War and the Threat of External Violence - Essay Example

?War and the Threat of External Violence War is Peace. Orwell, G. 1984. George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a dystopia of a wide international fame, dystopia with a very clear warning. Along with the political satire of Animal Farm, 1984 was an important choice step of the Western intellectual elite on the way to further development of civilization. It contains, in a concentrated form, answers to the basic political and philosophical questions of the 30’s – 40’s, which dominated life of all progressive humanity: attitude towards socialism, fascism, dangers of a totalitarian society and further ways of democratic development, etc. For the presentation of his statement George Orwell chose the art form of social science fiction. The novel just describes a few months of Winston Smith’s life – life of an ordinary member of society, which is built on the principles of Ingsoc (English Socialism), in the fictional superpower Oceania in 1984 (future). A prototype of the future socialist society can be seen quite clear – it was the Soviet Union of the 30-40’s. The mustachioed leader, Big Brother, privileged comrades of the Inner Party, the Thought Police, great cleansings, forced labor camps, a hysterical search for internal enemies, headed by a mythical traitor Goldstein -Trotsky, gloomy atmosphere of general suspicion, squalid life – these are the familiar elements of Stalin’s dictatorship. However, the technologies and methods of society control and suppression of dissent in the book surpass the Soviet realias. Orwell developed the idea of surveillance and brainwashing with more and more sophisticated technical means to manipulate information on a large scale, as it makes impossible any appearance of unauthorized thoughts. The geographic location of the novel is Air Strip One – a huge faceless province of the totalitarian Oceania, which is the allusion of the former UK. The author shows that even the bastion of European democracy with a long tradition of political freedom, which did not surrender to foreign or domestic fascism, can turn into a giant grim prison in 35 years, if people lose their watchfulness. Now, in the atomic age, the world lives in a state of apocalyptic terror. This is the reason why people are so concerned about the motives of the Apocalypse in literature. However, not the Big Brother unleashed atomic and hydrogen apocalyptic monsters. The main problem of the modern society is that it still has not learned how to adapt its lifestyles, social and political institutions to the great achievements of the technical knowledge. We do not know how the atomic and hydrogen bombs influenced consciousness of millions of people living in the East, where pain and fear can be hidden behind the facade of official optimism. This book is an attempt of a geopolitical prognosis. The world in the novel, after World War II and a small period of peace, is engaged in a nuclear war, which started in the 50’s between the former allies. As a result, the territories of Continental Europe go to the USSR; Britain and America are horror-struck by socialist revolutions. The possibility of such a war is historically justified. The allies, members of the anti-fascist coalition had very different geopolitical interests and united only in the face of fascist aggression. Variants of the further division of the world among the great powers, after Germany’s fall, were considered by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt as well. The military machine of the Red Army gained an unprecedented power by the end of the war and could “liberate” the whole Europe easily and only the Second Front opening forced Stalin to confine himself to the Eastern half only. The Allies, in turn, were not averse to kill the “communist contagion.” Actually, after World War II, two superpowers arouse - the USSR and the USA and by the early 50’s they had nuclear weapons and struggled for world domination. But in the real world nuclear arsenals have grown too quickly, making it impossible to win a nuclear war. Moreover, Stalin’s death led to some relaxation of tensions and a nuclear war of the 50’s did not happen. In ten years, during the Cuban missile crisis, the world was on the brink of a nuclear war again. Socialist revolutions in the capitalist countries in the sixties did not occur in the real world as well. But those years saw the major trade unions strikes, student riots; the main ultra left terrorist organizations were created in the Western countries in the same decade. Local communists and socialists started a violent propaganda with the help of the Soviet money. So, Orwell’s vision of history seems quite reasonable and logical. In general, the geopolitical map of Orwell is very similar to the map of the real world. Three superpowers - Oceania (including the U.S. and the entire American continent and the British Empire with the majority of colonies), Eurasia (USSR and Europe) and Ostasia (China with the adjacent territories) divide the world making fierce wars on the outskirts of the empires but without using nuclear weapons. One of the Oceania’s propaganda slogans goes: War is Peace. Orwell determines the profound meaning of this slogan. The ruling coteries of these countries are not interested in a real nuclear war, as a result the complete destruction of civilizations will happen, and, consequently, abolishment of their power. But peace is not advantageous to them as well, so as there will be no reasons to justify the economic difficulties; millions of workers in defense industry will have to be fired; it will be difficult to maintain the level of mass hysteria and hatred, on which totalitarian rule is based. Therefore, people on the boundaries of spheres of influence of the superpowers are engaged in constant battles with the use of conventional weapons, supporting the desired level of tension. But such wars will never grow into a world war. The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor…The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival (Goldstein’s Manifesto). First of all, he shows the economic importance of the continuous production of weapons, without which the economic system simply could not exist. Moreover, he draws an impressive picture of how society should develop, which is constantly preparing for war and is in a constant fear of being attacked, is constantly looking for ways of enemies’ complete destruction. Orwell’s thought is so appropriate, because it is a solid argument against the popular idea that we can save our freedom and democracy by continuing the arms race. This reassuring picture ignores the fact that boosting the technological progress (which creates totally new weapons every 5 years), the army will become the dominant power (de facto if not de jure), that hatred and fear of possible aggressor would destroy the foundations of democratic, humanistic society. Orwell shows falseness of the assumption that democracy can exist in society, preparing for nuclear war and shows it very convincingly. Rulers of the USSR, United States and China acted during the Cold War according to Orwell’s predications. It can be judged by a number of so-called “local” conflicts. Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia – hot spots where the empires could demonstrate their military power without exposing their own territories to danger. Since that time the mentioned military strategy has not changed. During the period from 1798 to 2002, the U.S. used military forces abroad 238 times and never, thanks God, at home. Congress formally declared war 4 times - the last time was in 1941. Since then, open military confrontations were replaced by preventive warfare and strikes on a territory of a potential adversary. Modern military conflicts are so volatile and appear so suddenly that a declaration of war plays no practical role. Furthermore, under modern conditions the enemy is often unknown. Immediately after September 9/11, Congress approved use of military force against organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks on the United States whose names and nationalities have not yet been precisely defined! Moreover, only the U.S. government determines a degree of threat and how the U.S. should respond to it. This right can not be transferred to any international institutions (including UN). International organizations also have no possibility to impose a veto against the United States use of military force abroad. The world renders unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Another widely debated consequence of 9/11 is also in the spirit of 1984 – total control of Big Brother embodied in the Patriot Act. It justified the bravest dreams of Orwell- the Act legitimized telephone tapping, opening and inspection of ordinary and e-mail, outdoor surveillance along with such refined forms of invasion of privacy, as secret seizure of business documents and medical histories even. The intelligence agencies got the right to examine library cards to make sure that Americans do not read anything seditious and rebellious. And all this can be performed without any judicial authorization. U.S. executive branch also gave itself the power to declare certain foreign citizens “enemy combatants” and grill them in secret prisons in Europe, away from American shores, not to be responsible for gross violations of judicial procedures. In short, Bush administration preferred some highly dubious model of public safety to democratic freedoms that Americans are accustomed to using. It seemed more or less acceptable immediately after the terrorist attacks. But some years later, when revenge has long given way to common sense, liberal America is outraged with the aggressive position of executive power. Human Rights Watch, Congressmen and Senators, the media and even the courts have concluded that the President has usurped the rights that he was not vested by the Constitution. So, by this desperate search of inner and outer enemies, bombings of straw men and bad guys all around the word, which cost us billions a day, the authorities just divert public attention from economic problems, unemployment rates and their other failures – a trick widely used by totalitarian leaders in the book. George Orwell could not predict that after the Second World War the traditional Empires, which just included colonies, will become a thing of the past. They were replaced by so-called “spheres of influence” of the superpowers. A ruling class in a small country in this “sphere” usually receives a guarantee of stability of their power. Local capitalist oligarchy or ex-communist governments were covered and defended from external threats and internal opposition by a limited contingent of troops of a friendly super state. In return, a vassal state was losing many of the attributes of independence, was deprived of an independent foreign policy and subjected its economy to new “colonizers”. Opponents of such influence, grouped by President Bush into the so-called axis of evil, can be “democratized” by bombers and missiles. Have no democracy (do not agree with the aggressive foreign policy of the superpowers) and our missiles travel to you. Changes in enslavement technologies have not changed the overall picture of evolution of relations between the world empires. Superpowers prefer to localize military conflicts within a territory of supposedly independent small states. As a rule one of the parties acts incognito. Americans knew that the Vietcong used the Soviet weapons and Soviet leaders knew that the Afghan Mujahideens were trained and armed by the U.S., but for the reasons described in Orwell both parties maintained a status quo. Most clearly that policy trend manifested itself during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when there were a lot of occasions for a global nuclear conflict but there was no reason for the Soviet Union and the United States to start a war. So, the Empires having rattled the nuclear saboteur peacefully resolved the conflict. Orwell in his novel denies the belief that a dictatorship can be useful in times of war, devastation and other crisis situations. He vividly shows that every dictatorship is not interested in overcoming any crisis or war but rather extends and creates new extreme situations, because on them is based the power of the minority over the majority. Orwell predictions of the future did not prove true. Stalin’s dictatorship was the top of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. Further, the state’s pressure on personality gradually subsided, which, eventually, led to Perestroika and destruction of the totalitarian empire. The Western democracies have successfully overcome crises, which could lead to socialist revolution and further setting of authoritarian rule. In the poorest European countries and some Third World countries military dictatorships (Spain, Greece, Chile) lasted a relatively short time and the peoples of these countries have also switched to democratic forms of government soon. Thus, Orwell managed to predict quite accurately the separation of the world between the three nuclear world empires; that is Oceania - the USA, Eurasia - the Soviet Union and China- Ostasia and showed the political motives of the cold war. Now, when the Soviets fell down and the Russian Federation is only getting power slowly, China and America remain the only authoritative geopolitical players. But their methods of domination are quite different, if to view in general. China “conquers” new countries and market softly due to its huge economic impact, trade wars, wise monetary policy, colossal investments into technologies, etc. America, on the other hand, using some of the methods named above, still slides to primate full-scale military operations for the sake of consolidation of its positions on the global stage, being the Police of the World without the world’s will. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to follow… We need to remember that one of the reasons of the dictatorship of Big Brother Orwell called a nuclear war and economic and political chaos after it. Therefore, we can make consumption that any country that gets into a crisis has a chance to become a small Oceania. If we take, for example, the former Soviet Union republics like Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, most African countries, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. - they formed the authoritarian regimes thanks to interference in their internal affairs of the superpowers, which provoked crises and supported favorable governments and presidents. Now, the same superpowers try to fight the same regimes, which became in the course of time pro-terrorist and radical, paying with lives and blood of soldiers for the mistakes in foreign policy. Read More