Fw: `Structure' and contingency

Old readers of the list by all means delete this; this old posting (from
last year october) is mainly re-posted for the benefit and enjoyment of
newcomers to this list.

>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
>