"Wars for Survival"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Wars for Survival”

May 10, 2024

 

“But in terms of the larger picture of war, we haven’t fought for survival in a long time.”

                                                                                                Mark Helprin in an interview with Barton Swaim

                                                                                                The Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2024

 

The people of Israel and Ukraine understand what is meant by a war for survival. But those in the West have not experienced such wars for a long time. They are rare. With the exception of the Franco-Prussian War (July 1870-May 1871) Europe was generally at peace for the ninety-nine years between the Battle of Waterloo, in June 1815 and Germany’s invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium in August 1914 – both the Napoleonic wars and the two 20^thCentury’s World Wars were wars for survival.

 

Germany’s signing of the Armistice at Compiègne in November 1918 provided a reprieve but did not end Germany’s existential threat to the survival of Europe’s independent nations. Real peace did not come for another 27 years, when the Axis powers unconditionally surrendered at Reims on May 7, 1945. Now, 79 years later, a revanchist Russia is threatening the survival of Ukraine, along with other eastern European nations like Moldova and the Baltic states. Long periods of relative peace cause nations to relax, to cut defense spending, and cause people to lose the will to fight for survival.

 

Of course Nazi Germans and Imperial Japanese also fought for their survival, just as the Palestinians and their Hamas leaders fight for their survival today. Fortunately, in the 1940s, people knew who were the good guys and who the bad guys. Today we find ourselves enveloped in moral laxity with the lines betwixt good and evil blurred. In the 1940s, our fight was not with the German or Japanese people but with those who led them. Today, Israel and Ukraine’s fight is not with the Palestinian or Russian people, but with their political leaders – Hamas’ and Iran’s despotic leaders, and Putin and his cronies. 

 

During its almost 250 years, the United States has fought twelve major wars – and many others, mostly against native Americans – but only three were critical to its survival: the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Second World War. The fact that wars for survival are rare means that when they come nations and individuals are often ill-prepared and unmindful of the sacrifices that will have to be made. The idea of a mother having her 18-year-old son go off to war is something we can hardly imagine. Yet, it is what mothers did in the early 1940s, and it is what mothers in Israel and Ukraine are doing today. It is a subject Tolkien, a veteran of the Great War’s trenches, addressed in The Fellowship of the Ring: “‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” 

 

Israel and Ukraine are fighting wars for survival. Neither wants more land or to impose their values on their neighbors. They are fighting to maintain their independence and to keep their way of life. Iran and its proxies have said they want to annihilate Israel, not shrink its borders. Putin has not gone that far with Ukraine, but the analogy of a camel getting its nose under the tent applies. To the extent that Israel and Ukraine are our allies we have a duty to support them in their existential wars.

 

Israel is not a colonialist power. Over three quarters of a century it has created a thriving democracy on land from which their ancestors came. Today they combat forces that want to drive them from their land. Former Iranian president Rafsanjani called Israel “a one-bomb state,” that one nuclear weapon could erase Jewish civilization. Palestinians speak of the “River to the Sea,” effectively extinguishing the state of Israel. Israelis fight for their survival. If Rafah is not taken Hamas, a political party elected by Palestinians to govern Gaza, will survive, and threats to Israel will persist. 

 

Ukraine was once part of the Russian empire and later part of the Soviet Union. In 1991 the nation drafted a declaration of independence, which received overwhelming support in a public referendum, and it was recognized as an independent state that year. It now fights to keep its independence. Yet Putin has said that Ukraine is an “aberration that doesn’t really exist.” He considers it a province of Russia and a country whose language should be obliterated. Should we help them? If we do not, does anyone think Putin will stop with Ukraine? 

 

The forces of despotism, developed in and emanating from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, are aligned against the concepts of self-government, individual freedom and open markets. Apart from the United States, there is no country that can take the lead in support of the democratic principles that have governed the West, principles that have served us so well for so long.

 

Almost 95% of Americans alive today were born after 1945. So it is no surprise that it is difficult for the U.S., which has not had to fight for survival since World War II, to understand how important it is to be prepared for the unexpected. Had the Nazis conquered Europe, as seemed possible in early 1942, or had Japan conquered much of Asia, as also seemed possible at the same time, how different the last seven decades would have been for the world. Would Israel exist? Would Ukraine be an independent country? Would speech in the UK and the U.S. be free? Would women have equal rights? Would standards of living be as high as they are? Would students at UCLA or Columbia be able to protest? The questions are hypothetical, but the answers would probably be no.

 

Empires and nations have no guarantees. History is littered with examples of those that failed. The free world, led by the U.S., will not survive if it lacks the means and the will to defend what it has built. China is a threat. With its totalitarian regime, it has brought 150 countries into its 2013 Belt & Road Initiative – a global infrastructure development strategy – including seventeen countries in Latin America. China is no longer a threat limited to the Pacific. A war for our survival may be in the offing. Choices will have to be made, choices requiring a strong defense and moral guidance.

 

We who live in the West are fortunate, as we are heirs to those who fought and died so that we are free. With China, and its satellites in Russia, Iran and North Korea, intent on global domination, we cannot forget that democracy is fragile and that freedom is not free, that a strong defense is the best offense, and that we have an obligation to pass on what we have received to those who follow us. That means we must be prepared to defend our freedoms from those who would take them from us. We are not now in a war for survival, but we could be in a few years. We must realize the stakes involved; we must appreciate history and recognize that the West is unique.