Previous History Indicates that War Is Our Future

Previous History Indicates that War Is Our Future

Paul Craig Roberts

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” — George Santayana

Our time is much like Europe during 1912-1914 and 1938-1939.  War is brewing, and unlike the earlier periods today the countries likely to be involved, with the exception of Russia, China, and Iran, are not trying to avoid it.  Between 1912-1914 the French President Poincare, Russian Foreign Minister Izvolski, later Russian ambassador to France, and Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov were deeply involved in a conspiracy to cause a war between Russia and France (with British approval and involvement) on one side and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other.

Poincaire’s goal was to recover Alsace-Lorraine for France.  The Tsar’s ministers wanted Constantinople in order to control the straits that are the entrance from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Harry Elmer Barnes tells the story based on the notes the conspirators wrote to one another over the years the conspiracy was prepared and put into operation.  

For telling the truth, Barnes, a top of the line American historian, lost his position at Columbia University.  The official narrative was that Germany caused the war, a claim for which there is zero evidence. But assigning historical blame to Germany kept attention off the French-Russian conspiracy. As Barnes own fate proved, it did not pay for a historian to tell the truth.  The road to professional success was to create a narrative that justified the winners. And the “winners” were actually winners because the Germans were deceived, having foolishly trusted US President Wilson’s “Fourteen points.”

The German emperor, a cousin of the British king and Russian Tsar, did everything he could to avoid war, and Germany was the last to mobilize. 

The country responsible for war is never the last to mobilize. 

Both the Germans, the British, and possibly the Tsar were disadvantaged by being unaware of the French-Russian conspiracy for war.  The assassination of the Austrian Archduke and Austria’s punitive response to Serbia, was turned by propaganda into the cause for war.  Most likely, the assassination was a part of the French-Russian war plot.  Regardless, a dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia ended up causing a war that killed millions of people in the major European powers and enabled Lenin to overthrow the Russian government. France got Alsace-Lorraine, and Russia got a revolution.  Austria-Hungary was destroyed along with the German monarchy.  The result was the Versailles Treaty that ensured World War II.  The flower of the British leadership class was destroyed along with British financial strength.  Turkey remained in control of Constantinople.

Barnes, like David Irving, bases his history on official documents, whereas most historians create a career for themselves by justifying the winners and aligning with the rising political, social, and economic forces.

Izvolski arranged for Russian gold to be poured into bribes of French newspapers to silence war opponents, to make a case for war, and to bring Poincare into the French presidency.  Russia also bribed leading Serbian politicians to engage in intrigues against Austria-Hungary.

We are watching the same thing today, only we don’t know it.  The media don’t tell us. They too are bribed.

When we look at the American Witkoff and the nominal Russian Dmitriev, what is their real role?  Could they be bribe makers whose job it is to produce outcomes that make their principles appear successful?  One can hear the patriotic American’s disbelief:  “Our country, never!”

But we know of the Clinton’s collection of bribes that have enriched their family.  We know of the Hunter-Joe Biden collection of bribes and payoffs.  Was the letter Trump’s wife had delivered to Putin about the alleged Ukrainian children the product of an Israeli bribe to get the focus off of Israel’s extermination of Palestinian children?

As the realities of what is really underway are not exposed to the light of day, the populations in the US and Europe really have no idea what is going on.  Commentators, depending on who is paying them, either spread optimistic hopes or allege Trump is selling out Ukraine. The reality is different.

The reality is that the world is headed into war because of (1) the US foreign policy imperative of American hegemony, and (2) the apparent problem the Russians have of putting themselves in the hands of their hopes instead of  acknowledging reality.  When a country’s foreign policy doctrine requires the prevention of the rise of any country that can serve as a constraint on its unilateralism, and there are rising countries, there can be no peace.  

In 1939 the British government gave a guarantee to Poland similar to the NATO guarantee the West wants to give Ukraine.  The immediate consequence was World War II.