Archives for posts with tag: WWI

End Game

March 1, 2022 //
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There’s chess and there’s bridge.

There’s managing your resources – on your own, while trying to outsmart – out, in the open, your opponent.

And there’s team-work. An attempt to make the most of what lady-luck had put on the table by exchanging information. With your partner and in the presence of the competing team. This time only the conversation is out in the open, the resources themselves remain hidden. During the initial phase of the competition and, partially, during the end game.

Until WWI, war was more like chess than anything else. Resources were, more or less, out in the open. The soldiers had no other role but to do and die. The whole responsibility belonged to the guys who called the shots. One for each side…

WWI had ended indecisively. Hence WWII.

Each of the winning parties – there had been two victors, had learned something different from the experience.
The Western allies had learned the value of cooperation while the Eastern ‘block’ had reached the conclusion that brute force trumps everything.

The Americans had started playing bridge with the Brits and taught the game to the rest of the world.
The Russians had honed their skills at playing chess. Something they were already very good at.
For a while, the Americans have tried to compete with the Russians. Remember a guy named Fischer? Bobby Fischer?

Soon, too soon, the Americans had given up.
After building a computer smart enough to outsmart all human chess players…

The even worse part was that the Americans had given up bridge too!
And forgot the most important lesson of WWI and WWII. That the victor needs to take care of the vanquished if they want to enjoy peace. To actually win the peace process after they had already won the war.

Which brings us to the end of the Cold War.

Communism – and practically all communist states, had crumpled under its own weight.
The westerners assumed it was something they had done themselves. Declared victory.
And the end of history…

Having already given up bridge, they forgot to take care of the vanquished… and allowed Russia – the party who had taken most of the blame over their shoulders, for reasons to be discussed some other time, to slide down the slope inaugurated by post WWI Germany.
Did I mention that Russia was still fond of chess? Very much in love with brute force? And not very fond of respectful cooperation?

Now, that we all try to peek into the future – attempting to figure out how the current aggression ordered by Putin will end up, we need some people to learn about bridge.

Putin cannot launch by himself the nuclear missiles he had been brandishing lately.

Now, can those around him reset the chess board on which they are but pawns into a bridge table?
And invite the rest of the world into the game?

Will the rest of us understand the invitation?
If, and when, it will come?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, altruism, authoritarianism, awareness, collective identity, cooperation, evolution, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, Trust

Anul pregătitor

January 26, 2022 //
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Spune cineva pe net că filmul se termină cu discleimărul:

“UK a mai câștigat un an de pregătire și, în cele din urmă, a învins”

Nu l-am vazut. Nici n-am de gând…

Dacă se vede cineva cu scenaristul, vă rog să-i transmiteți din partea mea că anul ăla de pregătire a fost valabil și pentru Hitler.

Diferența dintre cele doua spații socio-culturale fiind că nazismul era deja ‘copt’ în timp ce englezii nu erau, încă, pregătiți din punct de vedere psihologic pentru un ‘nou’ război.
În anul ăla de pregătire, Hitler a construit tancuri și avioane în timp ce englezii s-au obișnuit cu gândul că vor trebui să mai învingă odată Germania.
Hitler a început războiul tocmai în 1939 pentru că abia atunci a avut la dispoziție suficiente arme. Dacă le-ar fi avut in 1938, intra atunci în război.

Cam același lucru se întâmplă și acum. După WWI, americanii s-au retras dincolo de Atlantic, englezii dincolo de Marea Mânecii iar francezii au impus despăgubiri imense de război Germaniei învinse. Economia germană s-a scufundat în mocirlă iar mizeria rezultată a constituit ‘îngrășămantul natural’ în care au înflorit aberațiile lui Hitler.
După WWII, americanii au fost mai isteți. Și-au dat seama că dacă se mai retrag odată, Europa va relua ciclul. Poate cu alți actori, doar că războiul s-ar fi întors cu aceiași regularitate. Așa că planul Marshall și NATO. Europenii, care învățaseră și ei lecția, au constituit UE. Aranjament care a ‘conținut’ comunismul în spatele Cortinei de Fier, unde s-a prabusit sub propria greutate – precum toti colosii cu picioare de lut.
Odată cu sfârșitul Războiului Rece, am reintrat în ‘necunoscut’. “Neconoscut” pentru că l-am uitat deja, dacă l-om fi înțeles cu adevărat vreodată…
Euroatlanticii au clamat victoria – vezi ‘sfârșitul istoriei’ prevăzut de Fukuyama, analist la State Department pe vremea când i-a venit ideea, în Martie 1989 – iar postsovieticii au refăcut traseul urmat de naziștii nemți. Au dat vina pe trădătorii interni – adică pe ‘Gorbaciov’- refuzând să recunoască – cu toate că abia ce se confruntaseră cu ele, ‘limitările’ intrinseci modelului autoritar.

Din păcate, euroatlanticii au uitat de învațămintele trase la sfârșitul WWI. Au lăsat spațiul ex-sovietic să se descurce singur. Și pentru că shit happens… it did!

Revenind la Hitler, francezii ar fi trebuit să reocupe Germania în 1936. Când Hitler a intrat in Renania, încâlcând brutal tratatul de la Versailles. Doar că ‘elitele politice’ franceze și britanice ale momentului nu erau ‘pregătite’. Drept pentru care a venit momentul 1938. Nici atunci nu ar fi fost târziu. Armata germană încă nu era suficient dotată pentru a face față unui asalt hotărât, declanșat de toate țările din jurul Germaniei. Dar, din nou, elitele politice nu erau suficient de ‘pregătite’.

Suntem, iarăși, în aceiași situație.
Ne punem, din nou, aceiași întrebare. Merită să-l înfruntam pe dictator?
Mai ales că acum dictatorul ne poate distruge.
Și pe el s-ar putea să nu-l intereseze ce rămâne in urma lui!

Întrebările la care trebuie să găsim răspunsuri sunt următoarele:

Cât de departe sunt dispuși să meargă cei din jurul dictatorului?
Cei care fac posibilă dictatura ‘internă’.

Iar după ce vom fi aflat răspunsul la prima întrebare va trebui să ne uităm în sufletele noastre și să ne întrebăm

CUM DRACU’ DE-AM AJUNS, DIN NOU, ÎN ACEASTĂ SITUAȚIE!?!

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Categories 1989, autoritarism, ce alegeri facem, comunicare efectiva, constiinta de sine, cooperare, Cu pielea la bataie, Democratie, evolutie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Omul ca masura a tuturor lucrurilor, psihologie, rationalitate limitata

“History is written by the victors.” ?!?

December 31, 2018 //
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Yeah, right… then please show me the Mongolian version of how they had conquered most of Eur-Asia during the XIII-th century…

Anyway, the fact that this saying is so popular tells more about us than about who actually writes history.

First of all, we seem to be convinced that history is nothing more than the story of back to back ‘the winner takes it all’ kind of battles we had to win in order to survive to this day.

Secondly, we seem to be OK with this vision…

But what does it mean?
That (written) history reflects only what the victors have to say/want to disclose about what had happened?

Are we OK with this?

And still wondering why ‘history keeps repeating itself‘?

Wanna break the vicious circle?
Then how about ‘history is written by those who care enough among those who are able to write among those who have survived’?

This version of history is still incomplete. All history will always be incomplete, no matter how many people will have written it. How many sides of the events will have been covered.
But this version will be more inclusive. Hence more relevant.
Presenting survival, instead of winning, as being the essential part of any battle will diminish the intensity of the conflict. Hence allow us to learn more from it.

For instance, it will help us understand that war is the price paid, by both sides, for failing to figure out that cooperation works better than confrontation.

Just compare how the victors of WWI treated the vanquished with how the (same) victors of WWII treated (mainly) the same vanquished. And the aftermaths of WWI and WWII.

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Categories authoritarianism, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, skin in the game, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

1918-2018, The Most Progressive Century, ever. Part II

March 8, 2018 //
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At the beginning of Part I there’s a list of what we’ve accomplished during this century.
I’m going to remind you now some of the mistakes we’ve made.
Genocide, atomic bomb, global warming, widespread pollution… basically, we’ve turned the tables upon ourselves.

I had the first inkling of what’s going on when I started to compare what’s currently going on in Syria with the Spanish Civil War.
NB, even the name we use for this kind of conflict is an absolute aberration. War is, by definition, the opposite of civility. Why on Earth any of us might consider that war waged between co-nationals can be expected to be more ‘civil’ that the ‘regular brand’…

Spain and Syria have evolved in eerily similar manners. Multiple ethnic groups of multiple religious convictions have been forced by geography to coexist and to evolve together. Each of them had passed through very similar stages, albeit following different time-tables. The whole thing culminated with both of them passing, during the last century, through ‘revolutionary’ episodes. There are two small differences though.
Spain’s ‘revolution’ had taken place at the end of a turbulent period and had produced a dictatorship – Franco’s, while the Syrian one is the consequence of a dictatorship and has not yet yielded a clear result.

And why is any of this of any interest when analyzing the entire century? Except, maybe, that the two atrocious episodes have marked the start and the beginning of the said century?

Well, it’s how the rest of the world have chosen to react in each instance which I find extremely interesting.

First of all, let me remind you the broad picture in both cases.

Spain’s took place shortly after the end of WWI and immediately after the Great Depression. The most important ‘disruptive ferment’ was militant marxism and although not all of those fighting on the side of the revolutionaries adhered to this ideology the presence of the marxists had decisively shaped the reaction of the democratically elected governments of the world. They had chosen to basically stay out of it. Despite the fact that Franco was leading a rebellion and that the Republican Government had been dully elected to office.
At the beginning, France’s first socialist PM, Leon Blum, had assisted the Republicans but recanted shortly afterwards, “under pressure from Stanley Baldwin and Anthony Eden in Britain, and more right-wing members of his own cabinet”. Which, in a way, made some sense. Western Europe was frightened that communism might spread westwards and many of the Spanish Republicans were of communist persuasion. “Baldwin and Blum now called for all countries in Europe not to intervene in the Spanish Civil War. A Non-Intervention Agreement was drawn-up and was eventually signed by 27 countries including the Soviet Union, Germany and Italy. However, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini openly ignored the agreement and sent a large amount of military aid, including troops, to General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist forces.” Stalin also ignored the agreement and send some help to the Republicans but got bored and by 1938 he practically forgot about the whole thing.
In the end, the conflict had been won by the side supported by those seeking revenge for being defeated during WWI – and for the harsh conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.
That had been the ‘institutional’ reaction.
On the popular side, despite the ‘hang-over’ produced by the WWI and the Great Depression, some 60.000 volunteers from all over the world had joined the ‘fight for freedom’. The fact that they were organized by the Comintern didn’t help in the end, on the contrary, but the population at large looked at them with sympathy. Proven by the success enjoyed by the literature and art produced by some of the volunteers/sympathizers.

Guernica

 

 

 

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Categories authoritarianism, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, religion, Social justice, The kind of world we are building for our children

Qelle connerie, la querre!

September 5, 2014 //
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Tomorrow will be a full century since the ‘Miracle of the Marne’, a battle from the WWI during which the French managed to stop the seemingly invincible German army at some 35 miles from Paris. Apparently the Germans erroneously appraised the state of the French army and lost a huge opportunity while the French had shown a lot more stamina and determination than they were credited for.

Also there are some chances that tomorrow will be remembered as the first day of peace in Eastern Ukraine after many month of (un)civil war.

What I would like to do now is take a fresh look at what we know as ‘wars’. Hot, cold, asymmetric, commercial, trade…you name it.

There are two interesting definitions that I would like to share with you:
“War is the continuation of politics by other means.”  This one belongs to Claus von Clausewitz, the mastermind behind the German strategic thinking during the second half of the XIX-ht century. The most immediate impression one gets from reading it is that war, per se, is a legitimate tool when it comes to solving problems. You try ‘diplomacy’ first but if that doesn’t work there is always the option of “WAR”.
“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.” A XX-ht century hippie tree hugger? Not exactly… Another German, a writer this time, who had witnessed the WWI as a mature thinker – Thomas Mann, 1875 – 1955. I don’t know when had Mann come up with his definition but it is quite the opposite from the one proposed by his fellow countryman. On the other hand I cannot fail to observe that while in von Clausewitz time Germany was on the rise as a military power during Mann life it had suffered two humiliating defeats.

To be continued.

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories Culture, politics, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in
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