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On 2014-03-18, at 12:58 AM, Dayne Goodwin wrote: > On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 12:09 PM, Andrew Pollack <acpolla...@gmail.com> wrote: > . . . > The other part of my question is at what point would the contenders decide > they have more to gain than lose by putting their foot down? What, for > instance, pushed the two sides over the edge in August 1914? > > I don't think current times portend the all-out world war of the first > half of the 20th century, rather more peripheral battles at the > geographic edges of empire. At the imperial decision-making level i > don't think there is currently a lot of irrationality… The calculus has also changed at the mass level since 1914. There was an outbreak of wild chauvinism in all of the imperialist countries at the onset of the First World War. The generals and politicians on each side did not, as the conventional wisdom has it, blunder into war. They were all promising a swift and painless victory, and this cocksure attitude percolated down to their working classes, compromising and splitting the Second International in the process. Today, if there were the serious prospect of escalating military conflict between the US and Russia, terror would grip the peoples of the world. The horrific slaughter of both world wars, especially the toll inflicted on civilians and the destructive effect of nuclear weapons, is embedded in the collective consciousness of all modern societies. I don't think you would see, as you saw 100 years ago, men queuing up at the recruiting offices and young women and others in a carnival mood waving flags and passing out flowers. They would much more likely be out demonstrating. Massive protests did not stop the invasion of Iraq by US forces, but the prospect of a showdown between the two major nuclear powers would be widely perceived as a personal matter of life and death. A cautionary note perhaps is that the Cuban missile crisis did not result in any significant antiwar activity despite the widespread fear of Armageddon. But that was at the height of the Cold War when a perceived enemy threat on their borders made Americans more inclined to cross their fingers than to challenge the Kennedy administation. Since Vietnam and the more recent set of failed military adventures, Americans have become increasingly reluctant to support imperialist interventions abroad where they do not feel directly threatened. In the current situation, the Russians have already indicated they are ready to negotiate a deal based on Ukrainian neutrality, ie. no NATO membership, and some form of autonomy for the Russian-speaking eastern provinces. Ukrainian nationalists may not want to surrender their "sovereignty", but this is not an issue the American ruling class nor the American people will want to risk nuclear war over. There is already heavy pressure, as we've seen, from the corporate lobbies to settle matters quickly, and, as we know, it's impressive how responsive governments are to pressure from that source. It's obligatory to make a nod to the law of unintended consequences, but IMO the odds are very long of it being applied in this case. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
