Question for the readership: Frontiers 1914

So I'm hacking away at this and it's slow going. Looking at the pageviews of the earlier posts in the series it doesn't seem to be attracting much interest, either; couple of hundred views, tops, for the first one, less for the followups.

Is it worth continuing?

And if so, is it worth going into the granular detail that I've been putting into the earlier pieces?

I'm not averse to pushing on, but I'm also not enthusiastic about putting time into a time-consuming effort if there's little interest in it. I can find other topics to write about.

Let me know in the comments if anyone has strong opinions one way or another.

If I don't get any? That'll tell me a lot right there... 

A Syrious Question

Thinking about this Syria tsurris, I have a question for the readership.

Let me start by saying that IN THIS CASE I see pretty much all the military options available to the U.S. as "bad". I don't see how anything short of a fairly massive effort will have any more than a nuisance effect, while anything short of a successful Turkish invasion and occupation (h/t to Sven in the comment thread over at MilPub!) has IMO a fairly serious risk of Somaliaizing this whole portion of the Levant. This particular case is one where the "First, do no harm" rule pretty much comes into force.

Now.

That said, what I'm wondering is whether the whole political drive from within the Obama Administration (aided and abetted, of course, by the usual Republican Warhawk Chorus Starring John McCain!) isn't a 2013 variation of the sort of thing that Great imperial Powers have always done to small states and peoples who irritate them?

At least here for the U.S. the actual "risk" is pretty minimal...there's little likelihood of losing three legions in a forest, or an entire punitive expedition in the Hindu Kush.

So while it's frustrating for U.S. citizens to watch our government do this stuff, I'm not sure how you avoid it unless you're sensible enough to not play the Imperial Game at all, and I can't think of a Great Power in history what hasn't, from the Expedition to Syracuse through Crassus' legions in Parthia to Adowa to Isandlhwana to LZ X-Ray...

I'm not trying to say "oh, well, it just is what it is.." or minimize the additional misery this will do to the already-pretty-damn-miserable country or that irritation with the ridiculous way it seems to being ginned up, but I guess I have wonder; is this another example of U.S. geopolitical/strategic cluelessness (as I think my man seydlitz would suggest)...or just a Great Power's instinct to hammer down any nail it doesn't like to see sticking up? Are Obama and his people making a unique mistake, or are they doing the same thing that Kublai Khan did in Java in 1293, Deng Xiaoping did in Vietnam in 1979, or Woodrow Wilson did in Mexico in 1916?

So my "big picture" question would be "...is there a way for the U.S. in particular to avoid this, or is this sort of thing a feature of being a Great Power, not a bug in this particular Administration or ANY U.S. Administration..?"

Because if the former, well, there would seem to be a way out of this damned rut. But if the latter...

I'm genuinely curious; what do you think?

Battle for March..?

My plan was to write up this month's "Decisive Battle" as a battle that never was; a what-if of a French military move to nullify the Remilitarization of the Rhineland in March, 1936.

The problem with that is that there is very little information available about the military details of that event; almost all the written accounts give cursory details of the movements of the German forces and little or no information about the location of the nearest French forces. I have a 1977 work requested through interlibrary loan but it has not arrived and shows little signs of rapid movement; rather like the French Army in 1936 in that, really.

My alternative is the Battle of Glorieta Pass, a bizarre, tiny little engagement in which the Union forces from the Department of New Mexico pretty much drew against the Confederate Army of New Mexico but, in the process, managed to destroy the rebel trains. Without their logistical train the Rebs had to retreat; so the engagement comes off as a Union victory.

Any interest in this one? Or should I hang on and badger the library to hurry the hell up with the Rhineland reference..?