For the most part, the nefarious elements of the US government seem to have heard of only one war: World War II in Europe. This is because whatever they forget or mistake in this war is rightly planned and initiated by a very evil and megalomaniac force that threatens the entire world, is bound to lose completely, and stands up to nothing. it was possible to reach a morally acceptable compromise.
Perennial and exclusive references to this war allow US furries to present every conflict they want to engage America in as an existential struggle against an evil that, if not engaged in, will have catastrophic consequences for America and the world. This applies to their approach to the current war in Ukraine through Iraq to Vietnam, with disastrous results for America and the world.
However, this is what makes World War II so special. The vast majority of wars in modern history, and indeed in American history, have been more morally complex in origin and ended in some sort of messy compromise rather than complete victory for one side. Most wars (including World War II) feature laws with unintended consequences. The results are often not what the “winners” predicted or desired.
For the most part, the nefarious elements of the US government seem to have heard of only one war: World War II in Europe. This is because whatever they forget or mistake in this war is rightly planned and initiated by a very evil and megalomaniac force that threatens the entire world, is bound to lose completely, and stands up to nothing. it was possible to reach a morally acceptable compromise.
Perennial and exclusive references to this war allow US furries to present every conflict they want to engage America in as an existential struggle against an evil that, if not engaged in, will have catastrophic consequences for America and the world. This applies to their approach to the current war in Ukraine through Iraq to Vietnam, with disastrous results for America and the world.
However, this is what makes World War II so special. The vast majority of wars in modern history, and indeed in American history, have been more morally complex in origin and ended in some sort of messy compromise rather than complete victory for one side. Most wars (including World War II) feature laws with unintended consequences. The results are often not what the “winners” predicted or desired.
In this respect, World War I is a much better historical analogy for the current war in Ukraine than World War II. Between 1914 and 1918, more than 20 million people died, about half of them civilians. Even the French and British victorious nations came out crippled. The aftermath of World War I, including the communist revolution in Russia and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, paved the way for World War II.
Of all the leading figures, it can be said that only Vladimir Lenin, who predicted that the war would lead to revolution, was more accurate in his pre-war analysis. No one else’s prediction came true. If governments in 1914 had been allowed to see the future, no one would have thought the war was worth it. Or as a French farmer near Verdun told Alistair Horne, a British historian of the Battle of Verdun half a century later, “Ils etaient fous, ces gens-la”: These men were mad.
Today, no serious historian or generally educated person would argue that the conflict was necessary and served the real interests of any of the participants, or that it was necessary or wise to continue the war in order to achieve complete victory. 112 years later, it seems clear that in adopting and continuing the policies that led to the war, all of Europe’s ruling elites fundamentally misjudged the true interests of their countries.
As for moral culpability for the war, even in Germany, most historians today admit that it rests largely with the German government. It was only Berlin’s decision to encourage the German government of Austria to attack Serbia in response to the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne. Germany was even more guilty of its legally and morally indefensible attack on Belgium, which brought the British Empire into the war.
However, at the same time, very few historians today believe that Germany is solely to blame for the war. In particular, the criminal folly of the Russian imperial government in forming an alliance with Serbia, which encouraged Serbian nationalists to advance their irredentist claim to Austrian-held Bosnia, and emboldened the Serbian secret service to covertly support a campaign of terror against Austria. leading to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and providing the spark that ignited the war.
Russia’s support for Serbia ignored not only the fanatical and reckless nature of Serbian nationalism, but also the fact that the nationalist claims of various Slavic peoples against the Austro-Hungarian Empire threatened to destroy the crumbling empire and thereby destroy the entire German geopolitical world. and the ethnic situation in Central Europe. It should have been clear to any reasonable Russian official that this was a matter of entering a war in which Germany threatened to destroy Russia. Indeed, some Russians have pointed this out, but their advice has been ignored by the Russian authorities, which are committed to geopolitical ambitions that exceed Russia’s real power and Russia’s real interests.
Aspects of German politics during World War II were particularly bad in accordance with the particularly evil racist ideology described in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In the First World War, things look much less clear. The Allied propaganda line that the war was a war of democracies against autocrats, until it collapsed in 1917, made it ironic that the Russian Empire was a key ally against Germany. Of course, the colonial empires of Britain and France were not democratic.
In the realm of war crimes, Germany’s strategy of endless submarine warfare to starve Britain into surrender was viewed in Britain and America as a terrible and outright war crime. Not for nothing did the Germans claim that this was a response to Britain’s strategy of starving Germany into submission by the Royal Navy through a blockade of German maritime trade. The German submarine strategy was very foolish because it ultimately led America to war against Germany and thereby ensured Germany’s defeat. But stupidity, however extreme, is not a war crime.
The Germans also pointed out that it was a British tactic (which, by the way, was entirely in accordance with the traditional laws of war) to take British warships under the guise of unarmed merchantmen (“Q ships”) and then sink German submarines that attempted to inspect them. All ships must be torpedoed without warning. Once again, 112 years later, we can honor the brave men who died on both sides, without taking a moral high ground or regretting their suffering.
Today, we can all agree that the main responsibility for the war in Ukraine lies with the Russian government that invaded Ukraine. But will future historians blame Russia alone and blame the US and NATO member governments for trying to integrate Ukraine with the West, scaring both Russians and a number of Western experts (including the current leader)? CIA officer William Burns) warned that Moscow viewed as important Russian interests?
As for war crimes, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its forcible annexation of Ukrainian territory are both serious crimes under international law for which I hope President Vladimir Putin will one day be held accountable. Russian soldiers have committed many crimes against Ukrainian citizens, for which the Ukrainian authorities should bring them to court. The Russian high command showed indifference at least to civilian casualties in the air operation against Ukraine. However, we must be very careful not to portray these crimes as somehow culturally specific to Russians or as “genocide,” if only for the obvious reason that Western powers themselves have committed similar acts. Using the label “genocide” in this way puts American and British commanders and aircrews in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Syria on the same level as Hitler’s SS and Rwandan Hutu troops, a morally and historically grotesque proposition.
Amnesty International’s report criticizing Russian and Ukrainian actions in the war was done fairly, but for the wrong reason. The correct charges against him were legal ignorance and practical simplicity. The fact that war is illegal does not make everything committed by the aggressor a war crime. According to the laws of war, it is not a crime for Ukrainian forces to establish a position in populated areas, otherwise they cannot defend their country at all. But the bombing of those positions by Russian forces is not a crime either. All this is very clearly stated in international treaties and conventions on the laws of war. Above all, we must not allow justified moral indignation to degenerate into hypocritical moral hysteria, which, as it did during the First World War, can easily become an obstacle to the pursuit of a peace settlement that serves our own interests and those of the victims of war. .
The same applies to negotiations on the territory. If it seems preposterous today that millions of German, French and British soldiers should die in a war over whether Sarajevo should be ruled by the Austrians or the Serbs, consider the modern example of Sevastopol, the Russian naval base in Crimea. . The current line of the US administration and most American structures is that peace negotiations are the business of the Ukrainian government only. And the Ukrainian government has repeatedly announced that its goal is to push Russia out of all the territories it has occupied in Ukraine, including Crimea. Ukraine’s recent military advances mean that such a complete Ukrainian victory is at least possible.
Thirty years ago, the vast majority of Americans thought that Crimea was part of Russia, even before the Soviet government decreed it to Ukraine in 1954. Before the Russian invasion in 1783, the peninsula was ruled by the Tatars, before that by the Byzantines, before that by the Scythians, and before that, well, whoever that was, certainly not by the Ukrainians.
Every official Russian I spoke to, and most ordinary Russians, said that to defend Crimea, Russia should use nuclear weapons as a last resort, just as the US defended Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. This would likely set off a cascade of escalation that would lead to the destruction of America, Russia, and civilization in a nuclear war.
We don’t need to wait 112 years for historians (if there are any) to say that this is not an outcome that serves the interests of any country, including Ukraine, and that the risks far outweigh the potential benefits for the United Nations. states. By repelling the Russian invasion, Ukraine has already won a great victory with the help of the West and secured its independence and freedom to try to join the West. For the Biden administration to go beyond that and pursue a total victory for Ukraine seems unwarranted arrogance on the part of Washington. Nor do we need historians of the future or the lessons of World War I to tell us that revenge always leads to enmity.
