The Shadow of the Past: A Warning from Hong Kong
The Diaoyu/Crimea parallel shows a fatal lack of imagination about total war.
Is the World Repeating the Fatal Mistake of Appeasement?
Last week in Hong Kong, I had a chilling conversation with an exceptionally clear-sighted journalist. He started with an observation most people would agree on: "The China-Japan conflict will be the biggest story of the next 20 years.” Then came the alarming speculation: "Now that the US and the EU have entirely failed to block Russia over the Crimea, it’s interesting to speculate whether China will simply grab the Diaoyu islands. On balance, it looks to me as if they would get away with it.”
The journalist, who clearly knew his history, drew a potent parallel to the 1930s. He argued that the rumblings of sympathy for Russia’s actions, much like the appeasement of Hitler and Mussolini, is based on the wrong focus. Appeasement then was focused too much on ameliorating the punitive nature of past events (Versailles in Germany’s case), rather than on understanding the nature of the rule-breaking regime. Today, the focus is on post-Soviet weakening in Russia’s case. This failure to grasp the nature of the aggression is the core danger.
Initially, I objected vigorously. Crimea, I argued, is strategically vital, granting Russia access to the Mediterranean and putting Sevastopol in warship range of key countries. In contrast, the Diaoyu islands are merely a handful of rocks. It seemed like madness that China would risk war with the US, Japan’s avowed ally, over them. Yet, the precision and force of his ideas compelled me to think, especially as a father to an infant son whom I don’t want serving on a battle front in two decades.
The terrifying question remains: Why do advanced economies allow themselves to get involved in the madness of total war? We don’t really know. While the causes of WW1 are endlessly debated, WW2 provides a better model for today’s global conflict, featuring powers alien to the Western liberal-democratic model—China, Russia, and arguably even Japan—just as it was in the 1930s.
My point, however, is more practical: both world wars show that situations can change incredibly rapidly and brutally.
One day, life is completely normal—you are playing football, your child is at school, your family is squabbling amicably. The next, your family is on a cattle truck to Auschwitz. For any doubts on that score, a visit to the Jerusalem Holocaust museum is essential.
The photos of contented, middle-class life right up to the outbreak of war and eventual annihilation serve as a haunting lesson for all of us. This is why lack of imagination is a bigger killer than any A-bomb. We must always be thinking of the quickest way to safety in an emergency.
