At the tail end of the conferences one of the panel member shared his experience pertaining his teacher job in Japan. Remarkable the students with left poltical leaning were for the dropping of the Atomic bomb as it destroyed the credibility of the Military and made Japan more peaceful. While the students on the right were against the Allied Nuke for precisely the same reason: it destroyed the credibility of the right wing Military.
See link below:
This struck me as really odd as during the Cold War it was the left which was mostly against Nuclear weapons with people on the right more for it or seeing it as a necessary undeletable evil.
On the other hand it also reminded me of the German man who took his grandchildren to the Rubble Tower (Turmen) in Stuttgart were he pointed out that this is what happens when voting for the Neo-Nazi’s/Hitlerite. He told me he also uses this as an example for the Wehrmacht and these other too recent groups to mention here. At least it is a huge warning to future generations!
While I have double feelings I had to think about this point as a place to teach the other generation that there is another side to the Wehrmacht glorification.
What are your thoughts on this line of thinking. (I just picked out a small piece of a huge conference BTW).
Interesting, I see the point of the left side re. the A-bomb because none of the large industrial countries have been to war with each other since WW2. If one ship blocking the Suez can have an impact on world trade, a war between China and US will mean a destruction of the civilization as we know it today. There can be no winners in future wars, but a lot of loosers.
Martin Van Creveld, an Israeli military historian (born in the Netherlands) argues the same. The old dogma MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) made a large scale war an insane proposition. That is also why the “Fulda gap” in Germany remained cold.
With a complete nuclear war waiting it out in a bunker wouldn’t have saved you or in the best case would guarantee a horrible canned food future until the cans and uncontaminated water ran out.
NATO also gave US forces in Europe as well as a Nuclear Umbrella with the Warschau Pact on the other side. The civilian governments tried of Europe already tried to set up a European Defence Community in 1950 which failed miserably. For better or worse NATO picked that up.
NATO (and the prerequisite of the Marshall plan to work together) also greatly facilitated stability in Western Europe which helped create the conditions which let the European cooperation develop.
Otherwise there would have been a lot of small alliances of countries against eachother.
Asia doesn’t have an “EU” yet but there is cooperation there as well. Sadly the diplomatic efforts which stave of war generally don’t make the news or history.
But again you are right a new World War has only losers.
