Wars of the 20th Century and the 20th Century as War

In: Telos, Band 30, S. 116-126

Abstract

The various formulae which have been applied to WWI can be understood as attempts to fit it into nineteenth century categories, which assume that peace is a natural state of affairs. The actual revolutionary side in that war was Bismarckian Germany, in which the realities of the new scientific era were best approximated by social institutions. The military apparatus of Germany was the weak point of the system, hypnotized by traditional concepts, schemes, & goals. The war was against the Western status quo. The energy transformation of the world necessarily occurs through war, which is the most intense means of rapidly releasing accumulated forces. The frontline experience was fundamental to the new image of the world. In this experience, death was a continuous presence. This experience has been denied by later developments, leaving the world in a state of war-generating peace rather than in the real peace which might emerge from genuine understanding of the war experience. W. H. Stoddard.