I don't know if it's yours Mark, or some other Substack that I have read that has noted that the European Union, Eurozone, and Schengin Area is essentially the MiddleEuropa proposed by most German statesman before WWI and that was the explicit peace offering to the Allies in the Summer of 1916. I love that MacGregor continues to carry this view after German reunification, when he made his military academic reputation in the late 1980's assessing the GDR's (East Germany's) military and paramilitary potential and relationship with the Red Army. I think there was also some assessment of the Stasi in the books of his that I've read, but the point is that no one back in 1990 would have predicted Berlin calling the shots in Westphalia, let alone Lombardy or Athens (Bonn was the West German capital and beholden to DC). MacGregor's ability to notice that the Cold War ended and the European, and with it, World economic Order has changed, has got to be the most interesting and distinguishing characteristics of him relative to the rest of the American officer corps.
I read most of his work as a cadet and young lieutenant and couldn't understand why he was a civilian instead of a general. That was the one of the first hints that I wasn't going to make it as an Army Officer. The big screw up came when Tom Clancy chose in his "Armored Cavalry" to interview H.R. McMaster, a troop commander in the Battle of 73 Easting instead of Macgregor, the Squadron Operations Officer. Clancy made McMaster a celebrity within the army, which saved his career when Dave Petraeus--himself a subject of a Clancy book, "Airborne" when commanding the 504 Parachute Infantry Regiment--personally took over general officer selection boards and saved McMaster from a second promotion passover. But MacGregor had effectively been purged in 1999 for his critiques of the officer corps and force structure. No military or civil bureaucrat wants to give a guy like that total authority until they're staring down the barrel, by which point its too late.
No. Indeed I do not. It still hurts a little to see your idealism crushed when the institution you believed in as a young man purges itself of the up and coming men with intelligence and integrity. That hit for me in the mid 2000’s and I’m now literally seeing MacGregor being called a traitor on some military threads for the crime of giving accurate military assessments of Ukraine.
I think you’ll always be able to trump any of us given what the Bureau did to you because of your warnings, but most don’t understand the feeling of betrayal when a prophet’s warnings go unheeded.
The Swiss journal person has no ability to apply critical thinking skills. Very one-way thinking, which as we all know gets us into all sorts of trouble. Thanks Mark!
Hi, Mark. Great article as ever. Good to see one of our Swiss journals printing this. We're a nasty little conformist nation who always go with the big battalions, despite our much vaunted "neutrality". Good to see that there are some honest journalists over here.
Very insightful, incisive appraisal of the Russia-Ukraine-US/Nato maelstrom, Mark. Mr Weltwoche must have needed a stiff martini or two after that interview!
good thought. I see it more as a "consortium" with Germany in the lead Poland, France, Belgium, and the Baltics and others pitching together as a EU army. This is where I think Britain gets cold feet though.
The Germans are quite simply terrified of doing anything that is aggressive and proactive and risk being called "Nazis" or "right wing". They are like Italy, Spain and Greece: a nation that is spiritually and intellectually dead.
The powers that be in the United States military usually hate being told and/or shown that they are wrong, Col. Billy Mitchell was court martialed for example. Macgregor is seldom wrong, he should wear the criticism he receives as a badge of honor.
I don't know if it's yours Mark, or some other Substack that I have read that has noted that the European Union, Eurozone, and Schengin Area is essentially the MiddleEuropa proposed by most German statesman before WWI and that was the explicit peace offering to the Allies in the Summer of 1916. I love that MacGregor continues to carry this view after German reunification, when he made his military academic reputation in the late 1980's assessing the GDR's (East Germany's) military and paramilitary potential and relationship with the Red Army. I think there was also some assessment of the Stasi in the books of his that I've read, but the point is that no one back in 1990 would have predicted Berlin calling the shots in Westphalia, let alone Lombardy or Athens (Bonn was the West German capital and beholden to DC). MacGregor's ability to notice that the Cold War ended and the European, and with it, World economic Order has changed, has got to be the most interesting and distinguishing characteristics of him relative to the rest of the American officer corps.
He seems an impressive guy. He's done a lot of thinking.
I read most of his work as a cadet and young lieutenant and couldn't understand why he was a civilian instead of a general. That was the one of the first hints that I wasn't going to make it as an Army Officer. The big screw up came when Tom Clancy chose in his "Armored Cavalry" to interview H.R. McMaster, a troop commander in the Battle of 73 Easting instead of Macgregor, the Squadron Operations Officer. Clancy made McMaster a celebrity within the army, which saved his career when Dave Petraeus--himself a subject of a Clancy book, "Airborne" when commanding the 504 Parachute Infantry Regiment--personally took over general officer selection boards and saved McMaster from a second promotion passover. But MacGregor had effectively been purged in 1999 for his critiques of the officer corps and force structure. No military or civil bureaucrat wants to give a guy like that total authority until they're staring down the barrel, by which point its too late.
Well, I don't think you need me to tell you that the civilian agencies work that way, too.
No. Indeed I do not. It still hurts a little to see your idealism crushed when the institution you believed in as a young man purges itself of the up and coming men with intelligence and integrity. That hit for me in the mid 2000’s and I’m now literally seeing MacGregor being called a traitor on some military threads for the crime of giving accurate military assessments of Ukraine.
I think you’ll always be able to trump any of us given what the Bureau did to you because of your warnings, but most don’t understand the feeling of betrayal when a prophet’s warnings go unheeded.
The Swiss journal person has no ability to apply critical thinking skills. Very one-way thinking, which as we all know gets us into all sorts of trouble. Thanks Mark!
Hi, Mark. Great article as ever. Good to see one of our Swiss journals printing this. We're a nasty little conformist nation who always go with the big battalions, despite our much vaunted "neutrality". Good to see that there are some honest journalists over here.
Very insightful, incisive appraisal of the Russia-Ukraine-US/Nato maelstrom, Mark. Mr Weltwoche must have needed a stiff martini or two after that interview!
Germany’s military has been hollowed out, and it would take a cultural earth quake to rebuild it.
The Cold War peace dividend, and then some, was used to reduce the German armed forces to a very low level of readiness.
good thought. I see it more as a "consortium" with Germany in the lead Poland, France, Belgium, and the Baltics and others pitching together as a EU army. This is where I think Britain gets cold feet though.
The Germans are quite simply terrified of doing anything that is aggressive and proactive and risk being called "Nazis" or "right wing". They are like Italy, Spain and Greece: a nation that is spiritually and intellectually dead.
A crisis can bring change, and Europe is headed into a real crisis.
Yep, we're in unknown territory. Most people here are still victims of normalcy bias. They have no idea of what is coming.
Yes. It takes a lot to break that bias, but once it does events become unpredictable from the point of view of what once seemed "normal".
The powers that be in the United States military usually hate being told and/or shown that they are wrong, Col. Billy Mitchell was court martialed for example. Macgregor is seldom wrong, he should wear the criticism he receives as a badge of honor.