Author Archives: Martin van Creveld

You Are Right, He Said

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As a fairly well known Israeli historian, I’ve visited some thirty-five different countries around the world and spent a not inconsiderable part of my life abroad. It may have been luck, it may have been naiveté; it may have been the fact that my last visit (to Germany) took place as long as three months ago. But never in all those years did I encounter antisemitism. At any rate not of the overt kind that is deliberately and unapologetically thrown into your face. Wherever we went my wife and I made gentile friends. Good friends.

More than once in Western Europe in particular we got into a conversation with people of Arabic nationality. Without exception, they asked my wife and me where we were from. Without exception, they were polite and welcoming. One, a kiosk owner in Metz, eastern France, told us how wonderful it was to meet Israelis in his nice, but remote and oh-so boring, town. Another, a young man from East Jerusalem who was studying medical technology in Berlin and working for Ikea to earn some money, went out of his way to get us a free meal ticket at the shop restaurant. The least pleasant encounter was one I had with a Palestinian taxi driver in Copenhagen. He gave me to understand, repeatedly, that he and his people would never-ever give up “their” right to “their” country. Yet even so we found common ground in denouncing those holier-than-thou Danes.

Still I want to tell you a story. Just one trivial story with no consequences and presumably long forgotten by everyone except myself. Yet one that, in view of recent events here in Israel, seems more relevant than ever. It took place back in the summer of 1981 when I was on sabbatical and living near Freiburg in southwestern Germany. One day my daughter, nine years old, needed her ear to be operated on. I fell into a conversation with the surgeon, Dr. Kuhn of the local university clinic.

These were the days immediately following the attack in which the Israeli Air Force demolished Iraq’s nuclear reactor, then under construction. The good doctor asked me why I was staying in Israel. So much trouble, he said; so many wars. Strange question, that, coming from a German! But that was not what I said. Instead I told him the story of the Jewish swine. Suppose, I said, I had the same operation done in Israel and then refused to pay my bill. In that case people would have called me a swine. However, had I done the same anywhere else, they would have called me a Jewish swine.

“You are right” he said.

Pilar Rahola Speaks: Jews with Six Arms

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by Pilar Rahola

Why do so many intelligent people, when talking about Israel, suddenly become idiots?

This speech was given December 16, 2009 at the Conference in the Global forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem. Pilar Rahola is a Spanish Catalan journalist, writer, and former politician and Member of Parliament, and member of the far left.

A meeting in Barcelona with a hundred lawyers and judges a month ago.

They have come together to hear my opinions on the Middle-Eastern conflict. They know that I am a heterodoxal vessel, in the shipwreck of “single thinking” regarding Israel, which rules in my country. They want to listen to me, because they ask themselves why, if Pilar is a serious journalist, does she risk losing her credibility by defending the bad guys, the guilty? I answer provocatively – You all believe that you are experts in international politics when you talk about Israel, but you really know nothing. Would you dare talk about the conflict in Rwanda, in Kashmir? In Chechnya? – No.

Cultured people, when they read about Israel, are ready to believe that Jews have six arms.

They are jurists, their turf is not geopolitics. But against Israel they dare, as does everybody else. Why? Because Israel is permanently under the media magnifying glass and the distorted image pollutes the world’s brains. And because it is part of what is politically correct, it seems part of solidarity, because talking against Israel is free. So cultured people, when they read about Israel, are ready to believe that Jews have six arms, in the same way that during the Middle Ages people believed all sorts of outrageous things.

Bottom of Form

The first question, then, is why so many intelligent people, when talking about Israel, suddenly become idiots. The problem that those of us who do not demonize Israel have, is that there exists no debate on the conflict. All that exists is the banner; there’s no exchange of ideas. We throw slogans at each other; we don’t have serious information, we suffer from the “burger journalism” syndrome, full of prejudices, propaganda and simplification. Intellectual thinkers and international journalists have given up on Israel. It doesn’t exist. That is why, when someone tries to go beyond the “single thought” of criticizing Israel, he becomes suspect and unfaithful, and is immediately segregated. Why?

I’ve been trying to answer this question for years: why?

Why, of all the conflicts in the world, only this one interests them?

Why is a tiny country which struggles to survive criminalized?

Why does manipulated information triumph so easily?

Why are all the people of Israel, reduced to a simple mass of murderous imperialists?

Why is there no Palestinian guilt?

Why is Arafat a hero and Sharon a monster?

Finally, why when Israel is the only country in the World which is threatened with extinction, it is also the only one that nobody considers a victim?

I don’t believe that there is a single answer to these questions. Just as it is impossible to completely explain the historical evil of anti-Semitism, it is also not possible to totally explain the present-day imbecility of anti-Israelism. Both drink from the fountain of intolerance and lies. Also, if we accept that anti-Israelism is the new form of anti-Semitism, we conclude that circumstances may have changed, but the deepest myths, both of the Medieval Christian anti-Semitism and of the modern political anti-Semitism, are still intact. Those myths are part of the chronicle of Israel.

For example, the Medieval Jew accused of killing Christian children to drink their blood connects directly with the Israeli Jew who kills Palestinian children to steal their land. Always they are innocent children and dark Jews. Similarly, the Jewish bankers who wanted to dominate the world through the European banks, according to the myth of the Protocols, connect directly with the idea that the Wall Street Jews want to dominate the World through the White House. Control of the Press, control of Finances, the Universal Conspiracy, all that which has created the historical hatred against the Jews, is found today in hatred of the Israelis. In the subconscious, then, beats the DNA of the Western anti-Semite, which produces an efficient cultural medium.

But what beats in the conscious? Why does a renewed intolerance surge with such virulence, centered now, not against the Jewish people, but against the Jewish state? From my point of view, this has historical and geopolitical motives, among others, the decades long bloody Soviet role, the European Anti-Americanism, the West’s energy dependency and the growing Islamist phenomenon.

But it also emerges from a set of defeats which we suffer as free societies, leading to a strong ethical relativism.

The moral defeat of the left. For decades, the left raised the flag of freedom wherever there was injustice. It was the depositary of the utopian hopes of society. It was the great builder of the future. Despite the murderous evil of Stalinism’s sinking these utopias, the left has preserved intact its aura of struggle, and still pretends to point out good and evil in the world. Even those who would never vote for leftist options, grant great prestige to leftist intellectuals, and allow them to be the ones who monopolize the concept of solidarity. As they have always done. Thus, those who struggled against Pinochet were freedom-fighters, but Castro’s victims, are expelled from the heroes’ paradise, and converted into undercover fascists.

This historic treason to freedom is reproduced nowadays, with mathematical precision. For example, the leaders of Hezbollah are considered resistance heroes, while pacifists like the Israeli singer Noa, are insulted in the streets of Barcelona. Today too, as yesterday, the left is hawking totalitarian ideologies, falls in love with dictators and, in its offensive against Israel, ignores the destruction of fundamental rights. It hates rabbis, but falls in love with imams; shouts against the Israeli Defense Forces, but applauds Hamas’s terrorists; weeps for the Palestinian victims, but scorns the Jewish victims, and when it is touched by Palestinian children, it does it only if it can blame the Israelis.

It will never denounce the culture of hatred, or its preparation for murder. A year ago, at the AIPAC conference in Washington I asked the following questions:

Why don’t we see demonstrations in Europe against the Islamic dictatorships?

Why are there no demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of Muslim women?

Why are there no declarations against the use of bomb-carrying children in the conflicts in which Islam is involved?

Why is the left only obsessed with fighting against two of the most solid democracies of the planet, those which have suffered the bloodiest terrorist attacks, the United States and Israel?

Because the left no longer has any ideas, only slogans. It no longer defends rights, but prejudices. And the greatest prejudice of all is the one aimed against Israel. I accuse, then, in a formal manner that the main responsibility for the new anti-Semitic hatred disguised as anti-Zionism, comes from those who should have been there to defend freedom, solidarity and progress. Far from it, they defend despots, forget their victims and remain silent before medieval ideologies which aim at the destruction of free societies. The treason of the left is an authentic treason against modernity.

Israel is the world’s most watched place, but despite that, it is the world’s least understood place.

Defeat of Journalism. We have more information in the world than ever before, but we do not have a better informed world. Quite the contrary, the information superhighway connects us anywhere in the planet, but it does not connect us with the truth. Today’s journalists do not need maps, since they have Google Earth, they do not need to know History, since they have Wikipedia. The historical journalists, who knew the roots of a conflict, still exist, but they are an endangered species, devoured by that “fast food” journalism which offers hamburger news, to readers who want fast-food information. Israel is the world’s most watched place, but despite that, it is the world’s least understood place. Of course one must keep in mind the pressure of the great petrodollar lobbies, whose influence upon journalism is subtle but deep. Mass media knows that if it speaks against Israel, it will have no problems. But what would happen if it criticized an Islamic country? Without doubt, it would complicate its existence. Certainly part of the press that writes against Israel, would see themselves mirrored in Mark Twain’s ironical sentence: “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

Defeat of critical thinking. To all this one must add the ethical relativism which defines the present times: it is based not on denying the values of civilization, but rather in their most extreme banality. What is modernity?

I explain it with this little tale: If I were lost in an uncharted island, and would want to found a democratic society, I would only need three written documents: The Ten Commandments (which established the first code of modernity. “Thou shalt not murder” founded modern civilization.); The Roman Penal Code; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And with these three texts we would start again. These principles are relativized daily, even by those who claim to be defending them.

“Thou shalt not murder” … depending on who is the target, must think those who, like the demonstrators in Europe, shouted in support of Hamas.

“Hurray for Freedom of Speech!”…, or not. For example, several Spanish left-wing organizations tried to take me to court, accusing me of being a negationist, like the Nazis, because I deny the “Palestinian Holocaust”. They were attempting to prohibit me from writing articles and to send me to prison. And so on… The social critical mass has lost weight and, at the same time ideological dogmatism has gained weight. In this double turn of events, the strong values of modernity have been substituted by a “weak thinking,” vulnerable to manipulation and Manichaeism.

Defeat of the United Nations. And with it, a sound defeat of the international organizations which should protect Human Rights. Instead they have become broken puppets in the hands of despots. The United Nations is only useful to Islamofascists like Ahmadinejad, or dangerous demagogues like Hugo Chavez which offers them a planetary loudspeaker where they can spit their hatred. And, of course, to systematically attack Israel. The UN, too exists to fight Israel.

Finally, defeat of Islam. Tolerant and cultural Islam suffers today the violent attack of a totalitarian virus which tries to stop its ethical development. This virus uses the name of God to perpetrate the most terrible horrors: lapidate women, enslave them, use youths as human bombs. Let’s not forget: They kill us with cellular phones connected to the Middle Ages. If Stalinism destroyed the left, and Nazism destroyed Europe, Islamic fundamentalism is destroying Islam. And it also has an anti-Semitic DNA. Perhaps Islamic anti-Semitism is the most serious intolerant phenomenon of our times; indeed, it contaminates more than 1,400 million people, who are educated, massively, in hatred towards the Jew.

The Jews are the thermometer of the world’s health. Whenever the world has had totalitarian fever, they have suffered.

In the crossroads of these defeats, is Israel. Orphan and forgotten by a reasonable left, orphan and abandoned by serious journalism, orphan and rejected by a decent UN, and rejected by a tolerant Islam, Israel suffers the paradigm of the 21st Century: the lack of a solid commitment with the values of liberty. Nothing seems strange. Jewish culture represents, as no other does, the metaphor of a concept of civilization which suffers today attacks on all flanks. The Jews are the thermometer of the world’s health. Whenever the world has had totalitarian fever, they have suffered. In the Spanish Middle Ages, in Christian persecutions, in Russian pogroms, in European Fascism, in Islamic fundamentalism. Always, the first enemy of totalitarianism has been the Jew. And, in these times of energy dependency and social uncertainty, Israel embodies, in its own flesh, the eternal Jew.

A pariah nation among nations, for a pariah people among peoples. That is why the anti-Semitism of the 21st Century has dressed itself with the efficient disguise of anti-Israelism, or its synonym, anti-Zionism. Is all criticism of Israel anti-Semitism? NO. But all present-day anti-Semitism has turned into prejudice and the demonization of the Jewish State. New clothes for an old hatred.

Benjamin Franklin said: “Where liberty is, there is my country.” And Albert Einstein added: “The World is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” This is the double commitment, here and now; never remain inactive in front of evil in action and defend the countries of liberty.

Thank you.

May It Do the Same for You

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As you may well imagine, over the last couple of weeks writing my posts has become more and more difficult. I spend hours in front of the computer, trying to find topics fit to be explored or elaborated. Such as, amidst the cannons’ roar (or rather, since I live about 60 miles from the Gaza Strip, the sirens’ occasional wail or the near-constant noise of Israeli fighters flying overhead), still seem worth of being bothered with. Such as will not be too repetitive. And such as, in these difficult times, will not make “the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,” as the Old Testament puts it. So far, without success. So, I’ve decided to throw in the towel, at least for this week. I am going to upload one image. Downloaded from the Net, of course. One that, amidst all the misery and anxiety, caught my attention and made me smile. May it do the same for you.

Note: Just why the image caught my attention and made me smile at this time I do not know. I have only visited Death Valley once and did not stay long enough to really appreciate its marvels. Still I saw more of it than most people or even, I daresay, most Americans. This was in late 1998 and there was not a drop of water for miles and miles around. My strongest impression in fact, was the taste of salt and borax that refused to leave my mouth for hours after leaving the district. The image, like so many other good things, came to me by accident. It shows the lake after a recent storm, said to have brought down more rain in a day than is usually the case in an entire year.

 

This is WAR!

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As anyone who has gone through it knows, war is the domain of confusion. Some people don’t see the enemy when and where he is there (this is what happened to us in Israel). Others “see” him when and where he is not. Everyone’s nerves are on edge, causing them to behave somewhat strangely and often making measured, coherent communication all but impossible. Rumors, censorship, disinformation and plain deception abound. Obstructed by censorship, clearing up the confusion so as to get a proper picture of what is happening can take weeks, months, years, or even decades. Indeed the more evidence emerges, the greater often the difficulty of shifting through it all and making sense of it all. 

Yet man is the explaining animal. His huge forebrain means that he cannot exist without some kind of scaffolding to explain what has happened, why it happened, and what is likely to happen next. Absent a real explanation, he will first invent an unreal one and then, by repeating it, convince himself that it is true. Still, at the risk that everything I say will quickly be disproved, I shall try to pose some questions I have been asked and my answers to them.

Hamas took Israeli military intelligence, supposedly the world’s best, totally by surprise. How could this have happened?

It is as Nietzsche says: A great victory makes the winner stupid and the loser, malicious.

Can you explain?

Yes. It seems to have been a question of mirror-imaging. The confrontation with Hamas has now lasted for about twenty years. The IDF being greatly superior to Hamas, every clash ended in some sort of victory for Israel (or so at least the government and general staff, mindful of public relations, said). As “victories” piled up on top of each other, Israel’s confidence that it could handle this kind of attack grew. Just days before the sky came down on 7 October military intelligence was telling “the political echelon” (as we say here) that Hamas was being “deterred” and wanted nothing other than quiet. Punctuated, perhaps, by a few pinpricks to show it still existed and had something to say.

Today is Wednesday, the 17th of October and the twelfth day of the war. What is the situation now?

As far as I can see, the worst for Israel is over. The country has been put on a war footing, complete with the evacuation of many settlements bordering on the Gaza Strip. The reserves, 300,000 of them, have been called up and are deploying for action. Above all, the element of surprise is gone.

Obviously the first task is to make sure that no more terrorists remain at large inside Israel, a slow and, in terms of the necessary manpower needed to search every stone, expensive process. In the meantime, no doubt Israel’s airpower will continue bombing the hell out of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. In fact I can hear the jets flying in the skies above.

How did the destruction of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza affect the course of the war?

We—meaning, man (and woman)—have a strong tendency to always pounce on the latest events as the most important ones of all. After the attack on the hospital took place Hamas was quick to blame Israel, making the latter’s enemies leap for joy and causing Israelis to fear for the international support their country so urgently needs. Once it turned out that it was a rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad which did the damage and killed people things returned more or less to “normal.” Meaning, both sides stick to their strategy. Hamas in sending rockets into Israel in the hope of killing and injuring as many people as possible. And the Israeli military, in trying to “get” as many terrorists as possible so as make them stop doing so.

President Biden visited Israel and stayed for about five hours. What has he achieved?

The original objective of the visit was to a. Demonstrate American support for Israel; b. Help enlist humanitarian assistance the residents of Gaza; c. Bring together Palestinian, Jordanian, and Egyptian leaders in the hope of finding some kind of solution to the crisis. The first and second of these objective may have been achieved, at least to some extent. As to the third, no progress at all.   

Will there be a full-scale Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip?

I hope not. The Strip is one of the most heavily populated and urbanized pieces of land in the world. If that were not enough, the population is among the youngest—fully half of it is under nineteen years old. In countless cases, a combination of unemployment and chronic shortages mean that these people have nothing to lose, increasing their hatred for Israel and turning them into easy targets for Hamas recruiters.

As the World War II sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad e.g showed, urban terrain, provided it is properly defended, can present an attacker with formidable problems. The deeper into it he wades, the greater his problems. Such as getting in supplies and reinforcements, ambushes, evacuating the wounded, etc.

How about Hezbollah in Lebanon? Will it join the fray, or will it stay out?

Very difficult to say. Hezbollah is a secretive organization and notoriously hard to penetrate. So far its leaders have been almost rabid in their declarations of support for Hamas; over the last few daysת their attacks on Israel have been increasing. They seem to be testing the waters—a dangerous game that may escalate שא any moment.

Syria and Iran?

Following twelve years of more or less intensive civil war, Syria hardly has any armed forces worth mentioning. Those it does have are busy fighting their domestic enemies. The Iranians provided political and logistic support and may have helped Hamas in planning the attack. Currently they are making all kinds threatening noises. However, and perhaps because they worry about a possible American threat and/or nuclear escalation, they seem to have done little to turn them into reality.

The rest of the Arab world?

The war presents the Arab governments with a dilemma. On one hand, ere hostilities started more and more of them were either signing peace with Israel or inching towards doing so. On the other hand, many have been feeling the pressure of their peoples which are less inclined to peace than their governments are. Should hostilities in and around Gaza continue, one may certainly expect negative political repercussions including, in cases where this is relevant, the breaking off of diplomatic relations. But war? Only in case Israel aces imminent collapse.

The international “system”?

Many countries are involved. Including, besides Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Russia, China, and the EU. The United States has promised to stand by Israel. However, the record—Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (twice)—makes this promise look somewhat dubious. Russia/China are in league with Iran, but fortunately there are limits to what they can do. And the EU? Being Dutch, I shall use a Dutch expression to describe them: klootzakken (scrotums).  Hopeless cowards who can only talk.

Do you think this may be the beginning of a third world war?

I consider that a remote possibility. But yes, it could be. 

Returning to Israel and Hamas, who is going to win?

Victory means breaking the enemy’s will so that he ceases to resist. At the moment I cannot see this happening on either side; either they are too eager trying to exploit success (Hamas) or too busy licking their wounds and restoring the balance (Israel). Such being the case, Voltaire’s saying about the imaginary battle between Avars and Bulgars will apply. Both will sing mass, each in his own camp.

What can this struggle teach us about the future of war?

In my best-known book, The Transformation of War (1991) I argued that the future of war was guerrilla and terrorism. This prediction seems to be coming true, isn’t it?

In a rapidly changing world, each time s war breaks out the media are flooded with accounts of the technological marvels it has spawned. That is understandable; taking a longer point of view, though, one could argue that the most important lesson is that war still remains war. Includes its nature as a violent encounter between two (or more) belligerents, each of whom is at least partly free to do as he pleases; the enormous challenges, physical and mental, it poses to those who direct it and fight it; its roots in interest on one hand and sheer hatred on the other; its tendency to call out the most brutal  qualities of man and make them spread; its tendency to escalate and, doing so, escape not just political control but any kind of rational calculation; the role played by stealth, deception and surprise; its dependence on the social makeup of the societies that wage it; and many other things which, together, do as much as in shaping it as any number of computers, missiles and drones.

Day in Autumn

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To my readers: as you may imagine, Israel’s current war with Hamas has resulted in my receiving any number of requests for articles and interviews, many of which I had to reject or leave unanswered. Feeling overwhelmed and needing a break, I decided to focus on the following poem, the most beautiful on the topic I could find. The picture shows the Judean Hills, not far from where I live and where I went running hundreds of times.

 

Enjoy.

 

 

Day in Autumn

By

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Translated by

Mary Kinzie

 

After the summer’s yield, Lord, it is time

to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials

and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.

Direct on them two days of warmer light

to hale them golden toward their term, and harry

the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

Whoever’s homeless now, will build no shelter;

who lives alone will live indefinitely so,

waking up to read a little, draft long letters,   

and, along the city’s avenues,

fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

Friction

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Imagine a number of families—say, ten of them. Some with children and the elderly, some without. Living in the same town, they decide to spend a day together. Fun for the kids, relief for the adults who will not have to ensure that their offspring get bored. Meeting point is at 1100 hours, at place X where there is good parking. From there they plan to drive fifty miles to the beach, arriving at 1200. What could be simpler? But no. Family A finds that the GPS of their car (old and somewhat battered) refuses to work and so informs the rest (some get the message, some don’t). Family B cannot leave their home before grandfather, who is a widower and had lost his false teeth, finds the other set he owns.

Everyone does/do their best to be on time, but not all succeed. All around, children quarrel or must faire pipi, causing a delay. Either they are looked after, or there is going to be an even longer one. Messages—this, after all, is the age of WhatsApp—are passed from one group member to another, causing confusion all around. Exactly where is that left turn you have been talking about? Some arrive, but some do not. Some messages are correctly understood, some not. Assuming every family contacts every other just once, there are going to be 90 of them in all. In practice the number is likely to be considerably larger.

This is friction. Few of us have not experienced it more or less often; the larger the number of those involved, the worse thing are likely to be. Friction in ordinary life can be bad enough, causing the best-laid plans to go awry. Friction in war is two, ten or twenty times worse, at times to the point where it decides the fate (as Napoleon said) of crowns dynasties, and empires. In mid-June 1815 his communications with Field Marshal Grouchy failed. As a result, Grouchy’s corps spent the 18th marching to and fro and, doing so, missed the battle of Waterloo much in the same way as General Stuart’s cavalry did at Gettysburg forty-eight years later. In both cases, and in spite of historians’ attempts to unravel it, the exact chain of cause and effect remains obscure. But certainly friction had everything to do with it.

Two main reasons explain why friction is so much greater in war than in peace. The first is the extraordinary demands war makes both on the spirit and, often enough, the physique of those who engage on it. In these respects, the only equivalent is some natural disaster such as an earthquake or a flood. But even such events tend to be over in minutes or hours. Either you die at once, as the citizens of Pompeii did, or the danger recedes. Seldom does it last for weeks or months, let alone, years; people either adjust or move.

To repeat, war decides the fate of crowns, dynasties and empires. The burden of responsibility is crushing and can easily cause those who bear it to go off the rails. As happened, for example, during the last days of World War I when the de facto chief of the German general staff, General Erich Ludendorff, told the Kaiser that defeat was staring the country in the face and that the army could not wait “even 48 hours” for a ceasefire to be arranged. Yet Ludendorff at the time was comfortably ensconced in his headquarters way out of reach form the front. Those further down the hierarchy were often not so lucky.

The second reason why friction tends to be so much greater in war than in peace is that we are fighting an enemy who is deliberately doing whatever he can to increase it. Too often, with success.  The first step is to try to divine what the enemy is expecting and then do the opposite. When you are strong, confuse the enemy by pretending to be weak. When you are weak, confuse him by pretending to be strong. But take care; such measures always come at a price. Troops sent on a diversion will not be available for your main thrust. The least- defended approach is often the most difficult one to take, and vice versa. Worse still, he who tries to confuse the opponent may very well end up by becoming confused himself. As, it is said, not seldom happens in espionage etc.

The measures needed to guard against friction are often well understood. Good intelligence, especially of the kind that succeeds in putting you in the enemy’s shoes and, by doing so, anticipate his moves. Good organization, good discipline, good training, good security. Good communications, including redundant ones in case some are lost. Superior communications-technology with an emphasis on reliability, ease of use, and secrecy. Such measures can and often do mitigate friction. They cannot, however, eliminate it. Nor is there any reason to think that there was less of it in the highly disciplined Roman legions than in today’s most advanced armies.

So it has been in the past. And so, regardless of the tsunami of wonderful new weapons about which are told almost day by day, it will remain in the future too.

Boom, Boom, Boom

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As anyone who has been following the Ukrainian conflict knows, Western observers tend to quote Ukrainian defense sources (official ****sky or officer ****chuk, so and so). More info is said to have come either from “British Intelligence” (apparently a stand-in for DoD and the CIA) or “The Institute for the Study of War” (an outfit of which, in all my forty-something years as a defense analyst, I only learnt existed after the war got underway).

By contrast, Russian sources are pro-Russian. Or else their authors would be in jail and the texts, not online. To the extent I can make them out, they emphasize the historical background, the wickedness of the West (which is trying to subdue everyone else), the justice of the Russian cause, the Russian people’s determination to defend their glorious Russian motherland, Nazis in Kiev, etcetera. In many ways not so different from Soviet propaganda during World War II.

Western sources, especially those allegedly associated with “British Intelligence,” tend to be pro-Ukraine and anti-Soviet. Along with a great many representatives of the Western media who are running all over the place, they love pointing out Russian weaknesses: in manpower (no question, on either side, of womanpower playing any role except as auxiliaries, refugees and victims), in munitions, in technology, in economic resources, in international support, in fighting spirit, in sheer goodness of heart.

The “facts” all these Western sources adduce seem to be of two kinds. On one hand we keep being reminded that Russia is far bigger than Ukraine, that its population is three to four times larger, that it has often proved its staying power in the past, and so on. On the other we get anecdotes: such as stories untrained Russian soldiers, unwilling Russian soldiers, old Russian soldiers, young Russian soldiers, Russian logistic difficulties, crude Russian technologies that do not work, etc. etc. The Russian economy suffering badly, the Russian economy holding up “surprisingly well.”

In between those two kinds, hardly anything worth mentioning. A cruise missile here, a drone there, killing a few people and/or damaging a base or an installation. Whether this kind of “evidence” is real or invented, significant or insignificant, representative or incapable of being generalized, is impossible to say.

With all this in the background my own prognosis, here repeated for those who have not yet understood, is as follows. It is true that all wars must end; even the Hundred Years War did. On the other hand, no one says that they have to end with a victory on either side. Absent a victory, the war could go on for a long, long time to come.

Conversely, a victory, if and when it comes, could result from one of two developments. They are as follows:

  1. The West, headed by the US, has enough. It puts pressure on Ukraine to negotiate, just as it did in 1973 (when it forced South Vietnam to give up), 1991 (when it abandoned Iraq’s Kurds), 2011 (when it got out of Iraq), 2019 (when it abandoned Turkey’s Kurds), 2021 (when it gave up on Afghanistan), and many other occasions. Some Republicans in particular would like nothing better, especially if it could help them boot Joe Biden out of the White House.
  2. Ukrainian and Western pressure increases to the point where Putin is overthrown and replaced by some other scoundrel. This, in turn, may lead to one of two outcomes.
    • A. Not being as closely associated with the war as Putin is, the successor negotiates a settlement consisting, essentially, of a restoration of the status quo ante (whatever that may mean).
    • Desperate but furious, the scoundrel in question resorts to first threatening, then using, nukes; first tactical ones, then perhaps strategic; First against military targets, then against civilian ones as well

Boom, Boom, Boom.

Oppenheimer

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What has not been written about the movie, Oppenheimer? That it does not sufficiently bring out the fact that the chief character, Robert Oppenheimer himself, came from a wealthy Jewish family. That it is anti-feminist, figuring very few women and only allowing the first female character to speak after so and so many minutes from the beginning. That it is an “intelligent movie about an important topic that’s never less than powerfully acted and incredibly entertaining.” That it is an “unrelenting stream of bombastic vignettes in need of narrative chain reaction.” And so on, and so on.

Far be it from me to dwell on each of these and other points, let alone explore them in depth. I do, however, want to take up a few issues that I consider critical for forming an understanding both of the movie and of the historical reality behind it.

First, contrary to the impression made by the movie, especially its opening minutes, there was never any danger that the Germans would get there first. True, back in 1938 it was a German scientist, Otto Hahn, who succeeded in splitting uranium for the first time, thereby giving his country a head start that did not escape the notice either of the international scientific community or of various intelligence services around the world. From that point on active efforts were mounted to monitor the Germans’ progress; however, the vision of a Nazi bomb turned out to be a will o’ the wisp. The longer the war and the deeper into former Italian and German-occupied countries the Anglo-American armies penetrated, the less the danger appeared. True, then as always caution was the best part of wisdom. Still, by late 1944 the various teams, commanded by a Colonel Pash and operating under the code-name Alsos (“grove,” in Greek), were able to “categorically” report that the Germans were not nearly as advanced as the Allies and that there was no room for worry on that account. Why this was the case is another question; but one that neither plays a major part in the movie nor that I intend to pursue here.

Second, the episode—only mentioned in passing by the movie, but often highlighted in other accounts—in which Oppenheimer, having asked to meet Truman, tells him that he, Oppenheimer has blood on his hands. Only to watch Truman take out a handkerchief and ask whether Oppenheimer wanted to wipe them dry. Many authors have presented the story as an encounter between the kind-hearted, pacifistically-minded, scientist and the hard-boiled, tough and cynical, veteran of a thousand political battles. In fact it was nothing of the kind. While Oppenheimer did build the bomb, his guilt, if any, was nowhere like that of Truman who, having overridden all suggestions to the contrary, ordered its use (not once but twice), got 150,000 dead Japanese, men, women and children, on his conscience. Really, Dr. Oppenheimer, what did you think? That Truman was a father confessor or a Freudian psychologist, perhaps? No wonder that, the meeting over, he called Oppenheimer a “crybaby” and ordered his staff to make sure he would not come to pour out his heart again. Faced with a world in ruins and with Stalin as his adversary, he had more important things to do than console a distraught scientist.

Third and most problematic of all, throughout the movie there is great and graphic emphasis on the danger the atomic bomb, and even more so its successor, the hydrogen bomb, poses to humanity at large. The danger of course, is real enough. For the first time in history, humanity was put in possession of a weapon that enabled it to destroy itself. Nor, given the known history of warfare with all its attendant atrocities, mass massacres and genocides, did there seem to be much of a chance that, once the weapon had become available and its power demonstrated for all to see, it would not be used.

In fact, though, this has not happened.  Far from opening the door to even larger, more deadly wars, “nukes,” as they came to be known, have caused war to shrink. Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of major powers. As of the time of writing the way the Russo-Ukrainian War will end remains unknown. But the very fact that it has been going on for over a year and a half without anyone resorting to nuclear weapons and opening the road to Armageddon is, in my view, encouraging.

Pity that, in what is many ways an excellent movie, it is not even mentioned.

Or Worse

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Once upon a time I was staying in a New York Hotel. Waking up and switching on the TV, I learnt that Israel and the group which, from then on, was to be recognized as the Palestinian Authority (PA) had reached an agreement designed to open the way towards what later became known as a “two-state solution” and full peace. Never in my life have I felt happier! The date? 13 September 1993.

Today, Thursday, is 14 September. So follow some Q&A about the Oslo Agreements, so called after the Norwegian capital where much of the negotiation process had taken place.

Who were the signatories of the Oslo Agreements?

On the Israeli side it was then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; on the Palestinian one, PA chief Yasser Arafat.

What were the main points of the Oslo Agreements?

Given that the Agreements comprise over 300 pages containing 5 “chapters” with 31 “articles”, plus 7 “annexes” and 9 attached “maps,” this is a hard question to answer. Still, the following essentials are indispensable for any kind of understanding. First, the PA promised to give up terrorism, agreed to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and undertook to enter negotiations towards a “final” peace. 2. Israel recognized the PA as representing the Palestinian People and agreed to work with it in order to reach a peace agreement.  3. The West Bank was to be divided into three discontinuous zones. One under full Israeli control (both security and civilian), one under the joint control of Israel and the PA, and one under full Palestinian control; Israel’s security forces were to “redeploy” accordingly. 4. The various Palestinian paramilitary organizations then existing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were to be united under the authority of the PA and used to look after the security of those areas; no additional such organizations were to be recognized or newly established. 5. Israel and the PA were to work together in suppressing terrorism. 6. The agreements were deemed to be provisional, allowing five years for reaching a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. 7. Both signatories would treat each other with due regard to internationally-accepted norms and principles of human rights and the rule of law, including an end to hostile propaganda and education.

Why did the Agreements fail?

One cardinal reason was the assassination by a Jewish terrorist of Prime Minister Rabin, the only Israeli with the authority to—perhaps—pull it off. Followed by his replacement, a few month later, by a series of more right-wing leaders—of whom the most important by far was Benjamin Netanyahu—who refused to do so.

That apart, almost from the beginning, both sides failed to act in the spirit, sometimes even the letter, of the Agreements. Though there were ups and downs the PA, either because it couldn’t or because it wouldn’t, never put an end to terrorism either in the West Bank of in the Gaza Strip.  Nor did it stop its propaganda against Israel. Israel on its part only redeployed its forces in a symbolic way, leaving both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (the latter, until 2006 when it finally withdrew its forces) under full military control.

More important still, three cardinal problems. They are, 1. The question of the settlements, now allegedly containing a population of 500,000, which Israel has built in the Territories and which it insists on eventually turning into part of its own sovereign territory. 2. The right of the Palestinians to return to the homes they were forced to leave back in 1948 and 1967, including not only those in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but in “old” Israel: too; and 3. The question of Jerusalem, which Israel insists must remain under its sole control and the PA demands be divided between the two sides.

And the future?

Bad for everyone. The Holy Land remains a not-so-dormant volcano ready to explode at any moment. To this, one might add the quite real possibility of Israel going up in flames as Left and Right battle each other over profound political, social and constitutional issues that are even now tearing it apart.

Meanwhile, for demographic and other reasons, both Israeli’s system of government and its public opinion have been moving steadily to the right. The younger the voter the more true this is, causing the future to look dark indeed. The worst scenario would be an attempt by some future Israeli right-wing government to use terrorism as an excuse to do away with what is left of the Agreement and expel the Palestinians of the West Bank in particular into what is now the Kingdom of Jordan. Such a move, akin to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, would very likely draw additional countries such as Iran, Lebanon and Syria into the fray. In addition, it would almost certainly nullify much of the progress that has been made towards a wider Israeli-Arab- and Israeli-Islamic peace. Feeling beleaguered on all sides, and possibly beset by civil war as well, Israel’s government, or what remains of it, might get to the point where it threatens using some of the 100-400 nuclear warheads which, according to various foreign sources, it has.

Or worse.

Cuius Culpa?

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Eighty-four years ago in 1939, almost to the day, World War II broke out. Twenty years ago in 2003, again almost to the day, I gave a the following interview on the topic to the right-wing German news magazine Focus. Comments, welcome.

FOCUS: Professor van Creveld, why did Hitler attack Poland?

MvC: There can be no question but that one of Hitler’s primary objectives had long been the revision of the Versailles “Diktat” by returning to Germany the territories it had lost to Poland after World War I and adding to them if possible. This in turn was to be the first stage in the realization of his long-term plans to acquire Lebensraum for the German people. Yet the timing of the attack seems to have been determined by a different factor. Ever since 1937, when he was 48 years old, Hitler had looked at himself as a man past his prime. He believed that, health-wise he only had limited time left to carry out his plans.

FOCUS: Why did Stalin attack Poland?

MvC: That is very simple. Before 1918, much of Poland had belonged to Russia. In that sense, Stalin was doing no more than take back what was his in any case.

FOCUS: But together they unleased World War II. Right?

MvC: That is a way to look at it. But you could also argue that it was Britain’s guarantee to Poland that did the trick. Before the guarantee was given, Stalin feared, not without reason, that he might have to face Hitler on his own. After the guarantee he knew that this would not be the case. This left him free to conclude the non-aggression pact with Germany, which opened the road to the war.

FOCUS: Did Stalin deliberately wait for two weeks so as to make Hitler bear the full burden of having unleashed the war?

MvC: I am unaware of any historical source that makes this point; considering that he once said that “gratitude [and presumably other moral qualities as well] is something suitable for a dog”, I think it unlikely. Probably he needed some time to prepare and, cautious as he was, he also wanted to see what was happening first.

FOCUS: You say that Hitler attacked because he wanted to rectify the loss of territory Germany had suffered under the Treaty of Versailles and, if possible, acquire more. Yet in the documents of the German Foreign Ministry the words “encirclement” and “threat” keep appearing, Polish politicians often expressed their aggressive designs on Germany, and indeed the idea that the Polish-German border should run along the Oder goes back as far as the 1920s. Given these facts, would you say that Poland must bear part of the responsibility for the outbreak of the war?

MvC: The Franco-Polish Mutual Assistance pact dated to 1925. Ten years later, any significance it had ever had was nullified by the conclusion of the German-Polish Nonaggression Pact. Next, on 28 April 1939, Hitler cancelled that pact almost by a slight of hand, simply saying that “the basis on which it rested” no longer existed. One may accuse the Poles of many things. However, except for insisting on their territorial integrity in the face of Hitler’s demands and threats I do not see how one can blame them for the outbreak of World War II.

FOCUS: However, there is also a statement by Hitler, dating to the spring of 1939, in which he said that all he was trying to do was to apply some pressure to Poland over Danzig. That apart, though, he was prepared recognize Poland’s border; “he would not be the idiot who would start a war over Poland.” What did he mean by that?

MvC: At about the same time, Hitler also told his generals that “further successes in Europe without bloodshed are not possible”. So I would not attribute too much weight to this statement or that; the fact is that, having dismissed the nonaggression pact with Poland, Hitler staged a border incident (the occupation of Gleiwitz radio station) on 31 August 1939 and went to war early on the next day.

FOCUS: Was Poland ready for war?

MvC: This is a strange story indeed. By one account, weeks before the war a Polish general in Warsaw told a French delegation that, in case hostilities broke out, the French should worry about their eastern border while they themselves marched on Berlin. If that is true, then rarely in history can any military have overestimated itself to such an extent.

FOCUS: This confirms a statement by the Polish ambassador in Berlin, Jozef Lipski. Just one day before the outbreak of the war he said he did not have to worry about negotiations with Germany, given that Polish troops would soon be marching on Berlin. Did the Poles believe Britain and France would immediately come to their aid?

MvC: The Poles seem to have understood that the British and French could no longer avoid their obligations, and in this they proved right. However, they proved very wrong in estimating their own capabilities. In any case, as I said, it was not they who started the shooting war.

Had there been no Western commitment, would the Poles have accepted Hitler’s demands and would the outbreak of war on 1 September have been avoided? Perhaps. Would that have been better for the world? I doubt it.

FOCUS: During the years after 1939 Hitler revealed himself as a criminal, automatically causing his proposals to be discredited. However, this was 1939. The return of Danzig, an extra-territorial motor- and railway across the Polish Corridor, and a long time agreement concerning the border between the two countries. Would you say that, right form the beginning, these demands were illegitimate? 

MvC: First, I hope you agree with me that Hitler was a criminal long before 1 September 1939. Second, what do the terms “legitimate” and illegitimate” mean in this context? If Hitler’s demands were legitimate, then so, for example, was Clemenceau’s suggestion in 1919 that Germany be dismantled by taking the Rhineland and perhaps Bavaria away from it. Perhaps the only thing wrong with that proposal is that it was never carried out!

FOCUS: Supposing the world “legitimate” is out of place, do you think that for any German to seek a revision of the Treaty of Versailles was “normal” and indeed to be expected?

MvC: Normal? With Pontius Pilatus, I answer: what is normal? Perhaps you are right: the victors of 1919 should have anticipated that no German government could live with the terms they imposed. Either they should have relaxed them, or else they should have followed Clemenceau’s ideas.

In fact, they failed to do either and fell between the chairs. By this interpretation, they did in 1945 what they should have done twenty-six years earlier.

FOCUS: Did Polish abuse of the German minority in the Corridor play a role in Germany’s decision to go to war?

MvC: Yes, clearly, but perhaps more as an excuse than as a real cause. In any case I doubt whether it was for Nazi Germany, of all countries, to complain about the way minorities were treated.

FOCUS: How strong was the Polish army??

MvC: The Poles’ main problem was not the number of troops, nor their training, nor their motivation. It was the absence of a modern industry that could have provided them with modern arms. To this were added a hopeless geographical situation and Stalin’s stab in the back.

FOCUS: Is it true, as the German Center for Political Education maintains in one of the books it promoted, that the attack on Poland was “the opening stage in a war of extermination”?

MvC: From everything I have ever read it would seem that Hitler, while determined to destroy first the Jews and then uncounted numbers of Russians, had always known that the most drastic measures would only be possible under the cover of war. So the answer is, yes.

FOCUS: Did the Wehrmacht in Poland wage a war of extermination against the civilian population?

MvC: No. But it certainly stood by and even provided support as the SS did so.

FOCUS: Did you visit the exhibition, “Germans and Poles”, in Berlin’s Haus der Geschichte?

MvC: Yes, I did.

FOCUS: Do you think the exhibition provides the visitor with a good idea of what took place?

MvC: The answer is both yes and no. I thought that the parts dealing with World War II were very good—it is impossible to exaggerate the misery that the German occupation forces inflicted on the Polish people during that period. On the other hand, I thought that everything before that was presented in a very one-sided way. It was as if, starting with Frederick the Great, the Germans had always been criminals and the Poles, angels. If I had been a German, this part of the exhibition would have made me extremely angry.

FOCUS: The fact that, during World War II, Germany committed untold atrocities in Poland is beyond doubt. However, Polish efforts to drive Germans out of Poland began much earlier. So why, in your opinion, why wasn’t this fact mentioned in the exhibition?

MvC: If you want to compare Polish atrocities with German ones, then I do not agree. If you want to say that the Poles were anything but angels, then I have already said what I think.

FOCUS: But do you agree that the organizers of the exhibition, in emphasizing German mistreatment of Poland, should also have devoted at least some space to the Poles’ treatment of ethnic Germans?

MvC: It is as I told you; if I were a German, parts of this exhibition would have made me very angry.

FOCUS: Looking back from the perspective of 2003, you could argue that, of all the states involved in unleashing the war, it was Poland that gained the most. The Soviet Union no longer exists and Russia’s border has been pushed 1,000 kilometers to the east. The British Empire no longer exists. Germany lost a third of its territory. France remains France. By contrast, the poor abused Poles have reached the Oder-Neisse frontier. Danzig has become Gdansk and Upper Silesia belongs to Poland. The irony of history?

MvC: May I tell you a story? My late father in law, Gert Leisersohn, was born in Germany in 1922. His father had fought for Germany in World War I and was wounded, yet in 1936 he and his family had to flee for their lives, going all the way to Chile. He once told me that, on 1 September 1939, he felt that while he hated war as much as anybody else, he was very happy that this one had broken out because it was the only way to get rid of Hitler.

FOCUS: Are you saying that anyone who fought Hitler’s Germany was automatically and completely in the right?

MvC: Do you know a greater wrong than Auschwitz?