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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Imagine For a Minute

Imagine For a Minute

by John Cole|  August 8, 200812:17 pm| 48 Comments

This post is in: Media

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What would happen if the NY Times had done this.

Completely off topic, but it looks like Russia and Georgia (not the state) are going to war. I am just too depressed and ill-informed on the region to even talk about it, but James Joyner has some helpful info.

I remember as an undergrad one of the books I had to read was about the beginning of World War One, and it was a fascinating rundown of the alliances and how, past a certain point, the war was an inevitability. There was a chapter called “the iron die have been cast” or something like that (I also remember a train metaphor), but I can not remember the name of the book. That phrase has always stuck in my mind, however.

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48Comments

  1. 1.

    Penman

    August 8, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    Was the book The Guns of August?

  2. 2.

    BFR

    August 8, 2008 at 12:20 pm

    and it was a fascinating run die of the lliances

    Since when did Yglesias join the Balloon Juice team?

  3. 3.

    Steve

    August 8, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    I suspect The Guns of August as well, Penman (fantastic book by one of the great popular historians, Barbara Tuchman), but the quote John is thinking of is from German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg: “If the iron dice roll, may God help us.”

  4. 4.

    4tehlulz

    August 8, 2008 at 12:23 pm

    The Long Fuse?

  5. 5.

    Steve

    August 8, 2008 at 12:24 pm

    Actually, some Googling suggests “The Iron Dice Roll” (obviously referencing Bethmann-Hollweg) is the final section of The Lions of July: Prelude to War, 1914 by William Jannen, Jr.

  6. 6.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 8, 2008 at 12:24 pm

    If it actually escalates into a full-scale invasion of Georgia (as opposed to the Russian-backed Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia then Georgia will have no choice but to launch the nukes it has left over from the cold war.

  7. 7.

    Martin

    August 8, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    Fox in Socks?

  8. 8.

    4tehlulz

    August 8, 2008 at 12:29 pm

    Obviously, the only logical response is to launch air strikes against Iran.

  9. 9.

    Zifnab

    August 8, 2008 at 12:30 pm

    Imagine For a Minute

    Thank you John Lennon Cole

  10. 10.

    Punchy

    August 8, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    and it was a fascinating run die of the lliances

    Are these related to llamas?

    /opens up Cole–>English Dictionary….

  11. 11.

    Dreggas

    August 8, 2008 at 12:35 pm

    Georgia is already asking for the U.S. to help. God help us if the asshat in chief actually does help them etc.

  12. 12.

    HyperIon

    August 8, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    the iron die have been cast

    isn’t die singular and dice plural?

    plus…

    Since when did Yglesias join the Balloon Juice team?

    haha. But MY’s penchant for sentences that do not scan is MUCH worse than JC’s occasional flub.

  13. 13.

    jake

    August 8, 2008 at 12:44 pm

    War in Russia, Olympics in China. Those commies sure know how to keep things lively.

  14. 14.

    peach flavored shampoo

    August 8, 2008 at 12:45 pm

    The Bulldogs will destroy those Pinkos. Hell, they’re a preseason #1.

  15. 15.

    Dennis - SGMM

    August 8, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    No big deal. I’m sure that the brilliant diplomats of the Bush State Department will finesse this one in no time.

    Luckily, I grew up in the duck-and-cover era.

  16. 16.

    SmilingPolitely

    August 8, 2008 at 12:50 pm

    I hate God!

  17. 17.

    AkaDad

    August 8, 2008 at 12:51 pm

    When McCain heard the news this morning, he immediately canceled his trip to Atlanta.

  18. 18.

    The Thinking Man's Mel Torme

    August 8, 2008 at 12:51 pm

    Georgia is already asking for the U.S. to help. God help us if the asshat in chief actually does help them etc.

    Any word on if he’s gotten a bead on Dim-eye-tree’s soul yet, or does Pooty-poot still running the show mean Dubya doesn’t have to?

  19. 19.

    Jon H

    August 8, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    “Georgia is already asking for the U.S. to help. God help us if the asshat in chief actually does help them etc”

    Too late. Who do you think has been training the Georgians?

  20. 20.

    p.a.

    August 8, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    The international ‘tripwire’ alliances were the external driving force for WWI. Internally, the highly organized civil services and newly industrialized nation-states made the rapid application of force possible before cooler heads could prevail. The telegraph and the railroad were in one sense the major facilitators of the slaughter. Previews could be seen in the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian war.

    Not that I wish to absolve the politicians involved and their publics. The nationalistic war hysteria in all the European nations exposed as a fraud the ‘soft’ International Socialism of the time. It took the slaughter of WWII to finally cure most of Europe of its nationalist blood lust. Unfortunately we still have to say ‘most’.

    (All the above cribbed from John Keegan and Barbra Tuchman).

  21. 21.

    J. Michael Neal

    August 8, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    I think that the effect of alliances in the start of WWI is overstated. The fundamental problem is that Germany decided that a big war was in its own interests. The alliances that mattered were in place primarily because Germany had acted as if it thought that for a while. Had Germany had any inclination to avoid war, they could have put the brakes on Austria-Hungary; without a public refusal to support them, AH pretty much had to go through with declaring war on Serbia, since the Serbs were, in fact, complicit in the murder of the Hapsburg heir.

    It must really bug conservatives with any sort of historical bent that the French were just about the only country in Europe that can be held completely blameless for that war.

  22. 22.

    4tehlulz

    August 8, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    Georgia to pull its 2000 troops out of Iraq due to the fighting.

  23. 23.

    GSD

    August 8, 2008 at 12:56 pm

    I believe all of the former Soviet states turned their nuclear weapons back over to Russia in the post cold war collapse.

    Had that not occurred the list of nuclear states would be much larger than it currently is.

    Also, Georgia has announced they are removing all of their troops from Iraq. Apparently all 17 are needed back on the homefront.

    -GSD

  24. 24.

    Dennis - SGMM

    August 8, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    Saakashvili is going to be very upset when he finds that no one in the West is interested in getting into a shooting war with Russia.
    Then he’ll be hanged.

  25. 25.

    J. Michael Neal

    August 8, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    Georgia is already asking for the U.S. to help. God help us if the asshat in chief actually does help them etc.

    Is there a good solution? Not helping the Georgians basically is an admission that Russia can bully whoever they want in the former Soviet Union and some other places, except for the Baltic states. That’s not something we should encourage, either. I have an image in my head of Tblisi looking like Grozny, and there has to be some other answer.

  26. 26.

    4tehlulz

    August 8, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    The problem is that Saakashvili is as much of a dick as Putin, so he can’t be rewarded either.

    Bum rushing an area, rebellious or not, and shelling its capital during the Olympic opening ceremonies is not going to win you any points.

  27. 27.

    BFR

    August 8, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    Not helping the Georgians basically is an admission that Russia can bully whoever they want in the former Soviet Union and some other places

    The Georgians aren’t exactly wearing white hats here either. What 4tehlulz said:

    The problem is that Saakashvili is as much of a dick as Putin

    The best response is to tell them to stop fighting and otherwise leave them alone. The Admin response about territorial integrity seems about right – that the US would respond differently if explicitly Georgian territory were threatened.

  28. 28.

    Tsulagi

    August 8, 2008 at 1:12 pm

    Not to worry. Our designated driver for Jesus when wearing his Decider and Commander Guy hats years ago looked deeply into Putin’s eyes. Saw his soul. Pronounced it good. Virtually an honorary Medal of Freedom wearing Republican. When has he ever been wrong?

  29. 29.

    4tehlulz

    August 8, 2008 at 1:13 pm

    BTW, McCain’s foreign policy adviser was a shill for Georgia, so you know that he’s getting impartial advice.

  30. 30.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 8, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    The nationalistic war hysteria in all the European nations

    While not exactly an urban myth, the notion that during July/August 1914 there was widespread public enthusiasm for war has been partially debunked. See Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War, which contains a takedown of a number of ideas about WW1 which have been the subject of more recent revisionist dissection.

    The Guns of August was IMHO one of the best books of popular history written in English in the last half century, but ideas about the war have shifted significantly since it was written.

    Ditto also J.Michael Neal’s comment above.

    post-Frans Fischer (Griff Nach der Weltmacht, 1961), a growing body of historians (c.f. Phillip Bobbit) have come to see the roots of Fascism as having arisen in late Wilhelmine Imperial Germany, which casts the origins of the war in a rather different light.

  31. 31.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 8, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    Bum rushing an area, rebellious or not, and shelling its capital during the Olympic opening ceremonies is not going to win you any points.

    Conincidence, or not? Is Putin banking on most of the world’s media being otherwise occupied in Beijing to pay much attention?

  32. 32.

    J. Michael Neal

    August 8, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    Are the Georgians unadulterated good guys? No. That said, they are pretty clearly the wronged party here. There are far closer to being a liberal democracy than anyone else in the region. The status of South Ossetia likely wouldn’t be a problem if Russia would just stay out of it; if Putin hadn’t made a major issue out of the problem and directly challenged Georgian sovereignty, everyone likely would have been content to move forward with the officially ambiguous status that South Ossetia had.

  33. 33.

    Evinfuilt

    August 8, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    Georgia is already asking for the U.S. to help. God help us if the asshat in chief actually does help them etc.

    Has someone told Bush yet that this isn’t a US state? Please, someone inform him before its too late. With the China/Russia war heating up already, we really don’t need to get involved.

    Though invading Switzerland maybe appropriate in the eyes of this administration.

  34. 34.

    Zifnab

    August 8, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    Conincidence, or not? Is Putin banking on most of the world’s media being otherwise occupied in Beijing to pay much attention?

    And we were bitching at China for civil rights abuses? Yesh. I guess we can always hope Georgia turns into another Russian Afghanistan… assuming you don’t follow that parallel for more than 30 years.

  35. 35.

    sstarr

    August 8, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    It’s strange that since 9/11 the good citizens of the united states have been quaking in our boots in fear of a group of religious zealots who – AT BEST – have the capability to blow up a building or a train or a bus every once and a while. Possibly someday they may be able to use a radiological weapon.

    Meanwhile Russia continues to control enough nuclear warheads to kill every person on earth many times over.

    Objectively, the risk of dying in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union when I was growing up in the 80’s was much higher than the risk I will die in a terrorist strike now.

    What if the wingnuts suddenly wake up – like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz – and realize that their enemy was those damned Ruskies all along!

  36. 36.

    BFR

    August 8, 2008 at 1:57 pm

    That said, they are pretty clearly the wronged party here.

    No – that’s not really correct at all from what I’ve read. South Ossetia has never been an incorporated part of Georgia – dating back to Georgia’s breakaway from the Russian Federation.

    Russia’s effectively supporting South Ossetia’s claims of independence and Georgia is trying to assert control over the area by using military force and allegedly ethnic cleansing.

    There are no good guys here.

  37. 37.

    J. Michael Neal

    August 8, 2008 at 2:07 pm

    No – that’s not really correct at all from what I’ve read. South Ossetia has never been an incorporated part of Georgia – dating back to Georgia’s breakaway from the Russian Federation.

    Yes, there are problems with the borders that the Soviet Union generated. However, Georgia and South Ossetia had produced a workable fudge on the matter that worked fine until Russia decided to throw its weight around.

    It would be nice if everyone could sit down and put together a rational redrawing of the borders of the former Soviet Union. The same thing would be true in Africa. Until that happens, though, Russia needs to stop acting like they are the only ones that matter.

  38. 38.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 8, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    There are no good guys here.

    So let’s see – at last count:

    – We spent the 1990s embroiled in an ethnic cleansing and sectarian conflict in the Balkans (a highly volatile region with a millennia long history of such conflict, where nothing ever seems to turn out right or ever get fully resolved). Where we still have troops stationed today.

    – Then we spend the last 5+ years stuck in a quagmire of ethnic cleansing and sectarian conflict in the Middle East (a highly volatile region with a millennia long history of such conflict, where nothing ever seems to turn out right or ever get fully resolved). Where we still have troops stationed today.

    – Now we have an ethnic cleansing and sectarian conflict in the Caucasus (a highly volatile region with a millennia long history of such conflict, where nothing ever seems to turn out right or ever get fully resolved), in which we have a chance to get involved.

    Trifecta, anyone?

    The weary Titan staggers under the too vast orb of his fate.

  39. 39.

    Delia

    August 8, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    The Franz Fischer thesis (that the biggest root of WWI lies in the German militarist drive to build an eastern empire) has gained greatest credence in Germany. Certainly there was a wacko, quasi-mystical militarist school of thought centered around Ludendorff that took control of the German military. They remind me of our neo-cons. And George Bush, in all his short attention span idiocy and love for military dress-up combined with basic cowardice, has always reminded me of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Billmon used to comment on this fact, but I had noticed it independently.

    All this does not bode well for us.

  40. 40.

    BFR

    August 8, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    However, Georgia and South Ossetia had produced a workable fudge on the matter that worked fine until Russia decided to throw its weight around.

    Everything I’ve read indicates that Georgia started this latest flare-up by trying to re-take South Ossetia. Russia doesn’t need to be meddling in quasi-internal Georgian politics, to be sure, but that’s a different point.

    I don’t see how this is really that different from Russia v. Chechnya except that Georgia is playing the part of Russia in this episode.

  41. 41.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 8, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    And George Bush, in all his short attention span idiocy and love for military dress-up combined with basic cowardice, has always reminded me of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Billmon used to comment on this fact, but I had noticed it independently.

    I’d noticed the resemblance to Kaiser “Willy” as well. Also throw in a pinch of Napoleon III and the idiotic French occupation of Mexico, and a dash of the 2nd Boer War (camps – for the concentration of civilians! what a brilliant idea! how could that possibly go wrong?)

  42. 42.

    Cris

    August 8, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    It must really bug conservatives with any sort of historical bent that the French were just about the only country in Europe that can be held completely blameless for that war.

    Nah. In conservative mythology, agitating for war is a manly virtue. If the French can be held blameless for the Great War, it just goes to show what big pussies they have always been.

  43. 43.

    maxbaer (not the original)

    August 8, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    Not to worry. The Brits already have a man in there.

  44. 44.

    dbrown

    August 8, 2008 at 5:02 pm

    Yes, there are problems with the borders that the Soviet Union generated. However, Georgia and South Ossetia had produced a workable fudge on the matter that worked fine until Russia decided to throw its weight around.

    The US is partly responsible for some of this mess – Russia had a heavy hand in the orginal mess and helped the rebels but backed off for a long while until we started telling the Georgians that they could join NATO. Then the Russians got very aggressive and put in peace keeping troops.
    After heavy training help by the US with their army, the Georgians felt strong enough to attack. The current rag-tag minor armies would have a better chance of defeating us than the Georgian army will defeat the Russians. This is stupid bushwhack level and is just going to kill too many people for no point.

  45. 45.

    rawshark

    August 8, 2008 at 5:34 pm

    Pre WWI Germany seems an awful lot like…now…and here.

  46. 46.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 8, 2008 at 5:56 pm

    Pre WWI Germany seems an awful lot like…now…and here.

    Combine the talented leadership skillz of Wilhelm’s Germany with the strategic and fiscal overstretch of Edwardian Britain, and that’s pretty much us.

    IOW, we’re screwed.

  47. 47.

    Jules

    August 8, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    The book John is trying to recall is “Why Nations Go to War ” by John G. Stoessinger

  48. 48.

    Delia

    August 8, 2008 at 8:09 pm

    Combine the talented leadership skillz of Wilhelm’s Germany with the strategic and fiscal overstretch of Edwardian Britain, and that’s pretty much us.

    You just gotta think, Herr Rumsfeld musta gotten his brilliant military acumen from studying the stunning success of the Schlieffen Plan.

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