Volume 71, Number 2 · April 2007

“Revolutions in Military Affairs” (RMAs) currently interest both historians and strategic analysts, but how exactly do they occur, why do they prove so decisive, and what (if any) are their limits? This essay seeks answers through the detailed study of one critical element of an earlier “Revolution in Military Affairs”-infantry volley fire-tracing its invention, first in Japan in the 1560s and then in the Dutch Republic in the 1590s, and its first use in combat at the battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600 by a Dutch army commanded by Maurice of Nassau. It then examines the current RMA in the light of that case study.

In a war lasting almost twenty-eight years (1640-68), Spanish forces endeavoured to recover Portugal for the Spanish Habsburg monarchy. This article examines the war in terms of strategic geography, a crucial but rather neglected dimension of early modern military history. Drawing comparisons with Alba’s successful 1580 campaign to annex Portugal, it shows how geographic and climatic factors influenced the conduct of the 1640-68 war in terms of strategy, tactics, and logistics. It also reveals how these factors contributed to the outcome of the war and to Spain’s military failure against its smaller neighbour.

In the summer of 1944, as the Pacific War entered its final and bloodiest phase, a book purporting to reveal Japan’s biological warfare (BW) program, as well as the American government’s incompetence in preparing to combat it, was published. After briefly outlining the Japanese and American wartime BW efforts as well as the contents of the book and the background of its author, this article focuses on the alarmed responses to the book of the U.S. government and the media. In closing, the article briefly comments on similarities and differences between the 1944 “alarm” and the 2001 anthrax “scares.”

Betrayal in High Places, a book written in 1996 by the late James MacKay, has created debate among World War II historians and former prisoners of war (POWs) because it claims to reveal suppressed Allied reports of Japanese war atrocities, such as the massacre of 387 American, Australian, British, and Dutch POWs in a gold mine at Aikawa on Sado Island, Japan, in 1945. Our investigation finds that the Sado Island massacre report is an intentional forgery, and that MacKay’s book is a spurious historical source. We explain why he sought to deceive the public and contrast his fiction with the historical truth about Sado Island.

Recent historiography tends to overstate the impact of the Yom Kippur War (1973) on the tactical reforms initiated by General William E. DePuy, the first commander of the U.S. Army’s TRADOC (1973-77), while paying insufficient attention to the ways that DePuy used the war’s lessons to leverage his legendary effort to rehabilitate the Army. The war’s influence on General Donn A. Starry’s operational reforms was equally profound, but came by a different route: the reconstructions of the Golan Heights defense and the discussions with his close friends Major General Israel (“Talik”) Tal and Major General Moshe (“Musa”) Peled provided vital inspiration for the AirLand Battle doctrine.

The modern general staff evolved only after three preconditions of modern life came into being: secularization, bureaucracy, and management. Secularization provided control. Bureaucracy rationalized endeavor. Management overcame specialization.