Month: August 2026

When Homer Meets Jack Ryan

On By Marc NadeauIn Christopher Nolan, CIA, Dorothy Cox, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Great Britain, Greek Desk, History, Homer, Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Penguin Random House Canada, Rodney Young, Stephen Talty, The Odyssey, United States, William "Wild Bill" Donovan, Winston Churchill, World War IILeave a comment

The pleasure of reading about World War II through the lens of the Greek theatre is seldom found on bookstore shelves. I was therefore thrilled to discover The American School of Spies: The Archaeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece (Dutton) by Stephan Talty. Little did I know when I started that I was about to discover one of the most fascinating stories I have ever read about the convergence of history, academia, and espionage.

The author reminds us that Adolf Hitler’s chief theorist, Alfred Rosenberg, “was hopeful that his men, led by the famous Nazi archaeologist Hans Reinerth, would pull from the ground “pre- and protohistoric Germanic and Slavic finds” that would at long last prove the connection between ancient Greece and the early Germans.” The occupation of Greece proved to be anything but pleasant. According to the author, approximately 5 percent of the population would not survive it. It would also provide the Feldgrau Horde with ample opportunities to seek out the alleged—and entirely imaginary—bridge between the civilization that gave birth to democracy and the warped minds that sought to appropriate its legacy for their own purposes.

Enter William “Wild Bill” Donovan, the former Wall Street lawyer and larger-than-life character whom President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tasked with creating the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the ancestor of the CIA, an intelligence organization designed to help win the war in the shadows. In 1942, Rodney Young, an archaeologist in his thirties who had been assistant director of the American School in Athens, was given a mission. He knew the Greek landscape well, not least from his wartime efforts to reach and assist local populations: following the German invasion, he had found a way to acquire an ambulance to help those in need. As head of the Greek Desk, he would recruit classicists and teach them the art of spycraft “in order to save Greece and its ancient relics”. A Herculean task.

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The Sinews of Victory, the Seeds of Defeat

On By Marc NadeauIn China, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Geopolitics, Germany, Great Britain, History, Phillips Payson O'Brien, PublicAffairs, Russia, Sparta, Sun Tzu, Ukraine, United States, Warfare, XerxesLeave a comment

The fate of war is sealed long before the sound of cannons fills the air. That is the conclusion I reached after reading Phillips Payson O’Brien’s latest book, and it recalls Sun Tzu’s teaching that victorious warriors win first and then go to war.

The argument resonates in a particular way when viewed against the backdrop of a news report according to which “the U.S. Army has significantly depleted its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles” (The Independent). Not necessarily the strongest posture from which to engage a determined enemy. “Going back to the great invasion of Greece by the Persian emperor Xerxes in 480 BCE (sometimes referred to as his second invasion), it can be seen how the largest and most powerful military forces can be crippled by the lack of supply”, writes the acclaimed historian in War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why (PublicAffairs).

Before and beyond the clashes of iron and blood, “war is a test of various systems in a multitude of different ways; it is not a test of armies, and certainly not something that is determined by supposedly decisive battles”. Societies must therefore be willing to sustain the financial, industrial, and moral investments required to prevail when called upon. Alas, “instead of investing in their militaries, western European countries [to which we could add other countries, like Canada] have prioritized their vast welfare states”, as observed by former Senior National Security Adviser to the Australian government John Lee in a recent Foreign Affairs article. Such choices carry a cost—not only for national resources, but also for long-term strategic credibility.

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