This is why I subscribed to Chartbook in the first place and this is - amongst other reasons (i.e. equal parts of good entertainment AND useful tidbits of information and education) - why I love this newsletter so much!
What you do here is really writing great books in real time, chapter per chapter (and just in time when we need them for context).
A great piece with a shrewd conclusion, but I’d say that total war was not only envisioned before 1914 - it was seriously prefigured in the US Civil War.
The lessons of which were duly ignored because, well, you know -- the colonials are savages anyways, eh? Nothing like that surely could happen in the heart of civilization itself?
Before WWI, as Professor Tooze knows full well, there was an influential and well-informed school of thought that held that a general european war could only last a few weeks or months at most, because all sides would rapidly run out of money.
Thing is - they were right - but they didn't predict how far european governments would go to keep the war going.
"spending on the Bundeswehr would be little more than the routine US defense budget, in proportional terms" that would make how many military bases? 20?40?80?
"Russia’s economy though it has capabilities in key industries and lots of oil and gas, is tiny" As in the fourth largest in the world, after China, US, and India's?
All this talk of militarization but no mention how much, much cheaper it would be to do diplomacy and consider what are Russian fears and their need of security guarantees... How much cheaper that would be...
that's incorrect. Europe is perfectly willing to get fooled again by turning back to Russia. Their populaces who have little sense of energy realities don't like the idea though. This isn't just a case of "EU bad".
The irony is that Vance and Trump etc. who criticised Europe for actively ignoring their citizens' democratic will are fashioning this new world order that is intended to isolate China by bringing Russia in from the cold against many European's will.
did you read the rest of the sentence? Russia's economy is smaller than the big EU nations and round about same as the mid-sized ones. And lots of that is just O&G.
Yes, I did. But still, the word tiny had no place there. Furthermore, the EU aggregate doesn't make an integrated economy, the sum is not necessarily greater than its parts, especially when it comes to the defense industries. The European mountain cannot even give birth to a mouse.
Whereas Russia has all covered: Intelligence satellites, nuclear subs for strategic targeting, subs for attack, etc. All kinds of missiles, tanks, howitzers, drones, the whole shebang. And a population willing to serve. What does Europe have? And as Aurelien in his substack mused in his last piece "The Europe we had is gone, the Europe we might have had never was. Why anyone should want to defend the Europe we have, is beyond me."
If you're in the EU, you're being tricked by Trump administration into doing their fighting for them. Not everyone, probably, but some of the poorer nations will be manipulated into being the next proxy. Also, because requirements of interoperability and the current realities of how NATO works, a good chunk of the money will go to US manufacturers. In the end, there will be a replenished arsenal with which to equip half a million Poles or Romanians 5 years from now, for a suicide mission little different from what Ukraine is doing now.
Yes, what's the point of Europe rearming and achieving defence independence only to enact US foreign policy? It may be fanciful but it's in Europe's interests to become credible in defence terms using European arms, take Russian fossil fuels and deal openly with China. Let America have its America First - it can't happen too quickly.
In the long term this entire thing will only serve to remind America why it encouraged European dependence to begin with.
This is a welcome dose of realism in a discourse dominated by fevers and fantasy. I would point out only that German demographics also pose a challenge, especially given that the smaller, younger cohorts voted disproportionately for anti-war parties of both the far left (Die Linke) and far right (AfD). If the "radical centrists" elected primarily by pensioners ask the young to go to war, will they?
Maybe a little diplomacy is in order to bring Russia back into normal relations as an equal within a wider European security framework unseen since the Dreikaiserbund or, before that, the Concert of Europe? Unfortunately I don't see a Bismarck, let alone a Metternich, on the European horizon ...
"""Several moments in conversations over the last few weeks have brought me up short and made me want to reach for history, not as a source of timeless verities, or recurring analogies, but to provide context and to explain how we got here.""' words and sentences matter. nice
Never-the-less, do you not advise against this theoretical balm in your own lectures on hegemony and poly-crisis?
Yes, when one hears people (very intelligent leftists) say that Putin is engaged in a war economy and the EU has now decided to revert to military Keynesism (as if real people in really difficult situations, even if horribly late and/or incompetent, are trying to do with really-existing security issues), the effect is risible.
Is this not the usual case of one side lying with the truth, and the other side lying in the name of the truth?
I always think back to your review of Varoufakis's adults in the room and his reply to your review, which stopped being a review of a book, or a political time, or a financial crisis, but an understanding of the human psyche as it applied to motivations : Muddle vs bad planning. If there was ever a hair to split...
Its been a while since then, and while i disparage the 'fire and brimstone' rhetoric Varoufakis continues to adopt in lieu of an enlightened technocractic pragmatism with a radical left bent, the man is right to say the sky is falling, or has fallen.
Its the RIGHT step, but towards NOWHERE understood in particular, and in this way the reference to cold war Europe is a balm, it only obfuscates the fact that that "muddle or bad plans" is a true existential issue that we continue to push into a corner, and a very REAL security threat is a great way to do something RIGHT while at the same time ignoring our prediciment (pick one).
A further point - the passing dismissal of the early 1980s peace movement could mislead: there was an emergency due to the competition in intermediate-range missiles, which partly through the movement’s response led to the end of the Cold War, as I argue in my new history, The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament https://www.agendapub.com/page/detail/the-campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament/?k=9781788217774
They work sequentially. There are two separate numbered posts - the Top Links and the Chartbook ones. The Top Links are posted more often so they are now around the 670th posts whereas the Chartbook ones are less common so are at the 360th.
My guess is the 300 series are Tooze's own reflections; the 600 series are compliation from various articles in the public domain that caught Adam Tooze's eye (including those artisitic ventures)...
This is why I subscribed to Chartbook in the first place and this is - amongst other reasons (i.e. equal parts of good entertainment AND useful tidbits of information and education) - why I love this newsletter so much!
What you do here is really writing great books in real time, chapter per chapter (and just in time when we need them for context).
Thanks a lot 🤓👏
A great piece with a shrewd conclusion, but I’d say that total war was not only envisioned before 1914 - it was seriously prefigured in the US Civil War.
The lessons of which were duly ignored because, well, you know -- the colonials are savages anyways, eh? Nothing like that surely could happen in the heart of civilization itself?
Oops ...
Before WWI, as Professor Tooze knows full well, there was an influential and well-informed school of thought that held that a general european war could only last a few weeks or months at most, because all sides would rapidly run out of money.
Thing is - they were right - but they didn't predict how far european governments would go to keep the war going.
Historical parallels are never one-to-one, but rising defense spending at a time of rising nationalism often doesn't end well, no?
"spending on the Bundeswehr would be little more than the routine US defense budget, in proportional terms" that would make how many military bases? 20?40?80?
"Russia’s economy though it has capabilities in key industries and lots of oil and gas, is tiny" As in the fourth largest in the world, after China, US, and India's?
All this talk of militarization but no mention how much, much cheaper it would be to do diplomacy and consider what are Russian fears and their need of security guarantees... How much cheaper that would be...
Precisely -- but to utter such sense is the equivalent of a fart in the Church of the Euro ...
that's incorrect. Europe is perfectly willing to get fooled again by turning back to Russia. Their populaces who have little sense of energy realities don't like the idea though. This isn't just a case of "EU bad".
The irony is that Vance and Trump etc. who criticised Europe for actively ignoring their citizens' democratic will are fashioning this new world order that is intended to isolate China by bringing Russia in from the cold against many European's will.
did you read the rest of the sentence? Russia's economy is smaller than the big EU nations and round about same as the mid-sized ones. And lots of that is just O&G.
Yes, I did. But still, the word tiny had no place there. Furthermore, the EU aggregate doesn't make an integrated economy, the sum is not necessarily greater than its parts, especially when it comes to the defense industries. The European mountain cannot even give birth to a mouse.
Whereas Russia has all covered: Intelligence satellites, nuclear subs for strategic targeting, subs for attack, etc. All kinds of missiles, tanks, howitzers, drones, the whole shebang. And a population willing to serve. What does Europe have? And as Aurelien in his substack mused in his last piece "The Europe we had is gone, the Europe we might have had never was. Why anyone should want to defend the Europe we have, is beyond me."
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/a-swan-song-for-europe
If you're in the EU, you're being tricked by Trump administration into doing their fighting for them. Not everyone, probably, but some of the poorer nations will be manipulated into being the next proxy. Also, because requirements of interoperability and the current realities of how NATO works, a good chunk of the money will go to US manufacturers. In the end, there will be a replenished arsenal with which to equip half a million Poles or Romanians 5 years from now, for a suicide mission little different from what Ukraine is doing now.
Yes, what's the point of Europe rearming and achieving defence independence only to enact US foreign policy? It may be fanciful but it's in Europe's interests to become credible in defence terms using European arms, take Russian fossil fuels and deal openly with China. Let America have its America First - it can't happen too quickly.
In the long term this entire thing will only serve to remind America why it encouraged European dependence to begin with.
This is a welcome dose of realism in a discourse dominated by fevers and fantasy. I would point out only that German demographics also pose a challenge, especially given that the smaller, younger cohorts voted disproportionately for anti-war parties of both the far left (Die Linke) and far right (AfD). If the "radical centrists" elected primarily by pensioners ask the young to go to war, will they?
Maybe a little diplomacy is in order to bring Russia back into normal relations as an equal within a wider European security framework unseen since the Dreikaiserbund or, before that, the Concert of Europe? Unfortunately I don't see a Bismarck, let alone a Metternich, on the European horizon ...
Important piece, putting things in perspective. Thank you!
Compare european demographics in 1975 and 2025.
"""Several moments in conversations over the last few weeks have brought me up short and made me want to reach for history, not as a source of timeless verities, or recurring analogies, but to provide context and to explain how we got here.""' words and sentences matter. nice
on the other hand germany gets the bomb and goes neutral.
Well, sure, everything you said: yes.
Never-the-less, do you not advise against this theoretical balm in your own lectures on hegemony and poly-crisis?
Yes, when one hears people (very intelligent leftists) say that Putin is engaged in a war economy and the EU has now decided to revert to military Keynesism (as if real people in really difficult situations, even if horribly late and/or incompetent, are trying to do with really-existing security issues), the effect is risible.
Is this not the usual case of one side lying with the truth, and the other side lying in the name of the truth?
I always think back to your review of Varoufakis's adults in the room and his reply to your review, which stopped being a review of a book, or a political time, or a financial crisis, but an understanding of the human psyche as it applied to motivations : Muddle vs bad planning. If there was ever a hair to split...
Its been a while since then, and while i disparage the 'fire and brimstone' rhetoric Varoufakis continues to adopt in lieu of an enlightened technocractic pragmatism with a radical left bent, the man is right to say the sky is falling, or has fallen.
Its the RIGHT step, but towards NOWHERE understood in particular, and in this way the reference to cold war Europe is a balm, it only obfuscates the fact that that "muddle or bad plans" is a true existential issue that we continue to push into a corner, and a very REAL security threat is a great way to do something RIGHT while at the same time ignoring our prediciment (pick one).
Very good piece; although some questions remain, it addresses many issues not clear to many of us.
A further point - the passing dismissal of the early 1980s peace movement could mislead: there was an emergency due to the competition in intermediate-range missiles, which partly through the movement’s response led to the end of the Cold War, as I argue in my new history, The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament https://www.agendapub.com/page/detail/the-campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament/?k=9781788217774
How does the Chartbook numbering work? Why is this number 360?
They work sequentially. There are two separate numbered posts - the Top Links and the Chartbook ones. The Top Links are posted more often so they are now around the 670th posts whereas the Chartbook ones are less common so are at the 360th.
It's as simple as that.
Thanks
My guess is the 300 series are Tooze's own reflections; the 600 series are compliation from various articles in the public domain that caught Adam Tooze's eye (including those artisitic ventures)...