand strategy IS an extension of domestic politics—it answers who gets to define national interests?
Oct 16, 2024 • 22 tweets • 7 min read
In honor of the first day of the Battle of Leipzig—OTD in 1813—I’m sharing an excellent article by Michael Leggiere (next post) on the strategic miscalculations that led Napoleon to be trapped by three converging armies that outnumbered him nearly 2-to-1. Image Leggiere’s argument is that Napoleon became fixated on an initial “master plan” for the campaign, and continued to pursue it long after the situation changed, detracting from his usual strategy of directly targeting the main enemy army.
muse.jhu.edu/article/40473
Sep 15, 2024 • 48 tweets • 16 min read
It’s time for the myth of Inchon to die. The landings, which occurred 74 years ago today, are credited with turning the tide of the Korean War. In truth, they distracted from the real fighting at the cost of thousands of lives, and lay the groundwork for future disaster.
🧵 Image On 25 June 1950, ten infantry divisions and an armored division of the Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th Parallel. They quickly overwhelmed the unprepared South Koreans and drove south. The US 21st Division, sent over from Japan, was overrun in the first weeks of July. Image
Jun 2, 2024 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
Since there has been so much recent focus on slowly-moving fronts characterized by attrition and positional fighting, my latest Dispatch is on the opposite: a fixed line that encouraged mobility and practically demanded decisive battle.

The Rappahannock Line in the US Civil War.
Image The Rappahannock runs 300 km through northern Virginia, flowing past Fredericksburg midway between Washington and Richmond. Although not especially wide, it has a few features that made it a natural military frontier between North and South.
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