`Structure' and contingency

Carl H. Dassbach writes:

Again, what are your proposing instead?  Are you proposing that large scale
>historical outcomes - e.g. the ascension of the US to a hegemonic position
at
>the end of World War II - is the result of actions that had this outcome as
>their objective from the outset.


Now, there's a fascinating problem to ponder about - one major problem with
WST (which, I surely hope, is not dead as Duchesne writes - there are many
good things to WST one major thing being that it does n't ascribe the
economic problem of Third World countries to some `cultural failure', which,
the Weberians. I'm loath to say all too often do)  is that it all too often
sees rise and decline in the World System as something pre-ordained - by
structural forces - but doesn't one mostly find these with the benefit of
hindsight only ?

If Britain, for example, rose to a hegemonic position in the 1815-1871
period it has to a very large extent to thank the Russians for defeating
Napoleon in 1812 - what would have happened to Britain if it would have been
faced by a kind of super-Eurasian community presided by France in 1814?

Again, consider the following twentieth century possibilities - that these
alternative outcomes did not happen does not mean it could not have
happened - it was a `damn close run thing' each time to speak with
Wellington on Waterloo:

1.)German army does not make a right turn in august 1914 and goes straight
for Paris - France surrenders in 1914 - Germans turn against Russia which
surrenders in 1915 and Britain sues for peace in 1916. What would have
happened to US-hegemony if it would have been confronted in 1916 with a
Europe dominated by Germany and `Europe' still including the colonial
empires ? That this did not happen owes a great deal to mere chance, even to
a few persons - German C-in C. Moltke losing his nerves, French C-in C.
Joffre NOT losing his nerves, faulty communications between German generals
Von Gluck and Von Bulow - which is, of all things, mainly due to a
misunderstanding of a single subordinate aid du champs of Von Gluck
lieutenant Von Haupt - Gallieni - comander of Paris garrison - seeing the
Germans offering their flank etc.

2.)Admiral Jellicoe of the British Home fleet manages to lose the war at the
naval battle off Jutland (1916) in a single afternoon. The British fleet
annihilated - there was only ONE fleet - Britain loses the fleet: Britain is
OUT; and Britain was the driving force behind the Entente - Germany rules
the North Sea - Britain and France capitulate in 1917; Russia in
revolution - so, what's the US to do ?

3.)(I wrote a computer - game about that one and had to write a rather
dazzling `Victory Briefing' for the Russian player) Czarist Russian army
overruns Austrian army in the Brusilev offensive in 1916 - Austria
capitulates, followed by Germany. Russian army rules Europe and Czarist army
can dictate terms in the Peace Conference in, say, Warsaw in 1917; no
Wilson-diplomacy, no US-role in Europe altogether and `old regime' in Europe
preserved by Czarist army. Irrealistic - well, the Brusilev offensive was
another `damn close run thing.'

4.)Halifax becomes Prime Minister instead of First Sealord Churchill in 1940
(who had to resign because of the Norway - fiasco) and offers peace to
Germany upon the French capitulation in august 1940 - British Empire
survives unscathed - Germany aided by Britain declares war on USSR in 1943 -
remember Britain almost got at war with the USSR in february 1940 ? - etc.
etc. - outcome: a world ruled by a British/German combine ? Sounds strange
? - well we know that Churchill more or less became PM by coincidence - the
debate on Norway might have turned out differently - that Halifax was very
well willing to discuss peace with Germany and that Hitler was counting on
precisely this possibility.

Now two really unpleasant possibilities:

5.)USSR defeated by Germany in 1941 - England invaded and overrun in 1943 -
either USA invaded by Germany in 1946 or cold - and possibly hot - war with
nuclear weapons between Nazi Europe and US-block (including remnants of
British Empire like Canada). Sounds irrealistic - no, it all hang on a few
critical decisions - say, of Japan declaring war on the USSR  - or, even, of
German `Operation Typhoon' on Moscow starting earlier than it did
historically - what I have seen recently is that historians now only begin
to perceive how critical the situation of the USSR was in november 1941 -
could Britain have withstood the entire German war-machine, including the
enormous so-called `Z-fleet' - the building of which had already started in
october 1941 - surely not. Could the USA ? That's open to question - without
the heroic resistance of the Russians in december 1941 Hitlers' Panzers
might well have paraded over Lexington Avenue.

6.)Germans break Allied codes (they very nearly did - with a few more people
the `Abwehr' could well have broken them) and are NOT fopped into believing
`D-Day' is going to take place on the Pas de Calais, Allied forces are met
by six elite Panzer divisions on day one and `D-day' turns out a bloody
failure. Further invasions of the continent are aborted and German army
turns its main strength towards Russians in 1944 - Russia offers peace in
1945 - we now know negotiations were under way.- World War II lasts into the
1950's - being decided by the US using nuclear bombs against Berlin, the
Ruhr, Hamburg, Paris, Munich, Rome, Dresden and (who knows ?) Amsterdam and
Oslo - Europe is a nuclear wasteland - 250 milion people are killed -
contamination causes long-term ecological effects.

And a final nice possibility to play with:

7.)During the Cuban missile-crisis the Chief-staffs persuade John F. Kennedy
to bomb Russian missile instalations on Cuba (this nearly happened) Russian
forces use nuclear weapons against US-fleet (that was their mission in case
they were bombed), US retaliates with nuclear strike against USSR, USSR
strikes back - end-result ? US, USSR, Europe, Japan, China, much of Latin
America nuclear wasteland - rest of World back in the early Iron Age.

Irrealistic - impossible because of long - term structural forces ? No - not
at all - this all hangs on a few critical decisions by a few individuals -
at Jutland that's in fact only one individual - Jellicoe - taking one
decision at a split second. If Jellicoe would have taken a wrong decision at
that single moment and the Home Fleet would have been sunk - we would now
probably all have been discussing - in German mind You - why Germany had to
win World War I, and why the rise of Germany to world dominance was
therefore due to structural factors - going back to Germany's position as
core-power in the World system since the eighteenth century and/or because
of the superior possibilities offered by authoritarian monarchism to
economic development as compared to its constriction by Anglo-Saxon types of
liberal democracy.

It's rather chilling to think what we would have been discussing had Germany
won World War II - but, my dear friends in the USA, don't think the
Wehrmacht could not possibly have defeated the US army and navy with the
resources of the whole of Europe and Russia behind it...

Again - the Dutch anarchist Anton Constandse wrote in the 1960's that he
expected that in 2000 intellectuals in Africa would be discussing why it was
pre-ordained because of `structural causes'  that US and USSR imperialism
led to nuclear war between the two. He was wrong (or at least - still a few
months to go ! - he was probably wrong) so we can now easily argue the `cold
war' was `rhetoric' and the USSR resigned itself to USA hegemony in 1945 -
would some intellectual on Antartica been arguing that too if JFK - as his
entire staff was urging him to - had consented to bombing Cuba and
1.000.000.000 people were - at least - killed subsequently ?  Again -
everything depends on a single individual in a single moment - and, in fact,
however much we may be arguing `collective forces' and `structural
changes' - it is still useful to remember that the entire future of the
world still hangs on a single button in mr. Jeltsin's and mr. Clinton's
office and a few individuals in missile - silo's in Montana or Siberia ...

I'm not arguing that individuals decide history, I am saying that much of
the deep structural forces we discern only exist in hindsight - so, to say
when knowing the `end of the story' we know what caused it - the perfect
example still being the Bible which has not only an `in the beginning' but
an `end to history' too, logically following from the beginning ...

This could lead us into a long and maybe interesting philosophical
discussion but it is maybe more useful to point you to a classic, slim,
volume by Theodor Lessing from 1923 which is called "Geschichte als
Sinngebung des Sinnlosen" - which says it all both concisely and humorously.
Everybody pontificating about `structural forces' and `historic necessity' -
and WST-theorists are good, perhaps too good at that - should remember this
by Lessing:

"We, for example, judge the horrible orgies of blood of the Roman Empire as
historically necessary and useful because we happen to be the inheritors of
the Roman Empire. Yet - we would not have found sufficient words to condemn
them if we would all have remained slaves under that yoke."

Best wishes
R.J.Barendse
r.barendse@worldonline.nl