In several volumes, Poul Anderson transports us to the Viking period. In one section of "Time Patrol," he transports us to London, 1944. Several of his works also reflect the 1950s and '60s when the anticipated Third World War, if it had occurred, would have been a direct sequel to World War II, with some of the same participants. This third period is reflected in stories set during the aftermath of a nuclear exchange.
I mention this because I have recently attended two relevant reenactments. See the above link and here. For the 1940s Festival, my daughter and granddaughter wore appropriate clothes, hairstyles and make-up. One aspect of a World War II reenactment is gratitude that the War is past and that it was not repeated on a larger scale as feared. Thus, it is appropriate to remember not only Manse Everard's brief trip to 1944 but also Poul Anderson's several past possible futures when a reduced world population struggles against devastation, deprivation, radiation and mutation.
Science fiction is a catalogue of both aspirations and warnings. So far, this warning has been heeded.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm a bit surprised there are now WW II re-enactions. If only because my thought was that no one would want to play the Germans.
I think, technically speaking, Pat Frank's 1959 novel ALAS, BABYLON was more accurate in depicting what a nuclear war and its effects and consequences would be like. That was because Frank was writing with the benefit of more knowledge about nuclear weapons than was available to Poul Anderson in 1947, when he wrote "Tomorrow's Children" and "Chain of Logic." By 1961, when Anderson wrote "Children of Fortune" (the third part of TWILIGHT WORLD), of course he was aware of the more likely outcomes of a nuclear exchange, but he was bound by what he had previously written in 1947.
I agree in being glad, SO FAR, that we have not seen any massive use of nuclear weapons. But, even if major nuclear powers have avoided using these weapons, the danger posed by terrorists getting nukes and rogue regimes (such as Iran and N Korea) using such weapons remains.
Sean
Nuclear weapons are probably why there -wasn't- a WWIII.
War is a brutal, but usually fairly rational, process: it's a way of getting people to do what you want them to do.
(Granted, sometimes that's just "I want you to die".)
Wars don't simply happen; they're not earthquakes or droughts. They're made to happen by deliberate, considered decisions.
All wars start because someone thinks that they have a chance to bring the war to a conclusion that's satisfactory, or less unsatisfactory than the alternatives.
Often the calculations are wrong -- because of inadequate information, or confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. Often the people making the decision realize that they're taking a gamble -- German generals used to call it "rolling the iron dice". When the Germans started WW1, they knew that they were taking a desperate risk, but thought they had a reasonable chance of bringing it off, and that the increasing strength of Russia would make it less and less likely that they could, if they waited.
If both sides have nuclear weapons and adequate delivery systems, which is the situation that has existed since the 1960's, it becomes very difficult even for a very distorted reasoning process to produce a likelihood of getting a good outcome.
Hence, no two powers with nuclear weapons have ever fought each other directly. Eventually that meant that industrialized nation-states couldn't fight each other directly at all -- hence the Cold War.
NB: the Soviets never formally acknowledged "Mutually Assured Destruction" -- their armed forces were configured for an offensive strategy in a war-fighting scenario. But they never actually put it into practice, and as time went on it became more and more a going-through-the-motions exercise, which indicates that they didn't really believe in their own doctrine.
Ours was summarized in a wry joke: NATO plans to fight a three-phase war. We fight with conventional weapons until we face defeat; then we fight with tactical nuclear weapons(*) until we face defeat; then we blow up the world.
(*) defined in a footnote to the same joke: a tactical nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon which explodes in Germany.
Well, I love the jokes!
Unfortunately, MAD didn't prevent proxy wars.
It is important to acknowledge that wars, like economic crises, are human actions and consequences of such actions, not "acts of God"/natural disasters.
I think/hope we are moving away from large scale wars - but a lot of desperate people disagree with me. And maybe things have to get worse before they get better - but that's not a justification for making things worse!
A few years back, a guy in Britain committed a racist atrocity, hoping to initiate a race war - and wound up with a lot of diverse people united in condemning him.
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
Mr. Stirling: Thanks, again, for giving us some very interesting and useful comments. Yes, I agree WW I started largely because, whatever Wilhelm II's misgivings, the other Germans leaders THOUGHT Germany had a chance of winning IF Russia was not yet too strong. Thus "rolling the iron dice."
Yes, again, I think we avoided a WW III because of the nuclear deadlock between the US and the USSR, with the latter increasingly accepting MAD, if only tacitly. So clashes between the great powers were usually fought out via proxy wars by their clients.
Paul: MAD could NOT prevent proxy wars between rival powers existentially opposed to each other's existence. MAD merely made a direct clash between the US and the USSR too costly for either side to reasonably think it could both win and survive mostly intact.
Yes, wars and socio/poltical/ideological/economic crises are caused by humans beings, not blindly random "acts of God." And these crises will make proxy wars more likely, not less, unfortunately. People who firmly believe in their faiths or ideologies WILL fight if they believe it necessary. So, the danger from rogue regimes like Iran will remain. Or from terrorists getting nukes. I recall Anson Guthrie expressing similar ideas in Anderson's HARVEST OF STARS.
Sean
Paul: we are moving away from large-scale wars, but not because people wouldn't have 'em if they thought they could win them.
It's simply because to have a large-scale war you have to have a strong industrial infrastructure, and if you have that, you have nuclear weapons and can deliver them.
And that makes a favorable outcome impossible.
The only large-scale war on the horizon would be one between the US and China. If it weren't for the "Peace of the Mushroom Cloud", I would say that would be a high probability.
As it is, it's a fairly low one. It -could- happen, but that would require the Chinese to convince themselves that the US wouldn't use its nuclear weapons in a limited but direct conflict with them.
That could happen -- never underestimate the power of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, aka "wishful thinking". But it's not very likely.
It is a sombre Paul that reads these comments.
Kaor, Paul!
And my view is that the best way to limit the harm caused by human quarrelsomeness is for mankind to get OFF this rock and settle other worlds. Because doing so, esp. on an interstellar scale, would make it impossible for religious or ideological fanatics to forcibly corral all of the human race within their narrow little paddocks. Here I have stories by Anderson like "The High Ones" in mind.
Sean
Sean,
I think it is possible to build a society in which any potential fanatics are isolated. Thus, no anti-Semite can tell me that I am homeless because of Jewish bankers if no one is homeless! - whereas merely spreading to other planets without making any other social changes will mean that some anti-Semites remain active on Earth while others go elsewhere! So I agree about the importance of getting some people off Earth but for different reasons.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The problem is, ultimately, fanatics cannot be reasoned with. So, it would not matter if everybody is housed, an anti-Semite (of whatever kind, Nazi, Communist, Muslim, Christian, etc.) can always find other reasons for hating Jews. Also, fanaticisms of various kinds, Muslim, Marxist, environmentalists, etc., can arise at different times for different reasons. No well-meaning housing or "feeding the poor" policies can always prevent such movements from arising.
So, I continue to agree with Heinlein, it's foolish for us to continue keeping all our eggs in the only basket we have, Earth.
Sean
Sean,
We cannot eradicate irrationalism, certainly not in a single generation, but we can make it much more difficult for it to spread. Instead, in Britain at present, politicians say things that encourage prejudice and racially motivated incidents increase.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that is where I, as a conservative, differ from you: I don't believe irrationalism, or its potential existence, can ever be completely eradicated. And racially motivated incidents are bad, not only in themselves, but also because they distract attention from the very real problems caused or provoked by immigration.
Sean
Sean,
Returning to an earlier point about reenactments, once in a Trade Union Centre in Liverpool, an absolute hot-bed of anti-fascism, where there was a memorial to the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, I could not believe my eyes when I saw a man in a black shirt with a swastika armband standing to attention outside a room. Then someone said that all-explanatory phrase: "Drama group."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That startled me, till your mention of "Drama group" made me realize this was some kind of play!
And I thought it distinctly odd to see men in WW II era Wehrmacht uniforms
with very recent model cars passing back and forth just beyond them.
Sean
Sean,
That is part of the fun of reenactments. Two periods are juxtaposed and there is a reality-drama interface. I asked two patrolling coppers whether they were just guys in costumes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree! I know many people in the UK and US are passionate enthusiasts of reenactions. They will go into the most meticulous details possible to make reenactions as accurate as possible. Including getting Wehrmacht uniforms, equipment, and weapons EXACTLY right. And it can look very odd when reenactors meet, compared to their surroundings.
Sean
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