The vivid interpretation and revelation of the inner war
economy of the past made Joseph Maiolo a Professor in International History in
the Department of War Studies, King’s College famous to the community of academic
authors and readers throughout the world.
Personal comments of Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman “Joseph
Maiolo has taken one of the most studied periods in international history and
managed to find a completely new angle, not by denying the role of the national
leaders but by stressing the remorseless logic of rearmament and military
mobilization in shaping their choices”. Personally as a reader and basing
my insights in terms of how the author gather the facts and relating how the
war leaders of the past generated their economic resources will amaze my
imagination how they come up to an economic strategy to achieve the quota of
wealth to fund the military specifically the armaments and the whole expenditure
of the wars of the past specifically world war 2. In the book Cry Havoc reveals the many war genius
that by comprehending their arms race program you will know how good they were
in reprogramming their government system to achieve a more autocratic kind of
governance. The addiction of these world
leaders to accumulate arms is very interesting that in a point the author
reveals their cravings to achieve a certain point of economic and military goal
that they can implement and exercise their power in coercion and in a more
autocratic way. But the most challenging
war period that war leaders experience a dilemma to a Fait Accompli when a
country submits their government for loosing a war.
The power of war dominance will radically change
the form of government that freedom is automatically ruled by the opposing
country. To give the common examples
that the book revealed is during the war of the Japanese with the Chinese in Manchuria, war of Germany during the time of Hitler were
they have conflict with Russia, and how Benito Mussolini and the gang spread
hatred of humanity and horror to the civilians in Europe at the time. But what is so interesting in the book is the
academic view on how they launch and advertise their propaganda of war that you
can just imagine how they are so charismatic and eager to propagate their
propaganda of war and on the contrary they can still manage to sustain their
civic population’s daily life and business.
War leaders like the Commissars in Russia, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky,
and Colonel Ishiwara Kanji of Japan exhausted their inner genius with the
precise calculation when to conduct disarmament and rearmament of their future
plans of world war. The most inspiring
war leader is the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and Colonel
Ishiwara Kanji. The first move of this
Japanese colonel is to find resources to prepare a war. The author of the book even jest the readers
that these war leaders are good in playing computer war games and management
knowing that their brains and war management innovation are iconic during that
time. As to Colonel Ishiwara Kanji they
are so interested of Manchuria knowing that the land in Manchuria are rich in natural
resources.
They know that the natural
resources in that place is enough to build the high technology equipment’s
during that time. Minerals such as iron, copper, and trees are rich in
Manchuria. Colonel Ishiwara went to
Manchuria to exercise power with his brilliant ideas of war with many forward
thinking military strategy visioning with the totalitarian ideology. Thus, the rearmament of Japan at that time is
successful with the minds of Colonel Ishiwara. Colonel Ishiwara also integrated
his knowledge when he travelled to Europe.
Waging war during the Meiji Era needs the intellect of the many war
genius. Political power is addictive
during that time that the arms race became a way of accumulating wealth of
nation. Unlike the Capitalist countries,
countries like, Japan, China, Germany, and Italy followed more of the
totalitarianism, socialism, and communism.
With these three ideologies arms race literally a race of power and
wealth. The problem with these
ideologies inclined with the fascist type of governance it will exhaust and
kill the private sector and the small businesses of the nation that later it
created a financial crisis in Europe.
Take for example during the time of Hitler, Germany at that time is just
very small in terms of number and power of their military might. But with their eagerness of their arms race
program, Hitler assigned General Werner von Blomberg the new defense minister
to orchestrate the war plans and the arms race of Germany. Hitler spoke for over two hours and began by
stating that his supreme goal was the recovery of German political power. To achieve their patriotic propaganda they
need to implement it through Marxism and pacifism to dominate their influence
specifically the young university students.
Victory Day Parade in Moscow 2018 with Prime Minister Netanyahu
The discussion and sharing of war
knowledge by nations at that time is already existing in between countries. War
knowledge and ideas became a race that addiction of political power domination
is one of the strategies through war and invasion. The young Blomberg is the main character of
the success of Hitler in his arms race.
These war leaders like Hitler and Benito has its inspiration as well same
with Colonel Ishiwara Kanji in Manchurian war invasion. Germany at that time knows that they still
aren’t capable in conducting the all out war for Europe so they still negotiated
with other countries in terms of diplomacy.
The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 limits the supply of arms in the member
countries of the treaty. Countries like
England and France can check the amount of arms from the countries that are
members of the Treaty of Versailles. But
then again at the back of the head of Hitler is the intentions and the cravings
to test his applied war knowledge in his military. Thus, General Paul von Hidenburg and Erich Ludendorff
launch a program for the civilians like the social economic mobilization that
these system of Hitler made the economic growth of Germany change rapidly
creating a huge amount of government capital to finance the war. But the great push of the program came during
the summer of 1918. Also, the technology
of Hitler at that time rapidly increases with the demanding amount of monetary
output from the taxpayers pocket exhausting the private sectors and the huge
industries of the country. Fiscal policy
change during that time that even Hitler invaded parts of Ethiopia first and
the huge part of Africa and the middle east just to get resources and minerals
to supply the basic needs of the war specifically the basic minerals to create
more tanks and planes. Many of the
private companies during that time accumulated money from the project of Hitler.
The man who gave these ideas coherence was a director of the commercial airline
Lufthansa, Robert Knauss. Knauss believe
but by air power alone they can win the war in Europe. Indeed, Hitler created more flying machines
even flying balloons armed with ammunitions.
On the other hand the German Navy
was assembling U-boats from prefabricated sections and laying down conspicuously
large surface warships. The success of U-boats although did not help the overall
war of Germany against the allied forces and Russia but the performance of the
German U-boats in the Atlantic seas and other seas of the world shows how the
technology of U-boats reshape the history of war in the seas. With the preparedness of Hitler, his postponement
of the talks with the British on the diplomatic pretense of having caught in a
cold diplomatic relationship. War
started that gives a tremors to the governments of the allied forces and Russia
during that time. After the war in
Germany the allied forces led by the United States starts to regulate the war
by disarmament program to the member countries knowing that war equipment will initiate
more war. But the notion is only sensible
during the time when all the countries are exhausted and out of money to fund
the war. The money machine of Hitler and
other war leaders are all wasted when the world experience the negative effect
of war during world war two. But on the
contrary America on the other hand formulated a system that they became a world
security knowing of their ideals that connects with capitalism. Capitalism generated enormous amount of money
that America was able to comfortably generate enormous amount of cash from
there allied countries not by war but by diplomacy.
Indeed, capitalism outweighed the system of
Blomberg during the time of Hitler in generating cash for the arms race. Even Blomberg
and Thomas accepts that Capitalism has a huge chance to get more cash capital
to finance an arms race. In a capitalism
point of view, industries, agriculture, and trade are subject to performance
competition which will eliminate the bigger role of the government to create
the military infrastructure but rather allow private companies to innovate the
war machines. Indeed, today we can find
the private companies in United States who are having the business of B2G with
the government such as Lockheed Martin who contributed to the advancement of
the war machines of United States. In times
of war usually the public is always the sacrifice of the nation knowing that
the prices of the commodity goods will be deprive due to the addiction of these
leaders such as Hitler & Benito. But
less to forget that United States and other democratic countries are addicted
also in arms race knowing that money is big in the business of arms race. If you ponder deeply the theories that Steven
Pinker discussed in his text that I discussed in my previous blog(http://ryansinnovativeideas.blogspot.com/2018/08/genetic-violence-philosophical-views-of.html) that violence is in our genetic nature as
humans to go to war and invade more area for our specie to survive. Thus, money and war will always exist in
humanity when our very genetic nature as humans are violent in terms of our
survival as specie. Do you think that peace
is just part of war when disarmament and rearmament is always in our world war
history?
Kings College (War Studies) KCL
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