Just a heads up that Chris and I will be hanging out in a YouTube livestream tomorrow to just chat about WW2 aviation and whatever else. There isn't a concrete time yet, but probably around midday mountain time (early evening in the UK). I'll be sure to post when it goes live!

This is amazing! As a child, I also imagined what this might be like (think I saw drawings in a book). Never thought I’d see video.

"Trump's Argentina bailout" just start saying that over and over again. Something goes wrong in the economy? What did you expect? Trump spent all our money bailing out Argentina

Autistic traits are genetic and exist across every single human population, which means they had already evolved before Homo Sapiens migrated out of Africa. Autistic traits exist because they conferred our ancestors an evolutionary advantage due to its association with systematic thinking. 1/x

a few thoughts (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

’Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes

Me, every day

I think it's important and useful for us, as academics, as writers, as professors, to open up the hood and pull out the parts and show our students how they fit back together sometimes, even in lower-level courses, so they see what a writing process looks like, not just a polished finish.

This is extrajudicial execution, without any clear threat to the US, no authorization from Congress, and far beyond even Article II. The military is not the president's personal hit squad. Or wasn't, until now.

To all of you, writers, working the weekend shift because inspiration hit you. Do as Cesare Baronio did in his lifetime around 1600: open the window from time to time, have flowers around, have books handy, do some correspondence in between (read letters, draft letters), and write ... #AcademicSky

An excellent essay.

It's pretty simple. You either see others as full human beings worthy of respect, autonomy and flourishing or you don't.

No one has been able to invent a technological innovation that is better for learning than simply reading books and getting together in small groups to talk about them.

There can be no legitimate “Department of War” without a peer Department of the Navy. If the 1947 National Security Act is going to be undone, it should be undone properly.

Publication day! My book The Colonial Way of War has finally appeared with CUP. The book is the first comparative & transimperial study of the violence of colonial warfare around 1900, based on an extensive empirical base &case studies from the British, German & Dutch Empire. It... shorturl.at/crWw2

Free on 20 September? Come to the National Army Museum for Burma Day to see me chat about the remarkable exploits of the West African and Indian divisions of XV Corps along with 3 Commando Brigade, who provided the logistical lynchpin to 14th Army’s advance on Rangoon in 1945. #JungleCommandos

About this Florida vaccine story: When they were little - 1 yr and 3 1/2 - my two older boys, who’d had all their shots, got whooping cough. We asked their pediatrician what would’ve happened if they hadn’t been vaccinated. “Oh, they’d have died.”

Tickets available via the link to sign up, great range of speakers on everything from slavery to remembrance and pageantry to stokers - full programme here: www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/nat...

Excerpt from #AdvanceBritannia which is released 6 November 2025 in the UK. Preorders appreciated! uk.bookshop.org/p/books/brit...

Thinking about the uses of gen AI in research: When you start e.g. working on a new article but don't yet know exactly where you want to go and what you want to say, why would you rather play around with a chatbot instead of sitting down with a colleague to discuss your ideas? 1/n

I just received my first copy of the book!

IJN 1933 special large-scale exercise Gathered large exercise unit Date: August 21-22, 1933 Location: Kisarazu offshore From left to right: Ashigara, Kamoi, Inazuma, Nachi, Hibiki, Nagato, Ikazuchi, Haguro, Fusō, Myōkō, Furutaka, Kirishima, Ōi, Naka, Ise, Sendai, Kiso, Kitakami buff.ly/Lu1zvh5

Excited to be joining @milhistcurator.bsky.social for a discussion of U.S. Navy Transformations in People and Systems at the National World War II Museum's annual conference this fall. More details here: www.nationalww2museum.org/events-progr...

Interested in WWII history? I'm going live tonight on Youtube to talk about my new book "The Sundowners, Pegasus, and Little Butch: Carrier Air Group 11 and the War in the Pacific, 1943-1945." Join me at 8 pm EST, 6 pm MST: www.youtube.com/live/TzjEa_M...

People exploring the future of military staffs would be well served to pay closer attention to history, especially the organization and operation of U.S. Navy staffs and how they differed from Army staffs.

Of all the pieces of advice dealt out to aspiring authors, the one I hate most is, "Write what you know." It seems antiethical to the creative impulse. Instead, write what you love. Write what excites you. And if you don't know something essential, look it up. Have fun learning.

I didn’t know until now that in the original Rosie the Riveter painting, she is crushing a copy of Mein Kampf under her foot. Happy feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, remembering all the women who crush the serpents of Satan under their heel.

My first baby has arrived

IJN 1933 special large-scale exercise Blue Army 4th Squadron in contact with the enemy at high speed Date: August 15-20, 1933 Location: offshore south of Honshu Photo: from Maya Situation: Takao, Atago, and Chōkai from the front static.ow.ly/photos/origi...

2025 is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Continental Army, Navy, and Marines and I am looking for someone who can talk in depth about the establishment of the Marines and their service during the Revolution for a TV interview. Let me know if you have any recommendations.

1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said." It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy. I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.

1/ WaPo reporting highlights how current trade policy is simultaneously pursuing revenue generation, reindustrialization, trade deficit reduction, and an expansive foreign policy agenda. The pursuit of all these goals risks achieving none of them well. buff.ly/SE6M7YX

Thanks to user "ArmchairSamurai" on the Secret Projects board we become aware of this extraordinary USN semi submersible torpedo boat from 1943, about which we know very little. www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/myst...

Mirrors some of my own thoughts (but with greater clarity and coherence). I am increasingly concerned about the implications of AI for skill development generally.

new piece from on the 60th anniversary of the voting rights act, and what the law has meant for american democracy www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/o...

A short article of mine on civil-military relations and democratic backsliding had been accepted for publication in the journal "Connections". Then I received an email that the editors can't publish the paper unless I "remove the case study/examples of the United States" (1/x) #CivMilSky

Given the imminent release of a chat I had with Seth and Jon for the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast, where one of the tangents was me rambling semi-coherently about aircraft protection, I've decided to update a thread I did on it related to Japanese aircraft from many years ago.

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Space limitations forced me to cut the "Battle of the Pips" from Learning War, but the evidence is strong that the radar echos were a flock of seabirds.

“Strategic incoherence, institutional decay, elite self-delusion, and societal disengagement are not sustainable. America retains its power, but power without clarity is drift.” Indeed. Great piece. secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/america-as...

@jbhist.bsky.social & I are excited to see that our new article on the Royal Military Exhibition of 1890 has been published Open Access by @ihr.bsky.social. This takes a sensory & emotions history approach to the topic of late Victorian popular militarism. academic.oup.com/histres/adva...

In Gordon A. Craig’s “Politics of the Prussian Army” he characterizes Friedrich Wilhelm IV as someone smart enough to overwhelm himself. Intellect with a weak character produces paralysis when given responsibility.

i was struck by clausewitz's argument that this is not purely an "intellectual" problem. in war you are always crowded around by phantasms--terrors of defeat, hopes for victory--that exert a *profound* emotional influence on the intellect thus factual judgment is downstream of moral character

Political comm folks! This Fall Notre Dame is searching for a chair in American Studies and Journalism to head our Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics & Democracy. Open to discipline & political scientists def welcome. I’m happy to talk all things ND and South Bend if you are interested.

All challenge coins are equal, but some challenge coins are more equal than others.

Great to see an article on Washington's accurate gunnery in the #NavalHistory feed. It was even more accurate than the article suggests. In the engagement with Kirishima, "fire was opened at 8,400 yards and a hit was probably obtained on the first salvo and certainly on the second."

When I see people complain about male loneliness, it is so painfully OBVIOUS to me that most of these lonely men are men who feel entitled to a woman who does that labor for them, who acts as their agent enmeshing them into community through unpaid pro-social labor on their behalf.

It was great! Thank you for the engaging talk.