The Hermeneutic of Continuity

While I was at the Evangelium Conference at the Oratory School, Reading last Saturday, I took the above photo of a piece of school equipment outside the Headquarters of the Combined Cadet Force who formed a guard of honour for the Blessed Sacrament Procession at the school in June. I don't expect that it can be obtained from the standard education supplies catalogues. Back home, I consulted the Blackfen Military Attaché (Blackfen readers will probably guess who he is) to obtain identification of this piece of equipment. It is an Ordnance QF 25 pounder with muzzle flash suppressor. The 25 pounder was introduced into service during World War II and was used in training units until the 1908s. Which all goes to show the truth of the observation made by my friend Lt Col Corum many years ago when we were at a pistol shooting range near Oxford, that in the British Army the weapons that are used for training are older than the men firing them. (If you're interested, I did fire a S...

For a few months now, James Corum has been on the list of Telegraph bloggers. I have known Jim since our Oxford days, and have followed his career with interest. He is now Dean of the Baltic Defence College in Estonia and is an acknowledged authority on counter-subversion. I have read most of the seven books that he has published and his writing style is engaging, conveying information on military matters in an accessible way without patronising the reader. Last November, Jim was recruited to the team of Telegraph bloggers and writes a blog on defence . His in-depth knowledge of military matters, together with experience in the field make for some first-rate commentary on matters of current concern. His post today looks at the political correctness that has pervaded the Department of Defense and makes an observation that will have a familiar ring to many people outside the military: Despite the negative effects on morale and efficiency these policies have had, they could not be cri...

Today's Daily Telegraph has the story of Matthew Croucher who has been awarded the George Cross for his heroism. He was on an operation to investigate a suspected bomb-making factory when he tripped a booby-trap that set off a grenade. Virtue - prudence, justice and fortitude are certainly there. (Temperance too if you consider the other two headings.) "I thought, 'I've set this bloody thing off and I'm going to do whatever it takes to protect the others." Guts - he did not hesitate to jump on the grenade to save his three fellow Royal Marines and said that he expected to lose a limb but hoped to keep his head and torso intact. Brains - he rolled over to use his backpack to shield his body from the shrapnel fragments. Fortunately, the backpack that the Royal Marines carry has quite a lot of kit in it. His had a lithium battery, a medical kit and a 66mm Rocket. Thanks be to God, he got thrown up in the air and suffered only a nose bleed. Within an hour, he was ...

My good friend, Lt Col James Sterling Corum, has had another book published on dealing with insurgency - in particular "Bad Strategies: How Major Powers Fail in Counterinsurgency." The synopsis: By examining the failures against insurgents in Algeria, Cyprus, Vietnam and Iraq, James S Corum offers rare and much-needed insight into what can go wrong in such situations - and how these mistakes can be avoided. In each case, Corum shows how conflict could have been avoided by the major power if it's strategy had addressed the underlying causes of the insurgency it faced; not doing so wastes lives, and weakens the power's position in the world. Corum's clear and practical prescriptions for success show how the lessons of the past apply to failed policies in Iraq, and how these can yet be turned round to gain a lasting peace. I have ordered the book. Jim is a very good writer whose material is accessible to the non-specialist while providing scholarly apparatus for furt...

A busy day today up in London. My good friend Lt Col James Sterling Corum is in England to give a lecture to the Defence Academy. We were at Oxford together many years ago and it is always great to catch up with news of his family and his academic work. Jim is an acknowledged expert in military history and especially airpower, and counter-subversion. He has recently written a new book: "Wolfram von Richthofen. Master of the German Air War", published by the University Press of Kansas . Wolfram von Richthofen is usually overshadowed by his cousin the "Red Baron". Before the second world war, he played a central role in building and developing the Luftwaffe. Jim has another book out in the summer analysing examples of failed decision-making processes by democracies in wartime. Talking to him about the book over lunch, it struck me that the principal lessons could be applied almost exactly to failed decision-making in the Church. I'll certainly be buying a copy whe...

Jim Corum , on old friend of mine from Oxford days, is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, the Air Command and Staff College, and the Army War College. He served for two years on the faculty of the Army War College and fourteen years on the faculty of the US Air Force Schools of Advanced Air and Space Studies. In addition he has visited and lectured at staff colleges in Britain, Germany, Paraguay, South Africa, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Norway and Canada. He has put in six years of active duty and twenty-two years of reserve service, including duty in Iraq in 2004. His book "Fighting the War on Terror. A Counterinsurgency Strategy." is well written, thought-provoking and hard-hitting. He is particularly critical of America's reliance on a "new way of war" in which high technology is given priority at the expense of training and manpower. He laments the scant attention paid to the importance of local knowledge and linguistic skills, the failure...

Just before I left for Ampleforth on Monday, a packet from Amazon dropped through the letter box. it was the new book by my friend Jim Corum "Fighting the War on Terror. A counterinsurgency strategy." I came to know Jim at Oxford in the late 1970s when he was there studying medieval history. He had been commissioned in the Intel Corps in 1976. On returning to the States, he went back into the military. His was on active service in Iraq in 2004. I last saw him when he was in England as a visiting fellow at All Souls College doing the research for this book. He is an associate professor a the US Army Command and General Staff College in the Department of Joint and Multinational Operations at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and used to teach at the Air University, giving the course on "Terrorism and Small Wars." Jim is a very engaging writer, making military doctrine accessible to the general reader. He has a great admiration for the British operation against the insurgents i...

My good friend, James Corum, has just had his new book published " Fighting the War on Terror: A Counterinsurgency Strategy ." Jim very kindly invited me to dinner at All Souls College last year; he was on a two term visiting fellowship during which he was working on this book. He has also written a couple of books on the Luftwaffe, and " The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans Von Seeckt and German Military Reform " which tells of the first stage of the build-up of German military power between the wars. His writing is lucid and engaging, making his work accessible to the non-specialist. Here is a link you can use to pre-order the book from Amazon UK: