It’s been 80 years

An objection has been raised to my post ‘It’s Germany’s Fault’. According to this view, Germany should be excused for the war between Ukraine and Russia because… ‘The last two times they built up their military, they got crushed by the rest of the world.”

Now one sees a certain initial logic to this view. During World War I, and World War II, Germany had a pre-eminent military and, they lost both wars. Badly. Long and bloody losses, with crushing treaties afterward.

However… the logic which is so initially promising is actually… smoke, mirrors, and excuses.

Belgium

There is a famous logic fallacy entitled ‘post hoc, ergo propter hoc’ or, in English, ‘after this, therefore because of this’. It is an extremely common fallacy. You see a black cat, you fall and break your leg… ergo black cats are unlucky. In this case the logic goes like this:

1. Germany builds up its military

2. Germany gets crushed

3. Ergo: building up their military caused them to get crushed

But all we have to do to see the fallacy in this argument is to start replacing (1) with other things that World War I and World War II had in common. For example:

1. Germany invades neutral Beligum

2. Germany gets crushed

3. Ergo: Germany had better not invade neutral Belgium.

(The Belge seem to have taken this lesson in the other direction. In both wars they were neutral and got invaded and treated quite brutally. They now host the headquarters of NATO. No more neutrality for them!)

Or we could see the German lesson as this:

1. Go to war with France and Britain at the same time

2. Get crushed

3. Ergo: fight them one at a time!

Indeed given that right before WWI Germany had successfully fought a war against France, this lesson seems to make sense.

Or we could imitate some of the German thinkers at the time and make the lesson this:

1. Germany managed to drag the US into a European war

2. Germany got crushed

3. Ergo: don’t drag the US into a European war.

Build up their military

Another reason that this logic doesn’t work, is that Germany hasn’t exactly been known for having a weak military. In the years following World War II, as the cold war ramped up, the Germany military, the tip of the spear in the defence against the USSR, ramped up until:

In the 1980s, the Bundeswehr had 12 Army divisions with 36 brigades and far more than 7,000 battle tanks, armoured infantry fighting vehicles and other tanks; 15 flying combat units in the Air Force and the Navy with some 1,000 combat aircraft; 18 surface-to-air-missile battalions, and naval units with around 40 missile boats and 24 submarines, as well as several destroyers and frigates. Its material and personnel contribution even just to NATONorth Atlantic Treaty Organization’s land forces and integrated air defence in Central Europe amounted to around 50 percent. This meant that, during the Cold War, by the 1970s, the Bundeswehr had already become the largest Western European armed forces after the USUnited States armed forces in Europe – far ahead of the British and even the French armed forces. In peacetime, the Bundeswehr had 495,000 military personnel. In a war, it would have had access to 1.3 million military personnel by calling up reservists.

https://www.bundeswehr.de/en/about-bundeswehr/history/cold-war

So in the midst of the Cold War the German military was ‘built up’, to a point well beyond that of its current level, and well beyond, arguably, its point prior to World War I (the comparisons are difficult to make) and yet… no one attacked them. No one crushed them! (Perhaps because they didn’t invade neutral Beligum!).

The Counterfactual

The ‘Germany Crushed’ argument seems to imply that stuffy German politicians (but I repeat myself) such as Olaf Shultz are closet warmongers, eager to ramp up their military and take their place in the world… but who are only held back by their psychological trauma of being beaten in two world wars… which came about because of their building up their military!

Conclusion

So, to end where I started… it’s been eighty years. Even if this strange idea that ‘building up the military’ led to their defeat and destruction in two world wars… it’s been eighty years. One aspect of mature behaviour is that you see what you need to do, you see what your responsibilities are, and you do them… in spite of your fears, in spite of your history. Big boys take big responsibilities. And Germany is the big boy in Europe. They need to act like it. They need to tear down that stupid firewall and take the actions that they, and anyone with any sense, knows needs to happen.

Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:

The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid

The Bobtails and the Cousins

The Bobtails go to France

and

No Ordinary School

As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.

Arthur also has a substack, and a website.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von