The Rhyme of History
December 14, 2013 2:28 PM Subscribe
A comparison of the world today with the one that was shattered in 1914. The one-hundredth anniversary of 1914 should make us reflect anew on our vulnerability to human error, sudden catastrophes, and sheer accident. So we have good reason to glance over our shoulders even as we look ahead. History, said Mark Twain, never repeats itself but it rhymes. The past cannot provide us with clear blueprints for how to act, for it offers such a multitude of lessons that it leaves us free to pick and choose among them to suit our own political and ideological inclinations. Still, if we can see past our blinders and take note of the telling parallels between then and now, the ways in which our world resembles that of a hundred years ago, history does give us valuable warnings. An essay by Margarat MacMillan on how the events leading up to WWI can inform our views of the current world order.
But there’s another reason the war continues to haunt us: we still cannot agree why it happened. Was it caused by the overweening ambitions of some of the men in power at the time? Kaiser Wilhelm II and his ministers, for example, wanted a greater Germany with a global reach, so they challenged the naval supremacy of Great Britain. Or does the explanation lie in competing ideologies? National rivalries? Or in the sheer and seemingly unstoppable momentum of militarism? As an arms race accelerated, generals and admirals made plans that became ever more aggressive as well as rigid. Did that make an explosion inevitable? Or would it never have happened had a random event in an Austro-Hungarian backwater not lit the fuse? In the second year of the conflagration that engulfed most of Europe a bitter joke made the rounds: “Have you seen today’s headline? ‘Archduke Found Alive: War a Mistake.’” That is the most dispiriting explanation of all—that the war was simply a blunder that could have been avoided....
e are witnessing, as much as the world of 1914, shifts in the international power structure, with emerging powers challenging the established ones. Just as national rivalries led to mutual suspicions between Britain and the newly ascendant Germany before 1914, the same is happening between the U.S. and China now, and also between China and Japan. And now as then, public opinion can make it difficult for statesmen to maneuver and defuse hostilities....
Today the American president is facing a series of politicians in China who, like those in Germany a century ago, are deeply concerned that their nation be taken seriously. In Putin he must deal with a Russian nationalist who is both wilier and stronger than the unfortunate Tsar Nicholas. Barack Obama, like Woodrow Wilson, is a great orator, capable of laying out his vision of the world and inspiring Americans. But like Wilson at the end of the 1914-18 war, Obama is dealing with a partisan and uncooperative Congress. Perhaps even more worrying, he may be in a position similar to Asquith’s in 1914, presiding over a country so divided internally that it is unwilling or unable to play an active and constructive role in the world.
But there’s another reason the war continues to haunt us: we still cannot agree why it happened. Was it caused by the overweening ambitions of some of the men in power at the time? Kaiser Wilhelm II and his ministers, for example, wanted a greater Germany with a global reach, so they challenged the naval supremacy of Great Britain. Or does the explanation lie in competing ideologies? National rivalries? Or in the sheer and seemingly unstoppable momentum of militarism? As an arms race accelerated, generals and admirals made plans that became ever more aggressive as well as rigid. Did that make an explosion inevitable? Or would it never have happened had a random event in an Austro-Hungarian backwater not lit the fuse? In the second year of the conflagration that engulfed most of Europe a bitter joke made the rounds: “Have you seen today’s headline? ‘Archduke Found Alive: War a Mistake.’” That is the most dispiriting explanation of all—that the war was simply a blunder that could have been avoided....
e are witnessing, as much as the world of 1914, shifts in the international power structure, with emerging powers challenging the established ones. Just as national rivalries led to mutual suspicions between Britain and the newly ascendant Germany before 1914, the same is happening between the U.S. and China now, and also between China and Japan. And now as then, public opinion can make it difficult for statesmen to maneuver and defuse hostilities....
Today the American president is facing a series of politicians in China who, like those in Germany a century ago, are deeply concerned that their nation be taken seriously. In Putin he must deal with a Russian nationalist who is both wilier and stronger than the unfortunate Tsar Nicholas. Barack Obama, like Woodrow Wilson, is a great orator, capable of laying out his vision of the world and inspiring Americans. But like Wilson at the end of the 1914-18 war, Obama is dealing with a partisan and uncooperative Congress. Perhaps even more worrying, he may be in a position similar to Asquith’s in 1914, presiding over a country so divided internally that it is unwilling or unable to play an active and constructive role in the world.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Double. -- restless_nomad
This is, in fact, a double of that thread. The same essay was printed in the NYT. Sorry.
posted by Dreadnought at 2:33 PM on December 14, 2013
posted by Dreadnought at 2:33 PM on December 14, 2013
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posted by dismas at 2:30 PM on December 14, 2013