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Europe's Shift from War Culture to Peace Culture

As Canada weighs its role in Afghanistan, author James Sheehan looks at Europe and asks, 'Where have all the soldiers gone?'

By Crawford Kilian, 28 Apr 2010, TheTyee.ca

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  • Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe
  • James J. Sheehan
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On February 20, the Dutch government fell because its coalition could not agree on whether to extend its mission in Afghanistan by another two years.

Almost exactly seven years before, on February 15, 2003, all of Europe was marching in the streets of its major cities: A million people in London's Trafalgar Square, a million in Barcelona and another 600,000 in Madrid, a million in Rome, 500,000 in Berlin. All were protesting, in vain, the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

What a difference from the summer of 1914, when Europeans rallied in their millions to celebrate the start of the First World War (young Adolf Hitler can be found, cheering, in a photo of the crowds in Munich). It would all be over by Christmas, everyone would be morally and economically improved, and the good guys would certainly win.

James J. Sheehan's excellent book traces the education of European civilization over the past century and a half, from its domestically tranquil 19th century to a 20th century of staggering carnage and into a 21st century when the once-great powers go into combat grudgingly if at all. Sheehan poses some questions for today's Canada, with its new eagerness to send its young men and women into combat.

War as nation building

Much of the book is a concise history of Europe's wars; what provoked them, and what followed them. But his summary gives us some unexpected perspectives. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Europe enjoyed one of the longest peaceful eras in its millennia of carnage. Apart from a few squabbles that turned Prussia into the First Reich, and some suppressed revolts in 1830 and 1848, Europeans didn't kill each other very much.

Instead they dispatched small, highly trained and well-equipped armies and navies to slaughter people in the rest of the world, especially Africa and Asia. These colonial forays were supposed to be economically useful by ensuring foreign markets for British and French goods. They didn't cost much, and sometimes they made good propaganda.

Even so, Europeans weren't sold on imperial adventures, and even less tolerant of militarism at home. A drunken young German officer triggered a political crisis by abusing civilians. The Reich and the infant Italy might aspire to foreign colonies, but that was for glory, not an improved bottom line.

But the politicians of the day saw militarism as a form of nation building. In the new Germany, it helped to fuse the often-hostile principalities and petty kingdoms into a unified country. The military also helped Austria-Hungary to hold together its restless nationalities.

Pacifism, a century ago

By the 1890s, war in Europe was beginning to look more likely, and it inspired a new "pacifist" movement. This was backed up by the analysis of Polish banker Ivan Bloch, who dispassionately proved that modern warfare was too deadly to be won by heroes, and too expensive to be sustainable. He foresaw the unwinnable trench warfare, the social breakdown on the home front, and brutal reparations exacted on the losers to pay for the costs of the winners.

The Germans thought they saw a loophole in Bloch's otherwise overwhelming argument: A quick war might be won by mobility before a single trench was dug. And the Schlieffen Plan to take the Channel ports and envelop Paris nearly worked; after that, Bloch's prophecy was fulfilled.

In 1940, of course, Hitler carried Schlieffen's vision to the next stage: blitzkrieg followed by systematic looting of the conquered countries to sustain an economically ruinous prolonged war.

New masters

Europe might have gone to war a third time, but for one problem: the Americans and Soviets now ruled them, and would not allow European squabbles that could turn into nuclear war.

So Europeans turned to building peaceful societies that eventually merged into the European Union. They maintained armed forces (and France and Britain developed and kept their own nuclear weapons), but no one seriously thought that armies and navies would build stronger nations. Quite the contrary.

Meanwhile, the winners still found much to value in sustaining large armed forces and the militarism that went with them. The Soviets could ensure that no one was going to strike across the Polish border; the Americans could project power almost anywhere in the world.

Even they, however, had to obey Bloch's cold equations. No one could get political support for wars that cost too many of their own people. From Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan, the Americans and Soviets kept reaching points of diminishing returns. Civilians no longer cheered in the streets. No one wanted to hear about their glorious army's latest exploits in Khe Sanh or Kandahar, and in any case the army didn't want to tell them.

Canada’s war stories

Canada obeys Bloch's equations as well. We still kid ourselves that Vimy Ridge was our own nation-building moment, and we're proud of liberating Holland.

But who remembers the 516 Canadians who died in Korea? We had no interest in fighting in Vietnam, or Iraq, and we now hear almost nothing about Afghanistan except when some poor kid steps on an IED. In six days at Vimy Ridge we suffered over 10,000 casualties, including 3,598 dead. If we suffered even a tenth of such casualties in one week in Afghanistan, our forces would be on their way home the following week.

This is no slur on our troops, but a compliment to our social maturity. Even in World War I, Ottawa didn't dare publish casualty lists until 1916; when they did appear, they were so huge that they must have numbed the public. Now, the death of a single young man is front-page news and we wince to hear about it.

Just as the Europeans finally learned that war would get them nowhere, we are learning too. Even the Americans, for all their economic dependence on their "defence" industries, may eventually learn that Ivan Bloch was right. [Tyee]

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

16 Comments:

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  • Jeffrey J.

    2 years ago

    Top Notch Review

    There is social progress occurring in society! Yes, there is also regress, particularly from our ruling elites. But the dawning of self realization around the world that citizens have a choice; that war is not inevitable; that peace is an option; that capitalism is corrupt; is growing.

    More Canadians need to turn off their TV, read this book and join a local grass roots movement. We too can help Canada move from the Harper/Neo-Con war, continuous growth agenda, and embrace cooperation, peace, humanity and sustainability.

    Great coverage from Mr. Killian and BC's greatest independent media.

  • jwstewart

    2 years ago

    Well I'm not sure I would

    Well I'm not sure I would call our inaction to the events in Darfur, Rwanda, Sierra Leon, etc, "social maturity" if we wince at a single Canadian death but ignore 1000 or 100,000 elsewhere.

  • toquer

    2 years ago

    nice thesis, but...

    Didn't notice any mention of the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Georgia...not exactly kumbaya moments in recent memory. A re-vitalized fascism emerging in various european states, and ancient tensions so acute that it only takes a soccer match to ignite them...let's give Europe another few decades, before we bask in the sort of evolutionary moment Kilian suggests: european nations have been very good at starting fires, and have relied to larger powers to put them out. This isn't a move towards an enlightened peace, but rather a total abrogation of responsibility for one's own security, and the consequences of one's nationalist demons. I'd suggest we avoid viewing the European example as something to aspire to: I'll give them points for pastries and cheese, but overall we're far more secular and tolerant, and far less prone to torch our neighbour's homes over subtle points of history. The European union is a shiny cover hastily affixed to a fractured base: beware it's dazzling surface, lest it draw one to premature, overstated conclusions.

  • Takuan

    2 years ago

    The Current on CBC Radio had a good interview

    http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118543&currentpage=34

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    Peace Brother.

    Less than a million soldiers and only about $300 Billion spent on armed forces per year (that's a mere $800 million and something per day!). I guess that's what some call a Peace Culture.

    "As the number of operations has been rising since the 1990s, defence budgets have been reduced steadily and significantly. This means that armed forces have to do much more with much less. We would argue, however, that in spite of reduced resources, Europe’s potential to influence international security issues through military power remains significant. The 27 members of the European Union spent €204 billion on defence in 2006, and they had almost 2 million people on active service in their armed forces. They have plenty of military assets upon which to draw for operations. ...In 2007, the European countries covered in this dossier had some 71,000 military personnel deployed abroad on crisis-management missions. Since 1999, European countries have sustained between 55,000 and 79,000 troops abroad every year. While this amounts to a sizeable contribution to international security, the figure for 2007 still represents only 2.7% of all active service personnel. ..."
    http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/european-military-capabilities/press-statement/

    So, there's only around 750,000 active service personnel in Europe.

    Then of course, there are the occasional, almost daily somewhere, terrorist attacks that will garantee that many of these states retain their armed forces.

    "EU terror attacks down 33% in 2009: Europol
    AFP, Apr 28, 2010

    THE HAGUE: Thirty-three percent fewer terrorist acts, a total of 294, were last year committed in the European Union, excluding the United Kingdom, policing agency Europol said on Wednesday."

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    I contradict myself

    "2 million on active service" is closer to the truth.

    Calling it a peace culture is close to any military euphemism one will ever hear.

  • OilbertaRedTory

    2 years ago

    realistically, war and peace cultures

    have been mapped:
    http://www.miniatlasofhumansecurity.info/en/files/miniAtlas_part1.pdf

    Looking beyond our brothers (and sisters) in arms.

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    Peace statistics

    "...and only about $300 Billion spent on armed forces per year..."

    R' man, you need some better figures.

    So do we all. Nationmaster, counting only direct spending on the military, and not on research programs, ssecret service/intelligence programs or "peacekeeping": efforts or UN contributions to military ventures or any of the thousand other things notes that in 2004, total direct military spending EXCLUDING THE US was $512 billion.

    http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mil_exp_dol_fig-military-expenditures-dollar-figure

    At the time (2004), US direct military spending was estimated at $400 billion making for a total of $900 billion in direct military spending.

    Now as to indirect military costs....

    Using Canada as an example, R&D spending on military by the government amounts to $1.5 billion in subsidies, plus about three times that in private spending (OECD estimate - http://www.jstor.org/pss/423749) on contracts for military hardware for a total of $6 billion (2007).

    Add our puny $150 million contributions to peacekeeping and unquantifiable costs such as medical care for vets with war injuries to the mix, and you see that the excess costs of war very nearly equal our direct military spending of $9 billion in 2004 dollars, for a total of more than $16 billion in 2004.

    That would mean that global direct military spending of $900 billion would be nearly matched by indirect spending of perhaps $700 billion (same ratio) for a global military cost of $1.6 TRILLION.

    In 2004.

    Kind of invalidates your "cost-benefit" ratio a bit. And I haven't even gotten started on your misuse of the justification "terrorism", which is merely another word for militarily-enforced economic inequality.

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    ...also known as...

    ...bullying.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    zalm

    Europe is what the article about the book is talking about. As I said. "The 27 members of the European Union spent €204 billion on defence in 2006". Where is my cost-benefit ratio or any "justification"?

  • Fiat lux

    2 years ago

    What people should remember

    What people should remember is that it is not "nations" who start and fight wars, but dictators, governments, and priesthoods, who persuade their peoples to go kill, destroy and die for pie in the sky promises.

    All armies in WW2 have fought and killed each other for "freedom". The nazi Axis side fought for "Freedom, Christianity and Western civilization".

    Today, the the main role of soldiers is to make a lot of noise with their guns, but not hitting anybody. It was estimated that in WW2, fought mostly with single shot, repeating rifles, it took 30,000 shots to hit anybody. Today, with automatic weapons, it could easily be 100, or 200,000. shots. I have to laugh when I see the newclips of the Afghanistan idiocy, with soldiers shooting long bursts over walls etc., without a hope in hell to hit anybody, just wasting ammo and looking very heroic.

    The vast majority of casualties, already in WW2, have been by artillery, bombs, mines, accidents and other long distance, impersonal weapons.

    Soldiers who get blown up by mines are not heroes, but victims.

    I've spent 14 months in a military hospital specializing on legwounds and amputations after WW2, 3 months as a patien, mortar shell, and 11 months as a volunteer orderly. Part of my job was to hold the legs of victims as they were being amputated and reamputated.

    There were virtually no injuries caused by infantry weapons, but by explosives, accidents and frostbites. Even on training grounds, on soldiers who never saw or heard a shot fired in anger.

    So much for heroism in wars.

    In other words, the causes of wars is always fraud and the results, as the consequences of today's economic crime waves, are always destruction and misery forced on the shoulders of innocent humanity.

    As far I'm concerned, all the generals, senior officers and the politicians who send and licence people to kill and die, on all sides, should be shot after all the wars, because they're all bloody liars and criminals.

    Allied air force generals, like "Bomber" Harris and LeMay, should definitely have been tried and hanged as war criminals, side by side with their nazi brethren.

    Wealth can not be created, only taken.

    The main purpose of wars is to take something from others.

    The war to end all wars should start with people's heads, showing them the criminal stupidity of their leaders.

    Yes, we can support our soldiers in Afghanistan by bringing them home, as they're not doing anything worthwhile, only wasting their lives.

    How about sending Harper over to preach and rule ?

    Ed Deak.

  • jwstewart

    2 years ago

    Ed..

    Wasn't it Curtis LeMay who changed American policy from bombing only military targets to also include civilians?

    How did they justify that?

  • Takuan

    2 years ago

    viz:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfPwR00HXM0&feature=related

  • Crawford

    2 years ago

    Curtis LeMay...

    ...was late to the party. Very early in the war, British and German doctrine was to avoid civilian targets if only to score propaganda points. Sheer inaccuracy resulted in many civilian casualties, giving each side the pretext to attack the other side's civilians in retaliation. This too turned into a doctrine: Demoralize the enemy into surrendering by killing civilians, destroying their homes, and demolishing their workplaces.

    By the time the Americans got into the war, systematic attacks on civilians were routine. LeMay was an apt pupil, especially in US raids on Japan before Hiroshima. He also promoted this doctrine into the era of the atomic bomb.

    As long as I'm here, I might as well try to respond to some of the commenters. Sheehan certainly doesn't argue that Europeans have become a bunch of pacifists, or that they've stopped spending on defence. But much of that spending has been a cost of doing business as US allies, and the European publics have been extremely reluctant to put their servicemen and women in harm's way.

    Hence the departure of many of the "coalition of the willing" from Iraq and Afghanistan, despite American entreaties. Fighting such wars doesn't help in European domestic politics and doesn't make anyone rich. Hence the European disillusion with an endless, pointless war in central Asia.

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    R'man

    "Europe is what the article about the book is talking about."

    Fair enough. Kilian dragged in the rest of the world, not you. I'll eat that.

    Your justification:
    "...only about $300 Billion spent..."

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    Lost their appetite

    Considering that European countries have lost so many people in recent wars it's not surprising that public sympathy in war is low. I say recent because it takes generations to forget losses.

    As Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote in the New York Times when reviewing the above mentioned book: "In 1914-18, 1.3 million Frenchmen (those cheese-eating surrender monkeys) were killed defending their country, which is to say more than twice as many as all the Americans who have died in every foreign war from 1776 until today. "

    Some other countries lost huge proportions of people. During and after the first world war many towns became short of men There were simply few around and people alive today remember that because they were there as young children. The second world war was similar for many.

    With the huge amount of money currently being spent on munitions and armed forces, often because countries that suffered or were attacked are determined to defend themselves, it will be some time yet before anyone can say that war is over.

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