Weimar Nights

Weimar Nights: Part 1

J. H. Beall

St. John’s College

Annapolis, Maryland USA

Presented to the Conference on Statistics, Science, and Public Policy

Herstmonceux Castle (virtually), Spring 2023

On the Prospect of Global War: Weimar Nights

Agnes Herzberg, the organizer of our meeting, has (rather uncharacteristically) given me an open assignment. Frankly, this is more terrifying than her usual commandments. But given the historic circumstances that present themselves. I have chosen to opine on the nature of war.

Curiously, there are not many clear definitions of the word. Perhaps that is because war is a “commonplace” in human experience. We see it often portrayed in literature and history. One of our earliest epics in the so-called Western canon, “The Illiad” portrays some few weeks in the ninth year of a great seige that eventually brought about the destruction of the civilization of Illium (or Troy, in another calling). It is most interesting in this venue to recall that the battles that are portrayed are an expectoration of the destruction of that city.

Frankly, I have often wondered what it would be like, both intellectually and sensibly, to be on the eve of a great conflagration. Would the peace that precedes conflict seem more precious to us, ladened with a kind of haptic quiet of the spirit, somewhat like great Nature holding its breath, or perhaps breathing quietly as though in a moment before sleep and nightmare.

I recall thinking about the description of the troubled peace in Corcyra in both that Attic, island city and its coastal neighborhoods, before the open blood-lettings of their civil war. And of course that conflict drew various factions into their war and led, eventually, into a much greater war of the entire Peloponnese, staged in the time of Socrates and Alcibiades.. Or perhaps we might consider the eve of another great war, World War II, on the Saturday evening of December 3rd on another island with its dance clubs and sea-winds and the dark sky of the Pacific night. How could there be any inkling of an impending conflict? It seems no clairvoyance is possible about such transitions.

So we might wonder about our present epoch.

But first we ought to better define the nature of war. A quite classic attempt comes from Clausewitz’s On War. Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian military strategist who lived from 1780 to 1831. As such, he was active in the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and Russia. Most curiously, he is an actually character in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, where he is happily discussion strategy wile riding on his horse with a companion through the carnage at Borodino.

Clausewitz’s definition of war is telling. He states that war is an act of “extreme violence” designed to destroy both an adversary’s ability and will to resist. Further, he says that “war” is “an extension of policy by other means”. As such, war is shown in it’s seamless connection with civil (or political) life. Such a statement ought to be shocking to us.

But perhaps it is time to remember that war seems to have changed its character from the unutterable violence of the global wars like World War I and World War II. An older mentor of mine who has now passed commented once about the experience of being in West Germany just after the Second War. He had never forgotten the stench even some three-quarters of a century after. He was a good friend and a better teacher, and he always said that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Famine, Disease, Death, and War would be with us as an eternal theme.

But has war changed into its more limited and regional manifestations as shown in Korea, Vietam, Laos, and Cambodia, and other such localities?. It should not escape our notice that in Vietnam and Korea, the American military suffered upwards of 50,000 casualties in each. Yet these regional and so-called “proxy” wars do have a limited scale of destruction.

Recently, a very curious analysis of the war against ISIS in Syria and environs has appeared in of all places the Wall Street Journal. Here are the words of Michael Jordan, whose remarkable analysis of how the USA and its partners actually won a war against the Islamic State by fighting ‘by, with, and through’ local allies. Further, he claims that this might be “the U.S. military strategy of the future”. Perhaps most importantly, this war was characterized by Clausewitz’s dictum of war as an act of “extreme violence, and an extension of policy by other means".

I regard Michael Jordan’s analysis as “curious” not to be derisive, but to underscore its remove from the hallmark of most proxy wars: their carefully limited focus on combatants as opposed to wider conflicts that produce civilian casualties and infrastructure targets. I have been gently reminded in some private circles that winning a war with China by destroying 18 dams critical to their food production would be a “war crime”, as though losing such a war with the PRC would not be such a crime.

Perhaps it is time to remind ourselves that the seamless span in Clausewitz’s cosmos between policy and war admits of both extremes, from trade embargoes to complete destruction. This point ought to be made again, given recent events.

What has appeared now on the “dark edge of Europe” is different: an actual land war in the 21st Century in a location thought to be immune from such conflicts. The seeds of this go back to a prior invasion in 2014, again by Russia into Ukraine. But this time, there is an active move against the incursion. And this time, the opposition is met with threats of a nuclear response directed to cities with populations in the millions. Even traditionally neutral societies like Sweden and Finland have responded by arming themselves, both with offensive and defensive weapons.

With regard to defensive weapons, many were skeptical of the possibility of missile defense in the past decades. Now, necessity has make the critics of these systems somewhat less contrarian. For example, the Saudis have plans to install four operational THAAD systems by 2026 to the tune of $60 billion. And the PAC-3 systems and the Aegis Class Standard Missile III, Block -4A variant called Aegis Ashore are as popular as hot dogs at an American baseball game. One might hope that they work. It is my informed opinion that they work very well.

So I present to you, my colleagues, the current world. Here is our present peace, where no one can live peaceably unless all decide to. And what if one of us choose a path of war? The sense now is of a Weirmar evening, where the chanteuse sings her breathy songs in a smoky beer hall. All the audience is keeping time, waiting for the evolution of the song. Waiting for the last words of the harmony.

J.H. Beall

Herstmonceux Castle, 2023