Developments in international life today bring to mind the Cold War after carnage that in the 1914th century destroyed human beings, animals, lands and seas. After 9,5, France lost millions of arable hectares due to the plethora of shells, destroyed weapons, and abandoned corpses. The calculations lead to 40 million dead or missing. Serbia had 73,3% of its army decimated. Historians indicate that approximately one million are missing from the count, as it would be necessary to add the prisoners who died in their cells, those who died due to injuries after demobilization – 48,2 million individuals were spent by the powers. The allies used 13,2 million, the defeated made cannon fodder with 9 million German citizens and XNUMX million Austro-Hungarians.
The second catastrophe caused the USSR to lose 13,6 million soldiers, 7,5 million civilians, 10% of its pre-battle population. Poland had 120 deaths and another 5,3 million civilians. Germany devoured 4 million soldiers and 3 million civilians. France threw 250 thousand soldiers and 350 thousand to their deaths. England and its dominions employed 326 thousand soldiers, lost 62 thousand civilians. The United States spent 300 troops, with almost no civilian losses. To round off the obscene numbers, China lost, between soldiers and civilians, between 6 million and 20 million human beings. Thus, from the first to the second conflict, the number of deaths was 4 to 5 times higher. [1]
In Hell's first onslaught, deaths occurred more among military personnel. In the second, the sum between soldiers and civilians was equalized. In addition to Nazi crimes, there was mass bombing of cities, deaths imposed on those fleeing, etc. 70% more Soviet citizens died than in the USA. Part of the deaths were due to Einsatzgruppen. The macabre dance, whose grand finale occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, continued after the conflict.
The devil leaves the world, but the sulfur remains. With the Second World War officially over, armed conflicts erupt across the planet. Socialism seeks to defend conquests, demands sacrifice from those exhausted in battles. On the other hand, the passing of the imperial baton – from England to the USA – inaugurates the time of coups d'état with the one carried out against Iran by Mohammed Mossadegh. The facts are known. That coup is the first to be carried out by the CIA against a government adverse to British interests, linked to the Americans. It was a preface with practical and theoretical resonance throughout the 20th century. Churchill, the supposed great man who would have saved Europe from tyranny, needed Iranian oil. He feared the advance of the USSR towards the Iranian sources of the product, already cruelly dominated by the British. As usual, Iranians were treated like animals in the clutches of “perfidious Albion”. Mossadegh nationalized oil, which began manipulations by religious masses against him, rumors, false accusations of corruption, low play in Parliament and with the Shah. All the devices used later to defend “Western and Christian culture” began on the streets of Tehran against the “dictator” and his alleged threats to democracy. [2]
In 1965, in the fight for Asian control, the USA guarantees the coup launched by Suharto against President Sukarno. Then, under the pretext of cleansing Indonesia of communists and their party (PKI), a massacre worthy of what occurred in the Second World War. From 500 thousand to one million communists, leftists or simple supporters of the deposed government were annihilated with the help of American power. Democracy, blessed by the USA under the leadership of Suharto, lasted until 1998, close to our days. [3]
Another seed of the Cold War, today sprouts among eggs and nuclear warheads. The division of Korea was the extreme of the struggle between the USSR and the USA for control of Asia. Annexed to Japan in 1910, treated savagely by Japanese power, in 1945 Korea did not belong to the Allies or the Axis. In 1929, in the “French” territory (colonial logic) of Shanghai, a provisional government of Korea was created. To resist the Japanese, the government tried to rely on Westerners and the Kuomintang. With failure comes some trends. The first of them is linked to the USA, the other to the Kuomintang. The communists are divided between supporters of China and another, linked to the USSR, led by Kim Il Sung.
In September 1945, Lyu Woon called an Assembly that proclaimed the Republic of Korea. The Americans, with 72 thousand soldiers under the command of General Hodge, do not recognize that power. In the Northern sector, the Soviets strengthened the communist administration. At the Moscow conference (December 1945) the United States, USSR, England, China, France recognize Korean independence. Only Americans and Soviets occupy the country. The most industrialized part of the region was in the North sector. Korea is under the tutelage of those who signed the Moscow Conference. Scheduled general elections, aiming to establish a democratic State, the contradictions between the USA and the USSR impede the entire process. At the UN, the USA demands elections throughout the territory, the USSR wants the withdrawal of all troops from the protected country. The USA wins and a Commission is created to organize general elections. The USSR denies the Commission access to the northern territories. Elections only take place in the South. On August 15, 1948, the republic was proclaimed in a divided land. In 1948 it was recognized by most of the world's states, except those aligned with Moscow. The USSR's veto prevents the new State from entering the UN (the two Koreas were admitted in 1991).
In 1950, Dean Acheson proclaimed that his country's defense perimeter in the East extended to the Philippines, passing through Japan, which excluded the Koreas and Formosa. But John Foster Dulles assures South Koreans of US support. Kim Il Sung asks for help from Stalin and Mao to reunify Korea in the wake of the Chinese civil war won by the CP in 1947. He proposes to reunify the country with general elections, without UN control. The South refuses. On June 25, North Korea invades the southern part.
Stalin and Mao play on the military and diplomatic board. US actions in Korea do not have full UN approval. Stalin designs the future: if the USA reacts to the invasion of the South, they will lose everything and their diplomatic credibility will disappear. But if the Americans react, there is another advantage for the USSR, that of removing the Atlantic power from Europe. In Mao's case, the war would allow the USSR to obtain a military-industrial complex: Chinese soldiers would fight with Soviet equipment, in exchange for...Soviet equipment. [4] From then on, initiatives linked to raison d'État by the powers, the tearing apart of Korea, the open door towards the armed conflicts of the 20th and early 21st centuries.
To build warrior and diplomatic alliances in the Cold War, in addition to the mechanisms of espionage, sabotage, etc., the USA and the USSR developed their propaganda based on the oldest technique of raison d'État, the lie. [5] The two powers use the scientific service previously manipulated by Nazism. Brains are transferred to laboratories, libraries and teaching sectors. The USA initially needs to hide from its internal public such a way of taking advantage of scientists committed to the worst in ethics and the best in terms of knowledge. To hide the general responsibility of the German people in war crimes (especially in the killing of minorities such as Jews, Gypsies and others) [6], German elites created the myth that the only people to blame for the Holocaust and abuses of the Nazi State would be the SS. According to the pious narrative, the Werhrmacht I would have clean, jet-washed hands. Like all lies useful for coups, a similar excuse was accepted by the USA. The moral recovery of the Wehrmacht and its entry into NATO. Christopher Simpson says that the recruitment of Nazis was covered by the myth of sanctity applied to Wehrmacht, demonizing the SS. [7]
The Cold War establishes the balance of fear between the powers after the second world conflict. But it translates into wars, espionage, coups d'état and bloodthirsty dictatorships to maintain the status quo. Peace was the effect of propaganda and not reality. An analyst of war conflagations comments that apparently peaceful periods existed in the past, such as in Europe between 1816 and 1852 or after 1871 until 1913. “But it did not mean then, and does not mean now, that the great powers stopped thinking and acting according to a logical realist. Indeed, there is substantial evidence that the largest states in Europe and northeast Asia still fear each other and continue to worry about the relative power of control they possess. Beneath the surface in both regions there is significant potential for intense security competition and possibly even war between the leading states.” [8]
An important feature of the Cold War lies in the presence of devices that can replace armies and military or political commands. Since ancient times instruments have been used to destroy enemies. [9] But in the 20th century the big actor is nuclear technology. Hegel states that in modern war personal heroism disappears. Among armies, the role of machines such as cannons, etc., increases. Whoever uses those means almost never sees the enemy. Hatred and fear are mitigated to the advantage of bureaucratic warmongering. The war theorized in “Lessons on the Philosophy of Law” is similar to that described by Max Weber. Bureaucracy, an immense mechanical device, takes care of religious, political and religious acts. Weber states that the future of humanity lies in the bureaucratic order that removes power from rulers and legislators, judges and clergy, businesspeople and workers.
JD Moreno (Mind Wars, Brain Research and National Defense) discusses the mediation of instruments and remedies in today's fighting. He quotes the “Iliad” in the verses about the courage of the Greeks: “They do not fight at a distance with bows or spears, but with one mind that binds them to each other in close combat with their powerful swords”. Bravery gives way, Moreno thinks, with each new technical invention, from catapults to cannons, to bombs directed by satellites. Military leaders refractory to technical improvements are left behind in historical time. General Patton told reporters that the Air Force would have extracted the heroic opportunity from the soldiers. Strategists like Clausewitz disagree with Hegel and those who claim that courage has lost its place in modern warfare. Even today, a battle can only be said to be victorious if the infant's feet tread on the soil of the defeated, guaranteeing permanent or provisional possession. This is what the Vietnamese proved to the North American power.
Moreno exemplifies the current risks, after the Cold War, in the technical application of means without complete mastery of what is necessary for effectiveness. He cites the Chechens who stormed a theater in Moscow (October 2002). Police forces placed the fentanyl hydrochloride derivative through the hole in the wall, incapacitating the kidnappers. The gas makes them sleepy and kills them. Dramatic side effect: men, women and children also fell under the action of the gas, with 128 deaths and many hospitalizations. The police officers who applied it and the medical service had no knowledge of the effects.
At the same time that the tragedy occurred in Russia, says Moreno, the National Academy of Sciences, in the USA, presents a report on the military use of “non-lethal weapons”, including “calming drugs” such as the aforementioned fentanyl hydrochloride derivative. The end of the report says that the Chemical Weapons Convention is ambiguous enough when it comes to weapons of that type. The Pentagon takes a similar attitude, asserting that the use of those weapons is decisive for successful delicate missions. Critics draw attention to the dangerous proximity between non-lethal and lethal chemical weapons. Many wonder about the use of the latter by rulers who had US support, such as Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran.
The previous considerations require a complement, a diplomatic effort to stop planetary madness. This is what I imagine doing in nearby texts.
[1] The data, which are not entirely accurate, can be checked in Marc Nouschi, Bilan de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Paris, ed. Seuil, 1996). For other data, cf. John J. Mearsheimer, The tragedy of great power politics (NY, WW Norton & company, 2001), pp. 327-329.
[2] The abject history is sadder and more dramatic, with the consequences of torture, exiles, censorship and terror implemented by the CIA, using the Shah's secret police as its instrument. I refer you to Stephen Kinzer's essential book, All the Shah's Men (New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, 2003).
[3] Robert Cribb (2004). "The Indonesian Genocide of 1965-1966" In Samuel Totten(ed). Teaching about Genocide: Approaches, and Resources. Information Age Publishing, pp. 133-143.
[4] Chang, j. and Hallyday, J.: Mao. L'histoire inconnue (NRF, Gallimard, 2005). For the entire passage, I use the work published by Davi Cumin, “Retour sur la guerre de Corée”, In CAIRN. Info. On the same website, an analysis that takes into account the North Korean side with data on Japanese land exploration and the general economy, analyzes of North American policy towards the country, etc. See Heo Man-Ho: “the war of Corée sees the coréen”.
[5] CF. John J. Mearsheimer: Why leaders lie. The truth about lying in international politics (Oxford, University Press, 2011). A stupendous analysis of the synthesis of lying propaganda in the golden age of the raison d'état, based on the performance of Thomas Hobbes: Malcolm, Noel: Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years War, an unknown translation by Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2007).
[6] Eric Voegelin has burning pages on the general collaboration of the German people in the slaughter carried out by the Hitler regime. Cf. Hitler and the Germans (São Paulo, É edit. 2008).
[7] Simpson, Christopher: Blowback, America's Recruitment of Nazis and its effects on the Cold War (NY, Collier Books, 1989).
[8] Mearsheimer, John, J.: The tragedy....ed. cit. pp. 372-373.
[9] The plastic expression of such violence is featured in Stanley Kubrick's filmography. From the bone thrown up, after the primordial murder in 2001, a Space Odyssey, going through the terrible Dr. Fantastic e Born to Kill (not forgetting the armies of mechanized beings in Barry Lyndon) we have a tremendous phenomenology of the topic. See Maria Sylvia Carvalho Franco and Roberto Romano: “'The Shining' by Stanley Kubrick”, Magazine readings, Year 12, June-1993, number 21, pp. 37 et seq.
