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writing for godot

Will the Left default as Europe prepares to blow its brains out yet again?

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Written by Peter Rose   
Sunday, 13 April 2014 23:17
1914 all over again in Europe?

A scary thing about recent scholarship on the First WW is the frightening similarity, in its early stages at least, with the crisis unfolding in Ukraine right now. A stand-off between German hegemony in Europe and rising Russian economic influence degenerates into a game of chicken that goes disastrously wrong. Serbia the flashpoint then, Kiev today? Significant now is just how avoidable the whole catastrophe of the ‘July Crisis’ in 1914 turned out to be.
No one in Vienna seems initially to have been particularly upset about the assassination of the Archduke on 28 June 1914. However, Germany, looking for an excuse for war with Russia, pressured a reluctant Austria to make demands on Serbia that it couldn’t possibly meet. Surprisingly, Serbia, under pressure from Russia, folds on most of the demands in the Austrian ultimatum. (Compare recent Syrian folding to US aggression following Russian intervention). Germany pressures the Austrians to mobilize anyway. The Kaiser and his Chancellor, Theobald Bethmann-Hollweg, want Russia to make the first move in order to win support of the Social Democrats in Germany and to keep Britain neutral. The Austrians mobilize then Russia obliges by mobilizing as well. The Social Democrats in Germany come out in support but Britain says it will go to war if the Schleiffen plan to invade France through Belgium is activated.
At this point the Kaiser and Bethmann-Hollweg get cold feet and try to back down. The Tsar is desperate to stay out. British, French and Italian politicians definitely want peace but Austria, now fully in action against Serbia, ignores repeated last minute instructions from Germany to stand down. An attempt by French Socialist leader Jean Juares to summon the International and mobilize worker resistance to war is scupper by his mysterious assassination on 31 July 1914, just days before the final outbreak of the war. Labour in Britain comes out in patriotic support.
The only ones left smiling were the generals, the arms manufacturers and the bankers funding both sides. What starts out as a mine-is-bigger-than-yours bravura escalates and then spins completely out of the control of its original manipulators. Europe descends into the horror which claimed 15 million lives.
How close are we to a replay of this scenario in Ukraine right now? US/German/EU geopolitical games with Russia, the Maidan putsch, the Crimean takeover and the mobilization of NATO have all upped the ante. The whole situation may now be passing into the hands of a few radical extremist groups who, with all the technology of managed chaos, could any day take the diplomatic game irreversibly out of the hands of its manipulators.
Economists speak about war as destructive creation, providing the way out of the debt crisis, and has revived old Marxist theories about Capitalism needing war to balance the books. US war mongers are openly triumphant. The rest of the world is watching the McCutcheon debacle remove final barriers to the US becoming a democratically compliant, but economically profitable, war machine running rampant and unrestrained around the world.
Is this how the 3000 year story of the West finally ends? Effectively bankrupt but hobbling along by hawking blood and guts, horror and mayhem around the globe. And China ultimately resumes the lead it lost in the 15th century. Some bankers are just going to love it.
With the notable exception of some on-line media, the Western press has largely capitulated to the official narratives. Can a mass reaction to war still be mobilized now in the way Obama was stopped from the Syria adventure last year? Is the Left all that’s between them and us now or can it still activate a broad-based anti-war coalition? Does the Left have the guts or the muscle to resist the seemingly inevitable drift to permanent global war and hopefully offer a credible alternative for economic sustainability. Or will it duck out in a repeat of 1914?

Peter Rose is Professor Emeritus at Rhodes University, South Africa. He is a widely published environmental scientist who has worked intensively in the field of sustainable development and environmental restoration.

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