wis·dom \ˈwiz-dəm\ - noun The natural ability to understand things that most other people cannot understand, particularly deficient in most politicians, bureaucrats, and others charged with the safety and general welfare of the public. Today is the centenary of the German Empires declaration of war on France, the precipitating event of what most history books call the First World War. But histories, particularly recent histories of events within the living memories of historians, tend to be short sighted and parochial. Only now, a hundred years later, are we beginning to understand the consequences of the trigger pulled by Gavrilo Princip one hundred years ago, and the world that would would be washed away by war and all that came after. In fact, Im fairly certain 3 August 1914 will become known as the start of the Seventy-Five-Years War, or the beginning of the Short Twentieth Century, which ever suits your fancy. Why the Seventy-Five-Years War? Because World War I, World War II and the Cold War can only be fully understood and properly examined as a single continuing conflict, a period in which the major first world powers (the European Empires followed by the Russian and American Empires) sought world domination through military and/or economic means, terminated only by the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the rise of third world powers (e.g., Brazil, China and India) to economic and political prominence. Why the Short Twentieth Century? Because few other centuries in recent world history are so starkly punctuated by a clear beginning and ending. August 3, 1914 marked the end of a decade and a half sleepy continuation of nineteenth century business as usual. The major European Empires (British, Russian, French, Dutch, Belgian, German, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian) were mostly monarchies - some constitutional, some absolute, jockeying for political and economic dominance of Europe and the third world. America continued its history of isolationism, its pretensions to empire still four decades in the future. The collapse of the Soviet Empire ()beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989) more than any other event, marks the end of the twentieth century status quo, and the rise of the information age, the political and economic flowering of third world powers, and the appearance of non-state sponsored terrorism, and the threat to world political and economic stability by climate change and ecosystem collapse. As I sit here this morning skipping through old news reals, photos, and memoirs of 3 August 1914, I am struck by the naiveté and utter lack of foresight on the part of both the politicians and the public. In Berlin, London, Paris, Saint Petersburg, Vienna and other regional capitols, one sees vast cheering crowds celebrating the arrival of war, the chance to settle old scores and, particularly saddening, the belief prevalent among many young men that joining this conflict was their only real chance to prove the mettle of their manhood. Everyone - from the Prime Ministers, to newspaper editors, to the people on the streets - was certain in their belief that the conflict would be brief and cost little. After all, Europe hadnt witnessed a truly destructive war on a such a massive scale since Napoleons troops rampaged across Europe a little more than a century earlier,. Despite the common wisdom, this war would not be over by Christmas, nor would it resemble any war in the collective memory of Europe in the number of war dead nor the horrendous loss of civilian life and property. This would be the first war fought by scientific means, with all the paraphernalia of technology from tanks and planes to bombs, gas, and biological agents thrown into the fray. And it would change forever the norms of war, setting the stage for the collective murder of over 150 million souls from 1914 to 1945 and place within the hands of men the ability in a matter of minutes to murder billions. So on this day, I wonder what, if anything, we have learned from the expenditure of so much blood and treasure. Military conflicts fester every where, whether state-sponsored warfare or stateless acts of terror. Collateral damage, a euphemism offensive in the extreme, is not only common place, but a cruelly calculated component of conflict enthusiastically practiced. And although progress has been made to pull back from the nuclear brink, more than enough atom bombs remain scattered across the globe to ensure Armageddon if the right set of circumstances come together. And what might those be? Who can say. I doubt that anyone in Europe in the summer of 1914 seriously believed the assassination of the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by a handful of disgruntled terrorists would lead to global war, the deaths of tens of millions of people across the world, the collapse of every European empire save one, the rise of Communism and genesis of the Soviet Union, or the collapse of the world economy, and the negation of virtually every political and economic notion of common wisdom.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 19:04:16 +0000
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