History as a weapon of war

It'S like the game of seven differences, but in reverse. Rather than looking for dissimilarities in
two almost identical drawings, we must identify common points in disparate images, but which
contain so many details that we can always find certain similarities. Times of war are particularly
suitable for this exercise. Commentators and decision-makers then track down any event in the
past that could, in any way, be similar to the contemporary situation. For two years, the war in
Ukraine has been compared to the first world conflict, on the pretext that it also took place in
muddy trenches; to the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962), which also threatened humanity
with a nuclear holocaust; to all external interventions of the USSR (Berlin in 1953, Budapest in
1956, Prague in 1968, Kabul in 1979); to the Iran-Iraq war between two neighboring states
(1980-1988); to that of Kosovo which sought to free itself from the grip of Serbia... Mr.
Volodymyr Zelensky, with his communicators, excels at this little game. Famine of 1933, Great
Stalinist Terror, conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya or Syria, and even the Chernobyl accident:
every historical tragedy makes him think of the invasion of his country. The Ukrainian president
even knows how to adapt his references to his audience. Before the American Congress, he
spoke of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and September 11. In front of the Belgian deputies, he
cites the battle of Ypres. In Madrid, it’s the Spanish Civil War, the Guernica massacre; and in the
Czech Republic, the “Prague Spring”(1). The more dramatic the event, the more effective the
analogy, quick to arouse empathy to better gain support. The Second World War is therefore
logically at the top of the references. Mr. Vladimir Putin swears by the “Great Patriotic War”; all
his enemies are “Nazis”. But the Russian president finds himself compared to Adolf Hitler,
Mariupol to Stalingrad, the annexation of Crimea to that of the Sudetenland… With the eternal
reference to the Munich agreements of September 1938, when France and the United Kingdom
They agreed with Nazi Germany to abandon this region of Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich in
the hope of curbing its expansionist appetites. Having become synonymous with cowardice and
betrayal, the episode has since served to disqualify the defenders of “appeasement”, of the
slightest compromise in the face of war escalation – those who opposed the Franco-British
intervention of Suez in 1956, to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, to the Gulf War in 1990-1991...
Even General Charles de Gaulle was treated as a Municher for having signed the Evian
Accords, which put an end to the fighting in Algeria. This avalanche of analogies does not only
have a rhetorical effect. The choice of comparisons sometimes weighs on the strategic
decisions themselves. The political scientist Yuen Foong Khong has thus shown how the
memory of Munich permeated the thinking of American political leaders during the Vietnam War;
not only their speeches, but also their reflections, their debates, to the point of justifying in their
eyes the need for military intervention. If they had thought of the French experience in Indochina
in the 1950s and the defeat of Dien Bien Phu, notes the researcher, they would perhaps have
perceived this country as impregnable, which would have led them to greater caution. . But
“political leaders are poor historians,” he writes. (…) Their repertoire of historical parallels is
limited, so they choose and apply the wrong analogies

The reference to Munich has a relevance inversely proportional to its omnipresence in public
debate. Particularly with regard to Ukraine. Certainly, a war of invasion is once again affecting
Europe. But beyond this common trait, everything differs. First of all, the forces present: Nazi
Germany had a military power far more threatening than contemporary Russia, capable of
conquering Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France (among others) in a
few months. ). For their part, Mr. Putin's troops have failed to take kyiv after two years of
fighting, and it is difficult to see how they could multiply the fronts and attack the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization ( NATO). Then the strategic aims: Hitler, who had theorized the lack of
territory of Nazi Germany (read the article on page 9), could not seriously claim to be threatened
by a hostile military alliance, unlike Mr. Putin. Nothing could stop the German Chancellor's
desire for expansion, and Édouard Daladier understood this perfectly: by signing the 1938
agreements, the head of the French government was mainly seeking to gain time to prepare his
army for an inevitable confrontation. A strategy which then received the approval of almost the
entire political class – with the exception of communist parliamentarians, a socialist, Jean
Bouhey, and a right-wing deputy, Henri de Kérillis. Finally, the international context, with a more
interdependent world, where the balance of power is upset by the nuclear threat. Escalations for
which responsibilities are shared In view of all these divergences, it seems absurd to draw
inspiration from Munich to shed light on the contemporary situation. But, when it comes to
historical comparison, dissimilarities are frequently overlooked. However, “the perception of
differences is perhaps the most important object – although too often the least sought after – of
the comparative method,” wrote Marc Bloch. Because, through it, we measure the originality of
social systems, we can hope, one day, to classify them, and penetrate to the depths of their
nature (3).” This is how an analogy can bear fruit, by allowing us to extract ourselves from
particularities to identify general rules. But the method requires rigor and attention to detail, two
qualities that it is better not to look for in commentators who are overactive in the media and
historically lazy. However, by adopting this perspective, by considering conflicts in their diversity,
a completely different landscape emerges and certain phenomena are then striking for their
recurrence: the disqualification of discordant voices, to which history will often vindicate; the
propensity to present any crisis as “existential”; the demonization of the enemy; the
ineffectiveness of sanctions policies... An obligatory reference for any international crisis, the
Second World War appears not as the rule, but as the exception. Rare are the conflicts where
the wrongs were so little shared, where one of the camps, entirely diabolical and evil, had a plan
for world domination, and whose outcome was so clear, with the total crushing of the
vanquished, the suicide or the execution of the main culprits. This caricatured Manichaeism
makes it an excellent weapon for those who want to justify military intervention, but a biased
point of comparison. Very often, wars result from escalations for which responsibilities are
shared, at least in part. An observation that sometimes only becomes apparent after decades of
research, after the end of the propaganda. Thus, Germany has long been judged solely
responsible for the First World War: it had fueled the arms race, encouraged Austria-Hungary to
attack Serbia after the assassination of Sarajevo, invaded Belgium... But no one denies no
longer today that Imperial Russia holds a part of the responsibility, in particular by having
favored Serbian nationalism. Just like France, all the more inclined to confrontation as a large
part of its political class wanted to take revenge after the defeat of 1870 and the loss of
Alsace-Lorraine. Germany “lit the fuse”, but it “is not the only one to have fueled the powder
keg”, summarizes the historian Gerd Krumeich (4). A situation found in most conflicts. “Today,
we all agree in attributing the main responsibility for this war to the Russian government, which
decided to invade Ukraine,” writes political scientist Anatol Lieven (5). But will the historians of
the future attribute full responsibility to him, exonerating the United States and NATO from the
blame of having tried to integrate Ukraine into the West, thereby threatening what the Russians ,
as well as a long list of Western experts (including current CIA Director William Burns),
perceived and described as “vital interests”? » Not if they are serious... Also very often, wars do
not end with the annihilation of one side. This is the outcome that the belligerents seek, but,
failing to achieve it, they end up resorting to compromises, abandoning certain demands and
signing shaky peaces, frustrating for all parties. The quest for total victory can sometimes lead
to strategic impasses when one side, intoxicated by its successes, tries to push its advantage
until suffering a backlash. For example, the United States engaged in the Korean War in 1950
with the objective of stopping the advance of North Korean troops and pushing them back
beyond the 38th parallel. This objective easily achieved, they then came to consider
reunification under American auspices. General Douglas MacArthur's soldiers then advanced
north, in turn crossing the demarcation line, to the point of approaching the Chinese border.
Beijing stepped in and sent a million and a half volunteers into the field. A few weeks later, the
communists retook Seoul and the conflict dragged on for two years, before returning to the
status quo ante bellum. The return to square one also punctuates the Indo-Pakistani war of
1965 and the Iran-Iraq war – eight years of confrontation, a million dead, no winner. Mr.
Zelensky, supported by Western chancelleries, broadened his ambitions by noting the
weaknesses of the Russian army. In unison with Mr. Joseph Biden, according to whom the
“future of freedom” is at stake, he now only speaks of “total victory”. With the failure of its
counter-offensive in the Donbass, Ukraine was able to understand that it will not easily retake
this region, let alone Crimea, unless it precipitates a deployment of European and American
troops which would plunge the planet in the unknown. Sooner or later, kyiv and Moscow will
have to resolve to negotiate, and other states could encourage them to do so. Rather than
fueling the fire – for years and at the cost of tens of thousands of additional deaths.

1088 words

Benoît Bréville.