Mark A. Weitz, "Drill, Training, and the Combat Performance of the Civil War Soldier: Dispelling the Myth of the Poor Soldier, Great Fighter,'' Journal of Military History 62/2: 263-289.
Mark Weitz examines the notion that Civil War soldiers were naturally good fighters despite being poor soldiers. Through soldiers' letters and diaries, he argues that Civil War soldiers performed well in combat because they were good soldiers. Although amateurs when the war began, intensive drill and training transformed these men into effective fighting units. Even though small by European standards, the U.S. regular army, led by a talented West Point officer corps, provided a sufficient military tradition to turn millions of volunteers into armies whose exploits were extolled by both American and European observers of the period.
Robert G. Angevine, "The Rise and Fall of the Office of Naval Intelligence, 1882-1892: A Technological Perspective,'' Journal of Military History 62/2: 291-312.
In order to fully understand the creation in 1882 of the first official peacetime military intelligence organization in the United States, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), its activities during the next ten years, and its decline in the early 1890s, it is important to add a technological perspective to the political and bureaucratic approaches previous historians have adopted. Navy leaders created ONI to replace an intelligence gathering system that was incapable of overcoming the technological barriers to the creation of the New Navy. For the first ten years of its existence, ONI concentrated on obtaining foreign naval technology, both openly and clandestinely, in order to build a modern fleet as quickly and inexpensively as possible. By 1892, the United States had successfully domesticated steel production and had absorbed the technology necessary to build modern warships. This shift in the technological foundation that underpinned ONI's rise, combined with growing secrecy in Europe in response to its activities and changes in the nature of naval technology, contributed to its fall.
James S. Corum, "The Spanish Civil War: Lessons Learned and Not Learned by the Great Powers,'' Journal of Military History 62/2: 313-334.
The Spanish Civil War saw the most extensive use of military airpower in the interwar period. Airpower was used in a wide variety of roles including strategic bombing, close air support and naval interdiction. This article examines how the major air powers analyzed the air war and Spain and the degree in which they adapted their air doctrine to the war's lessons, or failed to adapt.
Some air forces, notably the RAF and the US Army Air Corps, took little note of the Spanish experience and later paid a heavy price for ignoring the effect of air power on ground forces and the capabilities of modern fighters against bombers. The Germans and Russians, active combatants in Spain, made extensive changes in their air doctrines. French Air Force officers made a careful analysis and recommended major doctrinal changes. but were rebuffed by the senior military leadership.
Xiaoming Zhang, "China and the Air War in Korea, 1950-1953,'' Journal of Military History 62/2: 335-370.
Drawn upon Chinese sources available since the late 1980s and recently declassified Soviet archives, this article examines the air war in Korea from a Chinese perspective. It argues that the substantial Soviet assistance, and its limited air involvement, provided the means for China to develop its air force into one of the world's largest air powers by the end of the war. Although the outcome of the air war in Korea is disputed in Chinese and American accounts, the Korean war offered the Beijing leadership an invaluable opportunity to test and define the Chinese Air Force's primary role in Chinese military strategy.
Gerhard L. Weinberg, "Unexplored Questions about the German Military During World War II,'' Journal of Military History 62/2: 371-380.
Some important issues about Germany's World War II military remain unexplored. The discussion about the oath German officers took to Hitler has ignored that higher German officers frequently broke their oaths before and after Hitler's chancellorship. Why did they keep just one of their oaths? In the fall of 1941, the highest German military leaders explained the Holocaust to their soldiers and called for its support. Since German field marshals did not generally justify themselves to the troops, why on this matter? There has been debate about the thousands of death sentences in the German armed forces. Not examined is the role of German military leaders who approved these sentences, signing about a thousand per month in the last years of the war. Three types of German units await full analysis: the air force field divisions and field corps, the parachute divisions organized after 1941, and the German suicide units in the air force and navy.