Posted on 10/19/2020 9:08:25 AM PDT by Olog-hai
History’s grand plan, if it has one, doesn’t usually allow for repetition. The kaleidoscope of the past brings up endless new iterations of victory and defeat, triumph and agony, and allows us only a glimpse into the uncertainty of the future and the ambiguity of the past.
New world powers are coming to the fore, and the post-war world order — first the Cold War, then the Pax Americana — is disappearing. As the influence of NATO, which for many decades gave Europeans a sense of safety through its ability to deter and defend, begins to wane, the promise of protection from the United States is also disappearing. […]
The long nuclear peace of the last 30 years of blissful ignorance is over. Gone too is the strategic stability that the Cold War provided. Even without the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe, the world stage offers chaos. And that makes it all the more important, for reasons of survival, to inject a little predictability, long-term perspective and strategic restraint back into international power relations.
For the foreseeable future, we are in a worse situation than we have been in a long time. While Washington, Moscow, Beijing and other centers of power — the nuclear order that sprang up after World War II — are in decline, no new world order has appeared.
This is where Germany comes into play. A new world order is sorely needed, and Germany, which flourished under the Pax Americana and, against all expectations, became a late-blooming, 20th-century success story, must play its part in establishing one. …
(Excerpt) Read more at worldcrunch.com ...
Sorry, Germany is unwilling to spend the money required to have a powerful military. The people are unwilling to join the military in significant numbers. The leaders are unwilling to utilize the military even if they had one. Finally, France, England, Austria, Italy, Greece, Poland, etc.. do not trust Germany.
Not going to happen.
I do not see how Germany is not providing the impetus for empire. After all, the euro currency is based on the Deutsche mark and its headquarters bank is based in Frankfurt.
Also, when you have chancellors like Helmut Kohl saying “The future will belong to the Germans … when we build the house of Europe”, that implies empire.
I remember the Dennis Miller quote right around the time that Germany was about to Reunify:
German reunification: I view this in much the same way I view a possible Dean Martin - Jerry Lewis reconciliation: I never really enjoyed their work, and I’m not sure I need to see any of their new stuff.
Unless you are incredibly cold and inhuman. Well, I am that.
They’re only unwilling in the context of it being part of NATO.
They have been joining the militaries of neighboring countries to the Bundeswehr for a number of years now, particularly those of the Netherlands and Slovenia. It’s part of the overall plan to unite all EU military forces under one aegis.
As for England, remember Brexit? And France is very, very friendly towards Germany in terms of military unification, even once offering Germany the use of French nukes if need be.
Britain and the US should have stayed out of WWI.
In German, it was called the "Das Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation."
Slight distinction there.
Regards,
With one very important proviso you're not mentioning:
"Non, non, mein Herr! You misunderstand! Eef you wish, we will deploy ze Bombe Francais - Eh, bien, 'ow do you say? - on your territory!"
Yes, the French told the Germans that the French would happily A-bomb any target on German territory for them. (The idea was: To destroy invading columns of Soviet tanks.)
With friends like that...
Regards,
Yeah, it was basically just an excuse for me to cite that cool Noel Coward ditty.
Regards,
Germany still has a very adolescent political culture, which is why it was (and remains IMHO) politically unstable. The current 'Grosse Koalition' remains in power as the uniparty because the left (SPD) is bought off (largely with Russian money) and the right is suppressed by misuse of the law. The result is a 'consensus' imposed by authoritarian means and stifling propaganda from the media.
Whether the political pressure cooker will explode this time is hard to tell, but if there were truly free and fair elections held in Germany the government would look very different than how it does now.
There was no staying out. The British would be dishonored if they violated their promise to defend Belgium, and would have been eventually conquered if they chose inaction; and the Kaiser had declared war on the USA several times without any response from Wilson (the very notion of “a United States of Europe against America” was authored by the Kaiser).
If only there were a political “side” in Germany that believed in the same things as the US Founding Fathers.
Right now, what they call their “right wing” is just another left wing, just as in the past.
The mistake was for Britain to ally with their traditional enemy, France, in the first place.
And as far as Belgium went, screw them, after what they did in the Congo, the Germans never did anything like that in their African colonies.
Belgium should have been divided between France and then Netherlands, anyway.
That suggests they should have actually allied with Germany. There was enmity there from the time Disraeli had to put Bismarck in his place, and the German “state socialism” of that era was the natural foe of English common law.
So what was done to the people in German South West Africa and German East Africa was simply not as bad as the Belgian Congo due to numbers?
I just don’t buy that Germany was a threat to the British Empire.
In hindsight, Britain should have “Brexited” from the Continent, and focused on their Empire.
If the Kaiser had gotten his “United Europe”, they would have been.
More likely that “United Europe” would have fallen apart due to Revolution.
From what source?
Nice catch. I stand corrected.
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