This is spot on, but I doubt the ability of Germans in recognizing what is at stake. Germany today seems to be completely unable or incapable of any deep strategic thinking. Japan on the other hand, has been able to craft alliances of all sorts - namely the Quad - and has been crucial in inventing the very term of the “Indo-pacific.” Japan is dead serious about bolstering its defense and has participated in multiple exercises involving a “Taiwan contingency.” Germany and Europe as a whole must wake up and act accordingly. Empty words and pledges won’t do any good. I really hope to see them succeed and stand up firm to the challenges ahead.
Correct and very timely, Noah. I have a couple of small points:
1. Don't underestimate how the mentality of various constituents in Germany is continuing to shape this idiotic failure to face up to reality. The left has a long tradition of virulent of anti-Americanism that sees NATO as equally to blame for the Cold War, and the main reason why Ukraine happened. They're quite happy to ignore reality for a good deal longer. And the commercial classes has absorbed the lessons of the mid-20th century as suggesting that economics and commercial interests should always outweigh other interests - you can see relations with Russia (oil/gas) and China (markets) through this lens rather than geopolitical.
2. "France, Britain, and Russia were all equally militaristic and equally responsible for World War 1" - that's the real hogwash. Of these three Russia was heavily to blame, but France? For being invaded? Britain? For stepping in to prevent Belgium being destroyed and the balance of power in Europe being upended? Sure they had interests, and the interests included their own primacy internationally at the expense of German ambitions. But look at Belgrade, Vienna and Berlin first - Germany was brash, newly powerful and fighting to claim a seat at the table of great powers. Those that argue most forcefully against this tend to be German historians writing for an audience that is sick of being blamed for both world wars.
Russia, as the first Great Power to mobilise, was indeed heavily to blame; and was strongly encouraged in doing so by French diplomacy (see ‘The Russian Origins of the First World War’ by Sean McMeekin).
I've not read that, although I very much liked his book on the Second World War.
But yes, there was of course diplomacy at play too, and many believed the Russians were underprepared for war because they were in the middle of a big revamp of their military. The French had very real concerns that echoed what they'd experienced in 1870, and did not want to face German aggression without some kind of eastern spoiler.
It’s a great book. A long time since I read it, but as I recall the French motivation in egging on the Russians was a mixture of understandable fear (of Germany) and a desire for revenge after the humiliation of 1870. He also goes into the cult of the Russian soldier, seen as invincibly hardy and overwhelmingly numerous; and while the Austrians may well have thought Russia wouldn’t declare mid-mobilisation, the French believed that if only they could bring Russia to do it, their two armies together would crush Germany with relative ease. (And what with the pan-Slavic militarists in the Russian ministry, they were pushing at a somewhat open door.)
Fascinating. I'll add it to my reading pile! Thanks Jonathan.
His book 'Stalin's War' looks at the Second World War through Russian/Stalin's interests, and makes the argument that basically the west was working for Stalin all along, even if we didn't realise it. Some bits he pushes too far (Britain and France coming to the rescue of Finland in 39/40) but there's a lot that's really excellent, including on just how much material the USSR benefited from right to the end. Recommended.
#2 is a misunderstanding of European history between napoleon and WWI. Yeah in the short span view the central powers probably bear more of the blame, but the trigger point was reached by 100 years of imperial jockeying on all sides with no low blame participants.
I'm uncharacteristically positive here. The response to Russian aggression has proved entirely adequate so far. Russia has lost its professional army, burned through most of the massive Soviet stockpile of tanks and shells , and has nothing to show for it but a handful of devastated cities. Germany's response might not have been as fast as we might have hoped, but it's been enough.
It's always crucial to remember that Russia has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire world, which means that the idea of total victory is a chimera. All Europe (including Ukraine) can do is hold the Russians back and wait for them to run out of steam.
Except that by-and-large this has only been possible through large amounts of US-provided military aid. If the US left the scene tomorrow Germany and the rest of western Europe combined wouldn't be able to take up the slack. And that's exactly the problem.
Also note, the effect of the war has hit EU much much harder, mostly via increased energy costs (which have also actually been a boon to US LPG). So I guess you could count that as a form of aid, as they are choosing to carry that burden on their economies.
So I think the analysis is a bit more complex than it's just the US this here. Rheinmetall has ramped up production faster than US industrial base, for example. It's very much a group effort.
Isn't the US by far the biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine more because it had large pre-existing stockpiles of weapons to donate, rather than because it had more capacity to produce new weapons?
Overrunning Russia is a tall order even without nuclear weapons (as Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler discovered to their cost): realistically "total victory" over Russia would mean the breakup of Russia into smaller nations, much as the USSR or Yugoslavia did.
I agree with almost everything, with the exception of your take on militarism prior to WWI.
I think that Germany was considerably more militaristic than the UK or France and had a greater responsibility for WWI - all of them were imperialistic, but only Germany was ruled by a powerful monarch (with real authority, unlike in the UK), who was surrounded by a class of reactionary aristictocratic landowners and military officers, who filled most state functions and were only responsible to the Kaiser. Germany also had by far the strongest army of all the great powers, it was building a new navy, and felt strong enough to beat France and Russia simultaneously. When going to war in 1914, its leaders cared little about what the Parliament or the population at large thinks.
Britain and France IMHO had much less appetite for war and were much more internally democratic.
To what extent was Germany's high level of militarism down to the fact that while all major European powers at the time were imperialistic, Germany's geographical location meant it couldn't act on those imperialistic impulses without directly attacking another major power?
By contrast France and Italy could hop across the Mediterranean into North Africa, Austria-Hungary could expand into the Balkans, Russia had Central Asia and (until checked by Japan in 1904) the Far East, and Britain could seek colonies pretty much anywhere the Royal Navy could reach.
That is not a bad take, but I think there was a lot of path dependency at play. Prussia originated from the medieval Baltic crusades against pagans and German migration into Eastern Europe. It was thus itself to some extent a "colonial" land originally, born out of warfare against the Slavs, and constantly worried about native (mostly Polish) uprisings. That was one source of an authoritarian and militaristic streak.
Another reason for Prussian militarism was that in the 18th Century, when they became a great power, they had a much smaller population than the other great powers, like France, so Prussia had to squeeze their tiny population much harder.
In comparison, the western and southern regions of Germany, ruled by petty princes, were much more mercantile, cultured and un-warlike.
I wonder if there's a similar explanation for the contrast in the eastern Slavic world between the autocracy of Muscovy (and its Vladimir-Suzdal predecessor) and the more decentralized societies of Novgorod and Kyiv (actually republican in the former case)?
One important difference is that both Novgorod and Kyiv lay along the river route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" (and were thus well-linked to the outside world) while Moscow's river Moskva (which gave the city itself its name) flows into the Oka, and then into the Volga, which ultimately dead-ends into the Caspian Sea. This means that while Moscow could trade fairly easily with Iran (on the far side of Caspian) it was largely cut off from the rest of Europe.
Most of Britain's imperial conquests were of lands (such as North America, Australia and much of Africa) where the native populations were primitive (and in the first two cases extremely depleted by European diseases).
The main British colony with advanced native cultures was India, and it was weakened by the fact that its mostly-Hindu population was ruled over by Muslim invaders (from modern-day Afghanistan) who were just as exploitative as the British themselves would later be -- this pitiless past exploitation is one reason why Islamophobia is so strong in modern India.
It's also notable that India was originally conquered not by the British state but by a private company.
That says nothing about how relatively militaristic they were as a society, in my opinion. I think that "militarism" denotes how much a society is or is not dominated by its military, which is not the same thing as foreign policy or imperialism. North Korea is very militaristic and it has no empire.
The British, on the other hand, had a civilian and relatively democratic government (by the standards of the time) at home, as well as a bourgois culture, while they controlled their giant empire with relatively few troops.
And isn't there the old Athens vs. Sparta dichotomy at work here, in that naval powers tend to be more democratic than land powers, and use technology rather than a militarized general society to project power?
Perhaps, because naval empires will tend to be commercial and their ruling class will be a rich mercantile oligarchy, with some social mobility allowed, which will rule through some kind of assembly or senate. Works well for the Venetians or the Dutch United Provinces too, not as well for the Portuguese.
This argument seems flawed to me in a few respects.
Firstly, the fixation on Germany is weird. The two major military powers in western Europe are France and the UK, with Poland catching up. Germany hasn't had a serious military since WW2 and as Noah correctly explains, isn't anywhere even close to changing that. Only France and the UK have fought in serious military engagements and kept up a properly trained and modernized force. So Europe's fate depends on them, not Germany or frankly anywhere else.
This isn't apparent in the argument above, because it tries to view military capacity through the lens of economic indicators alone and then excludes the UK from the first view because it's not in the EU anymore.
Anyway. Putting that aside, there's nearly zero chance of Germany fixing this situation. To be willing to defend your country you have to actually like it, you have to be patriotic. Otherwise why bother? If foreign rule is no worse than your own people there's no logic to fighting. Germany's ruling class are very left and despise German patriotism. They are ultra-woke and this shines through in everything they say and do. The only political movement that might actually try to rebuild German military strength would be the AfD, bu the German legal system and constitution enables all sorts of roadblocks to be thrown in their path up to and including simply banning them. Certainly, the German media is united in telling all good Germans that AfD = Nazis and it is immoral to vote for them. So Germany is not only weak in terms of metal on the ground, it's weak culturally and disinterested in its own survival.
Meanwhile France has been politically crippled by the shenanigans pulled at their last snap elections. Whatever coalition emerges is highly likely to immediately trash their economy and cause an executive exodus.
That leaves the UK. Also in a very weak positions, especially as most of its munitions have been sent to Ukraine already. But it retains some basic strengths: it's an island, its military has been continuously funded and able to modernize, Labour are not as crazy far left as the parties in France and Germany are, and they have a clear majority so could move quickly if they wanted to. It's not an industrial power but by this point neither is Russia, and if war with China broke out the industrial-scale market dumping would quickly end allowing local competitors to rebuild.
"Firstly, the fixation on Germany is weird. The two major military powers in western Europe are France and the UK, with Poland catching up. Germany hasn't had a serious military since WW2 and as Noah correctly explains, isn't anywhere even close to changing that. Only France and the UK have fought in serious military engagements and kept up a properly trained and modernized force. So Europe's fate depends on them, not Germany or frankly anywhere else."
But France and the UK are still primarily naval powers, which have fought in long distance wars against minor powers to protect their far-flung colonies like it's still the 19th century. Germany (and Russia) is the only country positioned to fight a major land war in Europe. Same as it ever was.
UK army spent years on the ground in Helmand. It's not a great power conflict but is presumably better than nothing when it comes to keeping the military in practice.
Sure, I'm not trying to cast shade at their army. From what I've heard their quality is excellent. It's just a numbers problem- the UK doesn't invest enough in their army, or have enough soldiers, to fight an extended great power conflict on land.
That's true, but it's true almost by definition. Are there any armies that would count as great powers in the world today except the USA, China and (maybe) Russia? Given that the latter has been consuming obsolete stockpiles and was forced into conscription very early it's clear it wasn't originally a great power army, even assuming it is now. They didn't have the numbers even for a short invasion of Ukraine.
South Korea has a very large army and massive artillery stocks (because of conscription and huge military buildup). They actually have a larger (in manpower) army than the US. Germany is twice their size, they could do the same and be the core of European defense. But they have to actually want to do it, which I think is the point of this article.
Germany had one of the largest, most well equipped standing armies in nato, second only to the United States, for much of the Cold War. It spent on average 3 ~ 4% of GDP on defense.
The, the other big thing is France and the United Kingdom do not have the fiscal space to really wrap up significant military spending.
I guess the issue is that Germany has so much more fiscal space primarily because of its mercantilist success, and that success was itself partly achieved by sucking up to bad actors: Russia as a supplier of cheap energy, and China as a gigantic market for Germany's automobile and industrial machinery production.
You presumably mean West Germany, or do you mean the two combined? Germany proper, the modern combined country, didn't even exist until 1990.
3-4% wasn't any special level of spending, actually a little low. During the cold war military expenditure was higher in general. The UK spent 5% in the 1980s and then declined to 2% during the 1990s, for example.
As for military size, at the time of reunification the German/French militaries were of comparable size:
Germany has the fiscal capacity and population. France, Italy and Spain don’t have the fiscal capacity, even though France has a military and they all have population. Italy and Spain also lack the interest (moreso than Germany, even).
Germany is broke man, where is this idea that Germany has "fiscal capacity" coming from? Yes their gov debt:GDP ratio is lower than France or the UK but that's because they have a constitutionally mandated debt brake. That "fiscal capacity" gap isn't large and could only emerge if they changed their constitution.
A more useful indicator of fiscal capacity is at any rate inflation. German inflation rate been similar to that of the UK. There isn't much difference between them.
"We are in favour of a substantial strengthening of the European component of the North Atlantic Alliance. To achieve this objective, it is necessary to restore the military capabilities of the German Armed Forces, and to align these with strategic and operative requirements."
On European defense cooperation:
"The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is an essential instrument of European peace and order. We advocate that its role in European conflicts is strengthened and enhanced, with the view to stabilising crisis regions"
"The AfD rejects the idea of a combined European military force, and subscribes to well-equipped and trained German Armed Forces as the pillar of German sovereignty. This does not preclude the continuous co-operation of the German Armed Forces with its Allies."
(an EU military is also rejected by the UK on the grounds that it'd be a logistical disaster that duplicates NATO procedures and systems)
On military spending:
"The military budget has to be increased to a level which is adequate for preserving the security and freedom of Germany and its Allies"
That all sounds pretty strong on defense to me. You're probably referring to this part on Russia:
"The relationship with Russia is of prime importance, because European security cannot be attained without Russia’s involvement. Therefore, we strive for a peaceful solution of conflicts in Europe, whilst respecting the interests of all parties"
They definitely don't take the position that Russia must retreat fully from Ukraine/Crimea, but this seems to be based in a realistic assessment of what can actually be done. Germany is in no position to fight Russia and win. A generic hope for peace and negotiation is about the best they can do given that they just spend several pages admitting that the German military is wrecked.
Right - they're isolationist, and want to take over their own military affairs. But what are you expecting here? Germany isn't currently in any position to be interventionist. Currently the best thing _for Germany_ is to avoid confrontation with Russia for a while whilst simultaneously re-arming, a bit like Chamberlain.
What strategy do you think they should adopt (that is best for Germany and Germans)?
Given that Chamberlain did accelerate rearmament after the Munich Agreement (especially fighter planes, as he was especially afraid of strategic bombing) I don't think your claim that he was afraid of an arms race is plausible.
My understanding is that the Germans got the jump on the democracies in the arms race, largely by engaging in massive deficit spending (much of it concealed using the Mefo bills strategem) in violation of the conventional economic orthodoxy of the period. The Allies believed that delaying war was to their advantage, as it would give them time to bring their greater industrial capacity to bear.
It didn't work out for them though: first of all because of Molotov-Ribbentrop as you point out, but also because Erich Manstein's tactical brilliance allowed France to be conquered in just six weeks in 1940.
Though I don’t think it is fair to say that fascism (“authoritarianism”) could have started “anywhere”. Many people much smarter than me have noted the difference between German vs English/Scottish political economy and philosophy. The Germans, for the most part, willingly accepted fascism, the French collaborated, while Holland and Belgium were fruitful recruiting grounds for the SS.
The Italians accepted fascism with their fingers crossed behind their backs (their typical reaction to government and rules, generally). Russia, of course, accepted communism, and it was quite popular in the regions of Europe that were ruled by fascists. Is there a difference between “the Continent” and the periphery (I’d maybe even include Scandinavia in the periphery, though it is obviously more statist and conformist than the UK or US).
While the inteligencia of Britain and America and some of its working class (Labour party, some American unions) were friendly to Marxism and were early admirers of Mussolini, it is interesting that a fondness for top down rule (or even rule by “expert” committees) never really caught on with the general populace (even as America loved FDR). Eggheads love rule by eggheads. Sovereign people - maybe not so much. Of course we are all human and tribal and so are all capable of horrific things (including willingly following dictators, committees of “experts”, pogroms, etc) but local history and culture maybe are not so easily overturned.
My view is that Germany today is fundamentally corporatist (and I’d throw the unions into that mix as they are intertwined with the corporations). The SPD sides more with the unions and the inteligencia while the CDU/CSU with corporations and the Mittelstand, but these are all part of the same system. I wouldn’t call Germany a “liberal” democracy, but I’m not an expert on Germany (ran businesses there and elsewhere in Europe/mideast for a decade but I recognize I am just a guy spouting off). Germany is a democratic federation to be sure.
Fascism is socialism with the government directing corporations rather than owning and operating them outright. In modern Germany’s case (and to some extent, France’s) it may be more the corporations (and their unions) that have owned government. Either way, it is not terribly hard for me to see how Germany made a smooth transition from fascism to corporatism and mercantilism.
Is that arrangement stable? Seems like 25 percent+ of the country has become more populist (AfD, Linke)- at least. Less than in France (over 50 percent now), but concerning. If fewer people buy into “the system” (strong corporate and export sector, union jobs, repressed consumption) as newer job entrants face less security (more part time work) and see more benefits diverted to migrants, what will Germany be like in 20 years?
As you note, spending money on defense isn’t really a top priority in their heart of hearts. Germany claimed to want to meet the 2 pct target AND spend an additional €100 billion above and beyond that. It seems to be dragging its feet on part of the €100 billion and maybe even counting some of that toward the 2 pct goal.
Fundamentally, Germany and France wish to trade with Russia (and Ukraine). They are mercantilists, not fighters. They were not huge fans of the Russian sanctions after the Crimea annexation in 2014 and were primary backers of Nordstream 2 (after Crimea/Donbas). France (last time I checked the Kiel database awhile ago) has sent fewer weapons as a pct of GDP than Orban had (though France’s share of the EU-level Econ commitment is large).
The ideal situation for Germany and France would be a peace deal in Ukraine, normalization of ties with Russia and big contracts for Siemens, Lafarge et al to rebuild Ukraine. In that scenario Putin will likely revert to the usual political undermining of border countries (Balkan, Baltics), but that has been going on (and off) for a long time.
I sort of agree with the Trumpian view that Europe needs America’s nuke umbrella but needs to take the lead within NATO for “European problems”. I am not terribly panicked about Putin attacking NATO territory, so I think this will be OK.
A bigger issue is that Europe does very little to stabilize and develop its near abroad: North Africa and the Mideast- right across the Med. North Africa needs to be brought into the broader economy of Europe (as Mexico is linked to the US). An unstable N Africa (Russian troops are in Libya) is a recipe for disaster longer term given there are probably 1 billion Africans who would come to Europe for free housing and dole today, if they could.
Interesting times! And the fiscal and demographic trends might make them more interesting down the road.
I was especially struck by the argument that Germany is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. The examples of Russian sabotage and cyberattacks on German soil really drive home the point that this isn't just a far-off conflict.
The historical parallels drawn here are thought-provoking. The comparison to France's role in the Crimean War offers an interesting perspective on how Germany could lead without being seen as an aggressor.
That said, I'm not entirely convinced that German public opinion will shift as easily as the author hopes. The reluctance to embrace a more militaristic stance is deeply ingrained. While the concept of "liberal nationalism" is intriguing, I wonder if it will resonate with a population that has been wary of nationalist sentiment for decades.
The economic arguments for rearmament are compelling, but I can already imagine the pushback against cutting social programs to fund military spending. It's going to be a tough sell politically.
There is probably also the expectation that the war will not go on forever and that a return to earlier economic arrangements will occur.
Overall, this piece has given me a lot to think about. It's a stark reminder that we're living through a major historical shift, and the decisions made in Berlin over the next few years could shape the future of Europe for decades to come.
The German way is to avoid making a decision until only one course of action becomes the default or consensus! Though sporadically they will do something impulsive (Merkel and the Syrians).
That actually sounds like the US as well :). I think of Churchill's quote about America always doing the right thing after trying everything else. Hopefully, the US and Germany can figure out the right thing and start doing it before too long.
Remember that "only Nixon could go to China" line? Wouldn't it be amazing if the Germans did something similar with Russia? They have the economic connections (currently latent under American pressure, but quickly reconstructable). A German led NATO might do something that should have been done in 1991: create a stable, peaceful relationship with Russia.
Noah thinks this is impossible. Firmly in the camp of the Amer-EU, left-wing, establishment, Noah believes that Russia and Putin are Hitlerian-level villains intent on conquering Europe. (Ignoring that in 2 years of grinding effort, Putin's army has only managed to conquer about a 100 mile wide corridor within his impoverished and corrupt next door neighbor -- the idea that he could take on Poland or Germany is absurd.) It would be ironic if the land that gave us the real Hitler becomes the one country in Europe that can see through this obvious falsehood. Perhaps it's too late to make peace. Perhaps Russia has made its bed with China irrevocably. But perhaps not. With the Americans pulling back and, Macron emasculated, and France in legislative limbo for the next 12 months, perhaps the Germans will finally get to ask that question.
"the Nazis were the most destructive and villainous regime of the entire modern age so far"
Actually, among 20th century ideologies, communism claimed vastly more victims than Naziism. Both Stalin and Mao were far more murderous than Hitler. (Although I'm reading the Devils Best Trick at the moment, and historically, the Aztec peoples were probably the most bloodthirsty in human history. It's a good book BTW.)
"The communists killed most or even the vast majority of their victims with catastrophic, ideologically induced, and cockeyed economic policies, using humans as production factors, or sacrificing human beings for humanity’s good or history’s march. The Soviets executed perhaps around 10 percent of their more than eight million killed. Had Mao not hatched his murderous Great Leap Forward economic scheme, then millions, indeed perhaps twenty million more Chinese, would not have died. None of this makes these regimes’ murderousness any less murderous than the murderousness of others, or their victims’ deaths any less morally condemnable, significant, or meaningful. But unlike those of the other colossally mass eliminationist and murderous regimes, the Nazis’ drive to slaughter people was organic to their ideology with its racist-biological conception of humanity and human worth and its concomitant drive for racial purity, expansion, and dominance. It was an ideology of destruction."
"Had the Germans won the war, they would have slaughtered the five million additional Jews documented at Wannsee and, if able to, Jews beyond Europe, especially in the United States. They would have slaughtered everywhere mentally ill and developmentally disabled people; all people they called Gypsies; and Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, and other peoples to their east in the tens of millions, as they refashioned the Eurasian continent and humanity. They would have slaughtered, or prevented the birth of, children, as the biological seeds of peoples they wanted to destroy or numerically control, or considered superfluous. As they moved into Africa and Asia, they would have slaughtered or let perish untold millions of various subhumans, Asians being deemed racial cripples and blacks semi-apes. Had the Germans prevailed, they would have destroyed civilization and humanity as we know it."
"If the communists were a heresy on Western civilization, accepting many of its fundamental values and tenets if in a perverted way, the Nazis were an apostasy, seeking its destruction and replacement by a German racial dominion, a world of masters and, of those permitted to live, mainly slaves. After seventy years of communist rule, Russia, Ukraine, the Baltics, and elsewhere, countries and peoples resumed control of their futures. After almost half a century of Soviet domination in Central Europe, in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere, the countries’ peoples emerged intact and educated, and able to pick up, much the poorer in many ways, where they had been nationally and culturally. Had the Nazis ruled these same lands for half or three quarters of a century, no Ukraine or Ukrainian people, no Poland or Polish people, no Russia or Russian people would have been left to resuscitate. The Germans would have repopulated their lands with colonists, slaughtered and enslaved their peoples, obliterated their religions and churches, their cultures and communities. The Germans developed plans to begin this vast systematic destruction, most notably the General Plan for the East, and had in almost no time already started to implement their desires. After half a century or more under a victorious Nazi Germany, European, Western, even pre-Nazi German civilization, would have been destroyed, unrecognizable, incapable of resurrection. Such was Nazism’s caesura with Western civilization. Such was its unparalleled destructiveness."
I'm not analyzing ideology, George, just adding up body counts. And 8M is on the extreme low end of estimates for Stalin.
Had the Nazis won WWII, they would have slaughtered millions more. Had the communists won the Cold War they would have slaughtered millions more. It's a good thing we didn't listen to Lindbergh and the isolationists or to the commies in the universities.
It's fair to say either would have "destroyed civilization", although a fair number of our own citizens today (most especially educated young people) seem to think our civilization isn't worth saving anyway. So perhaps the university Marxists won.
"The lesson of World War 2 is not 'Germany is bad'. It’s that a country’s values are a choice. Any country can become a genocidal totalitarian dictatorship, and any country can become a liberal defender of peace and freedom."
Not sure that applies to all countries: for example the Germans could become a peaceful democracy, but I doubt the Palestinians could similarly make peace with Israel.
Germany was able to de-Nazify because it had already existed for 62 years as a unified nation-state before the Nazis took it over, while the Germans had been recognized as a people for centuries prior -- I'd argue since 1512, with the declaration of the "Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation" by the Diet of Cologne.
By contrast the Palestinians began fighting the Zionists before they were even identifying as a distinct nation themselves (note the "Faisal is our King" cries of the Nabi Musa rioters in 1920, referring to the Hashemite King of Syria) and their national identity was finally crystallized by the Nakba of 1948.
For Palestinians, national liberation IS the destruction of Israel and the restoration of Arab Palestine, and they can only (as individuals) make peace with Israel by compromising their own national identity.
Overall good, but no, France and Britain were not "equally militaristic" as Germany in the runup to World War I. Read about the Moroccan Crises, for example, and it becomes obvious that Kaiser Wilhelm II's government was uniquely and disruptively committed to militarizing disputes.
Germany today, unlike then, is a democracy, and democracies are good at keeping peace with other democracies. It makes no sense to indict today's Germany for the 1914 monarchy, any more than we should absolve Putin because he's "just following tsarist tradition."
"The reason the USSR and the old Russian Empire were such formidable enemies is that they could draw upon vast numbers of subjugated Poles, Ukrainians, other Europeans, and Central Asians to swell the ranks of their armies and take the brunt of the fighting."
Can this really be the basis of substantial military power in the modern world? Seems more like a recipe for endless desertion and constant sabotage. The better you arm your slaves, the more commissars you'd need to control them, and lightly armed slaves aren't going have much of an impact on a modern battlefield.
"Most of the region has grown decidedly slower since that crisis, possibly because Europe failed to take the kind of the swift macroeconomic action that the U.S. did."
Most definitely because the ECB failed. It was even worse than the Bernanke Fed in not keeping inflation up. Admittedly it had a bigger challenge as it needed to (but did not) inflate more to offset the differential impact of the financial crisis on different countries that did not have individual monetary policies because of the Euro.
They got hit harder by the energy price surge than America did.
But let’s be honest- America has maybe 2 pct growth at full employment while running 6 pct deficits. If the US were to run a responsible fiscal policy (impossible under Biden/Yellen or Trump), what would US growth be?
But let’s take a look at old history and newer history. Blithely dismiss the Poles at your own peril. It was the Poles who captured one of the most important pieces of technology in WWII: The Enigma Machine. It was the Poles who, with a Labor Union Leader and Pope, stood up to the USSR. William Casey, Reagan’s CIA Director, sensing an opening with the new Polish Pope, quickly paid him a personal visit. Famously, (in Bernstein’s book) Casey had an aerial photograph of a massive crowd in Poland. He pointed to a white dot in the middle (the Pope wears white). Gosh, I wonder what they talked about at their meeting. A devout Catholic, Casey attended Mass every morning. It’s not just Muslims who can organize a movement to undermine a government.
"If authoritarian countries have national pride, but liberal countries don’t, then the former will overcome the latter and the world will become a dark place."
I could not agree more with this sentiment. This is why I think the kind of deconstructive ethos the modern western left has would cause us to lose our current relatively-peaceful & prosperous world that was so hard-won. Germany is a hotbed of this kind of sentiment, but I hope the tide can turn there as it seems to be here in America.
Even liberal countries clear-eyed about past sins must have some sense of pride for what their society has accomplished, or they'll lose that society for lack of morale and subsequently effort to maintain it.
A lot of European politics is caught between nationalist euroskepticism and globalist eurocentralization. But I think the key, is something like multicultural euronationalism.
I've seen Macron articulate this time from time, that Europe must to be united to guarantee the independence of each nation from it's foreign adversaries and pressures.
This is spot on, but I doubt the ability of Germans in recognizing what is at stake. Germany today seems to be completely unable or incapable of any deep strategic thinking. Japan on the other hand, has been able to craft alliances of all sorts - namely the Quad - and has been crucial in inventing the very term of the “Indo-pacific.” Japan is dead serious about bolstering its defense and has participated in multiple exercises involving a “Taiwan contingency.” Germany and Europe as a whole must wake up and act accordingly. Empty words and pledges won’t do any good. I really hope to see them succeed and stand up firm to the challenges ahead.
> But German leaders need to understand the urgency of the situation they face.
We’re screwed then
Correct and very timely, Noah. I have a couple of small points:
1. Don't underestimate how the mentality of various constituents in Germany is continuing to shape this idiotic failure to face up to reality. The left has a long tradition of virulent of anti-Americanism that sees NATO as equally to blame for the Cold War, and the main reason why Ukraine happened. They're quite happy to ignore reality for a good deal longer. And the commercial classes has absorbed the lessons of the mid-20th century as suggesting that economics and commercial interests should always outweigh other interests - you can see relations with Russia (oil/gas) and China (markets) through this lens rather than geopolitical.
2. "France, Britain, and Russia were all equally militaristic and equally responsible for World War 1" - that's the real hogwash. Of these three Russia was heavily to blame, but France? For being invaded? Britain? For stepping in to prevent Belgium being destroyed and the balance of power in Europe being upended? Sure they had interests, and the interests included their own primacy internationally at the expense of German ambitions. But look at Belgrade, Vienna and Berlin first - Germany was brash, newly powerful and fighting to claim a seat at the table of great powers. Those that argue most forcefully against this tend to be German historians writing for an audience that is sick of being blamed for both world wars.
Russia, as the first Great Power to mobilise, was indeed heavily to blame; and was strongly encouraged in doing so by French diplomacy (see ‘The Russian Origins of the First World War’ by Sean McMeekin).
I've not read that, although I very much liked his book on the Second World War.
But yes, there was of course diplomacy at play too, and many believed the Russians were underprepared for war because they were in the middle of a big revamp of their military. The French had very real concerns that echoed what they'd experienced in 1870, and did not want to face German aggression without some kind of eastern spoiler.
It’s a great book. A long time since I read it, but as I recall the French motivation in egging on the Russians was a mixture of understandable fear (of Germany) and a desire for revenge after the humiliation of 1870. He also goes into the cult of the Russian soldier, seen as invincibly hardy and overwhelmingly numerous; and while the Austrians may well have thought Russia wouldn’t declare mid-mobilisation, the French believed that if only they could bring Russia to do it, their two armies together would crush Germany with relative ease. (And what with the pan-Slavic militarists in the Russian ministry, they were pushing at a somewhat open door.)
Edit: “declare mid-mobilisation” should read “declare mid-revamp”.
Fascinating. I'll add it to my reading pile! Thanks Jonathan.
His book 'Stalin's War' looks at the Second World War through Russian/Stalin's interests, and makes the argument that basically the west was working for Stalin all along, even if we didn't realise it. Some bits he pushes too far (Britain and France coming to the rescue of Finland in 39/40) but there's a lot that's really excellent, including on just how much material the USSR benefited from right to the end. Recommended.
Ooh, l should check that out.
#2 is a misunderstanding of European history between napoleon and WWI. Yeah in the short span view the central powers probably bear more of the blame, but the trigger point was reached by 100 years of imperial jockeying on all sides with no low blame participants.
I'm uncharacteristically positive here. The response to Russian aggression has proved entirely adequate so far. Russia has lost its professional army, burned through most of the massive Soviet stockpile of tanks and shells , and has nothing to show for it but a handful of devastated cities. Germany's response might not have been as fast as we might have hoped, but it's been enough.
It's always crucial to remember that Russia has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire world, which means that the idea of total victory is a chimera. All Europe (including Ukraine) can do is hold the Russians back and wait for them to run out of steam.
Except that by-and-large this has only been possible through large amounts of US-provided military aid. If the US left the scene tomorrow Germany and the rest of western Europe combined wouldn't be able to take up the slack. And that's exactly the problem.
Military aid, absolutely.
Financially, EU has given much more (and more aid in aggregate) - https://www.statista.com/chart/28489/ukrainian-military-humanitarian-and-financial-aid-donors/
Also note, the effect of the war has hit EU much much harder, mostly via increased energy costs (which have also actually been a boon to US LPG). So I guess you could count that as a form of aid, as they are choosing to carry that burden on their economies.
So I think the analysis is a bit more complex than it's just the US this here. Rheinmetall has ramped up production faster than US industrial base, for example. It's very much a group effort.
Isn't the US by far the biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine more because it had large pre-existing stockpiles of weapons to donate, rather than because it had more capacity to produce new weapons?
Overrunning Russia is a tall order even without nuclear weapons (as Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler discovered to their cost): realistically "total victory" over Russia would mean the breakup of Russia into smaller nations, much as the USSR or Yugoslavia did.
I agree with almost everything, with the exception of your take on militarism prior to WWI.
I think that Germany was considerably more militaristic than the UK or France and had a greater responsibility for WWI - all of them were imperialistic, but only Germany was ruled by a powerful monarch (with real authority, unlike in the UK), who was surrounded by a class of reactionary aristictocratic landowners and military officers, who filled most state functions and were only responsible to the Kaiser. Germany also had by far the strongest army of all the great powers, it was building a new navy, and felt strong enough to beat France and Russia simultaneously. When going to war in 1914, its leaders cared little about what the Parliament or the population at large thinks.
Britain and France IMHO had much less appetite for war and were much more internally democratic.
To what extent was Germany's high level of militarism down to the fact that while all major European powers at the time were imperialistic, Germany's geographical location meant it couldn't act on those imperialistic impulses without directly attacking another major power?
By contrast France and Italy could hop across the Mediterranean into North Africa, Austria-Hungary could expand into the Balkans, Russia had Central Asia and (until checked by Japan in 1904) the Far East, and Britain could seek colonies pretty much anywhere the Royal Navy could reach.
That is not a bad take, but I think there was a lot of path dependency at play. Prussia originated from the medieval Baltic crusades against pagans and German migration into Eastern Europe. It was thus itself to some extent a "colonial" land originally, born out of warfare against the Slavs, and constantly worried about native (mostly Polish) uprisings. That was one source of an authoritarian and militaristic streak.
Another reason for Prussian militarism was that in the 18th Century, when they became a great power, they had a much smaller population than the other great powers, like France, so Prussia had to squeeze their tiny population much harder.
In comparison, the western and southern regions of Germany, ruled by petty princes, were much more mercantile, cultured and un-warlike.
I wonder if there's a similar explanation for the contrast in the eastern Slavic world between the autocracy of Muscovy (and its Vladimir-Suzdal predecessor) and the more decentralized societies of Novgorod and Kyiv (actually republican in the former case)?
One important difference is that both Novgorod and Kyiv lay along the river route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" (and were thus well-linked to the outside world) while Moscow's river Moskva (which gave the city itself its name) flows into the Oka, and then into the Volga, which ultimately dead-ends into the Caspian Sea. This means that while Moscow could trade fairly easily with Iran (on the far side of Caspian) it was largely cut off from the rest of Europe.
Most of Britain's imperial conquests were of lands (such as North America, Australia and much of Africa) where the native populations were primitive (and in the first two cases extremely depleted by European diseases).
The main British colony with advanced native cultures was India, and it was weakened by the fact that its mostly-Hindu population was ruled over by Muslim invaders (from modern-day Afghanistan) who were just as exploitative as the British themselves would later be -- this pitiless past exploitation is one reason why Islamophobia is so strong in modern India.
It's also notable that India was originally conquered not by the British state but by a private company.
That says nothing about how relatively militaristic they were as a society, in my opinion. I think that "militarism" denotes how much a society is or is not dominated by its military, which is not the same thing as foreign policy or imperialism. North Korea is very militaristic and it has no empire.
The British, on the other hand, had a civilian and relatively democratic government (by the standards of the time) at home, as well as a bourgois culture, while they controlled their giant empire with relatively few troops.
You might have a different definition, I suppose.
And isn't there the old Athens vs. Sparta dichotomy at work here, in that naval powers tend to be more democratic than land powers, and use technology rather than a militarized general society to project power?
Perhaps, because naval empires will tend to be commercial and their ruling class will be a rich mercantile oligarchy, with some social mobility allowed, which will rule through some kind of assembly or senate. Works well for the Venetians or the Dutch United Provinces too, not as well for the Portuguese.
This argument seems flawed to me in a few respects.
Firstly, the fixation on Germany is weird. The two major military powers in western Europe are France and the UK, with Poland catching up. Germany hasn't had a serious military since WW2 and as Noah correctly explains, isn't anywhere even close to changing that. Only France and the UK have fought in serious military engagements and kept up a properly trained and modernized force. So Europe's fate depends on them, not Germany or frankly anywhere else.
This isn't apparent in the argument above, because it tries to view military capacity through the lens of economic indicators alone and then excludes the UK from the first view because it's not in the EU anymore.
Anyway. Putting that aside, there's nearly zero chance of Germany fixing this situation. To be willing to defend your country you have to actually like it, you have to be patriotic. Otherwise why bother? If foreign rule is no worse than your own people there's no logic to fighting. Germany's ruling class are very left and despise German patriotism. They are ultra-woke and this shines through in everything they say and do. The only political movement that might actually try to rebuild German military strength would be the AfD, bu the German legal system and constitution enables all sorts of roadblocks to be thrown in their path up to and including simply banning them. Certainly, the German media is united in telling all good Germans that AfD = Nazis and it is immoral to vote for them. So Germany is not only weak in terms of metal on the ground, it's weak culturally and disinterested in its own survival.
Meanwhile France has been politically crippled by the shenanigans pulled at their last snap elections. Whatever coalition emerges is highly likely to immediately trash their economy and cause an executive exodus.
That leaves the UK. Also in a very weak positions, especially as most of its munitions have been sent to Ukraine already. But it retains some basic strengths: it's an island, its military has been continuously funded and able to modernize, Labour are not as crazy far left as the parties in France and Germany are, and they have a clear majority so could move quickly if they wanted to. It's not an industrial power but by this point neither is Russia, and if war with China broke out the industrial-scale market dumping would quickly end allowing local competitors to rebuild.
"Firstly, the fixation on Germany is weird. The two major military powers in western Europe are France and the UK, with Poland catching up. Germany hasn't had a serious military since WW2 and as Noah correctly explains, isn't anywhere even close to changing that. Only France and the UK have fought in serious military engagements and kept up a properly trained and modernized force. So Europe's fate depends on them, not Germany or frankly anywhere else."
But France and the UK are still primarily naval powers, which have fought in long distance wars against minor powers to protect their far-flung colonies like it's still the 19th century. Germany (and Russia) is the only country positioned to fight a major land war in Europe. Same as it ever was.
UK army spent years on the ground in Helmand. It's not a great power conflict but is presumably better than nothing when it comes to keeping the military in practice.
Sure, I'm not trying to cast shade at their army. From what I've heard their quality is excellent. It's just a numbers problem- the UK doesn't invest enough in their army, or have enough soldiers, to fight an extended great power conflict on land.
That's true, but it's true almost by definition. Are there any armies that would count as great powers in the world today except the USA, China and (maybe) Russia? Given that the latter has been consuming obsolete stockpiles and was forced into conscription very early it's clear it wasn't originally a great power army, even assuming it is now. They didn't have the numbers even for a short invasion of Ukraine.
South Korea has a very large army and massive artillery stocks (because of conscription and huge military buildup). They actually have a larger (in manpower) army than the US. Germany is twice their size, they could do the same and be the core of European defense. But they have to actually want to do it, which I think is the point of this article.
Wow, TIL. You don't normally hear anything about the South Korean military. A fascinating fact, thank you.
“Germany hasn’t had a serious army since WW2”
Germany had one of the largest, most well equipped standing armies in nato, second only to the United States, for much of the Cold War. It spent on average 3 ~ 4% of GDP on defense.
The, the other big thing is France and the United Kingdom do not have the fiscal space to really wrap up significant military spending.
I guess the issue is that Germany has so much more fiscal space primarily because of its mercantilist success, and that success was itself partly achieved by sucking up to bad actors: Russia as a supplier of cheap energy, and China as a gigantic market for Germany's automobile and industrial machinery production.
Yeah I mean my hot take is Germany’s monetary and fiscal policies are low key fucking Europe
You presumably mean West Germany, or do you mean the two combined? Germany proper, the modern combined country, didn't even exist until 1990.
3-4% wasn't any special level of spending, actually a little low. During the cold war military expenditure was higher in general. The UK spent 5% in the 1980s and then declined to 2% during the 1990s, for example.
As for military size, at the time of reunification the German/French militaries were of comparable size:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/military-personnel?time=1960..latest&country=GBR~DEU~FRA
Both shrank since and now UK/GER/FRA are all around the same size.
Germany has the fiscal capacity and population. France, Italy and Spain don’t have the fiscal capacity, even though France has a military and they all have population. Italy and Spain also lack the interest (moreso than Germany, even).
Germany is broke man, where is this idea that Germany has "fiscal capacity" coming from? Yes their gov debt:GDP ratio is lower than France or the UK but that's because they have a constitutionally mandated debt brake. That "fiscal capacity" gap isn't large and could only emerge if they changed their constitution.
A more useful indicator of fiscal capacity is at any rate inflation. German inflation rate been similar to that of the UK. There isn't much difference between them.
The AfD manifesto on NATO:
"We are in favour of a substantial strengthening of the European component of the North Atlantic Alliance. To achieve this objective, it is necessary to restore the military capabilities of the German Armed Forces, and to align these with strategic and operative requirements."
On European defense cooperation:
"The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is an essential instrument of European peace and order. We advocate that its role in European conflicts is strengthened and enhanced, with the view to stabilising crisis regions"
"The AfD rejects the idea of a combined European military force, and subscribes to well-equipped and trained German Armed Forces as the pillar of German sovereignty. This does not preclude the continuous co-operation of the German Armed Forces with its Allies."
(an EU military is also rejected by the UK on the grounds that it'd be a logistical disaster that duplicates NATO procedures and systems)
On military spending:
"The military budget has to be increased to a level which is adequate for preserving the security and freedom of Germany and its Allies"
That all sounds pretty strong on defense to me. You're probably referring to this part on Russia:
"The relationship with Russia is of prime importance, because European security cannot be attained without Russia’s involvement. Therefore, we strive for a peaceful solution of conflicts in Europe, whilst respecting the interests of all parties"
They definitely don't take the position that Russia must retreat fully from Ukraine/Crimea, but this seems to be based in a realistic assessment of what can actually be done. Germany is in no position to fight Russia and win. A generic hope for peace and negotiation is about the best they can do given that they just spend several pages admitting that the German military is wrecked.
Right - they're isolationist, and want to take over their own military affairs. But what are you expecting here? Germany isn't currently in any position to be interventionist. Currently the best thing _for Germany_ is to avoid confrontation with Russia for a while whilst simultaneously re-arming, a bit like Chamberlain.
What strategy do you think they should adopt (that is best for Germany and Germans)?
Given that Chamberlain did accelerate rearmament after the Munich Agreement (especially fighter planes, as he was especially afraid of strategic bombing) I don't think your claim that he was afraid of an arms race is plausible.
My understanding is that the Germans got the jump on the democracies in the arms race, largely by engaging in massive deficit spending (much of it concealed using the Mefo bills strategem) in violation of the conventional economic orthodoxy of the period. The Allies believed that delaying war was to their advantage, as it would give them time to bring their greater industrial capacity to bear.
It didn't work out for them though: first of all because of Molotov-Ribbentrop as you point out, but also because Erich Manstein's tactical brilliance allowed France to be conquered in just six weeks in 1940.
Good piece.
Though I don’t think it is fair to say that fascism (“authoritarianism”) could have started “anywhere”. Many people much smarter than me have noted the difference between German vs English/Scottish political economy and philosophy. The Germans, for the most part, willingly accepted fascism, the French collaborated, while Holland and Belgium were fruitful recruiting grounds for the SS.
The Italians accepted fascism with their fingers crossed behind their backs (their typical reaction to government and rules, generally). Russia, of course, accepted communism, and it was quite popular in the regions of Europe that were ruled by fascists. Is there a difference between “the Continent” and the periphery (I’d maybe even include Scandinavia in the periphery, though it is obviously more statist and conformist than the UK or US).
While the inteligencia of Britain and America and some of its working class (Labour party, some American unions) were friendly to Marxism and were early admirers of Mussolini, it is interesting that a fondness for top down rule (or even rule by “expert” committees) never really caught on with the general populace (even as America loved FDR). Eggheads love rule by eggheads. Sovereign people - maybe not so much. Of course we are all human and tribal and so are all capable of horrific things (including willingly following dictators, committees of “experts”, pogroms, etc) but local history and culture maybe are not so easily overturned.
My view is that Germany today is fundamentally corporatist (and I’d throw the unions into that mix as they are intertwined with the corporations). The SPD sides more with the unions and the inteligencia while the CDU/CSU with corporations and the Mittelstand, but these are all part of the same system. I wouldn’t call Germany a “liberal” democracy, but I’m not an expert on Germany (ran businesses there and elsewhere in Europe/mideast for a decade but I recognize I am just a guy spouting off). Germany is a democratic federation to be sure.
Fascism is socialism with the government directing corporations rather than owning and operating them outright. In modern Germany’s case (and to some extent, France’s) it may be more the corporations (and their unions) that have owned government. Either way, it is not terribly hard for me to see how Germany made a smooth transition from fascism to corporatism and mercantilism.
Is that arrangement stable? Seems like 25 percent+ of the country has become more populist (AfD, Linke)- at least. Less than in France (over 50 percent now), but concerning. If fewer people buy into “the system” (strong corporate and export sector, union jobs, repressed consumption) as newer job entrants face less security (more part time work) and see more benefits diverted to migrants, what will Germany be like in 20 years?
As you note, spending money on defense isn’t really a top priority in their heart of hearts. Germany claimed to want to meet the 2 pct target AND spend an additional €100 billion above and beyond that. It seems to be dragging its feet on part of the €100 billion and maybe even counting some of that toward the 2 pct goal.
Fundamentally, Germany and France wish to trade with Russia (and Ukraine). They are mercantilists, not fighters. They were not huge fans of the Russian sanctions after the Crimea annexation in 2014 and were primary backers of Nordstream 2 (after Crimea/Donbas). France (last time I checked the Kiel database awhile ago) has sent fewer weapons as a pct of GDP than Orban had (though France’s share of the EU-level Econ commitment is large).
The ideal situation for Germany and France would be a peace deal in Ukraine, normalization of ties with Russia and big contracts for Siemens, Lafarge et al to rebuild Ukraine. In that scenario Putin will likely revert to the usual political undermining of border countries (Balkan, Baltics), but that has been going on (and off) for a long time.
I sort of agree with the Trumpian view that Europe needs America’s nuke umbrella but needs to take the lead within NATO for “European problems”. I am not terribly panicked about Putin attacking NATO territory, so I think this will be OK.
A bigger issue is that Europe does very little to stabilize and develop its near abroad: North Africa and the Mideast- right across the Med. North Africa needs to be brought into the broader economy of Europe (as Mexico is linked to the US). An unstable N Africa (Russian troops are in Libya) is a recipe for disaster longer term given there are probably 1 billion Africans who would come to Europe for free housing and dole today, if they could.
Interesting times! And the fiscal and demographic trends might make them more interesting down the road.
I was especially struck by the argument that Germany is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. The examples of Russian sabotage and cyberattacks on German soil really drive home the point that this isn't just a far-off conflict.
The historical parallels drawn here are thought-provoking. The comparison to France's role in the Crimean War offers an interesting perspective on how Germany could lead without being seen as an aggressor.
That said, I'm not entirely convinced that German public opinion will shift as easily as the author hopes. The reluctance to embrace a more militaristic stance is deeply ingrained. While the concept of "liberal nationalism" is intriguing, I wonder if it will resonate with a population that has been wary of nationalist sentiment for decades.
The economic arguments for rearmament are compelling, but I can already imagine the pushback against cutting social programs to fund military spending. It's going to be a tough sell politically.
There is probably also the expectation that the war will not go on forever and that a return to earlier economic arrangements will occur.
Overall, this piece has given me a lot to think about. It's a stark reminder that we're living through a major historical shift, and the decisions made in Berlin over the next few years could shape the future of Europe for decades to come.
The German way is to avoid making a decision until only one course of action becomes the default or consensus! Though sporadically they will do something impulsive (Merkel and the Syrians).
That actually sounds like the US as well :). I think of Churchill's quote about America always doing the right thing after trying everything else. Hopefully, the US and Germany can figure out the right thing and start doing it before too long.
Remember that "only Nixon could go to China" line? Wouldn't it be amazing if the Germans did something similar with Russia? They have the economic connections (currently latent under American pressure, but quickly reconstructable). A German led NATO might do something that should have been done in 1991: create a stable, peaceful relationship with Russia.
Noah thinks this is impossible. Firmly in the camp of the Amer-EU, left-wing, establishment, Noah believes that Russia and Putin are Hitlerian-level villains intent on conquering Europe. (Ignoring that in 2 years of grinding effort, Putin's army has only managed to conquer about a 100 mile wide corridor within his impoverished and corrupt next door neighbor -- the idea that he could take on Poland or Germany is absurd.) It would be ironic if the land that gave us the real Hitler becomes the one country in Europe that can see through this obvious falsehood. Perhaps it's too late to make peace. Perhaps Russia has made its bed with China irrevocably. But perhaps not. With the Americans pulling back and, Macron emasculated, and France in legislative limbo for the next 12 months, perhaps the Germans will finally get to ask that question.
"the Nazis were the most destructive and villainous regime of the entire modern age so far"
Actually, among 20th century ideologies, communism claimed vastly more victims than Naziism. Both Stalin and Mao were far more murderous than Hitler. (Although I'm reading the Devils Best Trick at the moment, and historically, the Aztec peoples were probably the most bloodthirsty in human history. It's a good book BTW.)
Strongly disagree that communism was worse than Nazism: as to why I'll quote Daniel Goldhagen's "Worse than War".
--------------------------------------------------------------
"The communists killed most or even the vast majority of their victims with catastrophic, ideologically induced, and cockeyed economic policies, using humans as production factors, or sacrificing human beings for humanity’s good or history’s march. The Soviets executed perhaps around 10 percent of their more than eight million killed. Had Mao not hatched his murderous Great Leap Forward economic scheme, then millions, indeed perhaps twenty million more Chinese, would not have died. None of this makes these regimes’ murderousness any less murderous than the murderousness of others, or their victims’ deaths any less morally condemnable, significant, or meaningful. But unlike those of the other colossally mass eliminationist and murderous regimes, the Nazis’ drive to slaughter people was organic to their ideology with its racist-biological conception of humanity and human worth and its concomitant drive for racial purity, expansion, and dominance. It was an ideology of destruction."
"Had the Germans won the war, they would have slaughtered the five million additional Jews documented at Wannsee and, if able to, Jews beyond Europe, especially in the United States. They would have slaughtered everywhere mentally ill and developmentally disabled people; all people they called Gypsies; and Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, and other peoples to their east in the tens of millions, as they refashioned the Eurasian continent and humanity. They would have slaughtered, or prevented the birth of, children, as the biological seeds of peoples they wanted to destroy or numerically control, or considered superfluous. As they moved into Africa and Asia, they would have slaughtered or let perish untold millions of various subhumans, Asians being deemed racial cripples and blacks semi-apes. Had the Germans prevailed, they would have destroyed civilization and humanity as we know it."
"If the communists were a heresy on Western civilization, accepting many of its fundamental values and tenets if in a perverted way, the Nazis were an apostasy, seeking its destruction and replacement by a German racial dominion, a world of masters and, of those permitted to live, mainly slaves. After seventy years of communist rule, Russia, Ukraine, the Baltics, and elsewhere, countries and peoples resumed control of their futures. After almost half a century of Soviet domination in Central Europe, in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere, the countries’ peoples emerged intact and educated, and able to pick up, much the poorer in many ways, where they had been nationally and culturally. Had the Nazis ruled these same lands for half or three quarters of a century, no Ukraine or Ukrainian people, no Poland or Polish people, no Russia or Russian people would have been left to resuscitate. The Germans would have repopulated their lands with colonists, slaughtered and enslaved their peoples, obliterated their religions and churches, their cultures and communities. The Germans developed plans to begin this vast systematic destruction, most notably the General Plan for the East, and had in almost no time already started to implement their desires. After half a century or more under a victorious Nazi Germany, European, Western, even pre-Nazi German civilization, would have been destroyed, unrecognizable, incapable of resurrection. Such was Nazism’s caesura with Western civilization. Such was its unparalleled destructiveness."
I'm not analyzing ideology, George, just adding up body counts. And 8M is on the extreme low end of estimates for Stalin.
Had the Nazis won WWII, they would have slaughtered millions more. Had the communists won the Cold War they would have slaughtered millions more. It's a good thing we didn't listen to Lindbergh and the isolationists or to the commies in the universities.
It's fair to say either would have "destroyed civilization", although a fair number of our own citizens today (most especially educated young people) seem to think our civilization isn't worth saving anyway. So perhaps the university Marxists won.
"The lesson of World War 2 is not 'Germany is bad'. It’s that a country’s values are a choice. Any country can become a genocidal totalitarian dictatorship, and any country can become a liberal defender of peace and freedom."
Not sure that applies to all countries: for example the Germans could become a peaceful democracy, but I doubt the Palestinians could similarly make peace with Israel.
Germany was able to de-Nazify because it had already existed for 62 years as a unified nation-state before the Nazis took it over, while the Germans had been recognized as a people for centuries prior -- I'd argue since 1512, with the declaration of the "Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation" by the Diet of Cologne.
By contrast the Palestinians began fighting the Zionists before they were even identifying as a distinct nation themselves (note the "Faisal is our King" cries of the Nabi Musa rioters in 1920, referring to the Hashemite King of Syria) and their national identity was finally crystallized by the Nakba of 1948.
For Palestinians, national liberation IS the destruction of Israel and the restoration of Arab Palestine, and they can only (as individuals) make peace with Israel by compromising their own national identity.
Overall good, but no, France and Britain were not "equally militaristic" as Germany in the runup to World War I. Read about the Moroccan Crises, for example, and it becomes obvious that Kaiser Wilhelm II's government was uniquely and disruptively committed to militarizing disputes.
Germany today, unlike then, is a democracy, and democracies are good at keeping peace with other democracies. It makes no sense to indict today's Germany for the 1914 monarchy, any more than we should absolve Putin because he's "just following tsarist tradition."
"The reason the USSR and the old Russian Empire were such formidable enemies is that they could draw upon vast numbers of subjugated Poles, Ukrainians, other Europeans, and Central Asians to swell the ranks of their armies and take the brunt of the fighting."
Can this really be the basis of substantial military power in the modern world? Seems more like a recipe for endless desertion and constant sabotage. The better you arm your slaves, the more commissars you'd need to control them, and lightly armed slaves aren't going have much of an impact on a modern battlefield.
"Most of the region has grown decidedly slower since that crisis, possibly because Europe failed to take the kind of the swift macroeconomic action that the U.S. did."
Most definitely because the ECB failed. It was even worse than the Bernanke Fed in not keeping inflation up. Admittedly it had a bigger challenge as it needed to (but did not) inflate more to offset the differential impact of the financial crisis on different countries that did not have individual monetary policies because of the Euro.
Plus their fracking ban!
They got hit harder by the energy price surge than America did.
But let’s be honest- America has maybe 2 pct growth at full employment while running 6 pct deficits. If the US were to run a responsible fiscal policy (impossible under Biden/Yellen or Trump), what would US growth be?
Does Europe actually have a decent amount of frackable shale to exploit in the first place, even if they wanted to?
But let’s take a look at old history and newer history. Blithely dismiss the Poles at your own peril. It was the Poles who captured one of the most important pieces of technology in WWII: The Enigma Machine. It was the Poles who, with a Labor Union Leader and Pope, stood up to the USSR. William Casey, Reagan’s CIA Director, sensing an opening with the new Polish Pope, quickly paid him a personal visit. Famously, (in Bernstein’s book) Casey had an aerial photograph of a massive crowd in Poland. He pointed to a white dot in the middle (the Pope wears white). Gosh, I wonder what they talked about at their meeting. A devout Catholic, Casey attended Mass every morning. It’s not just Muslims who can organize a movement to undermine a government.
"If authoritarian countries have national pride, but liberal countries don’t, then the former will overcome the latter and the world will become a dark place."
I could not agree more with this sentiment. This is why I think the kind of deconstructive ethos the modern western left has would cause us to lose our current relatively-peaceful & prosperous world that was so hard-won. Germany is a hotbed of this kind of sentiment, but I hope the tide can turn there as it seems to be here in America.
Even liberal countries clear-eyed about past sins must have some sense of pride for what their society has accomplished, or they'll lose that society for lack of morale and subsequently effort to maintain it.
A lot of European politics is caught between nationalist euroskepticism and globalist eurocentralization. But I think the key, is something like multicultural euronationalism.
I've seen Macron articulate this time from time, that Europe must to be united to guarantee the independence of each nation from it's foreign adversaries and pressures.