Were they right to fight?

One of the more aggravating features of this time of the year is the rush of journalists to write articles in which they decry the First World War as pointless, contemporary British politicians criminal and British generals stupid.  George Monbiot has one such in the Guardian today. 

Like most people of my generation, I grew up with a mystery. I felt I understood the second world war. The attempt to dominate and destroy, to eliminate the people of other races, though raised to unprecedented levels by the Nazis, is a familiar historical theme. The need to stop Hitler was absolute, and the dreadful sacrifices of the second world war were unavoidable.

But the first world war, which ended 90 years ago today, seemed incomprehensible. The class interests of the men sent to kill each other were the same. While Germany was clearly the aggressor, the outlook of the opposing powers - seeking to expand their colonies and to dominate European trade - was not wildly different.

I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure what Monbiot means by the class interests of the respective Central and Allied armies – if indeed he means anything.  But the idea that the First World War was a pointless and unnecessary war is pernicious and false.  The war was escalated, deliberately, by Germany in order to knock out France and Russia as Great Powers.  Their expectation was that Britain would not intervene, as Monbiot seems to be retrospectively advocating, and that they would be able to defeat the French army in ample time to swing round and defeat Russia as well.  The war grew out of the German fear of encirclement.

Was it worth Britain intervening to prevent German domination of the continent of Europe?  It has been suggested that it would not have made much difference to Britain one way or the other, and that in opposing German ambitions Britain bankrupted her finances and slaughtered her youth to little purpose.  However, the Germany of the Kaiser was not so very different from the Germany of the Fuhrer.  And there is, in fact, excellent evidence of what a German victory would have entailed for Western Europe.

After the internal collapse of Russia and the Bolshevik coup, the Germans, in spite of Trotsky’s attempted delaying tactics, imposed brutal conditions in return for ‘peace’.  The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is a model for what German aims and methods were in the First World War, and a cursory look at it is enough to give the Allies a good reason to fight.  A third of Russia’s farmland; a quarter of her population; a huge amount of her industrial production: Brest-Litovsk tore the heart out of Russia.  Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States were not given independence under the Treaty – they were simply transferred to a German rule that was intent on recovering her wartime losses.

There is more to be said about the wisdom of British policy leading up to the First World War – namely the procuring of binding alliances that would guarantee British involvement in a continental land war without concomitant expansion of the regular army – but to suggest that the war was unnecessary and that there was no moral difference between the sides is to be obtuse.

Impressive contortions

What exactly has been happening in the Caucasus over the past week is far from clear. However, the most likely series of events is as follows: Georgia sends troops into the semi-autonomous region of South Ossetia (whether in reaction to provocations, or simply in an attempt to reverse the course of South Ossetian independence is not clear); Russia responds by bombing Georgian towns and villages and by sending Russian troops, artillery and tanks first into South Ossetia and Abkhazia and then, as Georgian resistance is brushed aside, into Georgia itself; the Russian fleet moves into positions off the Georgian coast, sinking Georgian shipping; finally, with the Georgian army effectively neutralised, Russian forces occupy parts of Georgia as peace deals are hammered out.

In other words, in reaction to Georgian activities in South Ossetia - which is after all a part of Georgia, and not Russia - Russia has invaded Georgia, massively reduced its military capacity and occupied its territory. If the Republic of Ireland had invaded first Northern Ireland, and then the mainland United Kingdom after the UK sent troops to Ulster, would that make the UK the aggressor? I simply don't see it.

Which isn't to say that I'm not impressed at the verbal gymnastics shown by those who believe that Russia is really the innocent party in this. Take Mary Dejevsky in the Indie today.

They began with the repeated references to Russian "aggression" and "invasion", continued through charges of intended "regime change", and culminated in alarmist reports about Russian efforts to bomb the east-west energy pipeline. None of this, not one bit of it, is true.

When a foreign power sends troops into a neighbouring country, in contravention of that country's wishes, that is an invasion. It's definitional.

Take "aggression" and "invasion". Georgia declared itself to be in a state of war with Russia. War, regrettably, is war, and a basic objective is to reduce, or destroy, the enemy's military capability. This is what Russia was doing until it accepted the ceasefire. The positions it took up inside Georgia proper can be seen as defensive, not offensive. Gori houses the Georgian garrison on South Ossetia's border.

Yikes. Georgia declared itself to be 'in a state of war' with Russia after Russia had sent thousands of troops into South Ossetia and Abkhazia and had shelled, bombed, and otherwise reduced Georgian towns and positions. It was a description not a declaration! And saying that the invasion and occupation of another country is defensive is a bit of a semantic push as well.

If you exclude Chechnya, which Russians have always regarded as part of Russia, then neither Putin, nor Medvedev, had sent troops outside Russian borders before this point.

Well, I'm pretty sure that's not true - there were after all Russian soldiers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia before the latest contretemps. And they're in Sudan too, though I suspect Dejevsky means simply that Russia hasn't invaded anyone in the last 8 years - unless you count Chechnya, which is a bit of a big exception. And anyway so what?

The Kremlin would probably be delighted if Georgians eventually punished their President for his misguided enterprise, but Russia seems to accept that Georgians decide what happens in Georgia.

You what?! Pretty clearly they don't do they? Isn't that rather what this entire invasion is about? That Russia believes it has the right to decide what happens in Georgia, whether you believe it is Georgian membership of NATO, Georgian control of oil pipelines or Georgian treatment of ethnic minorities that set the Russians off.

Why was it so difficult for outsiders to believe that Moscow wanted precisely what its leaders said they wanted: a return to the situation that had pertained before Georgia's incursion into South Ossetia – and does it matter that its intentions were so appallingly misread?

Mary Dejevsky, author of such pieces as Russia would be more dangerous without Vladimir Putin; A fight with Russia we cannot hope to win; Putin's handover of power is no mere sham (how's that one looking by the way?); and the sort of boiler-plate ne plus ultra of Don't blame Russia - it's our fault as well clearly has something of a mindset when it comes to Mother Russia. If she can't see why we might profitably treat with caution the avowed motives of Putin's Russia, I suspect she looks a little harder.

Georgia v Russia (cont.)

Taking a slightly more detached view of what is happening in Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia a couple of points spring to mind. The first is about ultimate culpability for this. Whether Saakashvili stupidly tried to assert military dominance over what amounted to a Russian protectorate enclave within Georgia, or stupidly reacted to Russian provocation from that enclave, it is clear that it was a pretty grave blunder for Georgia to attempt to enforce its sovereignty over South Ossetia. One can argue that democracies shouldn't have to watch their step for fear of being invaded by neighbouring states, but that would be pretty naive. That said, of course, this line of argument is akin to the argument that the drunken girl in a miniskirt is responsible for being raped. Ultimately, the culpability for the invasion of Georgia by Russian forces is Russia's. [UPDATE: Not that that stops that old fraud Seumas Milne from making precisely this argument - beautifully captured by Mr Eugenides.] [UPDATE 2: the metaphor spreads But to suggest that he somehow got what he deserved is tantamount to saying that a woman who dresses in a miniskirt and high heels and gets drunk in a bar one night is asking to be raped]

The second thought that occurs is that this invasion shows up the relative emptiness of 'soft power' in comparison to the old-fashioned military kind. Shuttle diplomacy, talks about talks, hard words in the Security Council - all these are totally irrelevant in the face of a power that is prepared to use its military power in pursuit of its national objectives. You might say that this is a point that has been proved before - by the invasion of Iraq, say. There's a fair point to be made there, although I would just point out that before that invasion, the many-spoked wheels of international diplomacy were turning for a long time. The re-assertion of Russia's power, even if still only on a regional basis, has significant implications for the future of global diplomacy - and no-one's going to be quite sure what they are until the dust settles.

One last thing - those people who believe that the United Nations is the supreme moral arbiter in the world: how do they feel knowing that they have left their consciences in the care of Vladimir Putin?

War Crimes

Oliver Kamm wrote a piece in the Guardian on the anniversary of the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in which he defended the action as morally justifiable. This was so, he argued, because they prevented the far greater loss of life that would have resulted from either a aiege or a storm of the home island. The bombs were necessary in making the Japanese bow to the inevitable and surrender. Alongside that was a refutation of the idea, which appears to be enjoying a spurious fashionability again just now, that the bombs were really a 'gesture' aimed at the USSR.

Norm Geras, while of course accepting this latter point, disagrees with Kamm on the morality question.

Even if one thinks the calculation does convincingly establish how any US president would have acted, it doesn't show that it wasn't a war crime. It is not a legitimate act of war to save the lives of your own soldiers by the mass bombing of civilians, and to reason simply from the 'realism' of what was to be expected in the situation prevailing is to suggest that the laws of war only apply when it's easy to uphold them, but otherwise must give way to utilitarian calculation.

On this calculation, every war since 1914 has been marked by war crimes. Every bomber taking off, every pilot flying to the bomb-zone, every groundcrew loading the planes and every politician directing policy was a war criminal. But if you can thus apply the label to so broad a group - encompassing as it does the air force of every combatant nation - doesn't it devalue the term itself?