D
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I have always been sympathetic to the “Fifty Year Wound” argument that fighting the “Fifty Year War” seriously compromised all of our institutions...
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
I don't disagree with that although the existence of ICBMs was probably the worst culprit. They had two really serious drawbacks; one is the speed at which they operated that severely limited the time to react and the other is that once they are on their way, that's it. Contrary to public mythology, ICBMs cannot be aborted or retargeted once launched (the reason why is obvious - doing either would require an uplink from the ground to the missile and that would be very vulnerable to electronic countermeasures). So, there was no time to make considered decisions and those decisions were final in the most terrible sense of the word.
But outside the nuclear environment, I think your case is a very strong one. Another damaging factor was "The War On Drugs" which was used to justify a whole load of civil riots violations.
Sorry to interrupt, but what is the "Fifty Year War" and what is this wound connected to it? The Cold War?
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
"The Fifty Years War is a politico-historical concept that treats the period from 1936 through to 1986 as a single worldwide conflict that encompassed all the campaigns in that period. This concept argues that The Fifty Years was started with the Spanish Civil War and that the Western European War, the Great Patriotic War, Korean War, Vietnam War along with numerous others were but campaigns within the greater whole. In the final analysis, the Fifty Years War is argued to have been a struggle for hegemony between the United States and Russia with the two contestants trying to replace the declining United Kingdom as World Hegemon.
The Cold War is a debated part of this model. Some argue that the 50 Years War and the Cold War are different names for the same thing differing only in that the starting date is disputed. Others suggest that the Cold War was a part of the Fifty Years War, just another campaign within the larger whole. There is another model in which the Cold War was actually World War IV, fought in parallel with but separate from the Fifty Years War.
The primary proponent of the Fifty Years War as a world war was Dr. Norman Friedman who holds to the 1936 to 1986 World War position. He explains his theory and the rationale behind it in his book "The Fifty Years War". He came up with the memorable phrase "The Fifty Years War was a real world war but fought in slow motion".
The Fifty Years War was immensely damaging with profound effects on the world but especially Western Europe that was effectively ruined and has never really recovered. Hence the grim and morbid phrase "The Fifty Years Wound."
Oh, it's Friedman rearing his oh-so-enlightened head again.
Should have known he'd come up with some glib title to try to encapsulate a whole host of different wars and conflicts under the US vs Russia heading.
Not like the Japanese, Germans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Iraqis, Israelis, or Arabs could get into shit without the US and/or Russia pulling the strings like puppet masters.
Lanmandragon
Well-known member
I mean they clearly can but it's not like we weren't doing that. He might be overstating how much. The Rusians and us definitely did our fair share though.Oh, it's Friedman rearing his oh-so-enlightened head again.
Should have known he'd come up with some glib title to try to encapsulate a whole host of different wars and conflicts under the US vs Russia heading.
Not like the Japanese, Germans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Iraqis, Israelis, or Arabs could get into shit without the US and/or Russia pulling the strings like puppet masters.
Francis Urquhart
Well-known member
I've known Dr. Friedman for a quarter of a century; while we disagree on a lot of things, some quite strongly, I have great respect for his scholarism and depth of knowledge. He's probably one of the sharpest strategic analysts out there. I do suggest you sit down and read "The Fifty Years War"; you might not agree with the conclusions but the ideas and concepts he puts forward are thought-provoking.
Actually, the concept (and name) of "The Fifty Years War" was around for a long time before the book was published. What Dr. Friedman did was put a lot of disconnected concepts into a coherent narrative. As I said, one may not agree with that narrative (there are significant areas where I disagree with his conclusions) but even disagreeing with them brings forth interesting ideas of one's own.
You have got the mechanism the wrong way around and this makes your comment completely misconceived. The great trick wasn't to sit there pulling strings like puppet-masters but to go with the flow. The idea was not to try and create events but to study what was happening and try and turn the events that were happening anyway to one's own advantage.
In general, the idea was (and is) that the countries involved developed their own strategies for achieving their desired goals. In the case of the US, that was containment. US policy was based on the belief that the Soviet economic system was so horribly flawed that all we had to do was to contain their system until it collapsed under its own weight. Note that eventually, that worked. This meant keeping the US economy as strong as possible and that meant trying to evade expensive military involvement as far as possible. Note that when that principle broke down (in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq) it did not end well for the US. The Soviet Strategy was to outflank the western position in Europe (while maintaining the integrity of its own position) by expanding in the rest of the world and thus isolating the resource hungry US economy from its sources of raw materials.
So, the way The Fifty Years War was fought was to watch what was happening in the world and try to understand what was happening there. Events and trends that were favorable to one's own strategic ambitions would be supported and those that were not were quietly ignored. That's why the US and the Soviet Union responded to some events and not others. As a corollary, events that favored the other side were opposed if significant and ignored if not. Now this style of "slow-motion warfare" greatly favors good human intelligence so that developing events in any given area can be properly understood. US human intelligence is notoriously bad; that of the Russians is equally notoriously good. To a large extent this offset American economic superiority. In a way, the Fifty Years War could be described as the American economy vs Soviet intelligence.
"Going with the flow" was actually one of the strategic principles of those years. Don't instigate events because the results will be far too unpredictable. Watch events that were happening, understand them and use them if they work to one's advantage. Suggesting that the US or Soviet Union tried to act like puppet-masters is the opposite of what Dr. Friedman was suggesting. As I said, you really should read his book.
D
Deleted member
Guest
@ShieldWife , the ships returned to harbour while we were there. It was a major drill to show we could do it, bigger than normal, but just a drill.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
Great. While Trump isn’t as dovish as I would prefer, he’s certainly worked a lot harder on being peaceful than any president in a long time. Certainly more than his Nobel Peace Prize winning predecessor.
Well, he isn't blowing up scores of people with drones. So there is that.