Radio War Nerd EP #501 — Tecumseh, Pt. 1 + Ukraine War Rug-Pull
Recorded: February 13, 2025
The story of Tecumseh is too big to fit into the War of 1812 episode, so RWN is doing a 2-part series on Tecumseh. This episode: historical context of the hostile world Tecumseh was born into.
First - We discuss the Trump Admin's rug-pull on the Ukraine War cause.
At 30:55 - The War Nerd dives into Tecumseh's back story
*Check out RWN #85 with guest William Hogeland on America's First Forgotten War 1790-4 and his book "Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West"
Total time: 1:22:33
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
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Comments (31)
I think Trump is angling for the 300bn in frozen Russian assets.
I find it odd to say there wasn't sympathy for Ukraine given the number of people who started flying the blue yellow flag off their balcony or windows in real life. Maybe not appetite for hot war but definitely tons of people were spiritually supporting them
I guess the flip side is "how many Americans actually wave the flag." anecdotally it's a decent amount where I live, definitely more than any other foreign war/entity. But it's still extremely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I think John mostly meant in comparison to, say, an American war like Iraq, and how the average Americans openly reacts to that war
Thanks for making this a two-parter. Tecumseh is a fascinating character in a fascinating time period in North American history. The period around the turn of the 19th century was the last time where there was some amount of parity between the various tribal coalitions, fledgling US state, and British interests atempting to shape the future of the continent. Of all the popularly-known native American military leaders, most were essentially famous for "holding out" against the odds in an unwinnable struggle, but Tecumseh was the only one imo whose strategy and success could've meaningful altered the course of history in the US.
You two always come up with such interesting topics.
“The Genocides” is such an awesome novel. Little things like how (in the one chapter sorts told from the aliens’ perspective) the aliens mention they lost X craft due to “mechanical failures”, so presumably humans did shoot down X number but humanity was still utterly destroyed. If anyone wants to read it, it does descend into “humans doing horrible things to each other” territory as the book goes on… cuz there’s no way they can fight the aliens, so it’s mostly infighting… but fhis is written so well ans bleakly it doesn’t annoy me like it does in other apocalyptic novels. Astounding book, and also sorta amazing (to me at least) that basically no other SF alien-invasion writer has had the stomach to doom humanity so thoroughly at novel length. Usually if authors wanna show everyone on earth dying they just write a short story and that’s enough to get the picture. Not Disch!! And 95% of alien-invasion novels ans films are in the Independence Day jingoistic mode where humanity conquers in the end.
Oh, but what is the giant lizard “invasion” story?? I can’t believe I never heard of that one!!
My dumbass NJ high school was called Shawnee. Class of 84 Renegades. Our yearbook was called Tecumseh. Despite the long overdue moves to get rid of racist, Native American sports mascots, those names are still in use as far as I know.
It's been said before but body counts are the loser's way of coping, like when they go "well at least we killed all those jews and russians" or "well at least we killed all those vietnamese/gazans/union soldiers etc" They cant point to having achieved any political objectives so they cope through death counts instead.
Only 6 million natives left in both north and South America at the time? Idk if I heard that right but I don't think that's accurate.
i’ve seen similar estimates around, that appears to be the current consensus.
Hey y’all. I loved your recent episode. I had a couple comments. 1. Orson Scott Card was “cancelled” not for misspeaking about gender but because he was openly anti gay marriage as well as anti gay in general. I haven’t read his work and can’t speak to its value but I think it’s worth knowing the guy was a virulent and vocal homophobe for most of his later life. 2. You mentioned the idea of an “alien invasion” multiple times. I recently watched “Without Warning” and I think you’d really like it. It’s about aliens making contact with mankind and things going…well. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6J4pfT2qLb4 you can rent a higher video quality version off amazon
I loved Enders Game when i read it and was very bummed to find out OSC was a freak.
Idk if this can count as a spoiler since it happened over two centuries ago, but the Northwest Indian War ended with a rug-pull by the British, not unlike what the US is doing to Ukraine at the moment. When the Battle of Fallen Timbers ends in an Indian rout, they run toward the British fort Miami, thinking they’ll find refuge inside. “We’ve been good clients to the British. They’ve invested a lot of guns and money in us- at the very least they’ll want to use us again some other time!” Wrong- the British locked them out! “Sorry old chaps, great power politics, n all that.”
The EU is in panic mode over the comments in Munich. It’s really pathetic, because the main response is still “we should militarise and show the US we’re worth our spot in the imperial order”. And they still blame only Trump. Even though no US government would have supported Ukraine past their use against Russia
By giving up on Ukraine, the Trump admin is ruining one of the main pieces of the pivot to Asia; in other words, upending the existing strategy the US has had in the actual Great Game, played against anyone who challenges its hegemony. Geopolitically, the goal has been to control, or frustrate others’ control, of the world island, Eurasia AND Africa. This has been done by encircling Asia with NATO, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, etc. Biden and co probably hurt this more by escalating the Ukraine conflict but Trump is ending US involvement. In this light, it also makes sense why isreal matters so much, as it is a circuit breaker in-between Eurasia and Africa, pushing any commerce that goes between the two into the seas, where the angloid world is more dominant
Maybe an insane take but given Blinken and Austin’s ties to the arms industry, I don’t really think the loss in Ukraine is lamented. The point was stimulating the market. It’s post Clausewitz war
It may be common knowledge, but with all the talk of land and real estate in this period I was thinking about the Johhny Appleseed story. My understanding of it is that it represents a guy or type of guy from that period who would go out to the Midwest and speculate where a town may crop up ( river junction ect.) And plant a bunch of trees there and move on. Then in a decade when someone came around to settle the land, they had to pay the guy who had been "farming" his orchards there for the land rights. ie: left a ignorable crop on the land to do a real estate grab, basically. Scamming each other since day one
Awesome ep! Have you guys ever done anything on AIM movement, Standing Rock, et al. ?
Way early on in ep #60 they talked to someone covering Standing Rock.
Enthusiasm for the Ukraine war has (for obvious reasons) been fairly strong and popular where I am in Edmonton, Alberta.
I thought it was pronounced “Tec cum see”. In my hometown we have a Tecumseh Avenue and that’s how we pronounce it
I am pumped to hear this. I grew up in London, Ontario and my first job was on London's Tecumseh Avenue. As a kid we'd see re-enactments of the Battle of Longwoods near the historic recreation of Ska-Nah-Doht Village.
I can say that for at least a few generations of millennials Orson Scott Card is a foundational author as Ender’s Game is required reading in school. Really amazing book with big ideas. Card is known for being vehemently xenophobic and anti-LGBT despite portrayals of interethnic camaraderie/understanding and what many consider homo-erotic experiences in his books, particularly Ender’s game.
Well, Card is a Mormon (a direct descendant of Brigham Young, in fact). His prejudices (and his politics in general) are informed by his religion. As for homoerotic experiences in Ender's Game, almost all of the characters are prepubescent children, so I think that's a bit silly to say. The first time any of the characters experiences sexual desire it's actually the one female student from Battle School, who gets horny for Bean in the Shadow books, years after the events in Ender's Game. It is funny that in Ender's Game, Ender's siblings become influential powerbrokers in international politics through shrewd blogging. Also the books portray eugenics as positive, producing the superhuman genetic ubermenschen (girls are too weak and soft though) that will lead humanity into the future. Basically it's what if Khan and the other genetically-engineered supermen who conquered 20th century Earth from Star Trek were the heroes. It's no surprise, therefore, that, much like Heinlein (and Tolkien, unfortunately), Card's writing had strong appeal for sensitive young boys who grew up to be socially maladjusted egomaniacal manchildren (I do not exclude myself from that category).
Even fucking Ukraine over, Trump is about to do more for them than the Biden admin ever did
I donno... isn't the takeaway more that Biden and Trump have the exact same Ukraine strategy, Trump is just honest about it? It's not like Biden and the Democrats are selfless defenders of European democracy and autonomy or whatever. Honestly I'm a little interested in what Ben Aris has to say about all this. I feel like the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Trump's show of contempt for Ukraine contradicts the way Aris talked about the West's attitude towards the conflict. The Ukrainians, the Poles, and the Germans might be more or less earnest about fighting Russia, but it's pretty clear by now that America is the only voice in NATO that matters, and both Democrats and Republicans never had anything but the nastiest, sleaziest, most cynical view of Ukraine. And the Ukrainian ruling class, for their part, are clearly more interested in cannibalizing as much of the country as they can before the Russians steal their place at the buffet table. All the talk about protecting democracy and standing up to Russian imperial aggression and blah blah blah rings incredibly hollow, at this point. It's no surprise that more and more Ukrainian soldiers are no longer willing to fight for a doomed cause just so their leaders can steal more money and the Americans can ghoulishly tally up the number of dead Russians.
Let’s goo
Looking forward to this having just read "Native Nations" by Kathleen Duval
Haha my hometown in Canada has so much named for Tecumseh
Same out here on the Great Plains