Category: War

Cold War Mentality: Sleepwalking towards accidental conflict

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Too many observers have lost sight of one of the key lessons of World War I. The Great War was triggered by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, which occurred against the backdrop of a long-simmering conflict between Europe’s major powers. This interplay between conflict escalation and a political spark has special resonance today.

With war raging in Ukraine and a cold-war mentality gripping the United States and China, there can be no mistaking the historical parallels. The world is simmering with conflict and resentment. All that is missing is a triggering event. With tensions in Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Ukraine, there are plenty of possible sparks to worry about…

…One year into this horrific and once-unthinkable conflict, there is a new and ominous twist to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spring offensive. The US is warning of an escalation of Chinese support for Russia from non-lethal assistance (like purchasing Russian energy products) to lethal aid (weapons, ammunition, or logistical arms-supply capabilities).

The Biden administration’s vague threat of serious consequences for China if it offers lethal aid to Russia’s war effort is reminiscent of similar US warnings that preceded the imposition of unprecedented sanctions on Russia. In the eyes of US politicians, China would be guilty by association and forced to pay a very steep price. Just as Taiwan is China’s red line, Washington believes the same can be said of Chinese military support for Russia’s war campaign…

Three great powers – America, China, and Russia – all seem to be afflicted by a profound sense of historical amnesia. They are collectively sleepwalking down a path of conflict escalation, carrying high-octane fuel that could be ignited all too easily. Just like 1914.

One aspect of life in New Haven I truly miss…is the opportunity often on offer to the general public to sit in on lectures and series offered by the many world class intellects via Yale University. Stephen Roach being one of the better examples of that class of educator.

Graveyard for Russian Mercenaries

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Late last summer, a plot of land on the edge of a small farming community in southern Russia began to fill with scores of newly dug graves of fighters killed in Ukraine. The resting places were adorned with simple wooden crosses and brightly coloured wreaths that bore the insignia of Russia’s Wagner Group – a feared and secretive private army.

There were around 200 graves at the site on the outskirts of Bakinskaya village in Krasnodar region when Reuters visited in late January. The news agency matched the names of at least 39 of the dead here and at three other nearby cemeteries to Russian court records, publicly available databases and social media accounts. Reuters also spoke to family, friends and lawyers of some of the dead.

Many of the men buried at Bakinskaya were convicts who were recruited by Wagner last year after its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, promised a pardon if prisoners survived six months at the front, this reporting showed. They included a contract killer, murderers, career criminals and people with alcohol problems.

And if you’re sufficiently ignorant, politically docile, you might call the residents of this graveyard…”heroes”.

Veterans Affairs Canada

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In April 1915, John McCrae was in the trenches near Ypres, Belgium, in the area traditionally called Flanders. Some of the heaviest fighting of the First World War took place there during that was known as the Second Battle of Ypres…

In the trenches, John McCrae tended hundreds of wounded soldiers every day. He was surrounded by the dead and the dying. In a letter to his mother, he wrote of the Battle of Ypres…

The general impression in my mind is of a nightmare. We have been in the most bitter of fights. For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ….. And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way…

And later, he wrote:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.