World War III Begins With Forgetting [Excerpts]
New York Times — December 3, 2022
By Stelhen Wertheim
“[H]ow many Americans can truly envision what a third world war would mean? Just as great power conflict looms again, those who witnessed the last one are disappearing.
Around 1 percent of U.S. veterans of World War II remain alive to tell their stories. It is estimated that by the end of this decade, fewer than 10,000 will be left. The vast majority of Americans today are unused to enduring hardship for foreign policy choices, let alone the loss of life and wealth that direct conflict with China or Russia would bring.
Preparing the country shouldn’t begin with tanks, planes and ships. It will require a national effort of historical recovery and imagination — first and foremost to enable the American people to consider whether they wish to enter a major war if the moment of decision arrives. .. .
In 2004 the imposing World War II Memorial, one decade and $197 million in the making, went up between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. George W. Bush, a year into invading Iraq, gave the dedication: “The scenes of the concentration camps, the heaps of bodies and ghostly survivors, confirmed forever America’s calling to oppose the ideologies of death.” Preventing a repeat of World War II no longer involved exercising caution; it meant toppling tyrants.
Besides, why dwell on the horrors of global conflict at a time when no such thing even seemed possible? With post-Soviet Russia reeling and China poor, there were no more great powers for the United States to fight. Scholars discussed the obsolescence of major war.
It wasn’t just major war that seemed passé. So did the need to pay any significant costs for foreign policy choices. Since the Vietnam War roiled American society, leaders moved to insulate the American public from the harms of any conflict, large or small: The creation of an all-volunteer force did away with the draft; air power bombed targets from safe heights; the advent of drones allowed killing by remote control.
The deaths of more than 7,000 service members in the post-Sept. 11 wars — and approximately four times as many by suicide — devastated families and communities but were not enough to produce a Vietnam-style backlash. Likewise, although the wars have cost a whopping $8 trillion and counting, the payments have been spread over decades and passed to the future.
Not having to worry about the effects of wars — unless you enlist to fight in them — has nearly become a birthright of being American.
That birthright has come to an end. The United States is entering an era of intense great power rivalry that could escalate to large-scale conventional or nuclear war.
It’s time to think through the consequences….
As international relations have deteriorated in recent years, critics of U.S. global primacy have frequently warned that a new cold war was brewing.
I have been among them. Yet pointing to a cold war in some ways understates the danger. Relations with Russia and China are not assured to stay cold. During the original Cold War, American leaders and citizens knew that survival was not inevitable. World-rending violence remained an all-too-possible destination of the superpower contest, right up to its astonishing end in 1989.
Today the United States is again assuming the primary burden of countering the ambitions of governments in Moscow and Beijing. When it did so the first time, it lived in the shadow of world war and acted out of a frank and healthy fear of another. This time, lessons will have to be learned without that experience.”
Excuse me, but we have a major power invading a neighboring country and the majority of Europe pitching in to contain the invader. The U.S. is sending billions in aide, military materials and there are Americans volunteering and joining the military of the invaded country. The situation is eerily like the world just before Pearle Harbor (except Japan and Italy haven’t joined on the side of Russia.) What is WWIII expected to look like that is not fulfilled by the current situation?
I see all of that you spoke of, Judy, and I also see much of the (first) Cold War being resurrected (exhumed?), so maybe were going to get a mashup of both at once this time around??
Rationing butter and tires?
I could see it. Not to mention limiting bursts of wattage to limit use of our electric cars while they’re repairing power plants . . . . Not to mention doing draft counseling for those facing the new conscription . . . Which would include classes in Spanish or French, for those planning to dodge it in Mexico or Canada.