This month marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the loudest and most terminal death-knell of the Communist empire. Virtually nobody much under the age of 40 today (especially in North America and outside of Europe in general) recognized the significance of the event at the time, and correspondingly don't care too much today.
Indeed, today the Cold War is scarcely even on the radar as a historical period for most people. Since we avoided WW3 I suppose that's unavoidable, but the USSR didn't collapse because we ignored them and hoped they'd go away. Gen. Patton didn't get his wish in 1945 to re-arm the Germans and head east, but they were pretty aggressively contained from that time forward.
Stalin to this day still doesn't have the bad rep of Hitler even though he killed a lot more of his own people than Adolf could ever have dreamed of doing. That said, the generation that had just beaten the (arguably) best military machine in history into the ground knew a threat when they saw one. The political will to fight another major war in Eurasia after six (or 3.5) years of war was simply not there, but the sacrifices made to rid Europe of a blighted ideology would not be completely squandered. If there is anything positive to remember about American foreign policy, it is from that period immediately after WW2.
The USA is broken, and I'm not sure it will ever reach the heights it had the potential to. It did keep the Commies from taking everything over, and that was a great service to the world even if no-one appreciates it now. All of the future tech, space travel, flying cars, etc. should have come from the US, but they are strangling themselves in bureaucracy, political correctness and entitlements.
In the meantime, history marches on. Sorry Francis Fukuyama, you were incredibly wrong, and anyone who actually paid attention to history and current events, 20 years ago as much as today would have known it. I sure did. I read something a long time ago about it being possible to kill pessimists, but optimists would take care of themselves for you. Neoconservatives are a special kind of optimist, the kind that gets a lot of other people killed for their good intentions. They are not alone in this, but I'm not big on labels and categories and these guys are just a big, obvious target.
There was a certain atmosphere that night in November 1989 when the TV images of people smashing the Berlin Wall with sledge hammers started showing up. I was just old enough (and historically aware enough) at the time to be amazed at it, as I knew I was seeing a turning point in history. I was a young soldier back then, and it was until that moment theoretically possible (however unlikely by the late 1980s) that I could get dragged into WW3 in Europe. Knowing that something as big as that had moved from a possibility to an impossibility, just like that... well, I guess you had to be there.
I have good days and bad days like anyone else, but my crystal ball is on the blink and I have no idea where things will go from here. The one thing I do know is that they will go somewhere, but my ability to predict things is pretty much limited to the tactical level, "Gods of the Copybook Headings" kind of things.
I observe (with apprehension, quite frequently) the world that I can see, and history is the keel ballast that keeps me from tipping over completely. As dark as things have ever been, (and things are no worse in that regard today than most times in the past) it never stays like that for good or ill. Will Islam conquer the world (my biggest personal concern)? On balance, not likely. It is the new "Other", and with good cause, as it is as soul-suckingly backwards as Communism in it's worst incarnations, but it has only ever conquered in a relative vacuum. As long as we have the will to fight it, it will not be able to take over.
Are there other things that threaten us? The climate worries some people, but I'm not one of them. It's going to do what it's going to do, and all we can do is make things worse for ourselves if we try to fight it. Nature is BIG, and we are not, so adapt. That, after all is what humanity is best at, and for the record adapting to warmer is easier than adapting to colder.
I saw the Taliban described somewhere today as deranged "fanboys", and it is the most spot-on description of the sort of guy who is attracted to Salafist, etc. Islam I can remember. It's a gang, and it attracts the disaffected and damaged, the simple and the brutal. Communism at least aimed for the intellectuals.
Another historical lesson for those who care to learn it: moderates always get their asses kicked by those willing to go all out for what they believe. The rare case where relatively moderate ideals beat fanatics was (partially) met by WW2. The "partially" is due to the fact that most of the damage was done on the Eastern Front, and we forget that at our peril. The lesson to learn from that is to have some "true believer" allies to do the dirty stuff. Back them with everything you can, but if they'll fight harder than your nationals, let them do it since they're motivated. Think of Ethiopia vs. Somalia.
Europe 20 years after the Wall came down is the canary for Western civilization. There was a time when it was the West, but now it's merely the front line. The Muslims have started to make themselves really unpopular in most European countries. This is still a problem, as 300 years ago they would have been fought on the frontiers, and 200 years ago they were getting booted out of their footholds. The shame is that the Greeks screwed up in 1919-22 and didn't take back Constantinople, then at least the front line would be on the other side of the Dardanelles.
Knocking over strongmen to try to implant democracy is not the future, as it isn't the past; if it didn't work before in some recognizable form, it won't work in your version of it either.
'When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
Sound anything like "Change you can believe in"? I like the fact that the Yanks have a lot of nukes; I'd like it even more if I thought they were willing to use them if need be. That sounds frightening, but if you're willing to go to the wall, the other people who have nukes will make sure they don't end up in the hands of people who'll piss you off. THAT is what I believe in; si vis pacem, para bellum . If you follow that, you're covered no matter what.
I like solutions to things, but many solutions are rather more "final" than our society would find acceptable so we half-ass a lot of things. The gap between the intellectual elite and the disappearing middle and working class is wide, and I think my opinions are more in sync with the latter group. That says something (assuming that I'm not out to lunch), but I'll let you tell me because I'm not even sure what I really think about a lot of things anymore! It's not like we'll ever try to SOLVE the big problems; we'll just hope that the elephants in the room don't sit on us.
No comments:
Post a Comment