Day 8 of political science this semester is all about nuclear war. My professor began the lecture talking about how Putin’s recent speech threatened the usage of nukes if NATO sends its troops into Ukraine. War, as he describes it, is a condemnation of humanity. War just doesn’t make sense to my professor, killing for territory and to relive the glory of the Soviet Union is just wrong and nonsensical. He is, personally, very anti-war (sort of) and is hoping our generation will be different. After this he started the lecture.
We first learned about strategic bombardment, which is concerned with targeting the centre of an enemy rather than the periphery, you attack the capitals. This was a strategy from Giulio Douhet. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were brought up as examples of this strategy being utilized, yes Tokyo is the capital but it was already bombed to hell at the time so I guess the next best targets were those two cities. Apparently my professor visited Hiroshima and saw the site, so when he hears Putin talk about nukes he knows it’s serious. Before this section ended we learned about Massive Retaliation, AKA Mutually Assured Destruction. This led to the Russians (he never really refers to them as Soviets) developing their own arms to keep pace. Mutual assured destruction denies the enemy from achieving their goals and imposes huge costs. He then asked us if we were comfortable with countries having nuclear weapons, like the US. Do we trust Biden? No one really answered. There was then a tangent about hope North Korea has made itself very impenetrable, they cannot be messed with. He then told us that Ukraine used to have nukes too but they gave them away to Russia for safety guarantees. A student then made a joke that the deal was clearly violated by Putin and not upheld. My professor then said that he believes Ukraine should’ve kept its nuclear arsenal.
Next we learned about ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles. Im sure you all know much more about this weaponry than I do but what was said in class was: ICBMs have the capability of destroying humanity and civilization, the can have multiple war heads in jut one missile (MIRVs), and that ICBMs make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like playtime. He then mentioned the other acronyms: ALBM, ALCM, and SLBM, all different kinds of missiles. Next there was the differences between passive and active defence; passive meaning stuff like bunkers, he mentioned how political leaders and the billionaire class will be saved during nuclear fallout (yes, he used the term “billionaire class”); active defence is shooting down missiles, basically the “Iron Dome” which failed due to being overwhelmed by Hamas rockets. Then we looked at the targets of nukes: counter value targets and counter force. So counter value targets are your cities, communication hubs, intelligence areas too; counter force is related to the nuclear first strike, thats all we really went over. First strike is just if you want to win you have to hit first. He then gave an example scenario that if you were in a nuclear war with the US you would target Washington D.C. He then went on a tangent that the White House was very disappointing to see, in the movies it looks so clean and nice but in reality it is apparently located in a very shitty neighborhood. He then talked about how in the 70s and 80s the Americans developed a bomb that would kill all organic life while leaving buildings intact, this bomb was called the Neutron bomb. When people found out about this bomb there were mass protests against nuclear. Protesters in Germany became MPs and eventually formed the Green Party which was environmentalist and promoted peace. Nowadays the Green Party is less about peace but still focuses on the environment. Little do they know war is detrimental to the environment and continuing to support both Israel and Ukraine goes against their environmental values they supposedly have.
Next is limited nuclear war, which is fairly self explanatory: doing war with limited means. Nuclear weapons would be used only on the battlefield, so only tactical nukes, short range. Anyway he went on about Putin again, he seems absolutely terrified about nukes being used. A student asked if the reason America has so many military bases around the world is because they want to plant nukes there for potential use, my professor said no and the reason for those bases is promises of protection. He then mentioned how America has a Nuclear Umbrella over Canada… what? I don’t know how comfortable I feel about that, to be honest. I understand it’s supposedly for protection, but if we didn’t ally ourselves with the Americans so much we probably wouldn’t need this umbrella. Maybe I’m being overdramatic…
The last things we covered before the seminars were extended deterrence and minimum deterrence. Extended deterrence is what South Korea has, using nukes to deter attacks on allies; minimum deterrence is a country having the minimum ability to cause damage via nukes. Rationality, capability, credibility, and commitment are needed for proper deterrence. He then asked the class if Kim Jung Un was rational, no one really answered expect one student saying “it depends on your stance.” What did he mean by that? Maybe what your definition of rational is, I guess. The discussion didn’t goo further as we kicked off with seminars.
Tuning out the seminars is quite difficult for me. I tried to do so anyway because these seminars just can’t stop taking digs at the DPRK, China, Russia, etc. To me this whole thing is exhausting. Coming to school everyday is exhausting, and not because of the assignments.
I feel like I have to do extra work compared to other students because I am on my own. I cannot rely on fellow students or even my professors as my existence in this school is a contradiction. My being goes against what this university seems to stand for (see the library display) and I am unable to be my authentic self unlike my fellow students. They can be honest and have support but I can’t. If I spoke up in class against any misinformation/propaganda I would get clobbered. I can’t seek mentorship, proper mentorship, and support from my professors because if they knew they would pull away. I can only rely on myself and it’s so hard.
Yes, you all help me with whatever I ask so much and I appreciate it more than you could possibly know, but it’s different. I have no one in my physical vicinity and that sucks. Sure, I told my political science professor about how I wanted to teach Marxism, but thats as far as it can go, he doesn’t know more than that except for what I write in my papers. I see reactionary nonsense and know I have no one here in my corner. If students dogpiled me in class my professors would shut it down but that doesn’t stop them from doing it outside the class too. I can only be myself in secrecy and in my papers/assignments. That’s not feasible in the long term and it’s already taking its toll. I will graduate, but I wont come out unscathed. I’ll keep my head down to avoid physical harm, but the mental scars will be deep and prolonging, if that makes sense.
Anyway thats the end of my notes. Apologies for the personal rant at the end. If you’re curious about what transpired with the library display and what my professors had to say about it, look out for an update post in comradeship soon.
For those interested, one of the seminars was covering the paper “Beyond the pivot” by Kevin Rudd and it was the only seminar that had a proper and well thought out critique of the article.
Also, please feel free to point out any spelling/grammatical mistakes! My keyboard is ass and I want to make sure my posts aren’t too insane to interpret.
yeah it is nonsensical! i wonder if thats not actually the reason for the conflict? i wonder if there are better explanations for what is happening in Ukraine and why hmmmm. This type of politics where it’s like “i dont understand why cant we all live happily in peace” while completely ignoring capitalism/imperialism is beyond me, especially for a professor.
I guess bringing up capitalism and imperialism is beyond the scope of this class but honestly that’s not a great excuse. Why bring up Putin’s supposed motives if you’re going to be inaccurate about them? I think my professor has special beef with Putin so no amount of “grace” will be given if that makes sense.
i meant it not as a criticism of your professor specifically, more that in general that the liberal media/academia does not have an analysis of modern wars beyond “this side is doing war because its evil and bad, so the other side must be angels”. and of course its always US enemies who are the evil ones.
It’s funny also, by that logic if they had any sort of self-awareness and integrity (they don’t) the west- particularly the US, but also western Europe- are the greatest evils humanity has ever faced (they are, of course), and the US is the embodiment of evil.
It’s strange isn’t it, the double standard.
My professor does seem to have a vested interest in foreign states dealing with Africa, but he more so focuses on China, I haven’t heard a peep about what the West has done. I can’t tell if he believes what China is doing there is insidious or if he’s just curious. Because my paper is about China and Russia, with a part of it needing to talk about what they are doing in Africa, he told me about how what China is doing could be considered a debt trap, I then went on the defensive saying (sarcastically) that the IMF would never be so evil as to debt trap other nations, the IMF is an angelic organization unlike China who is just evil. He, at first, took my statement literally and I had to straight up tell him I was being incredibly sarcastic and joking, I don’t believe China is evil, but some people definitely do. He seems to agree the IMF is also bad but I don’t know…
Anyway we were talking about war lol I just wanted to illustrate that the double standard goes beyond war and permeates other aspects of global politics too.
Oh, undoubtedly. As Clausewitz famously described it, war is the continuation of policy with other means- it’s all tied together, one can’t be understood without the other.
Similarly, I agree China isn’t evil- frankly, I see it as a great hope for Africa and the world (not to minimize the efforts of Africans and other peoples themselves to better their lot in life). A lot of discussion can be made about the difference between Chinese and western loans (of which any honest research, western included, has concluded the predictable- that they aren’t debt traps, and are preferable compared to loans by western institutions in general whether in regards to interest rates, debt forgiveness/haircuts, and maintaining local sovereignty and developing local infrastructure and industries).
Personally I think that the best argument for China though, while not necessarily dispelling the “China bad” narrative in their minds (because the honest truth is for many, probably your professor included- they won’t get there due to their own personal biases) is simply the undeniable fact- China has provided an alternative for financing and development, where before, western capital held a monopoly (or oligopoly). China’s loans and activities also have produced a tangible impact on Africa, where interestingly enough (but unsurprisingly) western loans and activities have not (and often done the opposite)- Chinese influence and cooperation has resulted in schools, hospitals, telecom infrastructure, roads conducive to internal connection and inter-African trade rather than foreign resource extraction, the development and cooperation with local, African-owned industries and modern agriculture, etc… western capital has, by-and-large, never provided any of these things without extortative policy strings attached, typically with the intent of forcing open African markets and manipulating domestic policy, often towards austerity and a focus on resource exports rather than local development- and simply put, western capital also simply does not have a track record of delivering infrastructure development- even, generally, within their own countries- within reasonable price ranges and efficient, reliable timeframes, certainly not compared to China. These costs, when dealing with western capital- are naturally shifted onto the recipient countries, even in many cases of “development aid,” where the strings attached require said countries to purchase, often with built-in requirements of additional financing on their own behalf, aforementioned inefficient and overpriced western goods and services for development, rather than sourcing locally.
China’s policy of “non-intervention” and its treatment of African nations (with respect) is also naturally preferable to any African states- in contrast, one can look at the actions of western nations and capital and how they have scarred the continent (and the world) and continue to do so into modern times- the actions of western militaries, PMCs, and western-backed militias in countries like Nigeria or Somalia, in the Sahel region or the Congo, or the destruction of vital infrastructure in Libya (where western media naturally ignored any possibility that destruction of the Great Manmade River by NATO in 2011 could have had something to do with subsequent reported floods and droughts), the backing of the military junta in Egypt and of the Arab spring across northern Africa (as well as the MENA region), the backing of tribalists in recent years in Ethiopia or of political opposition across southern Africa- none of these activities have won the west any favor in the continent- rather the opposite; they have left a trail of corpses, destabilized nations, western-backed dictators and blatant corruption, and deep resentment and distrust in affected nations.
The difference is undeniable. China, a country which once faced all of the same problems African nations still face today, has undeniably changed Africa’s circumstances for the better- education, healthcare, transportation, and of course industrialization are all the things upon which societies thrive and prosper, and can chart out a independent course for themselves; in contrast, it can be said that- by intention or otherwise, the west has only strung Africa (as it has the rest of the world) along in these matters, providing a drip-feed at times of aid or cooperation while stabbing them in the back with destabilization if not outright regime change, indebtedness, and imposed austerity.
(edit) it is also worth noting, is the difference between Chinese negotiation, and what often can only be described as western diktat and lawfare. Inexplicably, Chinese corporations and the CPC seem to have some wild notion that- African resources, are Africans’ resources- theirs to trade or not, theirs to impose policy upon said trade, and theirs to set royalties instead of imposing what can only be described as modern-day unequal treaties upon. It came to mind the recent (and ongoing) battle between the WTO and Indonesia over their copper export ban (wherein Indonesia is presently banning the export of unrefined nickel ore). Similar activities (and the typical western response) have been underway all across Africa (and really, much of the global south)- nations like Namibia, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, etc. in what can only be described as a revolt against western capital and the “resource curse.” Disputes over royalties (oftentimes, over blatantly exploitative royalties arrangements literally imposed during the process of these nations being “granted” their independence) also have played a role across Africa- particularly in all three nations involved in the recent anti-imperialist coups in the Sahel region (Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso). These arrangements, often providing African nations with pennies on the dollar for their (raw) resources, are jealously guarded by the Europeans and other western nations which are responsible for imposing them in the first place.
Yeah, I get what you’re saying. With that in mind my school does have classes that focus on war and diplomacy, they were courses I’ve wanted to take, we even have a course on European fascism but no professor to teach it currently so its not available to take yet. I do wonder if those courses do a better job at analyzing war beyond good vs bad, we wont know until I take them eventually…