Comments by "Ralph Bernhard" (@ralphbernhard1757) on "OxfordUnion"
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Unfortunately, in history, one must often "start" at the consequences of own actions, in order to point out mistakes which happened along the way.
In the big picture of things, spotting mistakes as a contemporary witness is far more difficult.
True today. True at any point in history.
Furthermore, in order to "avoid history repeating itself", one must first admit that mistakes were made.
Also own mistakes.
Because, according to biblical logic: only by "removing the splinters from own eyes", can we avoid "sowing seeds", which we all "reap" at some point.
So here is how European reign and domination of the world ended in 1945, and a few subsequent years (short version, longer version below):
At the end of WW2, the USA (American Century) refused to honor an important treaty Western Allied leaders had made in Quebec.
A treaty/agreement almost nobody had ever heard about.
With that, Washington DC intended to become the sole nuclear power, and not share (as promised per treaty) nukes with London/GB/Empire.
By doing so, the new alpha stated that it did not want an equal power at eye level. They wanted a "junior partner".
And with that, they became the new alpha.
Rule Britania, repealed and replaced by the American Century.
Pax Britannica, replaced by Pax Americana.
Rule the Waves? Let's put it this way. No more "Two Power Standard". Who had "the bigger one"? :-)
Washington DC (The American century) was in a position to "tear up a scrap of paper" and not care what anybody in "old Europe" thought about it.
Washington Internationalism/The American Century, the other "new power" rising across the Atlantic, whose position was basically "observe calmly, secure our position, cope with affairs calmly, hide our capacities and bide our time, be good at maintaining a low profile, and never claim leadership.”
It's interesting to google that quote. Of course it refers to a timeless political strategy, which is true at all times, and explains a lot about the headlines we see in the papers today.
Anyway...
Re. the concept of "being able to spot an anomaly" as history unfolded forward. Of course, it does not "happen backwards", but there is a timeline.
Machiavelli's "balance of power".
Of course Machiavelli didn't invent the concept of "balance of power", but was one of the first to put it down in words in western literature.
Would a true Machiavelli have ignored the noticeable change/shift in the "balance" of the powers at around the turn of the Century? (1900)
Note that the reality of the time was that while GB/Empire and the rising USA were roughly equal in "power" at the time (around 1900), only one of these 2 "powers" had the potential to hang on to her power as the world noticeably changed around the contemporary witnesses at the time, and at least for wise leaders, also in the foreseeable future (Washington DC as the firmly established soft power "master/hegemon" in the Americas, vs. London the "still master" of an outdated 1,000+ year old colonial model).
Would a true Machiavelli have snuggled up to a power without being able to "leverage/hedge" any deal (treaty/accord/agreement/etc.) it made?
Would a true Machiavelli have relied on "appeals to emotion" (like "everybody speaking English") to ensure a dominant position?
Last time I checked, "snuggling up" without also being in a position to "leverage" and/or "hedge" a deal, wasn't in the book (The Prince).
Re. the concept of "how history unfolded aroun the turn of the century, around 1900": reality (aka "the truth") created an anomaly in the algorithm on the timeline of history.
Stalin spotted it, and he intended to imitate it.
I'm sure he identified the "weak links" of Western European domination set up by Versailles by the "Big Three", and other post-WW1 treaties, without Moscow being consulted.
The early Communism in One Country advocates in Moscow, soon to become World Communism: "Observe calmly, secure our position, cope with affairs calmly, hide our capacities and bide our time, be good at maintaining a low profile, and never claim leadership."
I'm sure he read a lot...
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Dear Dr Masani: there is only "history".
As long as the facts are correct, then what is left is "perspectives".
One perspective should not rank higher than another.
Telling history from the perspective of millions of victims, has often been degraded as "Marxist" and therefore "less valuable".
The reality?
As the name "famine" already suggests, it is man-made, and not entirely natural.
Even worse than that, it would have been easy to avoid millions of deaths. Maybe not every death, but certainly many.
With a pot of ink and a table.
Certainly, even with a war going on (like during the 1943 famine), the most powerful empire in the world should have been able to do that.
Line up the people, sell them a few kilos of rice/food at a government set price, finger in the pot, on your way...
Note also, when food shortages did seem imminent or predictable for themselves, like during WW1 and WW2, food rationing was introduced. Strange, that it wasn't left to "market forces" to sort that out...
So much for the "well, we didn't know it was going to be so bad"-excuses...
But, of course Operation Legacy meant "winners" can sink evidence of crimes "to the bottom of the deepest oceans", or burn it, with instructions to ensure that ashes are ground to dust, and are not readable.
I wonder what "evidence" was so embarrassing, that it had to be burnt to cinders? The construction of roads and schools maybe?
Luckily for the British and their "popular or narrative history", most people are biased.
Most people consider it "not so bad" letting people die of starvation, as opposed to actively murdering them. I assume, to the victim the effect is the same (perspective). You die.
A bias known as "omission bias", and it's easy to fool people.
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So the London lords set off to set Europe up for failure...TWICE.
London was always going to oppose the strongest continental country/power/alliance, as a default setting, and as a matter of policy. No "feelings" or "opinions" were involved in this decision by a few London lords. Ever since the establishment of her "Empire", London aimed to expand and protect it by (as a matter policy), making the strongest continental power/alliance the rival in peace/enemy in war.
By own admission:
"The equilibrium established by such a grouping of forces is technically known as the balance of power, and it has become almost an historical truism to identify England’s secular policy with the maintenance of this balance by throwing her weight now in this scale and now in that, but ever on the side, opposed to the political dictatorship of the strongest single, State or group at any time."
[From Primary source material: Memorandum_on_the_Present_State_of_British_Relations_with_France_and_Germany]
In a nutshell, oppose every major diplomatic advance made by the strongest continental power in times of peace, and ally against it in times of war. An own policy standpoint (Splendid isolation) meant that London shied away from making binding commitments with continental powers. London made "temporary best friends" to temporarily use and abuse, not lasting alliances.
The own historical policy standpoint resulted in the eternal motivation to set continental powers up against each other, in a bid to "sit on the fence and eat popcorn" when the shtf...
In case of differences? Pick the side against the strongest power.
In case of war? Oppose the power (alliance) most likely to win.
That is how the lords "played".
Under a thin veneer of "civility" and protected by an army of apologists.
After WW1 (Versailles, St. Germaine, etc.) the lords set off on the same path: divide and rule.
Set up Hungarians against Czechs, set up Austrians against Czechs, set up the Poles against the Russians and Germans (see Limitrophe States).
Create just enough "peace" for a short-term advantage.
Just enough dissatisfaction to cause eternal strife...divide and rule. Bring in a few others to gather around the round table (Paris), so you can pass the buck around if things go predictably wrong. When things go wrong: blame everybody else...
Drawing lines on the map, divide and rule.
Imposing on many millions, and give power to a few betas. Divide and rule...
Seperating families. Divide and rule.
Seperating companies from their markets. Divide and rule...
Taking from some without asking. Giving to others, without consent.
These are the "tools" of "divide and rule".
Never a "price tag" for own actions...
Right?
WRONG
Brits: "The Woyal Navy will pwotect us and our Empire forever and ever..."
Right?
WRONG
To avoid the dreary hassle of working to achieve a long-term stable Europe, the lords set of to look for "best fwiends" elsewhere...
"By 1901, many influential Britons advocated for a closer relationship between the two countries. W. T. Stead even proposed that year in The Americanization of the World for both to merge to unify the English-speaking world, as doing so would help Britain "continue for all time to be an integral part of the greatest of all World-Powers, supreme on sea and unassailable on land, permanently delivered from all fear of hostile attack, and capable of wielding irresistible influence in all parts of this planet."
[Google: The_Great_Rapprochement]
Sooooo gweat.
Everybody "speaking English" and being "best fwiends" and ruling the world together as equals....
Right?
WRONG
After 1895, London snuggled up to the rising power USA, thinking such action would bring further easy victories, an expansion of own sphere of influence, while protect their Empire: Meanwhile, dividing their neighbors on the continent as a policy standpoint.
What could possibly go wrong?
"At the end of the war [WW2], Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their most profitable markets.
No markets = no trade = no money = no power = no "Empire".
US President Adams said there are two ways to enslave a people: one is with invasion, the other way through debt.
They thought their American Century "best fwiends" would help out for free...TWICE.
Right?
WRONG...
A minor detail the "oh so honest" lords forgot about, finally had an effect: "Empires" don't have "friends".
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...lol, "third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
Good ol' USA didn't have to invade GB in order to succeed London as the "ruler of the world"...
And after the war ended?
They became the American Century's involuntary "little helpers", when Truman declared that the Brit's "best fwiends" (the commies in Moscow) were now suddenly the "new default enemy" (Truman Doctrine, 1946).
Did they ask the London lords desperately selling everything they could get their hands on in an effort to save the Empire, if this was agreeable? ROTFL
Of course not.
Washington DC needed a lapdog, not an equal partner...
So Brits lost their Empire fighting their "pwevious tempowawy best fwiends the commies", now the "new enemy" as declared by Washington DC.
That's what happens if one has leaders that make the strongest continental power "the enemy" as a default setting.
Hop over here for a "temporary best fwiend" this year, then hop over there for a "temporary best fwiend" the next.
Hop, hop, hop...into extinction.
Sad...
A "nation" which needs to bomb women and kids to "have hope" or inspiration even during hard times, does not deserve to "rule the world".
The post-WW2 bankrupcy was not only financial, but also moral...
Good riddance to "ruling the world" then.
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"Total war" as a matter of policy was planned by London long before WW1.
The same people who criticized German war planning of invading neutrals apparently had no scruples themselves planning wars on civilians, thinly veiled by using euphemisms...
"Indeed, Britain’s [pre-1914] plan for economic warfare may well have been the first attempt in history to seek victory by deliberately targeting the enemy’s society (through the economy) rather than the state. To be more precise, the target was the systems supporting the society’s lifestyle rather than the society itself. This was a novel approach to waging war."
From
Brits-Krieg: The Strategy of Economic Warfare
NICHOLAS LAMBERT
Note than unlike previous wars in which civilians had always become victims as "by products" of war (not specific policies), this was different.
The civilians were the enemy, and soldiers become ancillary.
Or as one author put it: GB intended "fighting" by letting her "allies" bleed.
Such people deserve neither an Empire, nor the rule of the world, or to be in a position to dominate European affairs.
Bible says the righteous shall inherit the Earth.
Last time I checked, it wasn't the British Empire.
Apparently, the British Empire didn't qualify.
Apparently, not "righteous enough".
Rule Britannia is gone. Superseded by The American Century...
Pax Britannica. Repealed and replaced by Pax Americana...
The eternal Anglo, cut down by Washington DC...
So first off, good riddance...
You live by Machiavelli, you go down the Machiavellian way...
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@NathanielHiggerson Sorry. I'm not biased.
The reality?
As the name "famine" already suggests, it is man-made, and not entirely natural.
Even worse than that, it would have been easy to avoid millions of deaths. Maybe not every death, but certainly many.
With a pot of ink and a table.
Certainly, even with a war going on (like during the 1943 famine), the most powerful empire in the world should have been able to do that.
Line up the people, sell them a few kilos of rice/food at a government set price, finger in the pot, on your way...
Note also, when food shortages did seem imminent or predictable for themselves, like during WW1 and WW2, food rationing was introduced. Strange, that it wasn't left to "market forces" to sort that out...
So much for the "well, we didn't know it was going to be so bad"-excuses...
But, of course Operation Legacy meant "winners" can sink evidence of crimes "to the bottom of the deepest oceans", or burn it, with instructions to ensure that ashes are ground to dust, and are not readable.
I wonder what "evidence" was so embarrassing, that it had to be burnt to cinders? The construction of roads and schools maybe?
Luckily for the British and their "popular or narrative history", most people are biased.
Most people consider it "not so bad" letting people die of starvation, as opposed to actively murdering them. I assume, to the victim the effect is the same (perspective). You die.
A bias known as "omission bias", and it's easy to fool people.
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