I had been very rude about this book when it first came out. His Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (1997) had been very clever, so I was disappointed that War of the World seemed reductionist, populist, and intellectually sloppy. Had he gone to a University overseas, I wondered to myself? Yes, he had indeed and was thus no longer face-to-face with hyper-critical British academics jealous maybe of his new-found TV fame and so doubly keen to demolish his arguments before they came to print.
But then in 2008 he published The Ascent of Money examining the long history of money, credit, and banking. In it he predicted financial catastrophe as a result of the United States using too much credit. Specifically he cited the China–America dynamic which he refers to as “Chimerica” where an Asian "savings glut" helped create the subprime mortgage crisis with an influx of easy money. This book was brilliant, just as Virtual History had been, and proved to be prophetic, so maybe my dismissal of War of the World had been wrong. This is what I thought when re-reading it …..
In the first eight pages of his Introduction “The Lethal Century”, he lays out his argument: what makes the 20th century remarkable is its exceptional violence. "The hundred years after 1900 were without question the bloodiest century in history, far more violent in relative as well as absolute terms than any previous era." Why? He rejects all the intense debates there have been about last century’s wars and ventures his own causes!
According to Ferguson, the 20th-century bloodbath was the result of the murderous interplay between of racial conflict, economic volatility and empires in decline. The 1900s saw wave upon wave of ethnic strife thanks to a race "meme" entering public perception. Across the world, the idea of biologically distinct races took hold of the 20th century mindset to deadly effect. His favorable explanation of socio-biology is unnerving politically, but more importantly is claiming too much for biological determinism, and the link from biology to political decision-makjng is just too populist and nebulous.
A sharp rise in assimilation, highly PC nowadays in the West at least, because mixing of the races supposedly leads to greater understanding and peace, “may actually be the prelude to ethnic conflict,” he writes. For example, intermarriage of Jews with non-Jews was 1 in 3 in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1920s (and as high as 1 in 2 in some cities). Ferguson illustrates that in Germany, Jewish intermarriage rose from 2 percent in 1902 to 28 percent in 1933. These and other stats quoted by Ferguson prove nothing, of course, and support the arguments of neither persuasion.
Tensions along increasingly conscious ethnic faultlines frequently spilt over into conflict during periods of economic volatility. For extremities of wealth and poverty proved far more incendiary than the steady, immiserating effects of economic depression. When ethnicity and financial turbulence then occurred in the context of retreating or expanding empires - British, German, or Soviet - the capacity for bloodshed proved even greater, Ferguson argues. Better take out life insurance, everyone, because Ferguson is surely suggesting that what we’re going through now – levels of migration and market volatility unparalleled in any period – will lead to the biggest and bloodiest war ever. It’s nonsense!
He began to think “the war” was more a collection of multiple regional conflicts, whose origins and conclusions stretched beyond the usually accepted boundaries of 1939-1945—the war against China began in 1937, even 1931; and the one against the British, Dutch, and French empires ended in 1942. This argument is probably the most embarrassing and damaging to Ferguson because the title of his book is War of the World. The Second World War was so-called because at least one combatant, the UK, was a World Power and engaged its forces and resources generally globally and totally from September 1939 until August 1945. Before and after those dates there were wars, indeed, but they engaged regional powers only, or World Powers only in a limited way. .
From the Russian Revolution in 1905 to the massacres in Bosnia in the 1990s, Ferguson sees the world at war almost continuously throughout the last century. There weren't two world wars and a Cold War, but rather a single Hundred Years' War, he argues. If you like this sort of Big Picture, MegaTrends approach, the arguments behind two books will outlive Ferguson’s, EH Carr’s The Twenty Years Crisis: 1919-1939 (1939) and Philip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History (2002) on which sort of 20th century industrial nation state -- fascist, communist or parliamentarian -- would succeed to the legitimacy previously enjoyed by imperial state-nations in the 19th century. Personally I prefer a less bug-eyed view of history, The view that the 20th Century was one of Decline in the West and horrendous Death is incorrect and partial at best. As one who saw the pulling-down of the Berlin Wall first-hand and thought the collapse of the Soviet Empire a peaceful one, I have to say that an equally valid opinion of the 20th Century is one of peace, progress and prosperity, and one in which the whole world was bequeathed and wholeheartedly embraced the weltanschauung of the West.
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Friday, 11 September 2009
Join the War, Politics & Strategy group on LinkedIn
It's just started and we have some great members around the world in the military, political advisory, and academic spheres of influence, and will shortly be organising discussion suppers in London.
Friday, 4 September 2009
A BOOK WORTH READING! Thinking About Peace And War, Martin Ceadel, OUP, 1987
Arguing that much of the debate about war and peace can be reduced to disagreements about ideology and assumptions about the nature of international politics, Martin Ceadel, founder of Oxford University's Department of Politics and International Relations, presents an engaging framework for studying the debate.
Militarism is the view that war is necessary to human development and thus a positive good. All wars are justified, even aggressive ones.
Crusading, whilst often indistinguishable from either defencism or pacificism, is distinctive for its willingness, under favourable circumstances, to use aggressive war to promote either order or justice, as those who follow this ideology conceive them. For them an aggressive war will help to prevent or abolish war in the longer term.
Someone taking a defencist position may argue that aggression is always wrong, but that defence is always right, therefore maintaining strong defence is the best way to prevent war.
Pacific-ism maintains that war is preventable in time, and that other reforms are also necessary, such as justice in domestic politics. This position derives from reforming philosophies such as liberalism, radicalism, socialism, feminism or the green movements.
Finally, pacifism as an ideology maintains that support for war is always impermissible. However, there are three varieties of pacifism. First, an optimistic version which argues that pacifism is the most effective defence policy to adopt because non-violence can deter or repel an invasion. The assumption here is that the international system is more a community than a society, possessing even stronger norms and institutions. Second, a mainstream version. Those arguing this believe that pacifism is not yet practical politics, but that it will be in the future. Meanwhile pacifists should, so far as their consciences allow, support pacificism as a step in the right direction. The assumption here is that the international system is already a society, but is capable of evolving into a community. Third, a pessimistic version which believes that pacifism is a faith rather than a political strategy. Consequently such pacifists can merely bear witness to those profound values which will be widely adopted only in the very long term when people eventually undergo a change of heart. This stance has been seen to occupy the moral high ground. It views the international system much like domestic politics - as 'a vale of tears'.
Ceadel covers these ideologies and their histories in a highly readable fashion in chapters 2-7, and ably explains how each ideology can be confused with its neighbours. I think he dismisses too complacently militarism, as this ideology is alive and well in many terrorist cells around the world because of their focus on using the military instrument as the first resort. Ceadel has demonstrated alot of interest over the years in pacifism, pacific-ism, socialism and other reforming philosophies espousing various forms of social justice, and subsequently he is so taken in by the public relations, rhetoric, and progaganda of terrorists, guerillas and insurgents that he categorises them as crusading (the ideology most akin to militarism) rather than militarist; from Che Guevara through the IRA to Muslim suicide bombers, their love of violence for its own sake viciously explodes into their spin-doctoring and tears the heart out of their humanity. They are the worst kind of militarist.
Not all militarists are completely evil and so consumed with violent hatred as Muslim extremists though. The impulse of ordinary soldiers just doing their jobs while admitting to enjoying the violence of war and looking forward to the next one (I've just finished Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero) is a necessary though not sufficient part of militarism. Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club dramatically illustrates the same hunger among some in the Men's Movement, although the author frames Tyler Durden, the thought-leading anti-hero, as a doomed psychopath. And Ceadel does attest to a thought-provoking counter-factual that it could have been militarism that spawned the anti-nuclear movement: if war is to be necessary to human development and thus a positive good, it could not logically allow the use or threat of nuclear weapons. So militarism isn't quite the spent force Ceadel thinks it is.
In the final chapter 8 on the determinants of the debate he outlines how well each ideology fares in historical contexts of how liberal the domestic political culture and how secure the state. Somewhat dissembling, I thought, he notes in the Appendix Kenneth Waltz's typology of the international system, which throughout the book underpinned much of Ceadel's analysis of the five ideologies at work. In the same Appendix he waffles on about Martin Wight's typology only to rubbish it when he could have used Wight's pupil Hedley Bull's much clearer and coherent analysis; indeed, in his frequent explanations of the five ideologies having assumptions about international politics being akin to, variously, a community, a society, and an anarchy, he is directly taking from Hedley Bull's simple and memorable typology. Chapter 8 would have been much more incisive, therefore, had he made more of Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society, Waltz's Man, the State, and War, and especially Barry Buzan's People, States & Fear, which itself uses Waltz's typology to build the seminal framework to analyse how secure a state and the international system is. Nevertheless, his explanation of the dynamics of the war-and-peace debate using the five ideologies is still erudite and insightful twenty years after publication, and a jolly good read!
Militarism is the view that war is necessary to human development and thus a positive good. All wars are justified, even aggressive ones.
Crusading, whilst often indistinguishable from either defencism or pacificism, is distinctive for its willingness, under favourable circumstances, to use aggressive war to promote either order or justice, as those who follow this ideology conceive them. For them an aggressive war will help to prevent or abolish war in the longer term.
Someone taking a defencist position may argue that aggression is always wrong, but that defence is always right, therefore maintaining strong defence is the best way to prevent war.
Pacific-ism maintains that war is preventable in time, and that other reforms are also necessary, such as justice in domestic politics. This position derives from reforming philosophies such as liberalism, radicalism, socialism, feminism or the green movements.
Finally, pacifism as an ideology maintains that support for war is always impermissible. However, there are three varieties of pacifism. First, an optimistic version which argues that pacifism is the most effective defence policy to adopt because non-violence can deter or repel an invasion. The assumption here is that the international system is more a community than a society, possessing even stronger norms and institutions. Second, a mainstream version. Those arguing this believe that pacifism is not yet practical politics, but that it will be in the future. Meanwhile pacifists should, so far as their consciences allow, support pacificism as a step in the right direction. The assumption here is that the international system is already a society, but is capable of evolving into a community. Third, a pessimistic version which believes that pacifism is a faith rather than a political strategy. Consequently such pacifists can merely bear witness to those profound values which will be widely adopted only in the very long term when people eventually undergo a change of heart. This stance has been seen to occupy the moral high ground. It views the international system much like domestic politics - as 'a vale of tears'.
Ceadel covers these ideologies and their histories in a highly readable fashion in chapters 2-7, and ably explains how each ideology can be confused with its neighbours. I think he dismisses too complacently militarism, as this ideology is alive and well in many terrorist cells around the world because of their focus on using the military instrument as the first resort. Ceadel has demonstrated alot of interest over the years in pacifism, pacific-ism, socialism and other reforming philosophies espousing various forms of social justice, and subsequently he is so taken in by the public relations, rhetoric, and progaganda of terrorists, guerillas and insurgents that he categorises them as crusading (the ideology most akin to militarism) rather than militarist; from Che Guevara through the IRA to Muslim suicide bombers, their love of violence for its own sake viciously explodes into their spin-doctoring and tears the heart out of their humanity. They are the worst kind of militarist.
Not all militarists are completely evil and so consumed with violent hatred as Muslim extremists though. The impulse of ordinary soldiers just doing their jobs while admitting to enjoying the violence of war and looking forward to the next one (I've just finished Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero) is a necessary though not sufficient part of militarism. Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club dramatically illustrates the same hunger among some in the Men's Movement, although the author frames Tyler Durden, the thought-leading anti-hero, as a doomed psychopath. And Ceadel does attest to a thought-provoking counter-factual that it could have been militarism that spawned the anti-nuclear movement: if war is to be necessary to human development and thus a positive good, it could not logically allow the use or threat of nuclear weapons. So militarism isn't quite the spent force Ceadel thinks it is.
In the final chapter 8 on the determinants of the debate he outlines how well each ideology fares in historical contexts of how liberal the domestic political culture and how secure the state. Somewhat dissembling, I thought, he notes in the Appendix Kenneth Waltz's typology of the international system, which throughout the book underpinned much of Ceadel's analysis of the five ideologies at work. In the same Appendix he waffles on about Martin Wight's typology only to rubbish it when he could have used Wight's pupil Hedley Bull's much clearer and coherent analysis; indeed, in his frequent explanations of the five ideologies having assumptions about international politics being akin to, variously, a community, a society, and an anarchy, he is directly taking from Hedley Bull's simple and memorable typology. Chapter 8 would have been much more incisive, therefore, had he made more of Hedley Bull's The Anarchical Society, Waltz's Man, the State, and War, and especially Barry Buzan's People, States & Fear, which itself uses Waltz's typology to build the seminal framework to analyse how secure a state and the international system is. Nevertheless, his explanation of the dynamics of the war-and-peace debate using the five ideologies is still erudite and insightful twenty years after publication, and a jolly good read!
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Fighting for Ireland?: The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement, MLR Smith, Routledge, 1995
Comprehensively covering the evolution of IRA strategy, it ably elucidates the tension between ideology and the strategic realities over the use of force. It also has a nice chronology of the Movement from 1791 to 1994.
It certainly challenged many of the assumptions I had about the IRA, growing up during the 70s and 80s in Protestant and Thatcherite England, living within the Irish community in Harlesden in the early 90s and playing Gaelic football, and being married to an Irish Catholic.
The Introduction is a primer on the strategic approach to the Irish Republic Movement. All the better for being an As Is exercise (as we say in industry) rather than a piece of highly charged journalism.
Chapter 1 is well worth noting in detail because it explains the ideological, cultural, psychological and religious determinants of Republican strategic thinking. The incoherence of some of their thinking is only made clear in a reading & noting of chapters 2-7 covering the history from the Easter Rising of 1916 to the early 1990s.
The intellectual basis for the relevant strategies is the colonial relationship with Britain, and this analysis explains how a lot of British & English targets were chosen. The nationalist vanguard and apostolic succession makes a strong and enduring point about the Movement that violent acts & uprisings have been orchestrated as much to garner self-sacrifice and martyrdom as ends in themselves (the eigendynamik of terrorist cells) as to create a sense of Irish nationhood: to fight is to win, not to fight is to lose. It goes to the heart of the tension between Republicans' beliefs about absolutism and abstentionism: violence was used to polarise, to prevent fence-sitting, and explains the Movement's opposition to constitutional paths to peace and the parliamentary process. Intricately linked to this is another tension: that between atheist, marxist secularism and Roman Catholic sectarianism, and its impact on what targets they hit and their attitude to Catholic Eire. Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect of the Irish Republican Movement and the reason why its military strategy is an excellent study for the modern time is because, up until only a few years ago when it officially eschewed violence, the primary political instrument of the Movement was the military one; it avowed a crudely power political strategy, and the primacy of violence was challenged only when Gerry Adams became hegemonic leader of both Sinn Fein and the IRA.
Have the IRA been successful? Even as recently as 1989, Danny Morrison, director of publicity for Sinn Fein from 1979 until 1990, stated that "when it is politically costly for the British to remain in Ireland, they'll go; it won't be triggered until a large number of British soldiers are killed and that's what's going to happen" (p224). That didn't work, clearly. The IRA isn't fighting now, so by their own admission, that means they have lost. The Movement did polarise Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the UK, but the vast majority of all of these entities preferred non-violent politics and not to give in to violence. Their claims to be Irish nationalists and to embrace all Irish people did not convince the Protestants in Ireland or most people who described themselves as in any way Christian in Ireland, North or South. So the IRA has failed in every way they look at it.
One aspect is missing, however. Walter Laqueur has written of the asset-to-liability shift: because of the actions of the IRA, the British government (and certainly a majority of the British people) has shifted its view that Northern Ireland is a sovereign part of the UK to be cherished as such, to a politically neutral one that as soon as a majority of those in Northern Ireland want a united Ireland, then the government will relinquish its hold on the six counties. As a result of this shift, the government negotiated with the IRA to make peace. So maybe the IRA's military strategy was coherent after all?
It certainly challenged many of the assumptions I had about the IRA, growing up during the 70s and 80s in Protestant and Thatcherite England, living within the Irish community in Harlesden in the early 90s and playing Gaelic football, and being married to an Irish Catholic.
The Introduction is a primer on the strategic approach to the Irish Republic Movement. All the better for being an As Is exercise (as we say in industry) rather than a piece of highly charged journalism.
Chapter 1 is well worth noting in detail because it explains the ideological, cultural, psychological and religious determinants of Republican strategic thinking. The incoherence of some of their thinking is only made clear in a reading & noting of chapters 2-7 covering the history from the Easter Rising of 1916 to the early 1990s.
The intellectual basis for the relevant strategies is the colonial relationship with Britain, and this analysis explains how a lot of British & English targets were chosen. The nationalist vanguard and apostolic succession makes a strong and enduring point about the Movement that violent acts & uprisings have been orchestrated as much to garner self-sacrifice and martyrdom as ends in themselves (the eigendynamik of terrorist cells) as to create a sense of Irish nationhood: to fight is to win, not to fight is to lose. It goes to the heart of the tension between Republicans' beliefs about absolutism and abstentionism: violence was used to polarise, to prevent fence-sitting, and explains the Movement's opposition to constitutional paths to peace and the parliamentary process. Intricately linked to this is another tension: that between atheist, marxist secularism and Roman Catholic sectarianism, and its impact on what targets they hit and their attitude to Catholic Eire. Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect of the Irish Republican Movement and the reason why its military strategy is an excellent study for the modern time is because, up until only a few years ago when it officially eschewed violence, the primary political instrument of the Movement was the military one; it avowed a crudely power political strategy, and the primacy of violence was challenged only when Gerry Adams became hegemonic leader of both Sinn Fein and the IRA.
Have the IRA been successful? Even as recently as 1989, Danny Morrison, director of publicity for Sinn Fein from 1979 until 1990, stated that "when it is politically costly for the British to remain in Ireland, they'll go; it won't be triggered until a large number of British soldiers are killed and that's what's going to happen" (p224). That didn't work, clearly. The IRA isn't fighting now, so by their own admission, that means they have lost. The Movement did polarise Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the UK, but the vast majority of all of these entities preferred non-violent politics and not to give in to violence. Their claims to be Irish nationalists and to embrace all Irish people did not convince the Protestants in Ireland or most people who described themselves as in any way Christian in Ireland, North or South. So the IRA has failed in every way they look at it.
One aspect is missing, however. Walter Laqueur has written of the asset-to-liability shift: because of the actions of the IRA, the British government (and certainly a majority of the British people) has shifted its view that Northern Ireland is a sovereign part of the UK to be cherished as such, to a politically neutral one that as soon as a majority of those in Northern Ireland want a united Ireland, then the government will relinquish its hold on the six counties. As a result of this shift, the government negotiated with the IRA to make peace. So maybe the IRA's military strategy was coherent after all?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)