Another Remembrance (or Armistice) Day and we are still at war. I posted this in 2004, and have nothing to add or change
November 11 marks the armistice that was supposed to bring an end to the Great War in 1918. In fact, it was little more than a temporary and partial truce in a war that has continued, in one form or another, until the present. Hitler’s War and the various Cold War conflicts were direct continuations of the first Great War, and we are even now dealing with the consequences of the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot agreement.
The Great War was at the root of most of the catastrophes that befell the human race in the 20th century. Communism, Nazism and various forms of virulent nationalism all derived their justification from the ten million dead of 1914-18. Even the apparently hopeful projects that emerged from the war, from the League of Nations to the creation of new states like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia ended in failure or worse. And along with war, conquest and famine came the pestilence of the Spanish Flu, which killed many more millions[1].
And yet this catastrophe was brought about under the leadership of politicians remarkable for their ordinariness. Nothing about Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Bethmann Holllweg or the other leaders on both sides marks them out for the company of Attila or Tamerlane or Stalin. How could men like these continue grinding their populations through years of pointless slaughter, and what led people to follow them? In retrospect, it is surely clear that both sides would have been better if peace had been made on the basis of any of the proposals put up in 1917 on the general basis of of “no annexations or indemnities”. The same was true, in reality, at any time from the outbreak of war in 1914 until the final collapse of the Central Powers, and even then the terms of 1917 would have been better for all than those of Versailles.We should think about this every time we are called to war with sweet-sounding slogans.
War is among the greatest of crimes. It may be the lesser evil on rare occasions, but it is always a crime. On Remembrance Day and always, this is what we should remember.
fn1. It’s not clear whether the War exacerbated the pandemic, for example through massive movements of people and widespread privation. But it seems right to consider them together when we remember the War.
John Quiggin 
Given the ordinariness of the leaders why was the war such a catastrophe? The war was planned and fought as war’s had for a hundred years but the effect of new technology: mass conscription, the railroad, guns and bombs, meant the effect of the war was larger and longer and harsher than ever before.
And the size of the war meant it was not constrained to the army on the battlefield but impacted solidly on every citizen of every combatant country, and sometimes turned the country upside-down.
I am not sure that you can blame everything on WW1, Communism and Fascism I think were to some extent intellectual forces independent of the war. But it certainly took another 50 years to fight them out.
not many people have a good word for war. but if you vote for rudd or howard, you’re voting for war.
not a war of survival, either. they both see votes in it, pandering to the ozzie yearning to be up close and personal to the biggest bully on the block. that’s a guaranttee of some sort of war.
we can hope it will be fought by professionals on someone else’s land, that’s the traditional model.
but the justification of terrorism laws, if they have any justification, is to protect oz from the rage of those people whose land oz is using for henchman exercises. those terrorism laws by themselves may come to be a very high price for the privelege of standing in the emperor’s train.
you don’t have to follow this path.
If one reads some of the history of battles in Europe from the 14th C to the present day, one gets the feeling that it’s all pretty much endlessly connected. Once the main powers of England, France, Germany and Russia became more or less recognisable historically, they seem to have battled almost continuously for mastery of Europe or of large slabs of it.
The only remarkable thing is the relative peacfulness of Europe since 1945. Of course, the Powers just moved the arena elewhere; namely to the Middle East, Korea, Vietnam.
“Hitler’s War and the various Cold War conflicts were direct continuations of the first Great War” – no, they were distinct examples of effects of a continuing underlying collection of causes.
Similarly it is not true that “The Great War was at the root of most of the catastrophes that befell the human race in the 20th century”, for the simple reason that that war was not itself the root but an early outcropping.
Similarly it is not true that “Communism, Nazism and various forms of virulent nationalism all derived their justification from the ten million dead of 1914-18”, just their propaganda points, since their justifications – spurious or not – rested on structures of thought going back before then.
The “apparently hopeful projects that emerged from the war”? Again a confusion of ends and means, assessing things according to their proponents’ intentions. The USA did not take the League of Nations as hopeful; the successful rejection campaign described it as “an evil thing with a holy name”.
“How could men like these continue grinding their populations through years of pointless slaughter, and what led people to follow them?” Taking the second point first, the people weren’t led into it; read Bertrand Russell’s astonishment on discovering that this wasn’t so, contrary to his prejudices – he found that the war was popular, and the people were urging the leaders on. As for the first point, the kind of war then practised was like riding a tiger; there was no safe way of disengaging without becoming vulnerable, and no safe way of not extracting massive reparations without making any victory Pyrrhic, so any disengagement risked that. This made the 1917 ideas impossible – any such agreement would have been welched on by the second side stopping. The terms of 1917 would not have been better for all than those of Versailles, not unless by “all” you are aggregating all the combatants. But in combats, it’s not the good of the whole that matters anyway, it’s the good of each. Even as things turned out, the allies were better off than they would have been with the proposed settlement – bearing in mind what we now know about the huge costs.
Finally, calling war a crime is an abuse of language. I’m not making any quibble over the technicality that there is no jurisdiction to make it a crime. Rather, I’m pointing out that it does not intrinsically contain within itself the atrocities to which the word crime can apply or the tragedies that can come from it. Consider a fire lit by an arsonist, in which someone dies. The fire is not the crime, it is caused by the crime and in turn causes a tragedy. The death itself is not so much a murder in itself as a product and evidence of murder. Why does this matter? Precisely because some wars are justified, while no crime can be.
one justification for war is being attacked, without provocation. are there any others?
To prevent human rights abuses?
At a personal level, if I witness someone being raped – am I justifed in using violence to prevent the rapist continuing?
At a nationstate level, if I know that genocide is occuring within another country, should my country declare war on the perpetrator to prevent the atrocities?
I’d say that in the broadest sense the only real justification is self-defence, but that can be broken down into many more specific cases if you want to classify things according to how to recognise them, not on their underlying nature. For instance, any lawyer worth his salt can frame an aggressive action without using any violent action on a list. For instance, colonial “peaceful penetration” was like that. You could properly take the first overt violent step if the underlying thing you were resisting would otherwise deprive you of what you need. For instance, if India diverted the rivers supplying Pakistan or if Israel took Palestinian water, that would be “peaceful” but would justify violent resistance in certain circumstances.
actually, andrew, i think not. the first problem is, who says so? how do you know genocide is occurring? because some politician says so?
as for an individual country declaring war out of humanitarian motives, and proceeding against u n wishes, well, hard to think of an example. plenty of claims of humanitarian motives, of course, hitler was protecting germans in czechoslovakia, for instance.
but suppose the u n agrees, more or less, that genocide is occurring. then a military force could be sent, wearing the blue beret.
al loomis,
As we are currently seeing in Darfur it can (and does) take many months to assemble a reasonable number of blue berets, never mind the trained soldiers to go under them and transport to get them there.
In that time a lot of people can die.
Throw in the active or passive involvement of one or more permanent UNSC members and there is no real chance of it being stopped before it is finished – and even the perpetrators being punished is unlikely (see Rwanda).
Nice theory, but reality militates against it.
Andrew’s comment puts me very much in mind of the old Vietnam moratorium slogan – “fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity”.
There are two big differences between intervening violently on behalf of a person being raped and launching a war:
– the consequences of a personal intervention are far more foreseeable than the consequences of a war. WW1 and Iraq are very far from the only examples of wars taking on a life of their own.
– you’re only endangering yourself and the rapist. War kills innocents.
Ideas can kill. Getting caught on a bandwagon of bad ideas kills millions.
War may be a bad moral choice, but refusing to fight evil actors such as terrorists is a worse one. The conscientious objector in the Vietnam conflict was a self-indulgence our society could afford, but the outcome of elevating that self-indulgence to a high principle for every member of a society would be a greater evil.
Oh, and where are the human shields that volunteered to prevent America making war? Why are they not protecting schoolteachers and little girls from the Taliban?
I think we all know the answer to that.
How trite.
It all depends on whether the war is winnable.
If there’s one thing worse than fighting a war, it’s losing a war.
Many people objected to the Vietnam War not because of their objection to war in general, but due to their objection to that particular war.
These objections were based on two broad propositions:
1. American victory would be worse than American defeat for the people living in Vietnam.
2. American victory, as pleasing a prospect as that might have been, was impossible, given the level of resources and commitment that the US was prepared to devote to winning hte war.
In other words, in Vietnam, America was doing something worse than fighting a war, they were fighting a war they either could not, or would not, fight to win.
And, of course, the current so-called GWOT, or Long War, or whatever the spinmeisters are calling it this week, is yet another sad example of a war that the US will lose.
“The conscientious objector in the Vietnam conflict was a self-indulgence our society could afford”
Funny, I seem to remember draft resistors being locked up for long periods and not indulged at all. Thanks, ChrisPer, for correcting my memory and making the past fit present propaganda needs. There was I thinking the likes of Simon Townshend were heroes for standing up to the oppressive state, and now I realise they were pampered stooges of evil. Oops, gotta run to that 3-minute Hate!
DD,
Minor correction, in that fighting for peace is not like “f***king” for virginity. After war, peace (of one sort of another) will follow. Virginity cannot be the result of “f***king”.
“At a nationstate level, if I know that genocide is occuring within another country, should my country declare war on the perpetrator to prevent the atrocities?”
Let’s take the rape example. Suppose the only means you have of intervening is by shooting both the rapist and the victim with a machine gun?
Suppose there’s a couple of dozen armed rapists, one of whom is ho9lding a gun on you the whole time?
There is a moral imperative for nations to act to prevent genocide or other atrocities – but only when there’s a realistic expectation that by acting they will effect a net saving of human lifes.
The Tanzanian intervention in Uganda is relevant here. Amin was a monster but by deposing him and then simply leaving, the Tanzanians produced a power vaccuum that resulted in a decade-long civil war.
Or compare the American interventions in Kosovo and during the first Gulf War within the secodn Gulf War.
In both Kosovo and the first gulf war, there was a clear and immediate humanitarian case for intervention and there was clear and limited objective – forcing Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo and Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.
Both military actions were successful.
The second Gulf War was poorly conceived poorly-led and has almost definitely cost more lives than would a continuation of sanctions.
(My comments here are not partisan in nature – Bush Sr. was wholly right to send troops to Somalia, Clinton was wholly wrong to withdraw them.)
Look, it’s an empiric question as much as a moral one. Historically, there has been far more misery caused by uncessary wars than misery caused by failure to pursue necessary wars.
That’s why we hear “Munich” over and over whenever we question our leaders’ rush to election-winning wars; war mongers have very few historic examples to choose from.*** But peace lovers can make a very long list of wars where everybody lost.
It’s not that it’s *never* a good calculated risk to go to war – it’s just that it very rarely is. So those keen to drop bombs on innocent people have a very strong burden of proof.
*** Though even the rights and wrongs of Munich aren’t quite as clear cut as conventional wisdom has it – but that’s a long argument.
DD,
Correct – if the French and British had actually forced Hitler to recognise Versailles by enforcing the demilitarised Rhineland in 1936 WWII (at least in Europe) may not have ever happened. Early and strong action to enforce obvious requirements is much better that late and weak action to try to cap a situation that has already exploded.
But what’s “obvious”?
The Versailles Treaty was quite unusual for its comprehensiveness.
The Weimar regime had already breached the Versailles Treaty before Hitler came to power when they fell short on their payments of reparations. Why didn’t the signatories invade Germany over that breach?
Or is there an unwritten caveat in every treaty that its provisions are enforced only if it suits the enforcers?
Which brngs us back to the Rhineland in 1936. Britain and France had been working hard to sool Germany on to Stalin’s Soviet Union. It didn’t suit either nation at that time to make it seem like they, and not the Soviet Union, were Hitler’s major enemies.
If nations are going to be legalistic about treaty enforcement, then they’d better look carefully at the treaties that they sign.
But of course, in most international conflicts treaty obligations are much less clear than those outlined by Versailles. As a result, self interest is that much more naked.
In most, if not all situations, therefore, the only “obvious” factor is national self interest, as defined by the regime in control.
Hence the moronic inferno of Bush’s Iraq.
Not paying through bankruptcy is hardly a serious breach. Sending in the troops is a little more flagrant.
I would agree on the treaties they sign. Getting some real teeth into Kyoto would be an interesting outcome. Guess which would be the only industrialized country unaffected?
Oh, so when you said “obvious”, you meant “flagrant”.
But AR, the French invaded and occupied the Ruhr in 1923 when the Germans failed to pay their reparations.
Why not do it again in 1932?
I note that you have omitted discussion of the actual driver of action and inaction in realtion to Versailles — national self-interest.
This is an important point because the usual right-wing trope when discussing Allied failures over Versailles and the lead-up to the Munich Crisis is “weakness”. This view is, of course, quite self-serving for every neo-imperialist who has prated on about “Munich” ever since, including Chimpo in the lead-up to Iraq War II.
In fact, however, the appropriate trope when discussing this history isn’t weakness but cynicism.
Katz, you omit two important differences between 1923 and 1936.
1. By 1936, the Versailles Treaty was widely seen as unjust and immoral in the impositions it made on the Germans. Popular hostility to the Germans after World War I had gradually faded and the economic plight of the Germans in the 1920’s had created some sympathy for them.
2. The Great Depression had forced the French to cut military spending. (Somewhere in the 30’s the Belgians also withdrew from their alliance with France and declared neutrality which threw French military planning into disarray. Offhand though I’m unsure if that happened before or after the Rhineland was re-occupied.)
With the wisdom of hindsight and access to German documents and officials, we know that Hitler was bluffing when he re-occupied the Rhineland and that any French resistance would have been disastrous for him. But that’s with the wisdom of hindsight, the French and British erred in their response to the remilitarisation but let’s not attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
No IG, I don’t omit this, AR does.
A treaty, under domestic law, has the same standing as actual legislation. In other words, a government that respects the rule of law enforces its treaty obligations, regardless of circumstances.
But as you correctly observe, nations waxed and waned in their determination to enforce the Versailles Treaty.
Domestic considerations, i.e., popular opinion about the justice of the Versailles Treaty, were just more reasons to wink at German breaches of it in 1932 and 1936.
But when regimes start to refuse to enforce their own laws, that regime is in crisis. This state of affairs reminds me of when during the Vietnam War Australia’s Draft Resisters’ Union invited police forces to arrest individuals for evading the call-up. Fearing political repercussions, the police forces declined to do so.
It appears to me that such Gandhian techniques are invincible against the cynical bellicosity of governments determined to fight a stupid war.
Andrew Says:
November 12th, 2007 at 9:48 am
“At a nationstate level, if I know that genocide is occuring within another country, should my country declare war on the perpetrator to prevent the atrocities?”
Well, let’s see: Dafur – the Bush, Blair and Howard governments did nada. The war in the Congo – same thing. So I’d guess that the answer is ‘no’.