June 5, 2007

Discussion forum for WORLD WAR II AND THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR.

I placed the phrase “Global War on Terror” in quotes on first use to acknowledge that the phrase is used with some degree of irony and self-awareness. I am aware that the events leading up to and following September 11, 2001 do not fall neatly into traditional definitions of war. I am also aware that the definition of the current struggle as a global war on “Terror” presupposes a belief that the root of the problem is violent terrorism, rather than a belief that the problem is, for example, American or Western oppression of Palestine and the Islamic countries.

In the days following 9/11, the British historian Michael Howard argued eloquently for framing the action against Afghanistan as “a police action.” In the midst of the first Bush Administration, Donald Rumsfeld attempted to rebrand the GWOT as the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, or GSAVE (pronounced “Jesus Saves”, according to snarky blog commenter Jeff Huber). Many other voices have offered similar, seemingly rational arguments for changing the nomenclature. Yet none of these coinages have “stuck”, for the simple reason that the current President of the United States firmly believes that he is engaged in a global war on terror.

What will we call the current struggle when the Bush administration comes to its end, so eagerly anticipated by so many? It is reasonable to suspect that there will be some change in vocabulary. A Democratic administration will probably talk more about bilateral, multilateral, and international cooperation and less about war.. Even a Republican administration may well make some strategic adjustments in its terminology. Going forward, the public vocabulary will likely be less global, less bellicose, and less Manichaean.

Nevertheless, I suspect that future historians will find that our President’s linguistic stubbornness or statesmanlike consistency—call it what you will—has left them with little alternative but to refer to the current conflict (at least the portion from 2001 to 2009) as the Global War on Terror. For the reasons mentioned above, I will do the same.

FOXNews.com - U.S. Warship Fires Warning Shots Over Vessel Boarded by Pirates Off Somali Coast - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

The U.S. Navy has fired warning shots across the bow of a Dutch ship that has been boarded by armed pirates off the coast of Somalia, FOX News has learned.

The USS Carter Hall also fired on three small boats that surrounded the commercial ship, the “Danica White,” after her crew messaged for assistance after being boarded by pirates, the Navy said.

There’s a reasonable chance that the pirates are better armed than the CARTER HALL, which has:

Armament: Two 25mm MK 38 Machine Guns, Two 20mm Phalanx CIWS mounts and Six .50 cal. machine guns.

CARTER HALL will be hard put to do other than put bullet holes in the superstructure … unless they board!

Technorati Tags: Carter Hall

The purpose of this book is to mine the military history of World War II for ideas and insights that may be helpful in understanding the “Global War on Terror.” I hasten to add that I do not advance a simple-minded equation between the two global struggles. I merely suggest that there are enough similarities to sustain interesting discussion. At the macro level, World War II was an effort by various major powers to recast the world system to their advantage. Does that sound anything like what’s happening today?

To be sure, the current struggle is different in many ways. To name just one, non-state organizations like al Qaeda and Hezbollah have played a major role in the most dramatic events of the period. But one might argue that the very reason non-state organizations have been so active is that the Western powers enforce a world system in which the power of the formerly “colonial” states is severely limited. In this light, the new power of non-state organizations is, fundamentally, a reaction to the system of international relations. In this view, it is no accident that the formerly colonial nations of the world have produced most of the angry non-state actors.

Furthermore, one must acknowledge that in many ways the current era is quite familiar, as conventional nation-states are working assiduously to recast the world system to their advantage. In that respect, the current period seems a lot like other periods of convulsive global change such as the Napoleonic era, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

At the micro level, some things are familiar, some things are not. Just as in WWII, G.I.s are riding around in trucks and relying on superior firepower while America sends expeditionary forces to the far corners of the earth in pursuit of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But the “coalition of the willing” is a lot less robust than the Allied Coalition in World War II when either the United States or the Soviet Union, standing alone, had enough industrial power to overwhelm any combination of the Axis powers. Similarly, despite the flip David Shrum coinage of the phrase “Axis of Evil,” the “Axis” in the current struggle is in many respects different from the actual Axis of World War II. Palestinian homeboys being crushed by Israeli bulldozers are a lot more sympathetic than Nazis wearing the double lightning bolts of the Waffen SS.

I will argue in this book that there is a great deal that can be learned about the current struggle from looking at World War II at the “micro” level of individual battles and campaigns. The simple reason why this is true is that, as Ecclesiastes observed, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Of course, things do change, but many fundamental principles of war, politics, technology, and human nature remain the same. When we look closely at the campaigns and battles of World War II, it will not be difficult to find patterns and phenomena that give pause for thought about today’s situation.

One might argue that other historical periods are, in fact, more similar to the current period than World War II. For example, the Napoleonic period can be seen as a ruthless effort by a single “hyperpower,” governed by an ambitious, aggressive militarist, to export its radical social model throughout the “civilized” world, on its own terms, in a completely un-collegial manner. Sound familiar?

Let me conede at the outset that other historical periods may well shed equal or more light on the current struggle. There are sound practical reasons why I have chosen World War II as the jumping off point for my discussion.

WW II has been the subject of exhaustive study. Hundreds of thousands of books and monographs have been published. Official records and archives have been opened for scrutiny. We think we know most of what actually happened (unless we have read too many Jack Higgins novels). Most people who are interested in military history know at least something about the military history of World War II. Yet for almost everyone, there’s still plenty to learn! Finally, there is a ready-made community that should find the premise of this book provocative and interesting. At the end of the day, publishing is a practical art.

Mass grave found | Herald Sun

A mass grave believed to contain the remains of thousands of Jews killed by the Nazis has been found in southern Ukraine.

A Jewish community representative said on Tuesday the grave was found by chance last month when workers were digging to lay gas pipelines in the village of Gvozdavka-1, near Odessa, said Roman Shvartsman, a spokesman for the regional Jewish community.

He said that the Nazis established a concentration camp near the village in November 1941 and killed about 5,000 Jews at or near the site.

“Several thousand Jews executed by the Nazis lie there,” Shvartsman told The Associated Press.

Ukraine’s Jewish population was devastated during the Holocaust. Babi Yar, a ravine outside the capital Kiev where the Nazis slaughtered some 34,000 Jews over two days in September 1941, is a powerful symbol of the tragedy.

The good news here is that the story came out at all, because Ukraine is an independent country where Jews are not oppressed. This story might never have been made public in the old Soviet Union.

What atrocities will be dug up sixty-six years from today?

Technorati Tags: Babi Yar, glasnost