the 20th century failure of wars of aggression

[yurbud]

Excellent analysis by Israeli scholar of both world wars, Vietnam, and Israel's wars, which most of us think of them winning.

THE SECOND World War was, seemingly, more rational. The man who launched it practically single-handed, Adolf Hitler, knew exactly what he wanted. His opponents went to war because they had no choice, if they did not want to be overrun by a monstrous dictator. Most of the generals on both sides were far more intelligent than their predecessors.

And in spite of this, it was a stupid war.

Hitler was, basically, a primitive person who lived in the past and did not understand the Zeitgeist. He wanted to turn Germany into the leading world power - an aim that was wildly beyond its capabilities. He intended to conquer large parts of Eastern Europe and to empty them of their inhabitants, in order to settle Germans there. That was a hopelessly obsolete concept of power. Like all ideas of establishing settlements as a national instrument, it belonged to centuries past. Hitler did not understand the meaning of the technological revolution that was about to change the face of the world. It can be said: Hitler was not only an evil tyrant and a monumental war criminal, but ultimately also a thoroughly stupid person.

The only aim that he almost achieved was the annihilation of the Jewish people. But even this mad endeavor failed in the end: Jews today have a strong influence on the most powerful country in the world, and the Holocaust played an important role in the establishment of the State of Israel.

Hitler wanted to destroy the Soviet Union and reach a compromise with the British Empire. He belittled the United States and almost ignored it. The result of the war was that the Soviet Union took over a large part of Europe, America became the main world power and the British Empire disintegrated forever.

Indeed, the Nazi dictator proved, more than anybody else, the utter futility of war as a political instrument at this point in time. After the destruction of Hitler's Reich, Germany did achieve his goal. Germany is now the dominant economic and political power in a united Europe - but this was attained not with tanks and heavy guns, without war and military might, solely by diplomacy and exports. One generation after all the German cities had become heaps of ruins in the Nazi adventure, Germany was already flourishing as never before.

http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery04292008.html">FULL TEXT

[Jim__]

1. I agree that wars of aggression are stupid. I can't agree with the analysis in the article.

WWII was mostly a creation of the Treaty of Versailles. Most of the German people believed that they were winning WWI - understandable since Russia had made peace with Germany. So, the treaty, with its completely unmanageable reparations that it placed on Germany and the ensuing economic chaos that it brought to Germany, led to any number of Hitler's vying for power. Hitler got power, but, if not him, it probably would have been someone else. Germany couldn't keep paying the reparations, but France, in particular, wouldn't release them from this obligation.

The article says that Germany finally achieved its goal of gaining power. I don't believe it has attained anything like what Hitler wanted. And, I'm not sure they would be where they are today if not for WWII. WWII led the other countries to understand that if you subject a country to extremely adverse conditions, conditions like Versailles imposed, then that country will rebel and potentially wreak havoc..

The peace after WWII was largely achieved because of the lessons learned from the bad peace after WWI. One of the lessons was WWII.

[yurbud]

2. the point was that Germany acheived economic dominance in spite of Hitler's war

[Jim__]

3. I know. And I disagree.

[cliss]

4. I think the point here is that war as a policy tool

is completely ineffective. It never accomplishes anything. Whatever the original war planners thought they could achieve by rolling out the heavy artillery, smashing local populations.

Warfare is filled with unexpected events, surprises, and the original planners getting sucked in incrementally until it becomes a quag mire.