Radio War Nerd EP #538 — Battles of Nomonhan Pt. 1: Background, feat. Annibale
Guest: Annibale
Recorded: July 26, 2025
The War Nerd is back, along with our old friend Annibale for our series on the Battles of Nomonhan (Khalkhin Gol) on the eve of WWII, the most consequential battles you've never heard of. This episode, Annibale provides background on Japan's politics and militarism from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 up through the failed 1936 coup in Japan led by ultra-rightist army radicals, known as the February 26 Incident.
Total time: 1:34:54
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
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Comments (33)
wonderful to learn that Italians adore Mel Brooks and Young Frankenstein, Annibale always delivers
A very good, but curious episode. Curious in that the discussion about the beginnings of WW2 was paired with an aside about Gaza, which can be viewed as the end of WW2 in that the Palestinians are being forced to pay for the crimes of the Nazis - in effect if not by design.
Yes. But. Unfortunately there is no end to World War II. The victory of the Communists in China, the partition and war in Korea, the continuation in Indochina until the 1970s, Indonesia, Algeria, the Cold War in Europe all the way to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the aftermath down to the current Ukraine war, nuclear war ("testing") until now, all the re/de-colonization wars for many decades afterward... the madness of the American empire... all of these are in some sense continuations of World War II.
Come on John, spring for a room at the Ritz Carlton
Sounds like Japan was way ahead of its time. No tanks, all Air Force and infantry? Just need drones and they’d roll in 2025. But I guess they’d be the last people on earth to use drones lol
In my opinion, [professional antisemite] Bari Weiss should always be referred to as “professional antisemite Bari Weiss” because of how her career consists entirely of filing the serial numbers off of classic, textbook Jew-baiting.
If you’re going to file the serial numbers off something, *at least* have it be horny fanfiction. Even at its worst Fifty Shades of Grey is substantially more worthwhile than Islamophobic antisemitism. Remember the tv show Tyrant? Extremely Islamophobic, but also: extremely horny.
Very happy that RWN is returning to Japan. And can not think of a better guest (for anything subject really) than Annibale. Looking forward to the next installment!
Im not super into japanese stuff but I always freak out when I hear things like the japanese officers were stupid or they didn't know what they were getting themselves into. And I'm over here like bro they mathematically proved that suicide attacks where more effective and then immediately implemented it. People often confuse crude and vile with stupid and incompetent lol especially in the case of the japanese. Who in my opinion had one of the better officer cores of the big nations. Definitely better than the United States and people don't have the same criticism for us guys like McArthur So always glad to hear Japan deep dive stuff too much pop history surrounding them.
We have imperial japanese political economy as a kind of alt history scenario of what ussr might have looked like if they did not do collectivization but just let private farming develop. Meiji japan initially redistributed daimyo lands to farmers. Kind of like what happened in Russian countryside spontaneously during the revolution. Then they just allowed more prosperous farmers to develop and a large rural poor developed who were the tenants and debtors of said prosperous peasants. Urban industrialization was pretty fast but not fast enough to absorb most of this rural poor and the radical army officers who tried to do coups came from this rural poor background.
Any HO IV gamer knows this battle
Feels wrong to not call it the battle of Khalkhin Gol
I'm afflicted by a bad case of part 1 blue balls
Leaked emails revealed that Truman bombed Japan to prevent formation of a United States of Asia
Have you ever mentioned Malaparte on the show? I would be curious to hear Annibale's take on him. Kaputt and The Skin are both quite good.
What was the book Annibale recommended to Mark about the batttle?
God I can't wait for the next episode
I want to make one thing clear: the BBC and Guardian (no one mentioned how batshit that reporter’s story thesis even was) and the NYT and now Obama are taking a victory lap. They are spiking the football on something that they will never stop and that no one else can stop. The west is still winning and the rest of the world has yet to reckon with what a truly pissed of U.S. government can really do. You cannot do anything and will not. And fuck you. They rule the world because they are precisely this evil
I don’t necessarily disagree but I’m a bit confused on why these outlets would do a victory lap by being more critical of Israel than usual. If ya listen to the Israelis they’re (as usual) losing their mind over the mainstream coverage of the Gaza starvation/forced famine. No matter how tame the media takes all are . It’s not smart for business for them to “victory lap” even in the most cold blooded way. They’re just covering their asses because the public perception has completely flipped without them
Super excited for this series, but I wonder what Annibale’s thoughts are on One Piece? If any-
Annibale animanga tier list when
Nomonhan plays a nice side part in the Haruki Murakami novel The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. "Dying is the only way to fly free - Nomonhan"
I’ve been listening to the return of the repressed podcast series about the holodomor and bioweapon science being shared between proto third reich characters and imperial japan. The conclusions might be too conjectural for the war nerd’s taste, but if nothing else it elaborates on how sympathetic the two powers were to each other. And how many of the elites from both went back and forth prior to WWII. Also, regarding the protocols of the elders and Japan admiring it, if you consider the origin of it and consider it as a confession or aspiration of the euro-monarchist-nazi-reactionary-total war apparatus the two powers are in agreement that it is a nice blueprint.
Was gonna mention this too. that episode was insane. He’s a great researcher.
Everyone tweeted about Gaza… except California senator Adam Schiff. That Russiagate hyping, Colbert schmoozing fuck who represents my state won’t even go that far
He’s a scumbag, a bum, an ass-kissing punk.
EeeeeTLer
It's such a struggle to understand him that I usually skip these episodes.
“Pt. 1” now that’s what I’m talking about right there
Imagine having Annibale on a pub quiz. He'd be a human cheat code.
Let’s go I’ve seen this battles name so many times hyped to learn about it
Yesssssss
LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO