Proteus Today
The Proteus Operation is an older book I recently rescued from a clearance sale. James P. Hogan was always a favorite of mine growing up, with his Giants series being one of those formative reads that elevated my concept of what speculative fiction can be in the hands of a master. I haven’t read a Hogan book in many years, and I’m not sure why.
The Proteus Operation is a Turtledovian exercise in alternative history. In 1975 America, the Nazis rule the world. The book covers a whole host of reasons why the world we now know never came to be, and a reasonable understanding of World War II helps the reader keep up. A rapidly fading America embarks on one last grand effort to beat the Nazis – by constructing a Time Machine and sending agents back to 1939 in an attempt to rally the world into joining the war and stopping Hitler while they can.
Another layer pops up when they learn that the 1939 Germans are being aided by 2025 Nazis in yet another time line, and we immerse into a dizzying recursion of possible realities, with people meeting their younger/older selves.
But the story led me to another line of thought in relation to what we are facing today. As someone with a lot of interest in World War II, I’m familiar with the denial, appeasement and general apathy of the West toward Hitler in the late 1930s. Generally, even detached people are familiar with Chamberlain and his ‘peace in our time’ nonsense.
The run-up to World War II is undeniably a breathtaking illustration of an entire culture doing all they can to ignore what seems to be obvious to us now. Hitler constantly spoke of expansion and the restoration of the German Empire while scooping up small nations like they were on clearance at the shopping center. Anti-Semitism didn’t start with the ovens. These things were widely reported, yet ignored by the West. Does anyone doubt that the inaction of 1937-39 made World War II worse?
So how did appeasement happen? Was the West led collectively by the most extraordinary collection of incompetents the world had ever seen? Was it a remarkable confluence of idiocy?
The truth is illustrative. The appeasement of Hitler was the course of action selected by otherwise good men, leading to the best of their ability, when facing the unknowable future. No one recognized the horror of Nazi German because no one was willing to believe such a thing of fellow men. Rhetoric was seen as rhetoric. Annexation was seen as a minor problem. These are the observations of ordinary men, and ordinary men are generally in charge during ordinary times.
In 2006, we have a West refusing to believe the words of the new fascists. We have leaders who, in general, see an expanding conflict as manageable by negotiation. We seek to bargain peace in our time with paper and diplomats, and someday I fear our grandchildren will look back and wonder how we could have been so naive.
History has shown us this path. Our problem is in seeing the events of 1939 as out of the ordinary, when in fact they were consistent with human nature. The proper lesson goes unlearned, but the consequences of failure remain in force.
Filed under: The War
Yes, I agree
After the horrors of the 1914-18 war, our ancestors understandably took steps to avoid another. Some might view this as generally being enlightened and above ordinary, even if it was done for dubious self-serving reasons. Is it naive to pursue peace?
The comment about the new fascists was an interesting one. Germany eventually became successful enough with pre-emptive aggressive wars that other nations felt compelled to oppose, instead of feeding each other to the crocodile in the hope that they’d be eaten last. At each stage (Rhine, Saarland, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Austria etc), had Germany halted expansion, the greater global war could have been avoided in theory. Had this happened, we would view Germany then as we view America, the Soviet Union, China etc now: as global powers operating politically and militarily within the borders of other nations, in the pursuit of some ideology or other.
Because Germany intended war, there was no peace. The party that pursues war becomes the demon. So today, right now, if we seek conflict, pursue aggressive war, pre-emptive offensives etc., are we now not the spiritual and ideological heirs of the fascists that we once rose up against? Won’t our grandchildren point out to us the hypocrisy of our staging the Nuremberg trials to prosecute the aggressive warmongering of the Hitler gang, only to fail to learn the lessons and start practising what we fought and prosecuted against?
Paul,
Thanks for commenting, but I don’t think I agree (with respect).
Pursuing peace is not naive, unless the pursuit of peace blinds you to the reality of the intent of your enemies. In the WW II example, the pursuit of peace went well beyond what was reasonable, to the point that this pursuit emboldened and enabled the Nazis to get a good firm grip on the continent. Had Britain and France kicked back hard with the first violations of Versailles, things might have progressed differently and many lives could have been saved.
But moving beyond that example, drawing a comparison between the hyper-aggression of Nazi Germany and advocacy of the West defending our civilization is a bit out of sorts. Islam has spent the past twenty years and more seeking conflict with the West. While this conflict is not yet of the traditional clash of nation-states, the Islamic meme of the Caliphate is very active and virulent. Western ideas of human rights, freedom and religious liberty have no place in dar al-harb (the non-mulsim world, or ‘the house of war’ – what am I to make of Islamic intentions when they call it the house of war??).
Twenty years ago, Islamic ambition to restore the Caliphate would have been nothing more than a quaint, but tragic, regional problem consigned to the Middle East. With the growing accessibility to world killing technology, some day within our lifetimes, horrible things will occur, and I’ll lay you long odds that the perpetrator will be praising Allah.
My original point to this post is that we MUST recognize this coming conflict and stop pretending that militant, virulent Islam can be negotiated away. How do we negotiate with an ideology that sees negotiation as a sign of weakness? How do we bargain with an ideology that only sees masters and slaves?
Nazi Germany waged war to exterminate a people, dominate the world, and turn every human being into a cog to serve the glory of the state. Western opposition to Islamic militancy is intended to preserve Western ideas of freedom, individuality and a respect for human rights. We have reached a regrettable point in human history where it might be necessary to act preemptively to preserve these ideas, which is admittedly contrary to the entire history of the United States.
Had the Nazi Party of the early thirties had the ability to brew up some unimaginable biologic agent in the Beer House and ship it out to all of the European capitals, things would have come out differently. That threat is very real today.
Should we stick to our ideological guns and negotiate until we are provoked to a point where almost every American agrees we must fight, our grandchildren might not be around to praise us for our civilized restraint.
As for the ultimate answer? I don’t have it, but there’s a lot more over at this post.
Again, thanks for the comment. I do appreciate it.
Todd