The Military Has Gone Mad
I didn't want to kill Russians when they were communists. I don't want to now.
Please watch the above video by Neil Oliver, historian, archeologist, author, GB News broadcaster and YouTuber (@thecoastguy on X). He is articulate, thoughtful and profound and doesn’t read the latest political talking points or use mendacious click bait to drive viewers to his page. I have been a guest on Neil’s show and have a lot of respect for him as an academic and political commentator.
In this video clip, Neil talks about Britain bringing back compulsory military service and how tall an order this would be in a woke era that teaches young people to despise their history. As Neil points out, how are you going to motivate the youth in Western democracies to fight and potentially sacrifice their lives when they no longer have that emotional investment in the history and values of their countries?
The gent suggesting that Britons be coerced into the armed forces is Gen. Sir Patrick Sanders, the British Army’s chief of the general staff.
Even at the height of the Cold War, I was never anxious for a war with Russia and while in uniform I had no desire to kill Russians. I have always believed the only reason to maintain a strong military is because it represents the only credible deterrence to war.
Why this talk of conscription? Why are similar musings coming from the United States and Australia? Well, apparently, we need to prepare for war with Russia in the same way as we might plan for a winter storm.
This kind of talk is not just imprudent; it is insane. Even at the height of the Cold War, I was never anxious for a war with Russia and while in uniform I had no desire to kill Russians. I have always believed the only reason to maintain a strong military is because it represents the only credible deterrence to war. We have strong militaries to avoid war. We all understood that a global war in the nuclear age was not a possibility. It would have meant the end of our world and our civilization.
Communist or not, a nuclear war with Russia today would lead to the same sanguinary and radioactive result.
When the Cold War ended between 1989-1991, it was suddenly possible to imagine a world that was not on the verge of nuclear annihilation. We could be friends with Russia now that communism was no longer the roadblock that separated the West from the Soviet Union.
What did not change was the nuclear status of Russia. It may have jettisoned an economic system, but it remained in control of the largest nuclear stockpile in the world and quite capable of using it in a war.
One of the most incredible moments of my military career was having my 1996 Christmas dinner in Tuzla, Bosnia seated with American Green Berets on one side of the banquet table and Russian special forces on the other side. The soldiers exchanged small talk with each, as much as the language barrier would allow. But the atmosphere was friendly and historic. I remember thinking at the time that these men had been trained to kill each other but that was all in the past now and wasn’t that a relief.
Or was it? Why has NATO continued to expand at an alarming rate that can only be seen as a direct provocation to Russia. NATO should have been dismantled at the end of the Cold War just as the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. Instead, like any organization that has become obsolescent but whose leadership refuses to acknowledge that fact, NATO feverishly sought a new strategic purpose and for much of the 1990s busied itself by interfering in Europe’s civil wars and post-communist breakdown. As NATO continues to add members, it has expanded to the Russian frontiers and increasingly seeks conflict with Russia to a degree that did not even exist during the Cold War.
As long as NATO maintains an anti-Russian posture, Ukraine has no business being a member of this anachronistic military club. For Ukraine to maintain its independence, it must adhere to a strict neutrality. Geography demands this.
Instead of generals gunning for war with Russia, we need generals like Eisenhower who understood that war impoverishes the world and annihilates lives.
NATO has used the war in Ukraine has a means of escalating tensions and a potential military exchange with Russia. It has used Ukraine as a pawn to create the very real potential for a shooting war with Russia that would — not might — quickly unravel into the use of nuclear weapons.
Russia is not a perfect democracy, but neither is the United States, as it remains in the grip of a corrupt president, entitled politicians in the House of Representatives and Senate and the Miliary-Industrial Complex first defined by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961.
In this clip, Eisenhower isn’t demanding the eradication of the Military-Industrial Complex nor insisting that it is an inherently evil concept. He believes that in the geo-political context of that time — the height of the Cold War — the Military-Industrial Complex was necessary to ensure the military preparedness and efficacy of the U.S. armed forces. But he warns that these arms producers — so linked to political power — might become a danger themselves someday, especially if the world changes.
Well, it did change but NATO has retreated to 1955 and is talking seriously about punishing Russia and preparing for war. A Third World War would be monumental folly of the same degree that produced the First World Wat — an utterly pointless exercise that murdered millions, destroyed empires, birthed communism and enriched the Military-Industrial Complex of that era — the only real winners in that conflict.
Eisenhower was a career soldier who ultimately became the supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe the first defacto leader of NATO. He enjoyed eight very successful years as president and left office flush with popular support. Yet, only a military titan like Eisenhower could talk honestly about the merchants of death wanting to retain their political power even after their place in the sun had passed.
Instead of generals gunning for war with Russia, we need generals like Eisenhower who understood that war impoverishes the world and annihilates lives. Look at that newsreel footage of Ike talking informally to the paratroopers who are about to jump into occupied Europe in the first phase of the D-Day landings at Normandy. He knows a lot of these men are going to be dead tomorrow. He knows he has to do his duty but he’s not enjoying any of this. And he doesn’t want to do it again.
If you think war is a grand adventure that cleanses societies, then you’re not thinking at all. War is ugly, dirty and horrible.
The West must find commonality with Russia. It is a state that it trying to discover its soul after a century of bloodletting that is virtually unparalleled in the modern world. In the past 110 years, Russia endured the slaughter of the First World War, the brutality of a Bolshevik revolution, the bloodletting of a civil war, the cruelty of the Gulags, the hellscape of artificial famines, the murderous criminality of Joseph Stalin and the apocalypse of the Second World War. Add up the numbers of dead in these episodes and you will probably approach 100 million killed. That’s the population of a large country.
Russia continues to need time and our support to realize its full potential. War is not and should never be an option. If there seems to be legions of stupid people in uniform these days who seem like refugees from the 19th century when people still thought there was glory to be had in conflict, it only means that they are all drinking the same Kool Aid and reading from the same ludicrous talking points.
I say, take all the warmongering generals, politicians, journalists and diplomats and put them on a battlefield and let them fight it out and expend the bile in their souls and the rubbish in their mouths.
Leave the rest of us alone.
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