World War Newt

Years ago Newt Gingrich stumbled on a pretty good idea: garnish any policy proposal with multiple historical analogies or references to significant events and hope that one resonates with the audience.

History moves us; it bestows on us the sense that the mundane moments we endure are part of an as-yet unperceived grand narrative. Newt's schtick is that he alone perceives this narrative, and it works for two reasons.

One, as I said in a piece at Vice:

We Americans don't read as much as we ought, and our self-consciousness about this tends to make us reflexively credit anyone who claims he does. Gingrich tendentiously delivers policy banalities while citing books he's read or written, and it's easy to think, "Ah, a learned observation." It's the political equivalent of going to someone's house, seeing his 2,000-book library, and feeling uncomfortable about correcting him, even if everything he says makes him sound like Cliff Clavin.

Two, critics and historians are busy people. They don't have time to correct Gingrich on every point, because corrections require examining his statement, then having to explain where he and history parted ways.

Gingrich himself games this process by invoking history constantly, as if in a kind of endless filibuster against an authentic record of America that he dearly hopes to eliminate through repetition. Not only does he throw facts at the American people to see which ones stick, he also throws so many at intellectuals that eventually their exhaustion, disgust or crowded schedules will permit him to get away with one. He did this again last night, at CNN's South Carolina Republican Debate.

Stalingrad II: Thirteen Errors

The "story" of the Battle of Stalingradis fairly simple, so a brief recap for those unfamiliar with it should help before moving on to Beevor's arguments about those events.

In 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive attack on the Soviet Union. Despite ample evidence from his own intelligence agencies, Stalin refused to believe an invasion was imminent, choosing instead to believe that Hitler would honor the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Because of this unpreparedness and because of both extensive purges of high-ranked military officers and the politicization of the army, the Wehrmacht encircled hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers, forcing their surrender. The Germans soon found themselves at the gates of Moscow and controlling all of the Soviet territories west of a line that stretched roughly due south from Leningrad.

In late spring, 1942, the Germans began Operation Blau, which sought to capture Stalingrad, which would cut off a valuable industrial city and part of key trading routes while scoring a propaganda victory by taking "Stalin's" city. The capture would also provide strategic protection for future operations in the oil-rich Caucasus, which would hopefully fuel the Nazi war machine while bringing Stalin's to a sputtering halt.

The Germans succeeded in capturing all of the city but a westernmost sliver on the banks of the Volga. The Soviet troops remaining in the city stood between the Werhmacht and a river. Their supplies and reinforcements, from the other side, frequently failed to survive the crossing. However, the Luftwaffe's bombing of the city turned it to mounds of rubble ideal for ambushes, snipers and attrition streetfighting, which enabled the Soviet troops to hold out and repulse superior firepower. The Germans repeatedly flung their best troops against what they believed were the last remnants of the Red Army, only to be beaten back.

Stalingrad I: Reading History

Once every few months, a bell rings in my head reminding me that I used to be smart and am getting less so each passing day. For instance, the other day I stood in my kitchen and gestured feebly at a hand towel and said, "Hand me the... hand me the, uh... uh... drying flag." When this happens, I spend 20 minutes doing Wikipedia searches until I stumble across the entry for aphasia, swear this is the last time I'll forget to bookmark it, then pick a serious book to read in order to do some heavy brainisthenics.

This time I lucked into having someone to read a serious book with. I get to see my friend John about once a month, and while it seems he's the only person who reads as much as I do, he rarely if ever reads the same things I do at the same time. If he and I have both read de Tocqueville, it means I just finished it, and he read it in 1997. If we've both just finished something fictional, he's read something called Llanath, and the Transswaard Blood-Oath, which he swears is actually an excellent novel with literary qualities that just happens to be a fantasy novel, and which I would not read even if I were on fire and only the sight of its words could relieve my torment.