Few Experiences from Researching Contemporary Military History

This post originally came into being quite spontaneously, and on the Facebook. It’s containing a ‘few thoughts’ about something that’s…

This post originally came into being quite spontaneously, and on the Facebook. It’s containing a ‘few thoughts’ about something that’s busying me lately — and sometimes making me furious the last few days…

Since working as series editor for Helion’s four @War book-series (here a link to the Middle East@War series, as example), it’s a part of my every-day job to work with plenty of colleagues — contemporary-military-history researchers — around the World.

The more I talk with them, the more I learn and, eventually, I just couldn’t avoid the conclusion that an increasing number of us is experiencing the very same behaviour on the part of diverse authorities — and this no matter what topics we research, nor where.

I’ll stress this up front and try to make it as clear as it can get: there is really no difference if one is researching in the EU, or in, say USA, or Brazil, Egypt, Iraq… or Vanuatu… and not to talk bout such ‘lovely’ countries like Iran or Syria. It’s everywhere exactly the same.

No, there’s no ‘conspiracy’: there is ‘just’ always some sort of ‘establishment’: be that the local government, or military, or both of these, or the local defence sector, or one or few persons… and, no matter where, these characters then do whatever is possible to prevent serious military-history research. And they are going to incredible, and sometimes disgusting extensions in this regards.

I’ll not go into mentioning specific countries, companies, or persons. Just offer examples from ‘every day work’ of diverse colleagues and mine from around the world.

Say, one wants to research involvement of one country in a specific ‘defence-related’ project run by the defence-sector of another country. First of all, the defence-sector in question is zip-lip about this issue — even if the affair in question is meanwhile some 30+ years old. Any of local journos that dares coming to the idea to research about that topic is promptly …’muzzled’: he or she can be 100000% sure, he or she is never again going to publish a single word in the local press again. But, that’s not all. Don’t you dare coming to the idea to try to contact that defence sector directly! If they reply at all, you are going to find yourself facing such kind of threats and offensive language, I nearly fell off the chair when reading it…

Or, say, one wants to research about specific air force in a specific country, in which there are already plenty of publications about that air force — just all in the local language. Nah: multiple contacts ‘suddenly’ lose their social media accounts (these are ‘temporarily not available’), one co-worker there gets arrested (yes, sigh, ‘again’…), another receives a series of threats from the local authorities etc. — and all of this although all of them have already published to the very same topic, in their owncountry, in the local language.

Another case, but still the same: a gentleman there readies a manuscript on a specific war raging since 30+ years… shortly before this is about to get finalized, a ‘James Bond’ from the local ‘security’ service ‘casually’ meets him, and, while making it clear ‘they’ have read all of our related e-mails since at least a year, asks him if the manuscript is not going to become ‘too critical’ of… well, the government and/or the military, or whomever else.

By all of my experience (and I’m in this ‘business’ since some 30 years): hand at heart, that’s blood-chilling. We’ve concluded there’s no way to keep the author safe but to drop — although this was already announced in the public (and is still expected by many readers).

Now, no doubt, one could say, ‘hey, but there’s difference and it’s entirely different in our Western democracies and our pluralism’; ‘here in the West we enjoy press freedoms’. After all, one cannot expect the same level of transparency between, say,… ‘some Latin American bannana republic’ and any EU members.

Oh man: what an arrogant mistake to think that way!

Want to research the coup in your country, which is a member of the EU, 40+ years ago? No way. The government is going to tell you that the archive is controlled by the military, the military is going to return the ball to the government, and then they’re all going to meet in between and declare it ‘an issue of national security’. Mind: there are laws in certain EU countries stressing that all the official documentation must be made available to the public after a certain period. Say, 30 years. On the contrary, there is no law, no regulation, not even — say — some sort of an official decision of the legislative or the executive permitting the government (or the military) to prevent anybody from insights into the documentation. But, no: on advice from who-knows-where, the ‘Presidency’ decides that it has the right to block the documentation in question. ‘They’ are in power, and thus have the final say. Of course one has the right to ‘complain’. But, go and try challenging them: you’re likely to spend most of the next ten years at diverse courts…

How about researching specific ongoing military operations in… well, ‘some place in Africa’? Ladies and gentlemen: we all are at least reasonably intelligent people and thus perfectly aware of sensitiveness of the issue on hand. I do not know a single author that wouldn’t apply a sort of self-censorship in regards of specific issues: after all, nobody is keen, and even less so ‘crazy’ to tell the jihadists who exactly is bombing them, when and how. But, there is somebody who ‘knows better’. After quite some search around, it turned out the ‘authority’ prohibiting related publishing is not some instance that would have been authorised to do so by law, some instance authorized by the public to be responsible for controlling what the public gets to know… and be 100% sure: there is no ‘conspiracy of the establishment’ — as so often in recent history of specific countries HERE IN THE EU. No! It’s some colonel there who is simply insisting on ‘marking his precinct’. Probably appointed in that position because the military found him too incompetent to be of any other use, the officer in question is now blocking any kind of related publications, and that at own discretion — which foremost means: without any rules, but those appearing ‘suitable’ in the given moment. The least that can happen to anybody ‘violating’ the opinion of the ‘authority’ in question is to get a life-time ban from any kind of public appearances of the military in question (say: air shows, open days etc.). Best of all is: even members of the same military do not understand any more why is that one officer keeping all the stuff secret…

To clear any doubts about this: yes, the last two ‘examples’ are from countries that are EU MEMBERS.

You think it’s any better in the USA…? Haha! How naive.

In the USA there is that — theoretically — beautiful law called the FOIA. The Congress said that the official documentation must be released to the public, if anybody finds it’s in the public interest to make them public. And, hand at heart: it worked ‘marvels’ for decades. Sometimes it still works, beautifully. Just check the CIA’s Electronic Reading Room: 14+ million of official documents released and available online. I’m ready to take any bets, I’ll not ‘spend’ all the stuff I can find there in the time of my life.

BUT, mind: it’s only the part of the documentation that ‘they’ (whoever it is) are ready to make available.

Go and ask the CIA, NSA, DIA, ONI or anybody else for anything more. Say, combat use of the Iranian F-14s; Kuwait AF of the 1980s; North Koreans in North Vietnam of the 1960s or in Egypt of 1973…’Suddenly’, nobody has any such documentation, and — and that’s probably the best part of this story: nobody is responsible for collecting related intelligence. Nobody — and I’ll repeat: NOBODY — has even half a page of related reports. The CIA is going to tell you to go ask the NSA, the NSA is going to tell you to ask the DIA, the DIA is going to tell you to ask the ONI, and the ONI is going to tell you to ask the CIA… or whoever else… Now tell me somebody, the USN was nnneeeeeeeeeeeeever curious to find out about Iranian combat experiences of such important (and exceptionally expensive!) weapons systems like the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its AWG-9 multi-mode radar (first ever equipped with micro-chips), and the Hughes AIM-54 Phoenix long-range air-to-air missile, eh…? And the ONI was never curious to find out if two of USN’s F-14s have actually fired at a real target, back in August 1987, or if that ‘Iranian Phantom’ was actually a phantom blip on the radars…

Honourable US military officers have had their careers ruined because of related affairs. But, the ONI has ‘no document on record’…?

That’s as sure as that the Sun is coming up in the West, every single morning.

Bottom line: there is no way to get anything else, but what the ‘establishment’ — whoever it is out there, and that’s very different from case to case — thinks it’s OK to let you know. Weather reports about Egypt from the morning of 5 June 1967, not to talk about full ORBAT of the Egyptian Army for 1967… composition of the Yemeni Air Force in 1986… technical details on the R-3S missile from 1964… everything. But, anything ‘really interesting’…it’s either ‘not there’ or a ‘matter of higher national interest’, but none of your’s.

…and if one does not encounter any of problems described above, then the local government is blissfully ignoring the state of one of major national museums for decades, so that this can decay to the degree where it burns out like it’s a barrel of heating oil — like it recently happened in another country, so that everything is tidily destroyed. To the last atom of any paper on which it was ever printed, and — especially — to the last photograph.

…or the military service is as exceptionally competent in recording and saving their ‘feats’ as in the following case: there’s a specific air force that piled all the documentation — intelligence reports, pre- and post-mission reports, de-briefs, photographs, gun-camera films — about one battle after which it is celebrating its ‘birthday’ ever since, in one place. Of course, that place was ‘safe’ from the public eye, and that for decades. And then all of that was destroyed in one blow. Word is that the responsible sergeant should have ‘misunderstood’ an order he has received: instead of releasing everything to the public, he pilled everything in the backyard, and burned it. Everything. After all, it’s so easy to misunderstand expressions for ‘release all of that to the public’ and ‘destroy it’ — in all the usual languages spoken around this spaceship named Earth.

Bottom line: methods are very different, no doubt about this. But actually, it’s everywhere the same.

We might be living in the times when one is likely to learn more within a week than humans living in the medieval ages have learnt in the times of their lives. But, my ‘growing’ impression is that we’re learning only things somebody there is curious to let us know. I’ll state this again, to make sure: no, there is no ‘conspiracy’ in style of some overriding, great directive, some affair steered by powers-to-be, members of some shadowy associations or else. I’m not talking about conspiracies here. I’m talking about the fact that in every single country on this planet, no matter where, there is some instance that thinks to know what should the public know about and what not.

Whoever dares ‘leaning out of the window’, and especially ‘asking unpleasant questions’ — is either going to find him/herself facing incredible obstacles, or will be brought to shut up, one way or the other. I.e. all our ‘press freedoms’ are for nothing. We can write we have the press freedom, or complain about the lack of the same — but, we’re not going to really get that press freedom.

…and then I have some internet jackos belittling ‘my little project’…

BTW, mind: I’m talking about research of military history since 1945, and trying to explain how much is specific behaviour influencing diverse of our ‘future projects’. Now, try to imagine what happens whenever somebody is researching about current affairs with the aim of reporting about these….