Noah Rothman presents a thought-provoking theory of World War I. He explores the idea that WWI was over how the Ottoman Empire would be dismembered and who the beneficiaries of that process would be. Turning to the present day he touches on the potential for accidental great power war over Syria.
IMO connecting that conflict with the present day is somewhat farfetched. The only real candidate for dismemberee this time around is Russia and I don’t think matters have quite gotten to that point for the Russian Republic. I think that we’re still fighting over how the Ottoman Empire will be dismembered and who the beneficiaries of the process will be.
The idea that Russia is going to start throwing nuclear weapons around for anything other than an invasion of their homeland is ludacris. Is the US going to start nuking countries for inane reasons?
Anybody who seriously believes either of these needs to provide a detailed scenario. This is not “Sen. McCain is elected president, and after a Russian jet shoots down an American jet, he nukes them.” While this may work in the world of Wile E Coyote, it does not cut it in the real world.
In the modern world, the major players have more in common with each other than the little guys.
It’s easy to imagine WWI happening without the Ottoman Empire entering, and thus not being dismembered by the war. Germany’s territorial ambitions were in adjoining territory and Central Africa, with economic imperial ambitions created by a strong German economy with economic unions and concessions. The German’s were not initially interested in an alliance with the Ottoman’s, but were drawn in by the threat that the Ottoman’s might join the other side if the Germans rebuffed the offer. On the other hand, the Allied powers sought to persuade the Ottomans to stay neutral, since they did not have designs on Ottoman territory and thought correctly that the Ottomans would make the European war more difficult to win.
The Young Turks thought the Germans would win and wanted in on the spoils, territory in the Balkans and the Transcaucasia. They basically bribed their way into the war and lost the bet.
The proximate cause of WW1 was the political and social instability of the Austo-Hungarian Empire, real and imagined. It is fairly obvious that if all the combatants of 1914 knew what was to come they would have done everything possible to maintain the Austro Hungarian Empire’s security and perception there of.
It is also rather clear that in a fairly short amount of time,the Empire would have peacefully devolved into a sort of German-Slavic federation. Ironically, Archduke Fanz Ferdinand had plans to do just that should be become Emperor, much to the chagrin of his royal relatives. Thus the whole disaster could have been avoided
As to broader “causes”, theories abound, and it is often very hard to tell cause from effect. No other war has had more ink spilled over it, and no part of the ware has ever received more analysis that the cause of the war–there are literally libraries dedicated to just this issue.
Having said that, I would say that the notion that it was the dismemberment of the Ottomans really does not stand , and certainly not against contemporary accounts.
Austro-Hungary, Italy and Russia, the ones that would end up doing the dismembering–certainly not at the time Britain or France–were in no position all to do it, and in fact, Germany quickly aligned itself with the caliphate in Istanbul. Nor were the Ottomans perceived as that weak–certainly not a push over, as Gallipoli confirms. The British efforts in the ME south of Turkey have been exaggerated over time since, but were rather dicey, amateurish at times and of .small size and of little effect to the broader war. If anything, they prolonged the war n the ME theaters.. The Russian Campaigns in the Caucuses were a in the end a distraction to the main theater on the Western front, and the man power would have been better spent on the Eastern front; in any event, Russia got little out of their victory there. The Germans had almost no presence inside the Ottoman Empire, only a guerrilla action much like that of T. E Lawrence.
Almost all of the action against the Ottomans was driven by one goal, to force Turkey to deal with their internal problems and withdraw from the war. Had they done so earlier, say by 1916, or even early 1917, it is fair to say that they would have been spared dismember meant by the victorious powers. As it was, it was such a disaster that the Ottomans we first destroyed, or at least wildly destabilized, by internal struggles. It was against this backdrop of internal troubles that the French and the British could so easily divide up the Ottoman Empire.
Again, many, many “root causes” have been proposed and discussed over the decades since that fateful summer of 1814: The militarization of all the major powers following the Napoleonic Wars, German’s late coming to colonialism, German political immaturity, Russian political immaturity, French cynicism, English wavering, poor diplomatic signals by the Allied Powers, the lack of meaningful diplomatic negotiation bodies or venues, bad government all round–even The German Emperor’s crippled arm or Clausewitz’s pessimism.. Some sound superficially reasonable at first; some are quite fanciful. After all is said and done, after everything is examined, most of “larger causes” do not really seem to obtain to actual events. It is one of the more mysterious questions of history. For sober and useful understanding, we are forced to look at the events that occurred the summer of 1914, and the decade before that lead up to them, particularly in the Balkans.
Two good starting resources to glean some insight the start of the war are “The First World War” and “A History of War”, both by John Keegan. There have been a slew of books lately on this due to the centenary of the start of the war, and a varying quality, but for the general reader, I feel Keegan is still the best.
The great historian of the causes and the start of the war, particularly how the converge on the moths before August 1914 is Albertini, who puts it all forward in his “The Origins of the War of 1914”. Almost all subsequent historians rely on him. much of his research was down shortly after the war and he managed to actually interview many of the major actors.
Well the “idea” that Russia would start a nuclear war for anything but an invasion may “ludacris”, but the actually oif them doing so is certainly not ludicrous. Not at all. You must be young enough to have missed the Cold War.
Certainly the rest of us do not want rely on the good will of the Russians, or their timidity. Historically this would seem unwise.
So tastybits can indudle in the usual Liberal/Democrat pseudo-intellectual nonsense about our very real enemies, but the est of us–the rational adults–value our civilization too much for that.
Too take seriously the likes of Tastybits would indeed be ludicrous–in fact, it would amount to treason.
Calling Tastybits a liberal/Democrat is probably more likely to piss him off than claiming he is committing treason. Pretty funny. Anyway, I am pretty old and lived through much of the Cold War. Spent a lot of that time in the military. I can quite seem to remember exactly when the Russians were launching nukes at other countries. Could you remind me when that happened?
Steve
@charlie
I am well old enough to remember the Soviet Union. I am also well versed in Russian history.
I will be nice and you a little lesson. Throughout Russian history, they have rarely been strong enough to repel one of the major world powers, and their usual tactic was to retreat into the interior burning everything to deny the enemy any resources. Eventually, the Russian winter would do the rest.
For the first time in their history, nuclear armed ICBM’s allowed Russia to defend their homeland without burning everything and retreating. This combined with the blood-lust of the Soviet dictator Stalin was not a good combination, and the Cold War was additional fuel for the historical Russian Paranoia.
The Russian Paranoia is real, and it is well understandable. The Russians have been shunned from European Royalty as red-headed step-children. The term “Russian Bear” is not one of endearment as in the “teddy” type. It is the “shit in the woods” type, but this is only true when the Russian Bear is in the woods.
In historical European minds, the Russian Bear would shit on the rug if allowed inside, and I am guessing you would agree.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the threat of Western invasion has been removed. While the West had no intentions of a physical invasion, the West was intentionally promoting the collapse of the Soviet Union. I suspect from their point of view it looked the same.
Today, I do not think anybody inside or outside Russia thinks the West is attempting to collapse it. Yet. The West may want Putin gone, or Putin may think the West wants him gone. Either is not enough. He is a ruthless ex-KGB agent, and I have no doubt he would shove a pencil into President Obama’s brain through his eye socket.
The Russians are predisposed to an authoritarian government. Part of the reason is historical and institutional, but it is also because of the various ethnic groups. Historically, a strong authoritarian leader was the only way to stop the Russian people from killing one another and unite them against outsiders. FYI, Russian history begins 800 – 1000 years ago depending upon how you date it.
I am not a Sovietologist, and I cannot stand the Soviets even for to study them. My study of Russia was mostly the Czarist period, but I am also familiar with the centuries leading up to the establishment of the Czardom. Trying to study Russia during the Cold War, I had to put up with idiots who could not fathom the difference between the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, and I suspect I have found a holdout from that era.
I really do not fit into the nice neat little boxes you like to use. My experience has been that people who use the word “rational” rarely have any understanding of what it actually means or how it works. It includes logic, and few people claiming to be rational have the foggiest idea of how to construct a logical argument.
What “rational” people truly dislike is having their argument subjected to logic. Assuming that they may not have used formal language is not a problem, but usually, there is no way to do this because it is not logical.
As to foreign policy, I am a realist as in the Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger on steroids. I am only concerned about the ends and the best means for obtaining those ends. I seriously doubt you would want me making the decisions. Your morality would not be my concern. I am an outlier, and there is no way my viewpoint would ever become reality.
As a logical person who uses reality in their reasoning, I require anybody who wills an end to will the means. I also reject anything that does not comport with history and my personal experience.
It is a quality we share with them. I’m reminded of an old Woody Allen wisecrack.
Question: What’s a three syllable word that begins with “P” and means you think that everybody’s against you?
Answer: Perceptive
@steve
Thanks. If one side is feeling too much love, you know I have start pissing them off.
I have too many things going on to worry about this one, and I am waiting for my PR-24 to arrive. Plus, I have been warned about going off on people.
@Dave Schuler
Given their history, I think the Russian Paranoia is well founded. I do not think there is an American Paranoia, but there are groups which are paranoid.
During the Cold War, there was the communist goal of world conversion, but there were differences between Lenin and Stalin. I do not know enough about the Soviet Union to know the nuances of what was and was not possible.
I know in the West it was real to us, and if the Soviets thought that they were or would be under an imminent attack, I do not doubt they would have launched a first strike. This may not have been the case for each leader, but it was not as benign as it seems today.
In the West, M.A.D. seems like a rational strategy, but when Russian Paranoia is combined with Cold War and Soviet mindset, it is not as rational.
Removing the Cold War and Soviet mindset alters the calculus totally, and it is not a valid comparison. At this point, I am supposed to say, “except in the mind of a child”, but why bother?