On the campaign trail, and hoping to score cheap political shots against his better opponent, John McCain had the following to say about Russia's war with Georgia.
"Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory," he said, interrupted by the sound of jets taking off.
Since then, McCain's rhetoric has become increasingly sharp. On Tuesday, he called Russia an unrepentant combatant against a "brave little nation" and compared Russian "killing" in the "tiny little democracy" to Soviet aggression during the Cold War era.
"We've seen this movie before in Prague and Budapest," McCain said on Fox News. "And I'm not saying we are reigniting the Cold War, but, this is an act of aggression in which we didn't think we'd see in the 21st century. "
Before I go on to my main point, let's dispense with the obligatory political shots first.
Political Points
- Note how similar McCain's language is to that of George W. Bush who also said recently:
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," the president said in a televised statement from the White House, calling on Moscow to sign on to the outlines of a cease-fire as the Georgian government has done.
Both Bush and McCain are right on cue and in sync. If ever there was doubt as to what a McCain presidency would look like, let that doubt go the way of the dodo bird.
- This "gasp! How can we allow such actions in the 21st century" hysteria is bull crap and they know it. The real truth is that only the United States and Israel are allowed to take any such actions. Andrew Sullivan wrote on a slightly unrelated topic but highlighting the point rather well:
Just imagine if the press were to discover a major jail in Gori, occupied by the Russians, where hundreds of Georgians had been dragged in off the streets and tortured and abused? What if we discovered that the orders for this emanated from the Kremlin itself? And what if we had documentary evidence of the ghastliest forms of racist, dehumanizing, abusive practices against the vulnerable as the standard operating procedure of the Russian army - because the prisoners were suspected of resisting the occupying power? Pete Wehner belonged to the administration that did this. It seems to me that, in these circumstances, the question of moral equivalence becomes a live one.
The overall point of electing John McCain is that we will, as a nation, not have learned any lesson from these horrible eight years under George W. Bush, and not have learned the lesson from a previous war that was started in some remote, small, and really, strategically unimportant locale. That locale was Serbia. The war was called the "Great War," "the war to end all wars." And that will be the focus of this diary.
World War One
Before I begin, I admit that I haven't studied World War I in detail for some time. I had read Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August", a highly recommended read on the beginnings of that war. Beyond that (and the rote high school overviews), I am like my fellow Americans who have generally forgotten the reasons for that war. But we should not forget it. Approximately 14 million souls went back to meet their Maker during those years due to the war. While that pales to the 40 million some odd that died in World War Two, one should consider that World War Two would not have occurred without the humiliation in Post World War One Europe. The two wars are closely related and tied. Thus nearly 60 million people died because of the events that started World War One.
I bring up World War One because there are some important lessons to learn from that war. In the two decades before war broke out, the powers of Europe had fought minor wars, or threatened each other with wars. Germany had grown in power and influence, which threatened both Russia and England. Austro/Germanic nationalism felt threatened by Slavic neighbors, particularly in the Balkans. The Germans were not solely to be blamed for the outbreak of war, but they were the aggressors, planning for a way to strike at their opponents. Ferro writes in his book "The Great War":
"A domestic conflict with the Ruthenes and an external one with Serbia and Russia were both blamed for the troubles. The idea of 'settling accounts with the Slavs' by striking down Serbia and Russia took hold of soldiers and civilian leaders---they preached war at the very moment they declared they had no hope of winning it. Balkan wars were not European wars: they were a different world, where the ancestral feuds of clans scarcely merited European interference. Bismarck had said they were not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier. Several times, when conflict threatened between Austria and Russia over Serbians or Bulgarians, Berlin restrained Vienna, Paris held back St. Petersburg. A war here need not become a European war, let along a world war---no one reckoned England would intervene. War between England and Germany was not part of historical tradition: it came from more recent events, not yet wholly assimilated into the national subconscious: its causes lay in a more recent development of rivalry, essentially imperialist in character." (pg. 20)
Ferro goes on to describe how Germany's rise led to an increase in imperialist desires, countering that of Britain (which pulled Britain into the war). Barbara Tuchman describes in her book a German general who said:
"War, he stated, 'is a biological necessity'; it is the carrying out among humankind of 'the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law of the struggle for existence.' Nations, he said, must progress or decay; 'there can be no standing still,' and Germany must choose 'world power or downfall.' Among the nations Germany 'is in social-political respects at the head of all progress in culture' but is 'compressed into narrow, unnatural limits.' She cannot attain her 'great moral ends' without increased political power, an enlarged sphere of influence, and new territory. This increase in power, 'befitting our importance,' and 'which we are entitled to claim,' is a 'political necessity' and 'the first and foremost duty of the State.' In his own italics Bernhardi announced, 'What we now wish to attain must be fought for,' and from here he galloped home to the finish line: 'Conquest this becomes a law of necessity.'
"Having proved the 'necessity' (the favorite word of German military thinkers), Bernhardi proceeded to method. Once the duty to make war is recognized, the secondary duty, to make it successfully, follows. To be successful a state must begin war at the 'most favorable moment' of its own choosing; it has 'the acknowledged right...to secure the proud privilege of such initiative.' Offensive war thus becomes another 'necessity' and a second conclusion inescapable: 'It is incumbent on us...to act on the offensive and strike the first blow.' Bernhardi did not share the Kaiser's concern about the 'odium' that attached to an aggressor. Nor was he reluctant to tell where the blow would fall. It was 'unthinkable,' he wrote, that Germany and France could ever negotiate their problems. 'France must be so completely crushed that she can never cross our path again'; she 'must be annihilated once and for all as a great power.'" (pg. 12-13)
These are just a few snippets of a far larger collection showing that the nations of Europe were coming to an inexorable fight. The Germans hated the French and wished them gone. The French were humiliated in an earlier conflict and lost one of their favored areas on the border with Germany. The French were close to the Russians. The Russians were 'brothers' with the Serbs. The only wild card were the English, who weren't historically antagonistic with the Germans. However, the English felt threatened, no alarmed really, by Germany's meteoric rise to power. Not sixty years earlier, Germany didn't even exist as a nation. Now they were reaching (and later surpassing) England as the most powerful European nation.
Germany's meteoric rise, they felt, was good enough to take one powerful swipe at France, protecting their eastern front from the inevitable Russian support of France. All they needed was a cause, a reason. As Barbara Tuchman writes:
"Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans," Bismarck had predicted, would ignite the next war. The assassination of the Austrian heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914, satisfied his condition.(pg. 85)
Within a month, Serbia was being bombed and everybody mobilized. August was the key month. The Germans had planned to rush through Belgium and straight into France to take out that threat. They had a contingency on the eastern front to hold back Russia for long enough to allow the Western armies a chance to take France. What the Germans were not ready for was the English contingency that forced the Germans into the stalemate. The rest is history. Instead of being "home for Christmas" (the famed phrase of the war), all sides were stuck in a new kind of trench warfare that completely altered tactical warfare, and led to the deaths of millions. No country was ready for the destructive nature of their advanced weapons. The machine gun fundamentally altered the way they fought. The tank changed strategies.
The Lessons
The important lessons to learn from World War One, at least in my view, are the following.
- Conflict may be inevitable because nations refuse, or simply cannot, reconcile themselves with their opponents any other way.
- War won't necessarily solve that conflict, won't lead to a reconciliation. In the case of World War One, this happens to be the case, as not twenty years later, the same nations fought the same battles in the same areas for nearly the same reasons.
- Millions of people die when nations cannot, or refuse to, reconcile.
- A burgeoning power (like Germany in the early 1900s) tends to feel that the only way to increase its power and influence is through the use of its military. As Bernhardi said, it becomes a 'political necessity' that ought to be 'fought for.'
- Small nations are pawns and they ought to be careful who they ally with.
My thoughts
I've been thinking about World War One in relation to today for some time (in fact for the past two years or so). I find many similarities between the United States today and Germany in 1910. We have many Americans, and sadly some of them are in power, who seem to itch for a fight with this or that nation. Burmese military junta doesn't help its cyclone-hammered region to our liking? Bomb them! Iran not doing what we want them to do? Invade them! Russia attacks Georgia? Destroy them! (I do like to pick on William Kristol).
I am worried that too many Americans and many others in places like Iran, Russia, and so on, can't seem to find a way to reconcile. Will an actual war with Russia be inevitable in the near future? I see it heading that way. The Russians have not been happy with all the ways we've been slowly chipping away buffers in their sphere of influence. We're overreacting melodramatically to when they act back. Sadly people like Bill Kristol and John McCain (and their younger followers) are quite strongly holding on to their discredited beliefs. They won't change just because their neo-conservative adventure in Iraq failed. They'll just simply change their targets. These are not honorable men. They will not admit any kind of defeat, because for them, defeat means death. They simply cannot view a world where America isn't involved in some conflict somewhere. We must be involved. If we're not involved somewhere, then something is very wrong.
Unfortunately, because these kinds of people won't go away, they will color and strongly affect even the most rational and wise of us. They will force us to consider their position because of their loud megaphone. In the years before World War One, those who advocated warfare, those who couldn't reconcile, they had the megaphone. They had the key to the propaganda. And it led to the deaths of millions of people. Over what? The assassination of an Austrian heir apparent.
While our world is different today than one hundred years ago, and while Russia and the United States have nuclear weapons that have effectively derailed actual conflict between the two nations for the last sixty years, I get the feeling that Mutually Assured Destruction is not going to last very long as a deterrence.
A comparison of the days before World War One and these days is, clearly, not exact. But the tendencies seem to follow a similar path. We're allowing ourselves to get caught up in the affairs of remote locales as a proxy conflict of a greater kind. Germany really didn't care what happened in the Balkans. It really wasn't important to their interests. Only when it affected their irreconcilable relations with the French and the Russians did it matter. I'm glad the Germans and the French of today get along fairly well. The peace of Europe these past sixty years has truly been an amazing feat. I only hope the leaders of Europe continue down this path, as it means their people won't die in conflict one with another.
The Russians and the Americans must reconcile. They must not allow the affairs of remote locales to lead them into a shooting war no sane person really wants to fight. Can Americans today live with a potent, growing Russia? Can the Russians live with an America that continues to light matches to tinderboxes around the world?
It is sad that the Georgian-Russian conflict came on the same week as the Chinese pulling off a spectacular celebration of the gathering of the world's greatest athletes. What an awesome spectacle to see the world gathered together in peace and fun.
I hope for peace, and I strive for peace. I preach peace. But I am prepared for war. I think this generation's Americans and Russians are not yet ready to reconcile. We may have to see millions more die before we're ready to finally reconcile with our own brothers.