Keuka College opinions & editorials

Is World War III on the Horizon? Lessons from the 1930s

by Sander A. Diamond, professor of history, Keuka College

Published Sep 27, 2006

The tensions created by the spread of worldwide terrorism, Iran's nuclear ambitions, North Korea's firing of missiles July 4, the protracted religious war in Iraq, and the Israeli-Hezbollah proxy war have engendered an oppressive fear of the future not seen since the build-up to World War II and the darkest days of the Cold War. The emerging conflict between the West and anti-civilizational forces in the Islamic world has people talking of a coming modern-day Armageddon, with parallels being struck between today's world and the prelude to the two world wars in the last century.

Historical parallels can be comforting in good times but very disturbing and often misleading in times of crisis. Leaders may draw the incorrect conclusions from the past which can produce unforeseen consequences. On the other hand, historical parallels can be instructive if viewed with caution, since situations, not events, tend to repeat themselves over time. When we examine the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914, we learn that events can spiral out of control far faster than statesmen can arrest the flow of events.

But it is in the build-up to the Second World War where we discover parallels to today's events, what Churchill called The Gathering Storm in his first volume of his history of the world's greatest and most deadly conflict.

Initially, few took Hitler seriously. Like Hezbollah today, it was a failure of perception.  Both tapped into a wellspring of discontent and rage.  Both leaders became larger than life heroes among their own people. Once in power, Hitler elevated each chapter of Mein Kampf into state policy and in time terrorized the world leaving in his wake 56 million dead.

As we watch the rising tide of Islamic-Fascism with Iran at its epicenter, there are those who argue that Iran's nuclear ambitions have to be thwarted or the world will pay a terrible price in the near future. America's, Britain's and Israel's resolve to stop the march of this new challenge has found few allies. Either they feel Islamic-Fascism will run its course or quietly welcome the assault on the so-called American Empire. They do not see themselves as the possible next victims. It is a situation akin to Stalin's signing of a pact with Hitler in August 1939 believing Hitler could be trusted. Two years later, Hitler invaded Russia and four years later 30 million Russian were dead.

The primary lesson derived from the 1930s is that the appeasement of irrational dictators leading movements driven by irrational anti-civilizational forces built on rage does not work. Concessions are viewed by those bent on destruction and war as a sign of weakness as Israel learned after it withdrew from Gaza this year and Lebanon six years ago. Today there is talk of employing sanctions against Iran. They would be as ineffective as the sanctions used to curb Mussolini's ambitions in Africa. Il Duce simply thumbed his nose at the League of Nations and found another supplier of oil.

Iran's President Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah's Nasralloh and al-Qaeda's bin Laden do not hide their intentions. When we listen to the voices coming out of Tehran or Islamic-Fascism's latest hero, Nasrollah, they sound like Hitler reincarnate with their tirades against the Jewish Zionists, the United States and the West. Stock phrases are repeated over and over again wiping the audiences into a frenzy of hatred. Capitalizing on the same rage that made Hitler possible, they have located the thread that increasingly ties together the usually disparate Islamic world which often collapses along the divisions within Islam. A secure future cannot be built on the hope that the leaders of the new fascists will change any more than Hitler morphed into a kinder and gentler Führer. 

Much has been written about Islamic-Fascism's revolt against modernity which is another word for Westernization. Just as Hitler's first acts were to burn the books on university campuses throughout Germany, put women back into the kitchen, and ban so-called degenerate art and films, it is no coincidence that the Taliban tried to return Afghanistan to the dark ages and elsewhere in the Islamic world theaters showing western films are torched. In Iran, Web sites are carefully monitored by the religious police and TV dishes banned. The aim is to create a cultic theocracy as we have seen in Iran which differs little from Hitler's purge of the art and literature of the modern world.

Today we are where the world was when Hitler lent his support to Franco in Spain in the mid-1930s. His Candor Legion tested Germany's new weapons over Spain with terror bombings immortalized in Pablo Picasso's painting of the destruction of a Spanish city.  We can only hope that today's leaders do not make the same mistakes as the statesmen of another generation. However well-intended, goodwill will not secure a safer future. We must take the new fascists at their word.

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