A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe.
The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only 22 which have never experienced an invasion by the British.
.. Mr Laycock, who has previously published books on Roman history, began the unusual quest after being asked by his 11-year-old son, Frederick, how many countries the British had invaded... “Other countries could write similar books – but they would be much shorter. I don’t think anyone could match this, although the Americans had a later start and have been working hard on it in the twentieth century.”
Obama’s ‘Boots on the Ground’: U.S. Special Forces Are Sent to Tackle Global Threats
Even as Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that he opposes American “boots on the ground” in far-flung parts of the world, his administration continues to carve out exceptions for Special Operations forces — with American officials often resorting to linguistic contortions to mask the forces’ combat role.
Russia Rearms for a New Era
Russia has scheduled mobilizations of more than 100,000 troops, as well as unannounced exercises that move thousands of troops with almost no notice. These efforts serve as combat training for the troops and as a show of military strength to the world. They often involve units that control Russia’s nuclear arsenal, calling attention to the country’s nuclear abilities. NATO has responded by expanding its own exercises.
“The image that Russian official sources convey is that they’re preparing for large-scale interstate war,” said Johan Norberg of the Swedish Defense Research Agency. “This is not about peacekeeping or counterinsurgency.”.. “Putin is trying to provoke the United States and NATO into military action and create the appearance that they are posing a threat to Russia, in order to bolster his own popularity,” said Kimberly Marten, a professor at Barnard College and director of the United States-Russia Relations program at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute.
Rebuilding the Middle Class the Army Way
Interestingly, as laid out in what may be the single most important book of American business history, Alfred Chandler’s ‘‘The Visible Hand,’’ this military model was copied a century ago as the model for the hierarchical American corporation. In particular, these organizations borrowed the delineation between executives tasked with strategy — the corporate equivalent of colonels and generals — and tactical workers (enlisted soldiers) and midlevel managers, who played the role of captains, majors and lieutenant colonels.
.. But then came global trade, computers and the Internet, and we learned that the military-inspired corporate hierarchy didn’t work so well when information needed to flow far more quickly throughout an organization and decisions had to be made with haste. Many of the structural economic challenges we face today can be explained by the decline of this organizational form. Uber, Airbnb and Google are examples of new corporate forms that scramble the roles of managers and managed, strategy and tactics.
.. Put simply: The disappearance of middle management is a central part of the disappearance of the middle class. Without large corporations that have a place for people at many levels of skill and ability and a reasonably clear path of promotion, tens of millions of Americans are left underemployed and underpaid. For much of the 20th century, companies would employ young people with few skills and invest in them, knowing that they would most likely be paid back over the employees’ long tenure. Today, the United States military is one of the few employers in America that still makes this kind of investment in a demographically broad group of people.
.. The students were discussing a common frustration: the intransigence of supervising officers, even when presented with evidence that they were wrong about a decision. Then, one officer said something that seemed like a bizarre non sequitur: ‘‘We need to change the pensions.’’ Everybody — except me — began to nod and agree enthusiastically.
.. So, we have a military in which nearly everybody in their 30s has a huge financial incentive to keep his or her boss happy, no matter how wrong that boss might be.
.. Some of the reforms seem so obvious that it’s shocking they didn’t happen before. People will get a retirement plan even if they don’t stay in for 20 years. Some will be offered the chance to leave active duty for a year or two to go work and learn at Google or some other private company and then return. Also, the military hopes to design something a lot like LinkedIn, so that officers can apply for jobs and be selected for them based on their interests and abilities, not just their ranks.