“Trust The French? The Germans?!”
Peter Hitchens makes an excellent case for living in the real world when it comes to international relations, specifically Ukraine.
Hitchen’s implicitly raises the “security dilemma” – states can’t really trust each other. We must recognise this, so we can find ways to dampen down conflict, especially in an era of nuclear weapons and high tech warfare.
Hitchens talks earlier in the interview about being labelled as “Nevile Chamberlain” and “Lord Haw Haw” (British Nazi turncoat). Certainly, appeasing Germany in the 1930s was not a good long-term policy and once the Nazis were in, that war had to be fought in some way or another. But now… when push comes to shove, it’s a different world. We don’t have the luxury of indulging in moralistic fantasies – we didn’t back then, but even more so in the nuclear age.
If Hitler was back with nukes, who in their right mind would say the solution was to annihilate Berlin? Or to hope we can bop him on the nose and trigger his downfall like we did with Leopoldo Galtieri over the Falklands. Might such strategies work? Conceivably – there’s always the chance we’d get away with it and “only get our hair mussed”, as General Turgidson puts it in the satire Dr, Strangelove. But should we gamble on millions or billions of lives with such reckless strategies? No goddamn way. If you want to fight 21st century Hitler – who does NOT exist btw – the best path would be through guerrilla warfare like how the Vietnamese defeated America.
Full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrXYh7rzE0M
Clip used under Fair Use.
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