Utopia, you are standing in it!

By Eyal Berelovich

militarystrategymagazine.com

The views expressed above are those of the author and do not represent those of the Israel Defense Force Ground Forces, the R.D.C Department, or the Israel Defense Force.

Professor Eyal Zisser’s 2018 article on the Syrian Civil War begins with the following words: “In March 2011 a revolution erupted in Syria. It began as a limited local non-violent protest in the rural and peripheral areas of the country, and within a few months escalated into a bloody civil war that quickly became sectarian, and worse yet – religious, a holy war (Jihad). The civil war attracted foreign intervention that transformed Syria into a regional and international arena of conflict, with the rival sides being used by the global and regional powers as pieces on the chess-board of their conflicts.” [i]

Most descriptions and analyses of the war divide it chronologically into several main phases. Some…

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York

Of the many sudden changes of political fortune which mark English history in the fifteenth century, none is more remarkable than the recovery of the Yorkist cause following the débâcle of October 1459. Within a month of Ludford its leaders were proscribed and attainted exiles. Yet by June 1460 they were able to mount a successful invasion of England and take control of London. Shortly after, they defeated the king’s forces at Northampton and Henry VI became a prisoner in their hands. This made possible a period of Yorkist-controlled government lasting to the end of the year, when the disasters at Wakefield (30 December 1460) and St Albans (17 February 1461) again put all in suspense, and thrust Edward of March onto the English throne.

Why this Yorkist revival was so successful has never been properly explained. Certainly, the rebels’ control of bases outside England…

I’ve been bothered for some time by how lightly the Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, was excused over his lapse of judgement in accepting hospitality from New Zealand Cricket at a time when preferential access to the Covid vaccine for the New Zealand cricket team was a matter of some concern to New Zealand Cricket, and when Bloomfield himself exercises considerable clout in such matters (having both formal statutory powers assigned to him ex officio, but also being (one of) the Covid minister’s chief advisers). It wasn’t even as if this was a single lapse, since Bloomfield acknowledged that he had last year several times accepted tickets to rugby games, and yet the Rugby Union had been negotiating with the government re the ability to host foreign teams in New Zealand.

New Zealand has tended to pride itself over many years about the incorruptibility of public life. Unfortunately, we…

Richard I (September 8, 1157 – April 6, 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death. He was the second king of the House of Plantagenet. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period. He was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine and seemed unlikely to become king, but all of his brothers except the youngest, John, predeceased their father. Richard is known as Richard Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior.

Richard was born on September 8, 1157, probably at Beaumont Palace, in Oxford, England, son of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was a younger brother of…