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The lessons of history
>By Thomas Sowell
>January 30, 2003 > >Disarming a country > > >History does not literally repeat itself, but sometimes it comes awfully >close. Iraq is not the first dangerous dictatorship that international >agreements tried to keep disarmed. Nor is it the first where that effort >failed. > > >Back in the 1930s, Germany's military forces were limited by a ban on >conscription, by limitations on the number and kinds of weapons it could >have, and by a requirement that it station no troops in its own >industrialized Rhineland. These requirements were in the treaty of >Versailles, which ended the First World War. > > >Demilitarizing the Rhineland was perhaps the crucial provision of these >international restrictions. > > >Germany's population and industrial might, together with its strong >military traditions and its aggressive policies which had brought on the >First World War, made it the most dangerous nation on the continent of >Europe. But it could not attack any other nation when its own industrial >heartland was undefended and therefore could be quickly seized by French >troops, who were just across the Rhine. > > >Like Saddam Hussein today, Hitler at first pretended to go along with these >restrictions, all the while clandestinely building up his military forces. >However, this was clandestine only in the sense that the general public did >not know about it. British intelligence was well aware of what he was doing >and kept the Prime Minister informed. > > >The real question was whether Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin wanted to be >the one to break the bad news to the British public or whether he would >keep quiet, get re-elected, and pass the problem on to his successors -- as >Bill Clinton would do in a later era. Baldwin did a Clinton. > > >In later years, Stanley Baldwin tried to justify his inaction: > > >"Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming, >and that we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy >would have rallied to that cry at that moment? I cannot think of anything >that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more >certain." > > >But this was not just Baldwin's failure or that of his Conservative Party. >The Liberal Party in 1935 demanded "clear proof" of a need for rearmament >against the Nazis, much as many in politics and the media today are >demanding "clear proof" of a need to act against Saddam Hussein. > > >Meanwhile the Labour Party was advocating disarmament and innumerable >groups were promoting international agreements and diplomatic exchanges as >a substitute for military power. Diplomatic agreements and arms limitations >treaties proliferated throughout the whole period between the two World >Wars. > > >None of this had any practical effect, except to lull the Western >democracies into inaction while Germany and Japan rapidly built up their >military forces. > > >Hitler began openly violating the restrictions put on Germany, one at a >time, allowing him to gauge what reaction there would be among the Western >powers and in the League of Nations. Each violation that he got away with >led him to try another -- and then another. > > >The key violation -- without which he would not be able to wage war -- was >moving German troops into the Rhineland in 1936, in open defiance of the >treaty of Versailles. Both he and his generals knew that the French army >was so overwhelmingly more powerful at this point that German troops would >not have been able to put up even token resistance if France sent its >troops in to oust them. > > >France did nothing. It was the first of many nothings that France did in a >series of crises that led up to World War II. > > >When Hitler had built up his clandestine forces sufficiently, he simply >stopped keeping them secret and confronted the West with enough power that >he knew they would not dare to challenge him. The opportunity to stop him >was past. > > >Those who wanted "clear proof" now had it. In just a few years, they would >have even clearer proof when the Nazis invaded France and subjugated it in >just six weeks -- and then began bombing London, night after night. > > >While history does not literally repeat itself, sometimes it comes very >close. > > > ?2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. > > > > > > > >
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