Stephen P. Tryon's Blog

"With the exception of the pacifist members in the British government, both sides seemed to accept the war between Germany and France as a future certainty in the decade before the fateful summer of 1914. Perhaps, given the ambitions of the Kaiser and the near-religious conviction that Germany’s destiny was to conquer and rule, war at some level was indeed unavoidable. But the historical fact is that the First World War was triggered, not by direct provocation between Germany and France, but rather by the almost-unrelated assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor. And it is hard to see how that event, even with the cumbersome alliances in place at the time, could not have been addressed with diplomacy rather than force had there been the will to preserve the peace. Instead, some seized upon it as a trigger, others watched in helpless horror, but most marched willfully into an abyss they could neither imagine nor avoid. One completes a reading of Tuchman’s masterpiece with a fearful appreciation for the power of our preconceptions and the social structures we allow to grow around us." ...see more at www.accountabilitycitienship.org/book...

"Claims of religiosity or political affiliation are not evidence of character. Such claims are cheap and often counterfeit. For me, the candidate who gets my vote is the non-incumbent with a record of serving others who offers the best answer to the question: what is the most important view you hold that runs against the popular opinion of your party, and what are your reasons for holding that view?"

more at www.accountabilitycitizenship.org/blog

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Guns of August is Barbara Tuchman’s classic description of the events of the first month of World War I. Having first read parts of the book while studying military history as a cadet at West Point in 1981, I had long wanted to revisit Guns cover to cover. Anticipating the centennial of the tragic events of August 1914, I just completed this long-awaited reading of Guns and found it well worth my time. Indeed, my conviction that even greater catastrophes await us if we fail to engage our governments with all the tools of information-age citizenship—a conviction to which I give voice in my book Accountability Citizenship—was reinforced by this endeavor.

The enormity of the tragedy of World War I was that so many millions of people’s lives were utterly destroyed by the autocratic inertia of regimes in Germany, Austria and Russia. The architects of the Schlieffen Plan understood that victory in 1914 would require complete mobilization of population and industry and complete destruction of the Allies military capacity to resist. That the foreseeable human cost of this endeavor, even on the short war scenario envisioned by some at the outset, was ever considered acceptable is a testament to the worst consequences of power: in 1914, leaders with absolute power, insulated from the reality of human suffering, utterly failed to exercise the most basic moral judgment. Nor were the leaders of France and Britain without blame: pathological nationalism and naïve refusal to consider alternative solutions likely increased the magnitude and duration of the conflict. Leaders on both sides used the psychological and physical power of the state to compel mass participation in the tragedy. Tuchman outlines the enormity of the evil wrought in 1914, articulates the hollow nationalistic rationales for the fateful decisions that enabled this evil, and evokes with terrifying power the sense that too much power concentrated in the hands of all-too-fallible leaders created a destructive momentum no one could stop.

In one sense, people in the autocracies embroiled in the war at its outset suffered because their only recourse to change the power of the state was revolution. If you disobeyed the Kaiser or the Czar or the Emperor, you could expect to be punished severely. Information for the masses was still delivered mostly in newspapers, and was susceptible to manipulation behind the barriers of borders, language, privilege and ignorance. The masses marched blindly into industrial-age warfare, obedient to the only authority accessible to them and trusting that the path to security was to act in concert with their fellow subjects.

On the other hand, citizens of France and Britain also suffered from the tyranny of misinformation and ignorance. The French, eager to avenge the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War, clung to an unrealistic view of German intentions and their own capabilities. The British were curiously muddled, with successive governments allowing detailed military planning with France to presume an alliance in the event of war, while the Cabinets hid behind vaguely worded agreements and clung to the illusion that Britain was under no real commitment to fight in the event war broke out between Germany and France.

With the exception of the pacifist members in the British government, both sides seemed to accept the war between Germany and France as a future certainty in the decade before the fateful summer of 1914. Perhaps, given the ambitions of the Kaiser and the near-religious conviction that Germany’s destiny was to conquer and rule, war at some level was indeed unavoidable. But the historical fact is that the First World War was triggered, not by direct provocation between Germany and France, but rather by the almost-unrelated assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor. And it is hard to see how that event, even with the cumbersome alliances in place at the time, could not have been addressed with diplomacy rather than force had there been the will to preserve the peace. Instead, some seized upon it as a trigger, others watched in helpless horror, but most marched willfully into an abyss they could neither imagine nor avoid. One completes a reading of Tuchman’s masterpiece with a fearful appreciation for the power of our preconceptions and the social structures we allow to grow around us.




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Thanks to Gordon Deal of the Wall Street Journal for a terrific interview on Accountability Citizenship last week!

You can listen here: on.wsj.com/1dWSFKt

Don't forget to visit the Accountability Citizenship facebook page for more great content, and a chance to win great stuff!

Pleased that JFJ published this review:

http://jointforcesjournal.com/_jfj.ph...

Accountability Citizenship

at: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26...

Insightful book by two veteran political scientists... my review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I will be on the David Webb show on satellite radio's Patriot Listener channel--tonight at 8PM Mountain / 10PM Eastern.

I will be on "Gene's World", a radio talk show hosted by Gene Long and airing tomorrow, July 20th, on KVCE 1160AM in Dallas at 11:15 Central Time. Looking forward to this great opportunity to talk about Accountability Citizenship!

July 4th, 2013:

Every 4th of July, I marvel at what the generation that founded our country accomplished. Some number of them signed an official declaration of independence on this day in 1776, effectively making themselves criminals in the eyes of the King of England. The major principle put forth in that declaration was simple, clear and powerful: the signatories declared that every person had a natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The objective of those who signed the Declaration of Independence was clear: they sought to establish a society that would protect the dignity of the individual as a pre-eminent consideration.

The Continental Congress began drafting the first blueprint for the government of the United States—The Articles of Confederation—about the same time the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Articles were ratified by the thirteen states in early 1781, several months before the American victory at Yorktown ended major hostilities and a couple years before the Treaty of Paris officially ended the Revolutionary War. The Articles of Confederation, however, did not work very well, and were replaced in just a few years by the Constitution. The Constitution, adopted by the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and ratified by 11 states before becoming effective on March 4, 1789, provided for a stronger central government that included a chief executive, courts, and taxing powers.

Through all of this, and across all of the differences of opinion that existed then and those that exist today, the clear objective established by the Declaration of Independence has provided the tough, flexible connective tissue that binds us together as a country. I have been involved in building and executing plans of all types in the military, government and in business for over 30 years. Rarely do plans unfold as originally envisioned. The best plans provide a clear objective and the flexibility to adapt the plan to changing circumstances.

The sheer brilliance of what our ancestors accomplished is breathtaking. The objective was simple, clear and powerful. It enabled a generation of passionate leaders to craft the first framework for our government—the Articles of Confederation. They then replaced that original framework with version 2.0: our Constitution, a document that has allowed successive generations of Americans to adapt as we have confronted new technologies, philosophies and dangers. Even today, attempts to create an enduring framework for government elsewhere in the world fail more often than they succeed. Today’s papers are full of the strife in Egypt, for example, as a people removes the leader they elected just a year ago. We don’t have to look far to realize how precious a thing is this republic we have inherited.

Happy 4th of July!

“The words of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are only as good as the sum of our individual efforts to make the policies and practices of our government conform to the spirit of those words.” Accountability Citizenship (http://bit.ly/12JDucj)







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