THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF THE GREAT WAR: David Gelertner has a fascinating piece in the Weekly Standard arguing that the Europeans' actions and attitudes towards the war on terrorism are reminiscent of the 1920s, and show that the influences of World War I have been more lasting than those of World War II:
The First World War seemed unimaginable but turned out to be human, all too human when compared with the Second, which was too big for the mind to grasp. As the Second World War and its aftermath fade, they reveal a "new world order" that is strangely familiar--amazingly like the Western world of the 1920s, with its love of self-determination and loathing of imperialism and war, its liberal Germany, shrunken Russia, and map of Europe crammed with small states, with America's indifference to Europe and Europe's disdain for America, with Europe's casual, endemic anti-Semitism, her politically, financially, and masochistically rewarding fascination with Muslim states who despise her, and her undertone of self-hatred and guilt.
...Once upon a time we thought of appeasement as a particular approach to Hitler. We have long since come to see that it is a Weltanschauung, an entire philosophical worldview that teaches the blood-guilt of Western man, the moral bankruptcy of the West, and the outrageousness of Western civilization's attempting to impose its values on anyone else. World War II and its aftermath clouded the issue, but self-hatred has long since reestablished itself as a dominant force in Europe and (less often and not yet decisively) the United States. It was a British idea originally; it was enthusiastically taken up by the French. Today (like so many other British ideas) it is believed more fervently in continental Europe than anywhere else.
Consider the "Continental attitude" towards our proposed war against Saddam Hussein. If you had the Second World War in mind, you might think: Nothing could be more dangerous than to dither while a bloody-minded tyrant builds his striking power. It is crazy to let him choose D-Day, on the theory that if you leave him alone long enough, he will switch personalities and call the whole thing off. Human adults do not switch personalities--but if someone were going to blaze a trail and be first, a bloody swaggering dictator is not the man. Hitler didn't change even when his whole world had burnt to ashes. The last testament he composed in his bunker in 1945 is strikingly like "Mein Kampf," dictated in the comfort of his five-star prison cell in 1924.
The wisdom of "act first, dither later" as an approach to threats from tyrannies was borne out by Western experience in the Cold War. When the Soviets threatened Western interests directly by trying to starve West Berlin, put nuclear missiles in Cuba, and float the Arabs to victory against Israel (in 1973) on a tidal wave of weaponry, America did not wring her hands and ponder; she acted fast, and won.
But suppose your attitudes were shaped, consciously or not, by the First World War and its aftermath. In that case, the lesson you'd take away would be very different: Whatever you do, never rush a war. Austria did not have to declare war against Serbia on July 28, 1914, but she was in a hurry to forestall proposed negotiations. Russia did not have to mobilize on the 30th, she was under no military threat, but she mobilized anyway. Germany did not have to go crashing into Belgium on August 4, she was in no danger of being overrun by hot-headed Flemings, but once she had mobilized (which she had to do because Russia had), her famous master-plan (to concentrate on the Western front, pivot through Belgium, and come down on France like a sledgehammer) would be exposed and rendered as useless as lightstruck film unless she hit right away.
Some Europeans know these details and some do not. But what every educated European knows is that World War I could have been prevented if only Europe hadn't been in such a demented hurry to fight. And the graveyards of World War I are a permanent feature of the European landscape. In consequence and in tribute, many Europeans are against all war on principle--defensive or offensive, just or unjust, mandatory or frivolous; and they hate Western civilization into the bargain. Can you blame them? The contempt for Western ideas, morality, religion, and traditions that is so prominent among European intellectuals is not the sheer malice it sometimes seems. Europe has earned the right to hate herself. If things go wrong, a scratch can fester. A pardonable act of (at worst) bad judgment--to whoop up a war along with throngs of your fellow citizens--can turn to scalding remorse as the death toll rises and rises. And such quiet emotions as private remorse can reshape history, when you sum up over a whole civilization.
There is much more, particularly on the resurgence of anti-semitism and anti-Zionism in Europe. Go read it.
