War & Society
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This and all other quotes by Dorothy Thompson: “Political Dictionary” (March 19, 1936), in Let the Record Speak (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1939), 17–20. ↩︎
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Erich Ludendorff, Der totaler Krieg (Ludendorffs Verlag, 1935). ↩︎
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Good historical background: Geoffrey Best, Honour among Men and Nations: Transformations of an Idea (University of Toronto Press, 1981). ↩︎
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Peter Pomerantsev, This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War against Reality (PublicAffairs, 2019). ↩︎
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Caption from Catalogue of Official A.E.F. photographs taken by the Signal Corps, U.S.A., 1919. ↩︎
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Photo by the United States Army Signal Corps, November 11, 1918, via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017666571/. ↩︎
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“Welcome to All!,” color lithograph, Puck April 28, 1880, pp. 130–31, Library of Congress, PPOC, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002719044/. A high-resolution TIFF file is available for closer scrutiny. ↩︎
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Michael Alexander Kahn and Richard Samuel West, “What Fools these Mortals Be!": The Story of Puck (IDW Publishing, 2014) ↩︎
🇵🇸🇮🇱 Here’s a gruesome report of the dire conditions in northern Gaza at +972 Magazine, “an independent, online, nonprofit” publication “run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists.”
We Need a New Political Translation Dictionary (English–English)
In 1936, Dorothy Thompson observed in her newspaper column that “dictatorships often have quite different interpretations of words from liberal democracies. . . . In the dictionary of democracies,” for example, “peace is a desirably permanent condition of amicable relations with other nations. In the dictionary of dictatorships peace means: a quiet undisturbed period in which to prepare for war . . ."1
The phrase “between nations” excluded asymmetric colonial conflicts, so the difference Thompson painted was quite real. In fact, it was the entire argument of Erich Ludendorff’s 1935 screed Der totale Krieg (Total War). In that book, Ludendorff flipped Carl von Clausewitz’s famous dictum on its head. Instead of understanding war as the pursuit of political aims by other means, states had to understand war as the driving force behind all politics.2
Regarding “nonaggression” in international relations, Thompson wrote,
liberal democracies mean . . . simply the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. Both Russian and German dictatorships mean by it the substitution of revolution for other weapons. Neither Russia nor Germany considers the fomenting of internal strife in countries which they want to bring under their influence to be aggression.
In our own time, Russia, now a different creature, is playing a similar game inside NATO countries. Observers in these democracies refer to Russia’s current suite of activities as “hybrid warfare,” although their governments often play down these activities. Thompson’s discussion of “war” itself can help to explain why, provided we keep the “between nations” qualification in mind. “For the democracies war is armed conflict between nations, to be avoided as an unmitigated catastrophe. Above all, war is regarded as an abnormal condition. In the Russian dictionary,” on the other hand, “war is either an inevitable byproduct of the struggle of capitalist countries for markets, or the permanent, unremitting and inevitable struggle between classes for power.” The first theory of war came from Lenin’s interpretation of imperialism and the World War (1914–18). The second was the basic dialectical understanding of history as class conflict posited by Marx and Engels in the nineteenth century.
In contrast to the USSR’s take on war, “in the Fascist dictionary it is the necessary and normal condition in which heroic nations and personalities reach their highest potential. . . .” Such thinking could be found in the democracies, too, especially in the two decades or so before the First World War. After all, the educated learned Latin everywhere in the west, including the Roman poet Horace’s phrase, “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.) During that war, Winfred Own referred to that sentiment as “the old Lie." And many politicians did everything they could to avoid the next war, leading to the catastrophic extreme of Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, while the United States pursued an isolationist foreign policy.
Two related terms for Thompson were “honor” and “dishonor.” We do not consciously use them much in twenty-first-century international relations, but Thompson’s explanation is not hard to understand.3
Honor in England means allegiance to accepted standards of conduct. Honor in Germany and Italy means prestige. Dishonor in the Anglo-Saxon dictionary is a crime which one commits against oneself; in the Fascist dictionary it means a crime which is committed against one.
Following this logic, the U.S. dishonored itself when it turned to torture in Iraq. Similarly, our former and next president dishonored our country, our military, and his office by pardoning American war criminals. In the process, he didn’t honor international treaty obligations either. That is because his understanding of honor is more like that of the fascists of the 1930s. Anyone who takes him down a peg has injured him and faces retribution, much like a gang member who can’t afford to lose face. Looking weak is unbearable to this man, whereas conventional rules and fair play are for suckers. The current Russian president follows a similar gangland code, restoring his injured honor by having opponents poisoned or fall out of windows. There might well be a sense of injured honor involved in his attempt to destroy Ukraine.
Thompson’s column underlined something with which we are all too familiar these days. We speak the same language as our enemies. We use the same words. But our common language both obscures and fosters different perceptions of reality that leave us at cross purposes. The Russians talk about “information war."4 And Alex Jones spread disinformation in the United States with a profitable website called InfoWars. Perhaps the problem goes even deeper, and individual words themselves have become players in our fight for the soul and honor of this nation. Maybe we need a comparative political dictionary to bridge the gap or at least bring the conflict into sharper focus.
Japanese-American Internment as 'Evacuation' and 'Relocation'
These photos of Japanese-Americans and a few resident aliens on their way to internment for the duration of World War II are accompanied by captions that avoid the language of imprisonment or confinement. Instead of internment, there is talk of “evacuation” and the War Relocation Authority.
These pictures also suggest what a rupture the location of their internment would represent. It is hard to imagine these urbanites stepping out into the barely settled terrain they were headed to, even if an advanced party of men without dependents was sent out a few weeks in advance to prepare for the others' arrival.
"Los Angeles, California. The evacuation of the Japanese-Americans from West Coast areas under U.S. Army war emergency order. Japanese-American children waiting for a train to take them and their parents to Owens Valley." Photo taken in April 1942 by Russell Lee.
“Los Angeles, California. The evacuation of the Japanese-Americans from West Coast areas under U.S. Army war emergency order. Japanese-Americans and a few alien Japanese waiting for a train which will take them to Owens Valley.” Photo taken in April 1942 by Russell Lee.
“Los Angeles, California. The evacuation of Japanese-Americans from West coast areas under United States Army war emergency order. The Japanese referred to in this sign were an advance group going to Owens Valley for construction work.” Photo taken in April 1942 by Russell Lee.
“Manzanar, Calif. Apr. 1942. Construction beginning at the War Relocation Authority center for evacuees of Japanese ancestry, in Owens Valley. Mt. Whitney, loftiest peak in the United States, appears in the background.” Photo by Clem Albers.
Source: Library of Congress: Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Photograph Collection, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017744879, …/2017744872, …/2017817916, and …/2021647198.
A threat to the U.S. military’s morale, cohesion, and effectiveness: "‘Profound fear and anxiety among women in uniform’: Pentagon reacts to sex assault allegations against Hegseth", Politico, November 22, 2024. 🪖
An Old Putin Meme – 'Weaponizing Ridicule'
Here is a once popular meme in Russia that the thin-skinned Putin banned, thereby making it more popular (artist unknown). This is one of the examples that J. Michael Waller offers in “Weaponizing Ridicule” (Military Review, Sept.–Oct. 2017). His findings, it seems to me, are relevant to how we could deal with the big orange lump.
🇺🇦 “How Russian Forces Hunted People in The Bucha Massacre,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, YouTube, Nov 19, 2024 (29 min)—compelling reporting based on a thorough look at diverse sources.
This is the exclusive story of Oleksiy Pobihay, a Ukrainian territorial defense fighter whose body was discovered at the site of an abandoned Russian military headquarters in Bucha. With his hands bound and a bullet wound in his head, Pobihay was among hundreds murdered during the Bucha massacre. This atrocity, which unfolded during the Russian military occupation in April 2022, has become emblematic of the war and the brutal killings perpetrated by Russian forces.
Through phone intercepts, previously unpublished videos, documents, and witness statements, @RadioSvobodaUkraine has pieced together the chilling story of what happened in Bucha.
1,000 Days 🇺🇦
One thousand days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One thousand days, and we still have our heads in our duffle bags. No efforts to lead public opinion on why higher levels of support are necessary. No significant build-up of our industrial base to put paid to Putin’s ambitions. And we’re still hamstringing Ukraine in its ability to strike the Russian war machine where it needs striking.
“One Against All” (animation) by Фріоніс with English subtitles (2:20), youtu.be/8LXEG1mhg… 🇺🇦
Informative piece, reported from Ukraine: “A war-weary Ukraine warily eyes a Trump presidency” by Fabrice Deprez, The Boston Globe, November 8, 2024.
The principle that a commander has an obligation to punish war crimes by his subordinates is not a progressive development of the law promoted by the advocacy community. Instead, the duty to punish stands out as an ancient legal norm interwoven into the domestic law of the United States and which the United States has incorporated into international legal instruments.
Photo from the first Armistice Day in Paris
“When the news became generally known that the armistice had been signed, the crowd went wild . . ."1
“Paris. Impromptu parades took place in Paris on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918. Here are American soldiers pushing their way through the great crowds at the Church of the Madeleine, Paris. They are forcing their way towards Place de la Concorde down Rue Royale."2
Halya Coynash, “Russians Execute Wounded Ukrainian POW amid Mounting Evidence of Russia’s Policy and Incitement to Kill,” Human Rights in Ukraine, Nov. 11, 2024.
Does Putin understand the United States? I'm inclined to think not, even if he's got Trump as a person pretty well sized up.
I can’t help but think that the Kremlin once again misunderstands the situation, as they did in February 2022. Sure, the next U.S. president likes rubbing elbows with “tough guy” dictators, and the guardrails of expertise and institutions mean nothing to him; nevertheless, he won’t be completely free to do as he pleases. Think of the old guard Republicans who know what’s at stake in Europe. Enough of them were able to convince the guy in Mar-a-Lago to tell Mike Johnson to finally approve funds for Ukraine earlier this year. More importantly, even if his supporters are gung-ho America Firsters, they feel threatened by China, Putin’s close ally. If they haven’t put two and two together about the global ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, their obsession with tariffs has everything to do with China, Russia’s closest supporter.
In fact, will the jumping, hooting, squealing Mr. Cybertruck’s interests in China throw a spanner in his current machinations to treat our government like an extension of his personal business interests? Mr. Orange-in-a-Suit’s supporters are expecting action on China, and their guy with the tie needs their adulation—not to mention their votes in the 2026 midterms. Besides, how open will his oil guys be to welcoming Russia back to legitimate global oil and natural gas markets while prices are low? I can’t claim to know all the variables, and I know the occupant of the White House matters a great deal. Still, as unpredictable, unscrupulous, inhumane, and disloyal as Mr. Bad Hairpiece is, he will not be operating in a vacuum free from the influence of powerful players calling in their chits.
Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that the Russian terrorist-in-chief and his security apparatus have already proven how blinkered they were about Ukraine, not to mention the unity NATO has projected. It is equally nonsensical for the Kremlin to think of NATO as a collection of American-led satellite states, pace Russia’s rabid propagandists Margarita Simonyan and Vladimir Soloviev. Why should the Kremlin understand the United States any better, if it can’t even acknowledge Ukrainian agency? And just how well would the next U.S. president respond to threats, when Putin realizes that flattery won’t get him what he wants in Ukraine.
Worried about Mr. Orange Face's Effect on The Military
How effective will the American military be after the next administration wreaks havoc on the Pentagon so that the president might have the loyalists he needs in order to command them as he sees fit, including even direct them against the American people? How much material and moral corruption will these measures lead to? May the military’s talent pool be deep and ethical enough to survive the corrupting onslaught of what’s coming. Mr. Huge Crowd’s pardoning of war criminals last time round suggests how little he understands military morale and discipline. We know what he thinks of expertise, and he paid no price for disrespecting our fallen.
Scholz’s speech on dropping Lindner was impressive.🇩🇪 So was the timing.🇺🇸 I had been despairing in the face of his long-running timidity vis-à-vis Ukraine.🇺🇦 He isn’t offering Ukraine a way out of Western restrictions on weapon types or joining NATO, but it’s an important signal and a lifeline.
This evening, I watched two short films from The Kyiv Independent’s YouTube channel about people in uniform. In The Witches of Butcha, we meet a woman’s unit tasked with shooting down Shahed drones. The other introduces Ukrainian prisoners training to fight as infantrymen: “I want to come home not as some ex-convict, but a hero."
One of the 8-inch M110 self-propelled howitzer crews I served on in the mid 1980s was majority Puerto Rican. If I recall correctly, two of us were white, two Black, and six Puerto Rican. I feel richer for having had such experiences than the orange role-playing garbage man will ever be.
'Welcome to All' (1880 Cartoon)
This Puck cartoon from 1880 portrayed immigration in positive terms.1 Uncle Sam stands at the entrance to a wooden “U.S. Ark of Refuge,” a U.S. flag to the side. The image offers a strong contrast to the ramparts Uncle Sam stands at in 1903 and behind in 1916. Beside him is a list of “free” things offered by “U.S.”
FREE EDUCATION
FREE LAND
FREE SPEECH
FREE BALLOT
FREE LUNCH.
U.S.
The meaning of “free” varies here. Sometimes it has to do with “liberty” (free speech and the secret ballot), and other times “no cost.” If public (“free”) education is an achievement some in our own time wish to destroy, its existence was bound up with both senses of “free.” No tuition was required, sure, but it was also a precondition for a free people and for making Americans. “Free land” in this list would have meant federal lands according to the terms of the various Homestead Acts. But “free lunch”? What was that about?
This last item was initially a head scratcher for me. I thought it might be a comment or joke about immigrant expectations, but it seems the saying “no such thing as a free lunch” only gained currency during the middle decades of the twentieth-century. In fact, American saloons were offering free lunches at the time of this cartoon, so there really was such a thing for those who liked their beer and whiskey. Given the loads of correspondence and rumors between Europe and the United States, this kind of knowledge would have filtered through, too.
Because saloons are the context of these lunches, it is tempting to gender these free lunches “masculine” and assume the existence of a social critique of intemperate immigrant men. The image, however, shows heterosexual couples in the prime of life, suggesting that such gendered moralizing was not part of the artist’s intention. Moreover, Puck had begun its life as a German-language publication in the previous decade, and the artist-publisher Joseph-Keppler had immigrated from Austria.2
Highlighting the list of attractions on the door is the metaphorically clear sky over the “ark.” Behind the migrants, to the east, are dark storm clouds with black carrion-seeking scavengers in them. The clouds themselves are monsters labeled “WAR” and “DISTRESS.” War entailed not only destruction but also mandatory military service of varying terms. Distress, in this context, probably meant economic distress. Europe was in the middle of a long depression, while it was continuing to experience great socio-economic changes in the course of its ongoing industrialization.
Adding more economic and political arguments to the mix, more liberty, a sign in the middle advertises more benefits to life in the United States:
NO OPPRESSIVE TAXES
NO EXPENSIVE KINGS
NO COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE
NO KNOUTS [OR] DUNGEONS.
The cartoon’s pairing of dark and light, of the prospects of distress or prosperity, represented what migration discourse in our own time refers to as push and pull factors. Beneath the cartoon is a quote from the N.Y. Statistical Review that highlights the cartoonist’s main interest: “We may safely say that the present influx of immigration to the United States is something unprecedented in our generation.” The detailed cartoon offered a context for this rise.
UPDATE: On Bluesky, @resonanteye.bsky.social reminded me of the Page Act of 1875, which excluded Chinese women. That made me think of the two single men at the end of the line in this cartoon because one of them appears to be Chinese. It is likely that this represented an acknowledgement of the Page Act. It also seems possible that the inclusion of this figure amounted to a critique of it. Here's our exchange—unfortunately, her settings require one to be logged in to see her posts.
Whenever Olaf Scholz sees an opportunity to do the wrong thing for European security and Ukraine, he seizes it. I don’t know how his foreign and defense ministers put up with this. The Wall came down 35 years ago, and yet there’s still no backbone or leadership in sight.
Russia is intent on eradicating the Ukrainian language and all aspects of Ukrainian identity, with young Ukrainians a particular target.
In the name of civilization, rebellious villages would be burned to the ground.
– Deborah Cohen, Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, chap. 3.
Written in connection with one of her protagonist’s reporting on the Syrian Rebellion in 1926.
Am thinking Deborah Cohen’s Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War (Random House 2022) will make for a good read in these dangerous times. 📚
We no longer live in a world where the very wealthy can do business with autocratic regimes, sometimes promoting the foreign policy goals of those regimes, while at the same time doing business with the American government, or with European governments, and enjoying the status and privileges of citizenship and legal protection in the free markets of the democratic world. It’s time to make them choose.
Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc. (Doubleday 2024), Epilogue, “Decouple, De-Risk, Rebuild”
"[American] conservatives hyped anti-Ukraine videos created by a TV producer who also worked for Russian media" – AP News, Oct. 18, 2018. #DefendFreedom #VoteBlue #RussiaIsATerroristState