Armistice Day became Veterans Day in 1954. It is right and good to set aside a day to honor military veterans with an emphasis on those who served in times of conflict, but it’s also helpful to recall the significance of hope in which Armistice Day was originally celebrated. It was a hope that is yet to be realized.
The Great War, the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy, what we now call WWI, ended with a November 11, 1918, armistice between the warring nations. Never in human history had a war enveloped the entire globe and every industrialized nation in it. The horror of it was supposed to signal the end of war as a way of life between peoples. It heralded instead a century of nearly unending war: the even greater horrors of WWII, dozens of regional wars, a Cold War, internal insurrections, and criminal cartels acting as armed militias. In one sense it should not be all that surprising. From the beginning of recorded history, going to war was what kings were supposed to do ( 2 Samuel 11: It was now spring, the time when kings go to war…) War was how control over land was expanded, consolidated and defended. Perhaps there was a culture on earth where that was not the practice, but I don’t know of it. Why should the century following WWI have been any different?
There’s a reason why it should have been different. Empire building was the intention of wars in the 19th century. Every means of the new industrial age was used to equip armies and navies with weaponry and logistical support capable of wreaking greater, more lethal killing and property destruction. Imperial wars were glorified by politicians and inspired national pride. At the same time there began a growing unease and emerging recognition that expanding empire by armed conquest was immoral. Holding other peoples in imperial subjugation was immoral. The extent and brutality inflicted on civilians was immoral. The slaughter of young men as nothing more than cannon fodder was immoral. By the turn of the 20th century it was broadly understood that war as a way of national life could not be morally justified. That is what made the hundred years of war that began in 1914 very different from all that preceded it.
Hitler, Stalin and Hirohito were the last national power leaders to cling to the old discredited ways – almost. It appears Putin has not yet given up the old ways. Post war nations were loathe to release their colonial empires, but they did. Only the USSR continued the fight to build an even greater empire, and it was universally condemned by democratic nations. For all of that, the new century of war continued unabated in regional conflicts that were of world wide significance. Great powers fought in some of them with “boots on the ground.” More were labeled as proxy wars in which competing factions were financed, armed and coached by Great Powers. Whatever the end goals were thought to be, few were ever met. In my view, only Korea might be considered a success.
It’s to the collective dishonor of humanity that we still need to maintain military readiness for the possible renewal of global warfare and to support allies in times of regional threats. America’s massive abilities have too often tempted us into using them injudiciously. It seems the most outspoken prophets warning us of the dangers of going to war too quickly are generals and admirals with long personal experience on the ground and in planning that speculates on the likelihood of favorable outcomes in every possible future scenario. I suppose it must be so for now, but may the time not be far off when these plans are not needed. I wonder if there is something in the human psyche that is ill at ease when living in harmony with others. If there are original sins, it must surely be among them. In the meantime, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God” (Matt. 5)
Note: In too many conversations, peace was understood as the cessation of armed conflict, capitulation to the enemy, or the total and complete defeat of the enemy. Peace and harmony among even fiercely competing nations was only in the imagination of the naive and gullible.