AN UNAVOIDABLE DIGRESSION: WESTERN CIVILIZATION LINGERS IN THE SUMMER OF 1914. The armies of the Imperial German military advanced into Belgium on August 3, 1914. A day later they moved into Poland, an area under Imperial Russian control. Entangling alliances sent a domino effect into motion. France declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Russia mobilized and surged troops into German Prussia. Japan declared war on Germany. Britain denounced the violation of neutral Belgium, and they soon entered the melee. Imperial Germany entered Belgium in accordance with the terms of the Schleiffen Plan, a tactical guideline mandating that if a war broke out with Russia, Germany would have to eliminate France quickly in order to avoid a protracted, calamitous two-front conflict. The relatively backward military of Imperial (czarist) Russia would require more time to mobilize its forces. The powerful armies of the German Empire, then the strongest armed forces in the world, could deal with the Russia in their own time. In order to make the attack on France more rapid and effective, the Imperial German forces chose to pass through Belgium and avoid the rugged, more difficult terrain farther south. The War to End All Wars began one-hundred years ago. Its impact refuses to wane. The interminable conflicts in the Middle-East arose out of the ashes of the Great War. Boundaries drawn in the Middle-East as a result of the War to End All Wars continue to fuel hostilities today. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the “Sick Old Man of Europe,” occurred in the wake of the Great War. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles created the modern country of Kuwait. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles created the modern country of Kuwait. Carving up the defunct Empire into component countries ignored the ethnic composition of its diverse population. Separatist movements among ancient minorities became eventuated out of this misalignment of national boundaries. Violent clashes in contemporary Iraq between Kurds, Sunni and Shiite factions evidence this discord that resulted from the Western superpowers uniting hostile minorities under the same sovereignty without winning their approval. The Arab-Israeli conflict has its roots in the decisions made by European powers during the peace settlement that followed the end of the armed conflict. The Great War set the stage for Jewish and Arab nationalism to collide head-on. Opportunities emerged for Zionism to blossom in the disruption caused by the Great War. Arab nationalist simultaneously began laying their claim on parts of the dismembered Empire. Israeli tanks, a weapon that originated out of the battlefields of World War I, rip the Gaza Strip, and warplanes, another of its innovations, prowl over the skies of the embattled Levant. Tensions fulminating along the Ukrainian-Russian recall the massive clash of arms that occurred a century ago. Czar Nicholas II began mobilization of his armed forces in response to Austro-Hungarian hostilities against Serbia. Kaiser Wilhelm considered this move an act of war. Troop movements along the Russian frontier provided the pretext for war one-hundred years ago. We see a similar scenario evolving today, although we have to admit that the circumstances between the two dramas differ considerably. Dominant superpowers clash over alleged violation of a smaller, weaker nation’s sovereignty. This underlying theme drives the current dispute we have with the Russian Federation. History does not necessarily repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme. The Great War arguably became historys most punishing, mutilating and disfiguring armed conflict for soldiers who fought it. This assessment does not intend to derogate the plucky warriors of World War II, the Korean War or that mess over in Vietnam. All wars cause misery. World War I became exceptional because of the way that inept command handled the remarkable proliferation of mass-murder machines. Military technology outpaced the ability of generals to adapt to it. Soldiers in the trenches paid the price. Some of us had parents who lived through the Great War, and they offered vivid recollections of its impact on the home front. An elderly woman shedding tears over her memory of a Great War veteran maimed by mustard gas becomes an individual and a collective nightmare. The fields of Western Europe continue to yield up their dead. Construction workers excavate to build a project and they accidentally uncover the remains of some of the missing-in-action. An archaeological dig on a medieval site in Belgium turns up a long, grisly line of skeletons, the remains of slaughtered soldiers hastily thrown into a trench and buried for sanitation reasons. A website recently reported more findings: news.msn/in-depth/britain-reburies-soldiers-lost-in-world-ww-i. About a dozen skeletons of German soldiers buried alive during an artillery barrage turned up at a construction site along the northern border of France. The following website describes the macabre reminder: historyextra/17-2. Thoughtful analysis generates a sense of morbid amusement over the casualty statistics that the authorities spout out in the textbooks. Some assert that the War claimed eight- million dead and seventeen- million wounded, including over one-million gas-attack victims. Another source proffers a figure of fourteen -million dead. We will never know the accurate casualty toll caused by the Great War. Tabulating numbers becomes a superficial exercise in the first place, because cold statistics fail to do justice to the enormity of the suffering. Our commemoration of the Great War becomes a séance; it conjures the ghosts of the fallen. They speak to us now about our continued folly. They bemoan the Great Betrayal and their squandered sacrifice. Their spirits mingle silently in our midst and they goad us into a quickening hatred of our current leaders who refuse to acknowledge their lingering presence. This anger becomes especially focused upon those leaders who have the abbreviation (R) attached to their official names. They’re almost always the ones scrapping for another fight so long as somebody else does the bleeding. This agitated talk segues us right into the present crisis in the Ukraine. Few measures promote a Russian invasion of the Ukraine more than a continued barrage of threats and ultimatums leveled at the Kremlin. Jessica Matthews, a spokesperson for the Carnegie Endowment, and another saber-rattling voice for intervention, gave an opinion on our need to meddle in a place where we do not belong. Speaking in a style that reflects an inane, puerile hauteur, she asserted that Vladimir Putin would have second thoughts if U.S. troops took position along the Ukraine-Russian border. This genre of American Exceptionalism constitutes the Trail-of-Dead-Bodies Doctrine. Believing that fear will affect a positive outcome fails to accurately assess the character of the Russian-speaking people. We should not ignore the ominous declaration of Marshal Nikolai Krylov. “The Russian soldier loves a fight and scorns death.” This ferocity becomes especially intense when an intruder appears on their “turf.” We have to answer Ms. Matthew’s vacuity. The Russians will not back down from a perceived threat. Ukraine is to the Russian Federation what Cuba was to the United States during the Missile Crisis. What about these Ukrainian pups? The Ukrainian government conspires to become a falconer with the Eagle perched on its shoulder, and the eagle looms taller than the falconer. “Try messing with us now, Moscow!” This constitutes a tactic as devious as Russia’s arming the rebels. A litany of questions cascades down. What if the eagle refuses to take flight? What pretexts do they have to justify their recent military offensives against alleged separatists? Who really acts as the instigator in this conflict? The Russian nation has fought on the same side as the United States during two world wars. We have to question the wisdom of spitting in an old ally’s face. All right! Targeted sanctions present a sane form of resistance against mounting Russian aggression. Ones that hit the plutocrats where it hurts have a special appeal. No doubt exists that Putin wants to forge a resurgent, new Russia, the undisputed alpha-male of the Eurasian supercontinent. “Broad, sectorial sanctions,” however, carry risks. Mohamed A. El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, suggests that sanctions targeting finance and energy industries could spark a retraction in economic activity because of the inter-related European markets. Nations such as Italy, an economy already slipping into recession, might suffer considerably because of this vindictive tampering with trade. Then again, at least sanctions fall short of starting an outright war. They represent a small step in the civilized direction Now-of course- Putin has retaliated by invoking sanctions of his own. Barring importation of Western agricultural products thrusts the burden of conflict squarely on the backs of the Russian population. We have to doubt that the oligarchs in the Duma, the ones who helped engineer much of the problem, will feel any pain as a result of it. The Russian people need and deserve access to U.S. and European food imports. Due to climatic and topographical characteristics, the Russian Federation has a compromised agricultural capacity. The Ukraine and parts of Southern Russia produce much of the region’s grain and other food products. When the former Soviet republics became independent nations, Russia lost direct control of much of its traditional breadbasket. Alan Clark sums up the persistent, ritual deprivation of the Russian populace: “Privation and sacrifice were, and for centuries had been their habitual condition; and now in the German invader they had a focus for all their misery and resentment.” The Great Patriotic War has earned the Russian nation a lifetime warranty on all parts and services. They have the right to remain part of the international family of nations, and they have the unfettered liberty to give and receive all the services that comes with membership in this family unit. Western leadership must not allow the oligarchs in the Kremlin to exploit this situation in order to stoke nationalistic fervor and anti-American sentiments. Kremlin officials may blame us if food prices in Russian stores put a pinch on that nation’s consumers. The people of the United States always seem to take the blame for everything bad that ever happens. Putin, and not the American people, put these restrictions on food imports in place. American and European vendors remain able and willing to provide the Russian people with the agricultural products they need to provide a comfortable lifestyle. Furthermore, Putin’s retaliation won’t hurt our economy to any considerable degree. The sacrifices of the Russian people make their access to Western commodities, especially food, a right, not a privilege. Anxieties emerge over this tiff. Becoming the scapegoat upon which xenophobic enmities can be deposited represents one of these anxieties. Another one centers upon a more disturbing possibility. Our intuition tells us that if we recklessly aggrieve the Russian-speaking people, we will regret the mistake at many levels. This assessment does not supplant a willingness to defend our rights with appeasement and cowardice. A genuine threat to our security has to arise, however, before we even suggest locking swords with a nation as powerful as the Russian Federation. The frontsoldaten of the Third Reich coined a term for their tough, cunning and persistent foe. They called him “Ivan.” Vladimir Putin, that KGB veteran, displays some of this Russian guile. Sometimes the Bear fights with his wits more than his menacing teeth. A cunning leader yokes adversity to serve his agenda. He can reap a public relations windfall from the current round of head-knocking. The more the Western leaders spit at him, the more cherished he becomes in the eyes of his subjects. His willingness to compromise the well-being of his own people in order to snub the West seems consistent with the behavior of erstwhile Kremlin leaders from Ivan the Terrible right down to Joseph Stalin. Then again, if we play into his hands, don’t we deserve part of the blame?
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 16:18:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015