Dogs in One Kennel: The Endless World War
The fighting early in the 20th Century that turned parts of Western Europe, especially in France, into a big charnel house, came to be called the "First World War." It was thought to have ended with the armistice signed in November of 1918, but actually the fires ignited by that fierce eruption over basically nothing never completely died out. Glowing embers remained in the country of the losers, and there a group headed by a man who had been a mere corporal and aspiring watercolorist in that first fighting kept fanning those embers and fanning, in the company of a completely unwarranted Japanese urge to assert themselves on the other side of the the Eurasian landmass.
At the end of the 1930's, together their efforts caused those embers to burst into flames that eventually leaped even higher and farther than those of 1914-1918, and so the World War continued, bigger and worse, and not at all the Second World War, despite what it was called, but just the original war, renewed and expanded.
In 1945, those fires died down once more, but this time there was no pretense and basically also no hope that they had gone out completely. The enormous efforts that had been necessary for the Americans and Soviets plus others to drive back the Germans and Japanese created a huge momentum in both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. militaries that could be stopped only by rolling up against each other, or rather against a powerful orce field created by their proximity to each other, in Western Europe though eventually in many other places throughout the world. Aided and abetted by the efforts of numerous formerly colonized countries to cut loose from empires, the War that still had not ended became a truly world one, complete with a plethora of something new -- nuclear weapons with the ability to completely desolate that world, this time including all the birds and butterflies.
They called this latest conglomeration of conflicts the "Cold War," as if somehow it stood apart from the earlier atrocities, but it was just another phase of the fighting that had started way back in 1914. And just as erroneously, later, as the 1990's arrived, many crowed that the Cold War had ended and that it had been won by the West and particularly by the U.S. But it had not ended and therefore it had not been won by anybody. The U.S.S.R, which did not exist at the beginning, in 1914, now no longer existed after 1991, despite the huge role it had played through nearly all the intervening period. But Russia did exist then and it still does now, and what many Americans saw as being their victory was actually just an event to Russia's benefit, shifting them from one mode in which the expenses of keeping up all the dire threats had become far too expensive in rubles for them, to another in which, while still keeping their missiles aimed at their adversaries' hearts, they could regroup and modernize, without the costs bleeding them white. The dissolution of the U.S.S.R. allowed them to strip excess poundage off their belly in the form of all the breakaway republics, of which one especially, the Ukraine, had become a special liability, because, though a breakbasket, it had been badly tainted by the intractable Chernobyl disaster.
In being thus downsized Russia became better able to tone up itself, and it is still in that process, with the big advantage over the U.S. in having so much more land, and consequently so many more badly needed natural resources that are rapidly being exhausted elsewhere.
Of course, as they flailed about in it, even the Russians didn't appreciate the advantages of their new configuration for a long time. Empires deeply resent the idea of losing territory, and that is shown by their weird determination to hold on at least to Chechnya at all costs, though that small place is a bristling bundle of attitude that you would think they would've prayed to be rid of it before any of the others.
And so, as Robinson Jeffers so presciently called them generations ago in a long drama/poem called "The Tower Beyond Tragedy," the Americans and the Russians are "dogs in one kennel" and are still snarling at each other, and, because other nations are helpless to avoid sharing in their pretensions, the World War, with only slight changes in its cast of characters over the generations, nears the marking of its first 100 years.
At the end of the 1930's, together their efforts caused those embers to burst into flames that eventually leaped even higher and farther than those of 1914-1918, and so the World War continued, bigger and worse, and not at all the Second World War, despite what it was called, but just the original war, renewed and expanded.
In 1945, those fires died down once more, but this time there was no pretense and basically also no hope that they had gone out completely. The enormous efforts that had been necessary for the Americans and Soviets plus others to drive back the Germans and Japanese created a huge momentum in both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. militaries that could be stopped only by rolling up against each other, or rather against a powerful orce field created by their proximity to each other, in Western Europe though eventually in many other places throughout the world. Aided and abetted by the efforts of numerous formerly colonized countries to cut loose from empires, the War that still had not ended became a truly world one, complete with a plethora of something new -- nuclear weapons with the ability to completely desolate that world, this time including all the birds and butterflies.
They called this latest conglomeration of conflicts the "Cold War," as if somehow it stood apart from the earlier atrocities, but it was just another phase of the fighting that had started way back in 1914. And just as erroneously, later, as the 1990's arrived, many crowed that the Cold War had ended and that it had been won by the West and particularly by the U.S. But it had not ended and therefore it had not been won by anybody. The U.S.S.R, which did not exist at the beginning, in 1914, now no longer existed after 1991, despite the huge role it had played through nearly all the intervening period. But Russia did exist then and it still does now, and what many Americans saw as being their victory was actually just an event to Russia's benefit, shifting them from one mode in which the expenses of keeping up all the dire threats had become far too expensive in rubles for them, to another in which, while still keeping their missiles aimed at their adversaries' hearts, they could regroup and modernize, without the costs bleeding them white. The dissolution of the U.S.S.R. allowed them to strip excess poundage off their belly in the form of all the breakaway republics, of which one especially, the Ukraine, had become a special liability, because, though a breakbasket, it had been badly tainted by the intractable Chernobyl disaster.
In being thus downsized Russia became better able to tone up itself, and it is still in that process, with the big advantage over the U.S. in having so much more land, and consequently so many more badly needed natural resources that are rapidly being exhausted elsewhere.
Of course, as they flailed about in it, even the Russians didn't appreciate the advantages of their new configuration for a long time. Empires deeply resent the idea of losing territory, and that is shown by their weird determination to hold on at least to Chechnya at all costs, though that small place is a bristling bundle of attitude that you would think they would've prayed to be rid of it before any of the others.
And so, as Robinson Jeffers so presciently called them generations ago in a long drama/poem called "The Tower Beyond Tragedy," the Americans and the Russians are "dogs in one kennel" and are still snarling at each other, and, because other nations are helpless to avoid sharing in their pretensions, the World War, with only slight changes in its cast of characters over the generations, nears the marking of its first 100 years.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 11:05 PM
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