Eight Lost Years? Nixon,Ford, Kissinger and the Non-Proliferation Regime, 1969–1977

The years following the signature of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 have generally been seen as a period of neglect in US non-proliferation policy. While joining recent scholarship questioning this, the article also shows that the policies that emerged from the Nixon–Ford years were the product of a broad range of factors that constrained both the United States’ ability and willingness to build an effective non-proliferation regime. These included the Nixon administration’s initial skepticism regarding the NPT, as well as the global dispersion of power away from the US, combined with the continued importance of anti-Soviet containment.     

Expendable soldiers

Foreign Legions in the generic sense have evolved in ways that would surprise Beau Geste. Not only are more foreigners or recent immigrants enlisting in Western military forces, but also the post-Cold War era has seen the revival of warlord militias and Private Military Companies. Western militaries, in particular that of the United States, have also sought to increase their strategic reach through security assistance to regional military forces. While there have been some successes, security assistance has proven to have its limitations, not to mention unintended consequences for civil military relations, democracy promotion, and military efficiency.     

New Evidence on the Original Setup of the ‘Tilbury Group’, Formerly in the Tower of London

Abstract

An argument is presented that Valentine Green’s mezzotint engraving ‘Queen Elizabeth at the Head of her Army at Tilbury-Fort, A.D. 1588’ (1792) was inspired by the late 18th-century life-sized group of three figures representing the same subject that was formerly on show at the Tower of London. The mezzotint presented in Acta Historica Reginarum Angliae is the only known image of the original pre-1828 setup of the display, showing the figure of the queen in a skirt-like piece of armour that has since been re-identified as King Henry VIII’s tonlet armour.     

Armour in Henry V’s Great Wardrobe

Abstract

The unpublished accounts of two of King Henry V’s armourers, Martin Pull and John Hill, shed new light on the armour worn by the king and his circle during his campaigns to France which culminated in the great victory at the battle of Agincourt in 1415.     

William and John Pickering and the garniture made for the Prince of Brunswick under their supervision at the Royal ‘Almain’ Armoury at Greenwich, 1610 to 1612

Abstract

The princely garniture ‘commanded’ to be made by Prince Henry Frederick for his cousin, Prince Friedrich Ulrich, later Duke of Brunswick, from the Royal ‘Almain’ Armoury at Greenwich, during the stewardship of the Master Armourer, William Pickering, his son, John, and the men of the Greenwich workshop, is described, illustrated and discussed. Accounts are presented of the lives and work of the Pickerings and the evidence is reviewed for the manufacture of this last decorated garniture of the Greenwich School.     

Sir Robert Thompson,Strategic Patience and Nixon’s War in Vietnam

Counter-insurgency scholars have long been familiar with Sir Robert Thompson’s classic work Defeating Communist Insurgency, which combined analysis of the insurgencies in Malaya and Vietnam with advice for counter-insurgents that emphasised the drawn-out nature of insurgency and the importance of focusing on population security. While historians have called attention to his role with the British Advisory Mission in South Vietnam and his later criticism of the US counter-insurgency campaign in Vietnam in his various books, less has been written about his subsequent role as a pacification advisor to the Nixon administration. This article explores Thompson’s relationship with Kissinger and Nixon and his views on the war in Vietnam from 1969 to 1974. An examination of Thompson’s thinking on Vietnam in the Nixon years reveals a theorist whose optimism on US prospects there was based on assumptions about elite and public patience for lengthy wars that were ultimately misplaced.     

‘Mad Dog?’ Samuel Huntington and the Vietnam War

Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington has frequently been considered a Vietnam War hawk. His observation that ‘forced-draft urbanization’ might help the United States win the war has come to define his engagement in contemporary strategic debates. This essay argues that both Huntington’s academic work and his private policy advice to the U.S. Government in fact urged a political settlement to the conflict. It argues that in spite of this, Huntington refused to break publicly with the U.S. policy because of his wider concern over what he saw as a crisis of authority in the U.S. foreign policy and governing institutions in the era.     

The Enfield Lock Barrel Mill of 1815 and Moves to Replace Musket Barrel Grinding by Turning c1780 to c1840

In 1841 Henry Wilkinson in his book Engines of War and William Greener in The Science of Gunnery describe a range of methods then in use for shaping the outside of gun barrels after the barrel forging process, ranging from manual off-hand grinding to the use of precision machines. In the same year G. & J. Rennie published the design of their state-of-the-art lathe that was capable of turning complex and dished barrel forms. This built upon the earlier work of both Henry Nock and John Jones. In the early years of the 19th century both Britain, at Enfield and other locations, and the USA, at Harpers Ferry and Springfield, began to introduce barrel-turning technology. This paper uses measurements taken from a significant number of military barrels made by several makers, and also newly exposed information about Henry Nock and the Enfield Factory of 1815, to understand better the technologies that were applied to military flintlock barrel finishing from the 1780s to the 1840s, and particularly during the major wars of 1793–1815, when high output was paramount. Measurements both of barrel form and out-of-roundness are presented. These allow the interpretation of the techniques being used by different makers at different locations, and raise questions about the purpose and achievement of the complex dished barrel forms found on British military flintlock muskets. This approach also allows us to better describe the earliest factory on the Enfield site, one of the most significant sites in the wider history of UK manufacturing.