Stupid Wars : A Citizen's Guide to Botched Putsches, Failed Coups, Inane Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions

by Ed Strosser

  Stupid Wars : A Citizen's Guide to Botched Putsches, Failed Coups, Inane Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions

  Ed Strosser

  Michael Prince

  When winners write history, they sometimes "forget" to include their own embarrassing misjudgments. Fortunately, this take-no-prisoners edition of history isn't going to let the winners (or the losers) forget the mistakes of the past. Be prepared to laugh out loud — and gasp in horror — at the most painfully idiotic strategies, alliances, and decisions the world has ever known. These stupid wars have been launched by democracies as well as monarchies and dictatorships, in recent decades just as often as in less "enlightened" times. The ridiculous and reckless conflicts chronicled in Stupid Wars include the misdirected Fourth Crusade, the half-baked invasion of Russia by the U.S., the U.K.'s baffling Falklands War, Hitler's ill-fated Beer Hall Putsch, several incredibly foolish South American conflicts, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and many more. Whether you're a future dictator, war-mongering politician, royal mistress, or history lover, these blow-by-stupid-blow accounts will teach you the valuable lessons you need to stay off the list, including:

  • Don't declare war on all your neighbors at the same time.

  • Working radios, accurate maps, and weather-appropriate uniforms are big plusses.

  • Large amounts of bird poop and very small islands are probably not worth dying for.

  • Never invade Russia.

  • Seriously. It's a really bad idea.

  This book is dedicated to all the GIs, Tommies, poilus, and other dogfaces of the world’s armies who have suffered the mindless and generally fatal consequences of war.

  Introduction

  Wars happen. Frequently. A quick survey of human his­tory reveals only the briefest of periods where someone hasn’t been shooting or hacking away at other humans. Peri­ods of calm have been few and far between, and are usually reserved for planning the next conflict. Often as not, that planning is half-baked, off the mark, out of touch with real­ity, and potentially terminal for the planner. In some cases, this type of planning actually gets put into action. The results have not been pretty. A wise person once said, “If you want to know the future, study the past.” We salute that wisdom with our study of the most foolish military endeavors man has ever thrown his boundless energy and brilliance into.

  A chronicle of man’s dumbest conflicts represents history at its spiciest: utterly stupid, pointless, and morbidly curious collisions where — driven blindly by greed, ignorance, ego, boredom, or some other incomprehensible credo — we have committed and continue to commit mistakes on a grand scale. How can we not marvel at these individuals who gam­bled so recklessly with history itself — with staggering costs in blood and treasure — that readers must shake their heads in disbelief while turning each page?

  Most wars are bad. A very, very few seem to have actually been good. And then there are the conflicts that should never have been undertaken in the first place, that should have re­mained no more than the fevered little dreams of disturbed men. As any student of history knows, a smattering of these conflicts garner much of the attention. These are the “good wars,” such as World War II, which were fought for the right reasons and ended with a ringing moral victory. Library shelves groan with books about these rare but clear winners: the Greeks, the Romans, Napoleon, the British Empire, and the Allies in the two world wars. All winners. Because win­ners write history. And no one likes to give himself a bad review.

  It is also extremely hard to write a book when you’ve been starved, shot, or marched to death, which is the fate of many war-losers. And there has always been a certain amount of shame in losing a war no matter how many of the “enemy” you may have vainly succeeded in shooting, stabbing, or bombing from an airplane. Therefore, in a historical Catch-22 we keep learning the lessons of history’s winners, which is that winning wars is good.

  As we delved into the martial history of our pugnacious little race, a few outstanding examples of really stupid wars leapt out. We limited ourselves to Europe and the Americas, although we are highly confident that Asia, Africa, Australia, and perhaps even the polar nether regions have also shared in the bounty of stupid wars.

  Each stupid war offers useful lessons for the average citi­zen. Everyone needs to learn these lessons because the barri­ers of entry to politics, the army, or becoming a dictator are extremely low, and you may someday find yourself the head of a large country or army.

  For example, if you’ve been handed the reins to a mighty empire such as the Roman only because your big brother is emperor, as happened to a young farmer named Valens, it is imperative that you first read the emperor’s handbook, especially the chapter on never, ever showing mercy to the bar­barians clamoring to get in.

  Or you might find yourself on a religious military expedi­tion, such as the Fourth Crusade, in 1198. Consider skipping it entirely if it is launched under the specter of crushing debt, despite the obvious attractions of killing lots of Muslims and sacking Jerusalem for Christianity. The Fourth Crusade did just that and went seriously awry, as the debt-laden crusad­ers were forced to make a few unplanned stops and ended up sacking, raping, and pillaging Constantinople, the greatest city in Christendom. Oops.

  As we studied the stupid wars, we discovered that there has been an understandable but dangerous tendency for poli­ticians to play general — and vice versa — and thus end up in very hot water. Even the most creative and visionary of poli­ticians can fall prey to this danger. During the Whiskey Re­bellion of 1794 in the infant United States, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (yes, the founding father with his face on the ten-dollar bill) headed up his own massive army to invade Pennsylvania to slap down some frontier set­tlers dodging Hamilton’s tax on whiskey. In this stupid war against his own country, Hamilton clearly demonstrated the maxim that if you need to raise a huge army to force your democratic citizens to obey a tax law, you should seriously consider changing the law.

  Dictators, sporting the zesty combo platter of unlimited political and unlimited military power, topped with unre­strained egomania, are usually the most egregious transgres­sors. For example, during the 1865–70 War of the Triple Alliance, Paraguay plunged into a war with three of its bigger, stronger, and richer neighbors, largely due to the warped decision of its dictator Francisco Solano López to make his top military strategist the former Parisian whore he shared the palace with. The result was so bad that López blamed his mother for the disastrous results, something not even Hitler was tempted to do.

  Dictators also can make terrible allies as the Peruvians dis­covered during the War of the Pacific in 1879, when Bolivia started a war with Chile over birdshit, and dragged in Peru through a secret treaty to share their pain as its hapless ally. Peru was then forced to learn a basic lesson: when your ally drops out of the war, your army is destroyed, your leader has fled, your capital is occupied, an admiral is running your army, and your only source of wealth has been captured, it’s time to surrender. An important corollary for stupid wars was also established by the Bolivians during this affair: if you have a coastline you would like to defend, get a navy.

  Even the most educated politicians can find themselves losing their bearings completely when surrounded by the fog of war. Bespectacled, smarty-pants President Woodrow Wilson ordered the invasion of newly Communist Russia in 1918 while World War I was still going on, but Wilson gave the general in charge explicit order
s not to cause trouble. As the American general was soon to find out, if you’re going to invade to overthrow a government, you should expect that the owners of the country you’re invading may notice your presence, become upset, and try to shoot you.

  The most brutal and devious dictators can even find them­selves having trouble getting a stupid revolution up and run­ning, let alone an entire war. During Hitler’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch the leaders of the Bavarian army, police, and govern­ment were practically begging for somebody to start a revo­lution and rescue them from the democracy that was rampant throughout Germany at the time. Hitler, with an all-star staff of evildoers that would later achieve stunning success in starting World War II, threw a coup that seemed like a can’t-miss affair. But his clumsy attempt at grabbing power collapsed in less than a day, a grim reminder of the challenges of starting a coup from a cozy spot like a beer hall, especially in a country where most of the populace are highly armed war veterans.

  Unfortunately for some countries, war making becomes an end in itself, a sure prescription for spectacularly stupid wars. The Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay in 1932 was just such a war. Each country vied to escape the losers’ bracket of history by beating the other loser. The result was one of the bloodiest wars, per capita, ever seen. They proved the maxim that even the champion of the losers’ bracket is a loser. Medals are not handed out for eightieth place.

  It’s no surprise that when stupid wars get started, many countries keep making ever more colossal mistakes. Soviet Russia, a repeat offender in this respect, invaded Finland in the middle of the winter in 1939 but neglected to dress their troops in winter clothing. The warmly dressed Finns skied circles around the frozen Soviet troops and cut them to pieces, dealing a harsh lesson to the Soviets and to the watch­ing Nazis that no matter how numerically inferior your army, when fighting the Soviets victory is always an option, if you can produce more bullets than the Russians have men.

  Some countries simply don’t know how to choose friends and stick with them. Romania proved this truism with flying colors when it ended up fighting everyone on both sides of World War II, first accepting an invitation from superfriend Hitler to invade Russia, then two-facedly turning on its Nazi friends and joining hands with the Soviet bear to attack the Germans.

  On the other hand, even the world’s best generals make great mistakes. Some of Hitler’s horde of Prussian generals, trained for war like no others, finally worked up the gump­tion to get rid of the severely off-track dictator in 1944. Now they were faced with the inevitable choice between killing the greatest mass murderer in history, or upsetting the comfortable order of the German high command. Obviously, they made the wrong choice, and their abject failure of strategy, execution, and guts — while the world literally burned around them and thousands died daily as a direct result of their ac­tions — is a virtual primer on what not to do when taking out a murderous dictator. The first lesson: bring a gun.

  Some leaders, usually of the self-styled “advanced democ­racies” go ahead and invade even when they know it’s a bad idea. During the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, John F. Kennedy figured the United States could invade Cuba without anyone knowing he was behind it. Unfortunately for Kennedy, the CIA had organized it, and this perfect little fiasco became the first invasion that press flacks tried to spin away.

  Most dictatorships and superempires don’t know a bad idea even when it smacks them in the face. When multiple-offender Soviet Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, they didn’t realize that invading Afghanistan is usually the first stop on the route toward post–superpower status for an empire. The United States got carried away and forgot this fact when they began waging a proxy war to try to cleverly outflank the Soviets. The inevitable result was double-blow-back for both empires at the hands of the wily warlords of the impenetrable mountains.

  Another stunning miscalculation happened during the Falkland Islands War of 1982 when the cadre of Argentinian juntos, who were running their country into the ground, se­verely underestimated the willingness of Battleship Maggie Thatcher to fight to the death for crumbs of the British Empire. They inadvertently signed the death warrant on their little junta. Seasoned dictators should take to heart the lesson that killing civilians does not automatically make an army battle-tested. The main takeaway for rich empires from this confused little struggle was that the use of sophisticated radar and ship defenses to protect your massive fleet from cheap, French-made cruise missiles should be encouraged. Even when all the legalistic guideposts for making war are flashing green, leaders are smart to tread warily. When the United States invaded Grenada in 1983, their difficulties in crushing the micro-Stalinist tourist state demonstrated the dangers of one-day wars. Their problems could have been boiled down to a handy invasion checklist, perhaps tacked to the front door of the Pentagon:

  1. Confirm if enemy country has a military. If so, do not assume they can be defeated in one day.

  2. Find accurate maps of proposed country to be invaded.

  3. Bring working radios.

  4. Make sure your Special Forces are really special.

  5. If you’re trying to rescue hostages, do you know where they are located? If possible call the hostages and ask them where they are.

  6. Will the invasion start on a weekend? If yes, please coordinate with president’s appended golf tee-time schedule.

  7. Is your proposed invasion target an island or mainland? If an island, notify the navy.

  8. Are sufficient supplies of medals on hand?

  The end of empire presents challenges no less stiff either at the beginning or middle of a regime. During the 1991 Russia coup against Gorbachev, the coupsters were generally drunk, sweaty, and unprepared. They had forgotten that successful coups are works of art and must be highly organized, combin­ing a whiff of menace and a hint of overwhelming force. Also, it is not advisable to hold televised press conferences where everyone has bloodshot eyes from a night of confidence-boost­ing vodka shots.

  Our book is dedicated to a study of the wisdom lurking in these outstanding examples of martial stupidity. Clearly, the studying of successful wars has not prevented new wars, let alone the stupid ones. As we studied the stupid wars we dis­covered what is perhaps the most disturbing trend of all: stupid wars are hard to end. Once started, usually by the ac­tions of inscrutable idiots saddled with unrealistic and hei­nous goals, the players on each side become reluctant to end the slaughter because they don’t want to admit to the stupid reasons that launched the war in the first place. So the war continues, and the goal becomes simply to keep the war going.

  With all this in mind, it behooves all of us to do everything we can to avoid the next stupid war before it gets started.

  ONE.

  VALENS AND THE END OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: AD 377

  As Roman rule evolved over seven centuries from republic to dictatorship and then to ruin, the only principle held constant by the rulers was that the leaders of Rome should never, ever, show their enemies any mercy.

  From its founding in the fifth century BC, when the origi­nal Roman gang established itself by tossing the Etruscan kings off the seven hills of Rome and banding together into a republic, the Romans slowly conquered the surrounding tribes and developed the basic template for empire, which served as the model for most of Western civilization down through the ages. The Roman republic trashed the idea of hereditary dynasties and replaced it with two rulers sharing power, known as consuls, chosen from the aristocrats of the conquering class.

  The power-sharing model lasted until around 34 BC, when it was replaced by the dictator-like rule of the emperors, starting with Augustus. For centuries the emperors expanded the fascist rule of Pax Romana in a circus of hacked-off limbs. By the fourth century AD, the primary job of the Roman emperor was to maintain and defend the empire from the hordes of barbarians clamoring at the gates. But by now the real power of the emperor lay with the imperial guard, the cohort of soldiers who protected him.

&
nbsp; The Roman imperial guard had been created by the first emperor Augustus around year 1 as his own private army. These were the Praetorian Guards, SS-like in structure, func­tion, and attitude. Over the centuries, the Praetorians were disbanded but replaced by a more brutal cadre of imperial guards who wielded the power to choose any emperor they wanted and assassinate the ones they hated. The imperial guards made their choice of emperors with the main goal of keeping the empire in fighting shape.

  The preservation of their power was paramount. Showing no mercy was critical. Revolts and rebellions by dangerous people such as Jesus were squashed brutally, often resulting in the disappearance of entire cities, not to mention most of their unruly inhabitants. Survivors were sold as slaves or dragged home to Rome to be ritually slaughtered in front of the home crowd in the Colosseum as testament to the cor­rectness of the Roman way of life.

  The greatest threat to the Roman Empire down through the centuries, amid the wars, famines, and revolts, the greed, bloodlust, stupidity, incompetence, and insanity of its emper­ors, was mercy toward the barbarians. Mercy, as it were, in the form of Emperor Valens, who was given the job of em­peror solely because his big brother was the western emperor. Somebody had to run the eastern part, and Valens opened the crack in the shield that ultimately led to the Roman Em­pire’s downfall.

  THE PLAYERS

  Emperor Valentinian I — a solid soldier from the imperial guard chosen to be emperor because he posed no threat to the two dynasties vying to control the succession.

  Skinny — Hot tempered and noted for his screaming memos.

  Props — Favored his eight-year-old son over his brother Valens as next in line for his job.

  Pros — Good soldier who served the empire well.