Many histories of World War II begin with the Treaty of Versailles, which defined the peace terms for the end of the First World War. If we compare the end of the First World War with the end of the Cold War, the collapse of Germany in 1918 was in many ways quite similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. In both cases ,the collapse was sudden. In 1918, as in the longer period from 1979 to 1989-1991, the military situation swung first in favor, then against the interests of the declining empire. By November 1918, the Germany army and navy, though still not negligible in power, were being run out of the areas they had occupied at the peak of their aggression. Similarly, by the end of 1989, although the Soviet Union still possessed a formidable military, it was clear that it would no longer be able to dominate the Warsaw Pact. The ultimate collapse was a moral one.
As we look at the terminations of these two great global struggles with Versailles in mind, one crucial difference becomes apparent: there was no treaty to end the Cold War. It simply ended, marked perhaps most clearly by three events: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the success of the American-led coalition that reversed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States in December 1991. To be sure, it’s not at all clear that the absence of a treaty is a bad thing. Many historians have blamed World War II on the harsh terms imposed on Germany at Versailles.
I take a more austere view; I believe corporate and individual responsibility are rightly allocated to the agents who made irrevocable choices for direct action, namely, the German people and Hitler. To say “the nasty peace terms made them do it” is to blame the victim … just as to say that “American policy made Osama blow up the World Trade Towers” is to blame the victim.
If we look at what’s happening in today’s Russia, it tends to argue against the historical argument that a more lenient set of terms at Versailles would have prevented the resurgence of German nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Even with an avalanche of international good will and a far more favorable financial situation than the Germans enjoyed, the “revanchist” forces in Russia still aren’t happy about losing the Cold War! Leaving his merits aside, Putin does seem to command a solid national consensus that supports his earnest efforts to re-establish Russia’s role as a great power. It is easy to imagine a “Weimar Putin” who might have led Germany in a similar direction.
The other major difference between Versailles and 1991, of course, is that the Treaty of Versailles did include most of the major powers who had participated in the global struggle. I learned while researching this book that China was the only country which opted out of Versailles – could that have happened in 1991? Could that happen today? In a word, no … which is a backhanded compliment to the life’s work of someone that Americans don’t like to praise, namely, Mao Tse-Tung, the bloody-handed nation-builder of the People’s Republic of China, which hasn’t taken much crap from the international community since November 1950.
The “settlement” terms reached in 1991 essentially called for a much-weakened and territorially shrunken Russia, not unlike post-WWI Russia, with America as the sole hegemon of the New World Order, extending its military reach throughout the globe, including the Middle East and the heart of Islam. It has now become apparent, of course, that a major weakness of the 1991 settlement was that it utterly failed to address the concerns of a politically significant and militarily capable group of players: Islamic terrorists. Indeed, one might say that America is so self-absorbed that we outdid even the “vindictive” French at Versailles: we imposed harsh peace terms on an enemy without even being aware that we were doing it! For it is well documented that the mere presence of American soldiers on Saudi, and now Iraqi, soil is one of the most inflammatory issues to the other side in the global “war” that we are now engaged in.
(more TK)
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Tags: China, navy, Old Front Page Stories, World War II, World War II and the Global War on Terror
