Edward J. Erickson Explained

Edward J. Erickson is a retired regular U.S. Army officer at the Marine Corps University who has written widely on the Ottoman Army during World War I.[1] He is an associate of International Research Associates, Seattle, Washington and as of July 2016 was also listed as an advisory board member of the Ankara-based, Turkish government aligned think-tank, Avrasya Incelemeleri Merkezi (AVIM), which goes by the English name Center for Eurasian Studies.[2] [3]

He has been criticized for his writings denying the Armenian genocide, instead presenting the events as a counterinsurgency campaign.

Biography

Erickson was born in Norwich, New York. After military service as an infantry non-commissioned officer, he was commissioned in the Field Artillery in 1975. During his military career, Erickson served with the 509th Airborne Infantry Battalion, the 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized), the 24th Infantry Division, the 528th Field Artillery Group, and the 42nd Field Artillery Brigade. During the Persian Gulf War, he served as the Operations Officer (S3) of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery in the 3rd Armored Division at the Battle of Wadi Al Batin. In the latter phase of his career, he served in NATO assignments in Izmir, Turkey and in Naples, Italy as a Foreign area officer specializing in Turkey and the Middle East. In 1995, he was assigned to the NATO Headquarters in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he served as a Military Assistant to the Commander, Implementation Force (IFOR) (COMIFOR).

Erickson retired in October 1997 to teach world history at Norwich High School, but was recalled to active duty in March 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom and was assigned as the Political Advisor to Major General Ray Odierno, 4th Infantry Division. After six months in Tikrit, Iraq, Erickson returned to civilian life. During his military service, Erickson was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster. In 2005, he received a Ph.D. in history at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. From 2007 to 2008, Erickson was professor of political science in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, Baghdad, Iraq. Erickson retired as a full professor of military history after teaching for eight years in the War Studies Department at the Command and Staff College, Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia from 2009-2017 and is now an independent scholar.

Views on the Armenian genocide

Erickson claims in various publications that the Armenian genocide relocation of the eastern Ottoman Armenians was a result of a military decision process.[4] [5] In 2004, Vahakn Dadrian published a review of Erickson's Ordered to Die. A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War in the Journal of Political and Military Sociology, characterizing it as "methodologically contaminated" due to the source material (Turkish military archives) and Erickson's relationship to that material.[6] Erickson responded two years later in a letter to the Journal of Political and Military Sociology, explaining the delay as due to being in Iraq and labeling Dadrian's allegations as "deliberate obfuscations, misquotes, and slanderous comments." The journal did not publish the letter.[7]

Erickson's article on Ottoman military policy was also critiqued in an article published in 2014 in Genocide Studies International for an error concerning Armenian volunteer units that fought with the Russian Army. Erickson claimed that they were made up entirely of Ottoman Armenian citizens who had crossed the border into Russia, a claim that is "flatly contradicted by many sources showing that the four volunteer regiments formed were composed primarily of Russian Armenians." The claim is also contradicted by Erickson's earlier 2001 book.[8]

Richard Hovannisian reads the title of the book Ottomans and Armenians as "clearly indicating that, like the Young Turk dictators in their ideological exclusion of Armenians from true Ottoman society, the author does not regard the Armenians as being bona fide Ottoman citizens but, instead, as an internal alien element". Hovannisian also criticizes the book for factual accuracy, stating "The questionable or spurious assertions made in Ottomans and Armenians are far too numerous to list in their entirety."[9]

Writings

Military awards

Notes and References

  1. News: Debate needed - What happened in Armenia?. The Washington Times. May 6, 2011.
  2. Web site: ADVISORY BOARD. AVIM. 28 July 2016.
  3. Web site: INTERVIEW WITH ALEV KILIÇ, DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR EURASIAN STUDIES (AVIM). historyoftruth.com. 28 July 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160316101042/http://www.historyoftruth.com/history/interviews/18444-interview-with-alev-kilic-director-of-center-for-eurasian-studies-avim. 16 March 2016. dead.
  4. Edward J. Erickson, "The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915", War in History, 2008, 15, 141-167; p95; "Captain Larkin and the Turks: The Strategic Impact of the Operations of HMS Doris in Early 1915", Middle Eastern Studies, 2010, XLVI-1, pp. 151-162; "The Armenian Relocations and Ottoman National Security: Military Security or Excuse for Genocide?", Middle East Critique, 2011, XX-3, pp. 291-298.
  5. Erickson, Edward J. "Armenian Massacres: New Records Undercut Old Blame", Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2006
  6. [Dadrian, Vahakn]
  7. Erickson, Edward J. "Ed Erickson Responds To Vahakn Dadrian's Libel" Armenian Genocide Resource Center, 19 May 2006
  8. Kaligian, Dikran M., "Anatomy of Denial: Manipulating Sources and Manufacturing a Rebellion." Fall 2014, Genocide Studies International, p. 217.
  9. Hovannisian . Richard G. . Denial of the Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later: The New Practitioners and Their Trade . Genocide Studies International . 2015 . 9 . 2 . 228–247 . 10.3138/gsi.9.2.04. 155132689 .