We historians are a pessimistic lot, I think. It is hard to study history and not see the great capacity humans have for hurting each other. And while history doesn't repeat itself, it does often rhyme, to quote the phrase. Max Fisher writes a terrifying article in Vox.com about the very real possibility of World War III with Russia. It is more likely than I thought possible. It is true that very often, the first 20-30 years of a new century are fraught with unrest, war, change, and revolution. Our own time is quite ripe for a major upheaval. We've lived in comfortable times for a long time now, and perhaps we've forgotten what it is to be really afraid and insecure in our daily lives.
We've also lived with the averted spectacle of nuclear war for so many years that I think many of us have forgotten the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Fisher:
"Europe today looks disturbingly similar to the Europe of just over 100 years ago, on the eve of World War I. It is a tangle of military commitments and defense pledges, some of them unclear and thus easier to trigger. Its leaders have given vague signals for what would and would not lead to war. Its political tensions have become military buildups. Its nations are teetering on an unstable balance of power, barely held together by a Cold War–era alliance that no longer quite applies.
If you take a walk around Washington or a Western European capital today, there is no feeling of looming catastrophe. The threats are too complex, with many moving pieces and overlapping layers of risk adding up to a larger danger that is less obvious. People can be forgiven for not seeing the cloud hanging over them, for feeling that all is well — even as in Eastern Europe they are digging in for war. But this complacency is itself part of the problem, making the threat more difficult to foresee, to manage, or, potentially, to avert."
I'll admit it, I'm afraid. Afraid for my family, for my children, afraid for the world we may all have to inhabit if Russia pulls the nuclear trigger. 100 years ago, the Great War brought down the entire political system of Europe--almost all the monarchies crumbled, ways of life were obliterated, catastrophic loss of life on all sides of the conflict, and a whole generation of young men killed or maimed in body and soul. The Treaty of Versailles set the conditions for the conflicts of the 30 years that followed.
I understand very well why Russians feel so paranoid--we in the West have a short collective memory; it is hard for us to live into the reality of the Eastern mind that remembers everything in present tense. Russia spent most of its long history fending off invaders, and has a long collective memory of occupation and armed conflict on its borders. There are no natural barriers to prevent invasion from the West (the Urals are the first major geographical boundary, and they are quite far into Russian territory), and in the last 500 years, Russia saw Western invasions from Poland, Ukraine, France, and Germany. The Eastern side saw repeated invasion and brutal occupation by the Mongols. My interpretation of the current situation is that the belligerence isn't so much aggression as it is basic fear of invasion. The chest thumping that Putin engages in is a show for the people, a way of saying that he, Putin, will protect the people when the invasion comes. It may not correspond with the political or military reality on either side of the issue, but these things are not always rational or logical. But then, that is how war is made. And sometimes, the sky really is falling.
(Fisher's article is fairly long, but Rod Dreher has a nice excerpt on his blog today)
Pray for the peace of the world.
