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Yamamoto

[ 85 ] May 21, 2013 | Robert Farley

Interesting (slightly old) piece on Isoruku Yamamoto in Japanese historical memory:

Unlike the Yushukan museum at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, the Yamamoto museum does not appear to re-write or glorify Japan’s war history. A small exhibit notes Yamamoto’s role in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the devastating defeat at Midway. The main hall is dominated by a mangled wing from the aircraft Yamamoto was flying in when he was shot down in the Solomon Islands.

Yamamoto’s legacy may be evolving, at least in the popular media. Several generally sympathetic books have been published in recent years and a well-received movie was released in 2011. The film deals largely with Yamamoto’s clashes with the Imperial Army, which initiated the war in China and pressed for a wider conflict. Indeed, Japan’s small but vocal nationalist fringe has little use for Yamamoto today, considering his lack of greater support for Japan’s war aims to be nearly treasonous.

The degree to which Yamamoto supported Japan’s expansionist policies and colonial ambitions in Asia has not been closely examined in public. Nor is it clear that the architect of the pre-emptive strike on Pearl Harbor would have been spared charges of war crimes had he lived longer.

I suspect that Yamamoto would have been tried for war crimes, although how such a prosecution would have measured up legally and historically is a different question. While some of the senior operational commanders of the IJN (Kurita, for example) avoided prosecution, many of those involved with strategic planning (Nagano) did go through the procedure. Given how well known Yamamoto was in the United States, it would have been very curious indeed if he hadn’t wound up on trial. And while Yamamoto certainly believed that war against the United States was a mistake, it’s not so clear that he was opposed to the war in China, or to the rest of the Japanese imperial project.

There’s an interesting compare and contrast to be done with historical memory of Robert E. Lee in the American South; efforts to distance Lee from the cause of slavery (as opposed to Southern secession) began almost immediately, but serious questions about Lee’s strategic and operational choices emerged in the years after the war, and have periodically re-emerged as Lee’s reputation has evolved over a century and a half.  Given that there are grave questions about the wisdom of the Pearl Harbor and Midway operations, and about the strategic wisdom of the Guadalcanal campaign, I also wonder about Yamamoto’s reputation in Japan as strategic and operational commander. The debate over Lee has proceeded under far more open conditions that discussion of Yamamoto, although it’s not obvious that the openness has really helped.

Cambodian Shoe Factory Roof Collapse

[ 67 ] May 16, 2013 | Erik Loomis

This is a story that won’t get lasting attention because of the small number of dead workers, but following the death of 1127 garment workers in Bangladesh, we have another factory collapse in the apparel industry. The roof collapsed in a Cambodian shoe factory, killing 2 workers and injuring at least 9 others. The factory makes shoes for the Japanese company Asics.

Once again, these workplace disasters are a completely acceptable cost of doing business in the apparel industry. Asics could employ these workers directly in its own Cambodian factory. But it is more profitable to shirk the responsibility and instead pretend like it has no fault in the death of these workers. As the linked article notes, Cambodia, like Bangladesh, has workplace safety laws and building standard codes, but they are completely unenforced. The lack of any bite to the regulation is precisely why companies like Asics, Wal-Mart, and Gap outsource factory work there, separating the point of production from the point of consumption by as large a gap as possible. This is why I believe that Asics corporate leads should be held criminally responsible for the deaths under Japanese law, just as if the factory had collapsed in Japan.

This Day in Labor History: May 10, 1993

[ 16 ] May 10, 2013 | Erik Loomis

On May 10, 1993, the Kader toy factory in the Nakhom Pathom province of Thailand, just outside of Bangkok, caught on fire, killing 188 workers, severely injuring over 500, and breaking the all-time death toll for a factory workplace, previously held by the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York in 1911. The largest workplace disaster in Thai history, the Kader fire should have demonstrated the to the world the very real costs of outsourcing unsafe working conditions to the world’s poor countries. Unfortunately, the event received relatively little media attention and created no momentum for improving safety standards in the world’s factories.

The Kader factory was largely owned by Charoen Pokphand Group, a huge Thai conglomerate with concerns primarily in agribusiness; as of 2003 it was the world’s 5th largest transnational food corporation. CP owned 80% of the factory, the Hong-Kong based Kader Company owned about 20%, including the name. The factory manufactured toys, mostly stuffed animals and plastic dolls, for the international market. It received large contracts from Arco, Hasboro, Tyco, Toys-R-Us, Fisher Price, and other leading toy companies. Approximately 3000 workers toiled in this factory, with about 1500 in Building No. 1. Most of the workers were young women, some underage using fake IDs to get by age restrictions on labor. Thai women frequently add to family income, so many families encouraged their daughters to travel to Bangkok for factory labor.

This factory opened in January 1989, but already had a history of unsafe conditions. The original plant burned in August 1989 and the company’s license was suspended that November. But the Thai Ministry of Industry allowed the new plant to open on July 4, 1990. In February 1993, another fire struck one of the factory buildings. It was still closed when the main fire started in May. Thai law only provided minimum wage for full-time workers. Thus Kader and other manufacturers rarely employed people as full-time laborers. 47% of Thai employers did not pay the minimum wage. Compulsory overtime frequently kept workers until midnight, or even 5 a.m. if a deadline approached. Workers had their pay docked if they did not meet production quotas. On the 4th floor of Kader, 800 workers toiled. On that floor were 8 toilets.

None of this mattered to the American and European corporations outsourcing toy production to the developing world. They sent orders to Kader, demanding exact specifications for their markets, and asked no questions about wages, hours, working conditions, or safety. That was the advantage of outsourcing. These became irrelevant questions for corporations–so long as the costs were kept low. If costs rose, Tyco and Hasboro would move operations to another factory, another country.

At about 4 pm, a small fire broke out in one corner of Building No. 1. No one is really sure how the fire started, although a cigarette seems most likely. The workers were told to continue working. The fire alarm did not work and the fire spread rapidly in a factory full of finished plastic products. Security guards and employees tried to put the fire out but found themselves quickly overwhelmed with a rapidly spreading conflagration that soon spread to Buildings No. 2 and 3. Much like the Triangle Fire of 1911 in the United States, employers had locked the downstairs fire exits in order to maintain more control over workers. Fleeing back upstairs, the workers flooded the upper fire exits, causing them to collapse under all the weight. Workers began jumping from the upper stories to escape the flames. Then the main building collapsed from the heat of the fire. If this sounds much like the procession of events at Triangle, outside of the structural collapse, commenters at the time noted the same thing as well, ranging from a lack of fire safety training to highly combustible industrial products unsafely stored to the high number of women killed.



The dead at Kader.

Said one survivor, “I didn’t know what to do. Finally I had no other choice but to join others and jump out the window. I saw many of my friends lying dead on the ground beside me. I injured my legs but I came out alive.” Said another, “In desperation, I went back and forth looking down below. The smoke was so thick and I picked the best place to jump in a pile of boxes. My sister jumped too. She died.” The symbol of the fire was a melted Bart Simpson doll. The fire took place at the height of The Simpsons craze and the factory is where most Simpsons material was produced.

Melted Bart, symbol of the Kader fire.

Like many horrible factory accidents, shoddy design combined with employer malfeasance and a lack of basic safety standards to create an easily preventable disaster. The building was constructed with uninsulated steel girders that would collapse in 15 minutes during a fire. Basic infrastructure investment, even if none of the other problems had been alleviated, would have likely saved dozens of lives.

Although initially resisting any compensation, CP agreed to pay $8000 to the families of each dead worker and agreed to help pay the education costs of orphaned children. The Thai government announced improved safety and health standards. Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai traveled to the factory site on the night of the tragedy and pledged greater fire safety for Thai workers. But no one from CP or the factory managers received even a day in jail. The management was fined $12,000 for building code violations. Safety and health standards in Thai factories have not improved in any meaningful fashion since 1993, nor have they in many of the other manufacturing nations of southeast Asia. One big reason for this of course is that all the incentive for governments and business owners is to do nothing because the less they do, the more the big American, European, and Japanese corporations are pleased with low costs.

A memorial to Kader victims.

As I have suggested in the aftermath of the Bangladesh fire, now the largest tragedy in the history of industrial factories, with over 900 dead, perhaps the only way to stop corporations from taking advantage of poor nations and corrupt politicians to replicate the terrible working conditions of the Triangle Fire, Kader fire, and Bangladesh building collapse is to tie corporate legal status with their subcontractors’ behavior, making them civilly and criminally responsible for the conditions in factories to which they subcontract work. Otherwise, Disney can make a big stink of pulling out of Bangladesh to make themselves look good without doing anything to help Bangladeshi workers stay alive or ensure that workers in Cambodia, Vietnam, or wherever aren’t subject to the same conditions when no one is looking.

The better details in here came from Fiona Haines, Globalization and Regulatory Character: Regulatory Reform after the Kader Toy Factory Fire

This is the 60th post in this series. Previous posts are archived here.

This Day in Labor History: May 6, 1882

[ 65 ] May 6, 2013 | Erik Loomis

On May 6, 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although not often seen by the general public as part of our labor history, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first legislative victory for organized labor in this country. It generated out of the discontent of white labor in the American West toward Chinese competition in general and specifically out of the Workingmen’s Party, a political organization of California’s white working class that threatened to overthrow the state’s two-party system if its major concern was not addressed.

It is useful to think of Chinese exclusion in the context of Gilded Age capital and labor. With capital so overwhelming labor and the free labor ideology of whites controlling their own future through hard work, white labor looked for any solution to the crisis. Generally, they hoped for a single, simple solution that they could grasp onto. That might be Henry George’s Single Tax, the monetaization of silver, the ideas of Edward Bellamy, the 8-hour day, or Chinese exclusion. Workers might swing from one idea to the next, looking for a panacea to industrial capitalism that allowed them to retake control over their own lives. Why Chinese exclusion? The idea of a white man’s republic seemed under threat from racialized labor who would seem to take any job at any price, driving down wages for white men, channeling profits into the capitalists’ arms, and undermining the ability of white men to control their own lives. Eliminate the Chinese and you go a long ways to resetting the balance of power between labor and capital.

When whites moved to California in the late 1840s, most saw it is as a white man’s country. This meant that any job done by a non-white was stealing a job from a white person. When they flowed across the nation during the Gold Rush, they assumed the gold was there for the taking, without competition. Lo and behold, news of the gold had traveled around the world. Native Americans were already there. Miners streamed northward from Mexico, Peru, and Chile. They came from France and Germany. They traveled across the Pacific from Hawaii, Australia, and especially China. While the Australians and Germans and most other Europeans were acceptable to the miners, the non-whites and the French were not. Mexicans and Chinese found their claims stolen, the French (who were seen on the same level as Mexicans) were made unwelcome. Most of the competitors went back home by the early 1850s in the face of American white supremacy.

There was one caveat for this. California was a nearly all-male space. Miners were totally out of sorts because there were no women to clean and cook for them. It really affected them profoundly, as one can see if you read their diaries. Mostly, they lived in filth. But over time, the Chinese were feminized to take over the jobs the whites did not want. This is the origin of the Chinese restaurant and Chinese laundry. Although gender ratios slowly equalized, the Chinese had developed strong communities in California cities. The Chinese also became the cheap labor of choice for industrialists looking to build railroad with inhumane working conditions that most whites would not accept.



Chinese-American children, late 19th century

So-called “anticoolie clubs” became common among whites resentful of Chinese labor. For example, in 1867, a group of white San Franciscans in an anticoolie club drove a gang of Chinese laborers from their railroad work. These ethnic-based clubs were not so different from the Protestant-supremacist riots of pre-Civil War New England against the Irish. These clubs engaged in a boycott of Chinese-made goods beginning in 1859. They also became connected to the burgeoning trade union movement in California. But unionism had a very difficult time getting established in California and the anti-coolie organizations helped fill that working-class vacuum.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Chinese question came to dominate California politics. Into this debate came the Workingmen’s Party. Began among German immigrants in the east in 1876 as a sort of socialist big tent party, in California, the leadership of Denis Kearney turned it into a 1-platform political movement: kick out the Chinese. Kearney, an Irish immigrant, arrived in San Francisco in 1873 and immediately became involved in politics. Combining fervent anti-Chinese hate with violent threats against his political opponents, Kearney took over the Workingmen’s Party to unite white working-class and anti-Chinese politics. At the 1879 California Constitutional Convention, Kearney and his supporters inserted a variety of anti-Chinese laws into the document. The most important of the clauses in the new constitution banned the employment of the Chinese. But business leaders opposed all of this and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned these provisions.

Anti-Chinese image

For Kearney and his followers, eliminating the Chinese was just the first step in retaking control of the republic for the working man. Once the Chinese question was settled, Kearney wanted to go after the capitalists. Said Kearney,

”When the Chinese question is settled, we can discuss whether it would be better to hang, shoot, or cut the capitalists to pieces. In six months we will have 50,000 mean ready to go out. . . and if ‘John’ [the Chinese] don’t leave here, we will drive him and his aborts [sic] into the sea… We are ready to do it… If the ballot fails, we are ready to use the bullet.”

Although primarily a California movement, by the late 1870s, the anti-Chinese fears began to spread among whites throughout the nation, despite the fact that outside of New York City and western mining towns, the Chinese population was near zero. In 1876, both parties adapted anti-Chinese planks to their party platforms. Kearney took an eastern tour in 1878, speaking to a crowd of thousands in Boston and campaigning with future Greenback Party presidential candidate Benjamin Butler, although his national star faded quickly, in part because of his anti-capitalist views, and he returned to San Francisco without the national popularity he craved. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Among its provisions was to bar the Chinese from citizenship and required each Chinese to acquire a certificate of residence or face deportation. In 1902, the Geary Act made the Chinese Exclusion Act permanent, as opposed to the 10-year extensions mandated in the original law.

Workingmen’s Party poster

Organized labor strongly supported most laws to end Chinese immigration. The Knights of Labor were strongly anti-Chinese and banned Asians from the organization. A group of Knights in Tacoma, Washington spearheaded anti-Chinese violence in Tacoma, Washington in 1885. The American Federation of Labor began in 1886, after Chinese Exclusion, but AFL head Samuel Gompers supported the extension of the law, as well as other anti-immigration legislation through the 1920s.

The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act was hardly the end of violence against Chinese labor, as the Chinese community in Rock Springs, Wyoming would find out in 1885. But it was the effective end of the Workingman’s Party and the end of anti-Chinese groups threatening the established political system.

Kearney’s star faded rapidly after the Chinese Exclusion Act. He died in obscurity in 1907.

Legal Chinese immigration effectively stopped until 1943, when the nation’s wartime alliance with China made exclusion politically untenable and when anti-Japanese sentiment put the Chinese in a new light for many Americans. However, with exclusion, the Chinese began to migrate to northern Mexico and British Columbia and crossing into the United States, forcing the U.S. to create the Border Patrol.

This is the 59th post in this series. Previous posts are archived here.

Sunday Book Review: Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov

[ 60 ] April 28, 2013 | Robert Farley

Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov- RIA Novosti, Commons: RIA Novosti, P. Bernstein

Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov is a new biography of Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov from Geoffrey Roberts. The book is interesting, but ultimately disappointing to most audiences with a taste for Zhukov. Nevertheless, it’s good to see the re-emergence of a popular(ish) taste for Soviet military history in the West.

Product of a not-too-prosperous-but-not-altogether-impoverished peasant family from Strelkovka, Georgy Zhukov joined the Tsarist army in 1915 (age of 19), seeing his first action in the form of a German air attack on Russian rear positions. Zhukov did well for himself as a non-commissioned officer, displaying a flair for combat leadership.  He became a committed Bolshevik shortly after the Revolution, fighting on several fronts during the Russian Civil War. Because of other commitments (as well as bout of typhus), Zhukov missed the Russo-Polish War.

In Roberts’ account, Zhukov does not play much of a role in the intellectual life of the Red Army, especially during the particularly fertile inter-war period.  Zhukov never posted to the armor school at Kazan, or had much of an input into the development of Deep Battle.  On the one hand this isn’t terribly surprising; the intellectual core of the Red Army was decapitated in the great purge of 1937.  On the other hand, the experience of cavalry warfare in the Russo-Polish War and and the Civil War helped informed Deep Battle; it’s interesting that Zhukov managed, as a significant cavalry officer, not to have any impact on the constitution of Soviet military doctrine.

Roberts’ account of the purge isn’t terribly satisfying.  We learn that Zhukov escaped the Great Purge (just by the nape, by his own account), but we get little sense of how this affected the general.  He lost friends, teachers, students, colleagues, and subordinates; there’s very little to indicate how Zhukov felt about any of this. It doesn’t appear that Zhukov ever harbored any serious doubts about the legitimacy of the Communist Party, the Soviet Union, or Josef Stalin; his willingness to overtly display this loyalty may explain his ability to survive three purges.

Zhukov’s first great success (beyond avoiding the purge) was the victory over the Japanese at Khalkin-Gol.  With the advantage of numbers and technology, Zhukov methodically destroyed the Japanese incursion, remaining on site for several months in order to oversee truce negotiations.  Fortunately, this allowed Zhukov to miss the Soviet-Finnish War, which set back the careers of several senior Red Army commanders.  The availability of Zhukov for Finland presents an interesting counter-factual; had he become associated with the failure, he might not have been in line for command in early 1941. Conversely, the Soviet High Command did enough wrong in Finland, from poorly understanding its own capabilities to gravely misjudging the Finns, that you don’t have to imagine any genius stroke to see how Zhukov might have helped. Rather, you can imagine offensives more competently planned and executed, with a leadership more firmly in grip of the situation, leading to victory in shorter order and with far fewer casualties.  Of course, it’s possible that both of these would have been the case; Zhukov could have led the Red Army to a victory over the Finns that was simultaneously quicker than the historical victory, but that still left the USSR humiliated and Stalin deeply unhappy with his senior commanders.

Another way of putting it is to suggest that Zhukov is the sort of commander you would want to fight a war that you should win. Conversely, Zhukov as commander would have been out of place in the Russo-Polish War, where the pursuit of victory demanded the kind of innovative, high risk performance that was more characteristic of Tukhachevsky.  Roberts paints a portrait of Zhukov that makes him very much  Grant, and not a Lee.

It’s hard to pin down the role he played in the major Soviet operations of WWII. Zhukov had formal responsibility for most of the important Soviet victories on the Eastern Front, including the relief of Leningrad, the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, Kursk, Operation Bagration, and the Battle of Berlin. He also experienced some notable failures, including Operation Mars (the northern counterpart to Stalingrad), and some defeats in the early months of 1941. The Red Army was such an immense creature, with such a large staff system and bureaucracy, that it’s not possible to assess Zhukov’s input into particular decisions in the same way that we accord responsibility to Hannibal, Napoleon, Lee, or even Patton. Complicating matters further is the collective nature of Soviet strategic decision-making; Stalin consulted closely with Zhukov and his other senior commanders in development of war strategy. When we think of Zhukov’s contribution, it is perhaps most appropriate to say that he was the “lead architect” of Stalingrad, Bagration, and the Battle of Berlin, with all that does and does not entail. The Zhukov that we’re offered here lacks the dash of Patton, or the intellectual flair of Tukhachevsky or Guderian.He won because he took calculated, high-reward risks, and he felt secure in taking those risks because he did not fear Stalin. Indeed, part of the underlying story of Zhukov is the willingness of Stalin to allow him to fail.  The relationship between the two reminded me (again) a bit of that between Lincoln and Grant in the last two years of the American Civil War.

This should not take away from the following fact: Georgy Zhukov was the greatest general in the largest army in the biggest conflict the world has ever seen, and likely will ever see. On such a scale, “lead architect” of such a succession of victories is, indeed, a magnificent achievement.

Zhukov’s post-war career was, given the arc of Soviet politics, predictable.  He returned to Moscow the conquering hero, but soon came under fire from other senior commanders of the Red Army, almost certainly with Stalin’s assent.  He found himself exiled to several trivial positions, before returning to the capitol shortly before Stalin’s death.  In the disordered period before the rise of Khruschev, Zhukov became Minister of Defense, only to fall to another purge in 1957.  This final purge effectively pushed him out of Soviet public life, leaving his remaining years for writing and compiling his memoirs.

Zhukov was, by Roberts’ account, never anything but loyal to the Soviet state, and the communist ideal.  He harbored no ambitions beyond the position that he had reached, and was always willing to bend the knee to constituted Soviet authority. It is surely worth lingering over this point; Zhukov lived through (and participated in) the worst crimes of the Soviet regime. When we evaluate German generals such as Rommel, Beck, and Guderian, we invariably ask about their relationship to Hitler and the Nazi Party; Zhukov’s complicity most certainly bears mention.

Roberts includes a few personal details, including those of Zhukov’s relationships with his wives, daughters, and mistresses. And of course, Zhukov is the sort of person that his opinion of Bridge on the River Kwai is automatically interesting: “too pacifist for me.  I prefer something with shooting like the Guns of Naverone.” Roberts’ account of Zhukov’s last purge is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating.

I was determined not to be a victim, not to break down, not to fall apart, not to lose my will to live… Returning home, I took a sleeping pill.  I slept for several hours. I got up. I ate.  I took a sleeping pill. Against I fell asleep. I got up again, took a sleeping pill, and fell asleep.  This went on for 15 days… In my dreams I relived everything that had been tormenting me… I disputed. I proved my point. I grieved- all in my sleep.  Then, after 15 days, I went fishing.

This is great, both as a anecdote and coping strategy, but Roberts doesn’t leave us with much to evaluate whether it’s true or not. It’s certainly possible that a 60 year old Russian General took sleeping pills for fifteen days in order to deal with his purge, but I’d say it’s also possible that he drank himself into oblivion for a good two weeks. Having read a book about the man, I’d like to think that I’d have some sense of whether he’s telling the truth about this incident, but the picture Roberts paints is so shallow that I really don’t.

This is a good discussion of Roberts’ lack of detail, although I’d suggest that Roberts commits errors both in overestimating and underestimating his audience; appreciation of Zhukov’s achievements requires more knowledge of the Red Army and of the campaigns that Roberts is willing to grant. Then again,  the history of the Red Army as an institution may have seemed difficult to place, because oddly enough, Zhukov doesn’t appear to have played much of a role in the development of its doctrine or culture.  Frunze, Tukhachevsky, and Voroshilov are much more important figures in this regard. Williams wisely refrains from giving deeply detailed account of Stalingrad, Moscow, Bagration, et al, in part I suspect because it’s hard to nail down precisely what contribution Zhukov made; excellent management is excellent, in some ways, because it’s boring.

But this is part of a problem; I came away from this book somewhat more familiar with Zhukov’s career path, but without any very good sense of what the man would be like in a conversation.  We’re told that he was an authoritarian and a womanizer, which distinguishes him from senior military officers through history in no particular way. It may seem trite, but reading a biography I like to have some theory of who might portray the subject on film.  In this case, I’m left with a blank. This is a great book for people who are kind of interested in the career of Georgy Zhukov, but who don’t really have that much of an interest in either the Red Army or World War II.  As such, it’s not likely to satisfy many readers.

It’s a Werewolf Bar Mitzvah! Spooky! Scary!

[ 227 ] April 27, 2013 | bspencer

I apologize in advance if you really thought this post was going to be a werewolf Bar Mitzvah. It’s actually going to be about my clearing the cobwebs out of my head and putting fingers to keyboard so I can assemble a list of the best horror of the past few years.

 

Horror is a genre justifiably gets a lot of guff. Let’s face it: there’s so much of it out there, and so little of it is any good. But I love the it, so I am always searching for examples of its excellence. Here are my favorite horror movies of the past few years (or so) in no particular order.

I’m starting with three French films. So apparently at some point, the Japanese were like “Hey. We’re gonna mess with your minds and make you look at completely unwatchable stuff. And then you’ll thank us and come back for more.” And the French were like, “That’s poppycock. We’re here to prove that we are the most deranged, perverted people on the planet.” And then they set about proving just that.

 

1.) High Tension–This film about a couple of young women who are embroiled in a fight against an extraordinarily creepy spree killer is tight, scary, face-paced and unbearably suspenseful. Sure, there’s plot twist that is nearly unforgivable, but you might be tempted to forgive it only because this film absolutely, 1000% lives up to its name.

2.) The Ordeal–This film about a man who is stranded in a small Belgian town–where oddly only men reside– really only qualifies as  horror because it succeeds in creating this stiflingly bizarre atmosphere. There are no ghosts or serial killers here; you just want the protagonist to ESCAPE. Immediately.

3.) Martyrs–Many people consider this one of the most disturbing horror films in recent memory. I think I agree. What’s unique about “Martyrs” is that it almost reads as three different kinds of film: a brutal revenge flick, a supernatural horror film, and torture porn. I think the first two thirds of the film are brilliant, shocking…a gut-punch to the senses. But while I feel the film’s big reveal and final third are fairly disappointing, there’s no denying that it all stays with you. Longer than you wish it would. No spoilers. Watch it if you dare.

4.) The Hills Have Eyes–I went to see this remake in the theater by myself. While I found myself wishing I had had a companion, I was also sort of giddy about the experience. Honestly, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And it wasn’t just it was the most compelling, creepy, scary movie I’d ever seen about a family of repulsive, raping, murderous inbred mutants. It was the fact that someone had actually made a movie about repulsive, raping, murderous inbred mutants that was beautifully-filmed, beautifully-paced and well-acted, complete with characters I really cared about. It feels weird saying “More please…” but more please.

5.) The Descent–It’s hard for me not to gush about “The Descent.” When I first saw it I so blown away I immediately rewatched it with the addition of the director’s commentary. The thing about this movie is that you keep thinking there’s a twist. You keep thinking it’s all a dream. It can’t be this straightforward tale of six adventurous women–two with an interesting back story– who get trapped in a cave with…well, let’s say say…creatures who have adapted to their environment. But it is that straightforward, and it is so claustrophobic, so creepy,  and so compelling. I LOVE “The Descent!”

6.) Insidious–When I put this in the DVD player, I had a big eyeroll ready and waiting. After all, as I will tell anyone who will listen, “PG-13 horror movies are LAME.” Heh. Go ahead and rent or stream this “lame” little horror movie. You’ll need to rewind to make sure you’re not seeing things. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss one creepy detail, would you? Would you?

7.) The Ring–After I saw this movie about a VHS tape that supposedly proceeds the watcher’s death, I would not use my DVD player for a week. Let me repeat that: I would not use my DVD player for a week. True story. My idiocy, not “The Ring.”

 

And now it’s your turn: Which horror movies have you watched that stayed with you?

Offshore Engagement and the Battle of Java Sea

[ 13 ] March 8, 2013 | Robert Farley

HNLMS De Ruyter (Wikipedia, Royal Netherlands Navy / Koninklijke Marine)

I have an extended feature at the Diplomat on American grand strategy and the Battle of Java Sea. This represents my effort to find some sort of happy ground between “offshore balancing” and “deep engagement,” by combining one word from each and connecting the argument to an obscure historical event.

America is in the throes of yet another debate about grand strategy, with terms like “deep engagement” and “offshore balancing” coming to characterize complex sets of policies towards allies and antagonists alike. Although the precise nature of the terms varies along with the preference of the author, Deep Engagement advocates tend to prefer robust, forward deployed U.S. military capability of the sort that we currently enjoy.  Advocates of offshore balancing argue that the United States can significantly draw down its military and political commitments and rely on normal balance of power politics to ensure that no state gains complete control over the Eurasian landmass.

“Avoid another Pearl Harbor,” recently amended to “avoid another 9/11” has animated U.S. security strategy since World War II. It might be more useful to think of grand strategy as a way to avoid another Battle of Java Sea. Predominance is one way to accomplish this; if the United States can defeat any enemy without the assistance of a coalition, then the coalition becomes militarily superfluous. But predominance is expensive, and often convinces allies to shirk their own commitments.

Offshore balancing certainly may force U.S. allies to pick up the slack, increasing defense expenditures to match the perceived Chinese threat. Together, forces nominally allied with the United States could conceivably outmatch the PLAN and PLAAF in material terms.  But offshore balancing runs the risk of creating conditions that would allow a repeat of the Battle of Java Sea, where a single committed opponent managed to outwit and outfight a coalition on strategic, operational, and tactical grounds. Despite its material advantage, the ABDA never worked out a strategic conception that could concentrate force and bring it to bear against the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Your thoughts are altogether welcome.

WBC

[ 54 ] February 28, 2013 | Robert Farley

My latest at the Diplomat is on the opening of the third World Baseball Classic.

The Dominican Republic, led by Robinson Cano, Jose Reyes, and Hanley Ramirez, is the odds on favorite to win the Classic, followed by the United States and Japan. In 2009, however, a strong Dominican team failed to escape pool play, losing twice to the Netherlands. The popularity of the WBC in Korea and Japan may give those teams an edge in morale; U.S. play in the first two tournaments occasionally seemed lackadaisical, as players looked ahead to the Major League season.

Indeed, the major league connection has proven a handicap for many of the American teams.  Major league teams have discouraged many of their players (especially pitchers) from participating in the WBC due to injury and exhaustion risks.  Consequently, some of the most devastating players in baseball, including Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, and Johnny Cueto, are sitting the WBC out.  On the other hand, the participation of Joey Votto lends no small degree of punch to the Canadian team.

The broader question is the extent to which the WBC helps produce a Pacific rim baseball community. Although major Japanese and Korean stars have played in the United States (and American players are common in Japan), the trans-Pacific relationship remains substantially outside the integrated system that characterizes baseball in the Americas. Of course, whether such integration is desirable is an altogether different question; baseball has a distinct character in each of Korea, Japan, and North America, adding a regional and cultural richness to the sport.

Given that I am now a person who has written about baseball in America, I believe that my invitation to join the Baseball Writers Association of America shall arrive any day.  In anticipation, I am already becoming indignant about steroids, and increasingly impressed by the feats of Jack Morris.  In any case, I will cheer heartily for Canada if Joey Votto is part of the team (unclear at the moment); otherwise, United States.

Donald Richie, 1924-2013

[ 7 ] February 20, 2013 | djw

RIP.

Richie was as valuable a guide to classical Japanese film as one could reasonably hope to have. His taste becomes increasingly cranky as we move closer to the present, as his critical generosity seems to diminish and his frustrations grow over time (notable exception, for understandable reasons: Koreeda, whom he rightly reveres). But for anything pre-1975ish, Richie is exceptionally valuable. My understanding is that he played a considerable role in getting Japanese films out to the world as well. I have some differences with his global interpretation of Ozu, but the book is fantastic; excellent essays not just on Ozu’s individual films but on his technique and working habits, is a fascinating read. (His account of Ozu’s script writing process is fascinating: take collaborator up to his remote mountain home, stay there, drinking heavily, until its done. He kept a meticulous journal tracking a) progress on script and b) alcohol consumed. The entry at the end of the Tokyo Story script writing: “Finished. 103 days, 43 bottles of Sake.”) 100 Years of Japanese Film is quite valuable (although the DVD guide is happily out of date). I’ve never seen any of his own films, which I am made aware of only through Wikipedia. In fact, I’ve only ever known Richie through his film writings, so I’m learning a great deal about him from his obituaries.

2009 interview on Japanese directors here, with his thoughts and insights on Kurosawa’s decline, and the Kurowawa/Mifune falling out, amongst other things.

Oshima

[ 7 ] January 16, 2013 | Erik Loomis

Nagisa Oshima, legendary Japanese director, RIP.

Sorry that comments were closed for this post earlier, I actually just had to delete that post and start again. Or maybe I am can’t handle people talking about “In the Realm of the Senses.”

The Japanese Counter-Insurgency Experience in China

[ 11 ] January 12, 2013 | Robert Farley

This week’s Diplomat column takes a look at COIN in the Second Sino-Japanese War, based on the Murray-Mansoor edited volume Hybrid Warfare:

Yamaguchi suggests that elements of the Japanese Army and a variety of hybrid civil-military organizations took the problem of COIN quite seriously from a strategic point of view, appreciating that the only way to victory in China was the establishment of a self-sustaining, pro-Japanese Chinese government.

However, the Japanese Army suffered from problems of focus and resources.  Rather than concentrating on counter-insurgency operations, the Army needed to prepare for conventional operations against Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist Army, defensive operations in jungle and island theatres against British and American forces, and finally the long-anticipated Soviet invasion of Manchuria.  These threats all posed radically different challenges, making training haphazard and incoherent. The Japanese also faced unity of effort challenges, with civilian and military agencies organized around pacification and institution building losing out in intra-agency battles against conventionally oriented officers.

Long story short, the history of Japanese operations in China was more complicated in process, if not in effect, than the “Kill All, Loot All, Destroy All” that has come to characterize the war*.

*Standard caveat: I trust that readers are bright enough to understand that this does not constitute an apology for the Japanese Imperial Army.

“These are Our Rocks”

[ 60 ] January 11, 2013 | Robert Farley

Let me be the first to point out that there is no way in which this could end up badly:

After repeatedly flying surveillance aircraft into disputed airspace with Japan, and Tokyo scrambling F-15s in response, China’s now sending fighters of its own on “routine flights” into the East China Sea.

China Daily:

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday that Chinese military planes were on”routine flights” in relevant airspace over the East China Sea. Spokesman Hong Lei made the remarks at a press briefing in response to media reports that Japan sent fighter jets to head off a number of Chinese military planes spotted in Japan’s “air defense identification zone” over the East China Sea on Thursday.

“China firmly opposes Japan’s moves to gratuitously escalate the situation and create tensions,” Hong said.

The area north of the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyus in China, is reportedly home to billions in oil and gas deposits claimed both by Japan and China.

The Chinese jets could be flying from air base Shuimen, built east of the islands in Fujian Province. Satellite imagery of the base first came to light in 2009, but experts believe it reached completion late last year.

The Taipei Times reported in May 2012 that satellite images showed J-10 combat aircraft, Su-30 fighters, and various unmanned drones arriving at the base.

Accidental wars are extremely rare, but accidental “guy gets shot down in posturing-related mishap” are less rare. That said, who doesn’t like some hot F-15 on Su-30 action?

See also.

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