Misperception, confused intention, divided executives, and ambitious illusions defined the battlespace of World War One. Leaders of the world, scholars of the world, and, indeed citizens of the world should reflect more on this most complex and disastrous event to understand the world crisis of today. We need to read fewer morality tales of Munich 1938, and more post-modern novels of the collapse and remaking of empires between 1900 and 1920.
We all use preferred mental models of the past, slices of the past that we compare to current events. They define our stance, our actions and our moral judgements. We come and see and live through stories of the past. But the weird culture of the WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialised, rich and developed) nations has impoverished the stories we, grand and petty though we may be, use to make sense of our confusing times.
An example from the week was a speech by the Secretary of Australian Home Affairs Department, Michael Pezzulo, that made some gestures to being profound and informed by history. On the occasion of Anzac Day, he wrote to staff that the lesson he drew from centuries (why not millenia, I ask?) of wars, was shock that the civilized could still endure war, and how the “brave people of Ukraine … simply wish to live in peace”. His writers went on to quote Clausewitz, “We are all bound in a sacred duty to do whatever we can to prevent war.” He might need to check in with the White House whether they are the right talking points. The USA and Australian governments have clearly failed in their sacred duty over the last thirty years in Ukraine. They plan to fail faster over Taiwan.
But then Pezzulo betrayed his true quality of mindful thought on history. His message encouraged his staff to watch 1995 Hollywood blockbuster Crimson Tide, starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. The film’s plot is: “On a U.S. nuclear missile sub, a young First Officer stages a mutiny to prevent his trigger happy Captain from launching his missiles before confirming his orders to do so.” Its script and imagery, from memory, is full of the triumphalist vision of America in the 1990s. Its plot is a metaphorical lie about who really initiated the end of the Cold War.
As it happened, I had watched on the weekend the earlier Soviet film, Come and See (1985). Some people rate this film the greatest war movie ever made. Even its IMDB rating is much better than Crimson Tide. It arises from deeper pain and profounder suffering than Hollywood has ever known. Perhaps next Victory Day, Michael Pezzulo should write to his staff, and urge them to watch Come and See. They might then come and see that not all the brave people of Ukraine, certainly few of its less courageous leaders, simply wish to live in peace.
