More History…and More Geography: Why the Cold War Doesn’t Make Sense

So, the last post explored the possible effects of geography on the conflicts in the Balkans.  While the Balkan conflicts are incredibly complex, they have typically been either small-scale or a smaller part of a larger conflict, so I can at least make some sense out of them.  Sure, it seems kind of odd that a group of ethnically diverse nations would put aside their differences and join forces to break free from the mighty Ottoman Empire…only to start fighting each other within 5 years.  But again…it makes geographical sense given the historical and natural characteristics of the region.  However, the Cold War is much harder to explain from a geopolitical standpoint.

The US and USSR, unlike the Balkans, are not teeter-tottering between major powers; they are the major powers.  It is not a very difficult endeavor to explain the causes of the Cold War from a political, social, or economic perspective; however, the war doesn’t, on the surface, seem to make sense geographically.  The United States and the Soviet Union were located on entirely different continents and divided by the largest ocean on the planet.  Unlike the Balkans, the US and USSR were not located in juxtaposing regions.  The conflict took place primarily in Europe, but that would seem one-sided geographically, since the USSR is much closer to Europe and thus it would seem easier for them to project influence over the area.  The main problem with the war geographically, though, is that the war was not inherently a conflict of geography.  While past wars often revolved around territorial claims of expanding states, the Cold War revolved around political, economic, and social claims on a territory, rather than solely the natural resources or position of that area.

But the Cold War doesn’t make sense at first because it can’t be compared.  It is not the same as other wars.  The Cold War, geopolitically, is the first hyper-modern war.  It is a war where intellectual and economic claim are more important than the size of your territory and the natural resources your territory possesses.  Rather, the social resources you can get from your allies are more important than the natural resources you have.  The distance between the United States and the Soviet Union would have rendered the Cold War pointless and near impossible before, but technology has made the geographical distance obsolete.  The war is not…natural.  Geography is no longer solely about natural resources.  The nations of the world have made geography about who is where as much as it is about what is where.

History and Geography

The 1990s dilemma in Bosnia is the latest in a long line of conflicts in the Balkans.  This region has become notorious for its instability and constantly changing political map.  Even in the days of the Roman Empire, the Balkans served as a crossroads between Catholic and Orthodox parts of the Empire.  It was the middle ground between Christians and Muslims in the Crusades.  Then we all know how World War I went down.  Even in the Cold War, the Iron Curtain split straight through the Balkan Peninsula.  That brings us up to the conflicts of recent decades.  It’s too easy, though, just to say that the Balkans are a point of conflict just because they are the Balkans, and that’s because while there is definitely a trend of conflict in the region, there is not a consistent cause for these conflicts.  It’s not enough to say that there’s a bunch of conflicting ethnic groups, since the events of the area have revolved around everything from ethnicity to religion to politics over hundreds of years.  So it is intriguing to explore the possible reason for all of these inherently different types of conflicts happening in the same place.

I think a major contributing factor to the constant conflicts in the Balkans is the geography of the peninsula.  If you’re going to divide the world up into pieces, the Balkans don’t really fit into the puzzle any way you slice it.  You want to divide Western and Eastern Europe?  Sure, England and France are in the West while Russia and Ukraine are in the East, but the Balkans don’t obviously fit into either category.  They’re also wedged between Europe and Asia, and wedged between the Mediterranean and Black Sea.  Another major geographical characteristic of the region is a lack of natural resources; the area is mountainous and lacks a lot of good farmland.  This could be the reason that the Balkan nations have found themselves surrounded by big power blocks.  The Greeks and Macedonians expanded south through the seas rather than north through the mountains.  The Romans expanded east rather than north in the same manner.  Then you have the Christian Europeans whose land path to Jerusalem is impeded by the Balkans.  So there are a number of geographical characteristics that might explain why so many major powers seem to form around the Balkans rather than in the Balkans.  And when you have lots of major powers forming around one area…there you go.

Menagerie pt. 2

I came across one of Husain’s blog comments where he asked to what extent Tom in the Glass Menagerie served as the “husband” figure in the family.  While there is plenty of textual evidence in the Menagerie to support Husain’s claim, we can look at this from a historical standpoint as well.  Looking back at the Great Depression, we see that the destitute conditions often thrust people out of their traditional family roles.  In the Wingfields’ case, when Tom’s father is gone, Tom is forced to pick up the slack by contributing financially to the Wingfield household.  Amanda is not employed, and thus she and Laura depend on Tom as their male breadwinner.  Tom is clearly old enough and completely able to live by himself, but he lives with his mother, probably due to financial considerations.  This is another example in the Glass Menagerie of how societal conditions seem to “box in” people into certain roles, whether they like those roles or not.  Tom clearly does not enjoy laboring at the warehouse all day, but due to the situation, is forced to do so.  When Tom makes his grand exit at the end of the novel, he leaves Amanda and Laura alone, similar to what his father ended up doing.  At the same time, though, not conforming to his traditional familial role allows him to escape the doomed situation.  So perhaps Williams is creating a parallel between Tom and his father in the Wingfield family in order to ultimately break that parallel by the end.  In any event, it’s an interesting family dynamic to consider, and I think that it would be very difficult to portray such a parallel in any other historical situation than the Great Depression.  This foes to show that overall, the historical setting of a novel can really have an impact on not only the plot but also the character developments and dynamics of the novel.

Unanswered Questions

            Tennessee Williams in The Glass Menagerie is talking about the American Great Depression after it happened, being written in the year of 1945.  The play surrounds a family in St. Louis that lives within a tenement home.  With American-Soviet tensions beginning to build with the close of the Second World War, perhaps the economic status of the play’s characters could play an important role in the message Williams is trying to portray.  We talked in class about the “fiery Braille alphabet of a dissolving economy” where people are forced into touching the alphabet.  I’d like to connect this to another reference Williams makes in the play, one about D.H. Lawrence.  Lawrence was a novelist, but many of his books were banned or censored due to the graphic scenes within.  It seems interesting that Williams would relate the economy to an alphabet; perhaps this has something to do with books.  It is hard to connect censorship of novels to Williams’ feelings about the Great Depression, but it is certainly an intriguing relationship.  Williams also makes note of several labor riots within his work, which could be a commentary on capitalism.  Opponents of capitalistic view would point out the harsh conditions that this type of economy puts on lower and middle class people, especially laborers, and labor riots are a bursting example of this economic pressure.  The pressure the system puts on its people, combined with the fact that Williams’ play revolves around these lower class people and the fact that Amanda puts pressure on her children for success creates some astoundingly complex questions about what seems to be an astoundingly simple play (though the cover has quite a complex line design).  Perhaps some of these unanswered questions Williams has set up will be revealed by the end of the play.

American

The idea of The Great Gatsby as “The Great American Novel” somewhat connects to what we believe is “American.”  Undeniably, something about this book truly embodies what we think represents America.  This raises an important question: is the definition of “American” truly uniform, or is it far more subjective than we imagine it to be?  It is certainly hard to assess such a definition, since the answer lies within.  That is, what is considered to be “American” lies within each one of us on a subconscious level; we grasp it but cannot fully explain it.  The notion of “American” being a subjective quality also pertains to the topic of immigration.  Immigration has made America a literal melting pot, where numerous cultures are diffused into one.  This idea of a mixture means that each American may not be individually representative of all of American culture, but rather one part of the body, one ingredient in the pot.  One cannot merely describe an archetypal American because there really isn't one.  Perhaps “American” isn't what a person is but rather what a person belongs to, a melting pot.  Part of being American is to not be American, but rather to be something else that is somehow connected to America.  In fact, many immigrants were intent on not becoming American, but simply wanted to be in America.  Nonetheless, these people became American, and their children embraced American culture even more than they did.  Is being in America synonymous with being American?  Perhaps the future holds the answer; to quote The Melting Pot, “the real American has not yet arrived.  He is only in the Crucible…he will be the fusion of all races.”

What Hands Can Do

Although many liberties were lost by the children of indigenous peoples that were sent to boarding schools, there was some merit to the whole experience.  Probably one of the most important things these children gained from their assimilation was literacy.  Literacy, while not completely destroying the native tongue, allowed for better communication and defense against white men for future generations of native peoples.  Although the children had a choice to go with the white men, this choice was heavily influenced by factors outside of their control.  Some of these factors include culture, the effects of such a choice on a child’s reputation within their community, and the fact that the white men showed up at their doors to begin with.  Keeping this in mind, what transpires in Billy Budd puts Captain Vere in an equally sticky situation.  The narrator of the story makes it clear that Captain Vere does not want Billy to die, and that he has complete control over the ship.  Still, he lets Billy Budd die.  Like the Native American children, Billy Budd is innocent; his maiming of John Claggart was not a product of his choice.  Clearly some invisible hand was in the room, apart from Budd, Claggart, and Vere.  Throughout the book, Herman Melville gives us a sense of role play within his story; these things had to happen.  All that the officers on board the ship could see was that Claggart was dead and his blood was drawn by Budd’s fist.  Though Captain Vere could have and would have saved Billy, he did not for the sake of the stability of the crew.  It was clear that, while Billy had no animosity towards any of the crew, the crew no longer wanted him around, and thus, Billy had to die.  In connection to the seemingly unfortunate Native American children, perhaps the assimilation had to happen for the greater good.  The fact remains, what is undeniably unjust and perhaps just plain cruel resulted in literacy, a valuable commodity.  Could the white men have brought literacy and new cultural perspectives to the native peoples in an entirely non-destructive manner?  Yes.  But perhaps the gift of literacy was provided not by white hands but rather an invisible one, and the choices that humans use to block its path only change the route it takes in its deliverance.

Return of John Marshall

The court case of Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. William M’intosh, which was touched on by the previous post, goes beyond its original scope.  At first, the case’s purpose was simply to settle a land dispute.  However, as the case reached the Supreme Court, it ended up becoming a model for the future.  Chief Justice John Marshall describes the Indians as “fierce savages, whose occupation was war.”  He goes on to say that this makes them impossible to govern.  Since they are impossible to govern, according to Marshall, the United States is not actually conquering the Indians.  Instead, they are merely being relieved of their land.  Marshall justifies this by saying that the Indians’ uncivilized nature means that leaving the land in their control is detrimental to the advancement of humanity.  Within a couple paragraphs of the ruling, Marshall has effectively removed the label of “conquest” from the United States’ interactions with the native peoples.  The last post described the implications of using words like “institution” as euphemisms for slavery, and how these labels can fixate entire societies and prevent them from taking action to solve the problem(s) at hand.  Here, there is a converse effect of removing the label.  If pushing native peoples off their land is not considered conquest, which certainly carries with it a negative connotation, it becomes much easier for said actions to increase.  There is no rule or law which prevents them from taking over the native peoples of America.  Without a rule, it can become quite difficult to control peoples’ actions, and, as Marshall says: “Every rule which can be suggested will be found to be attended with great difficulty.”