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Always!
Color me skeptical, though, that you’re going to find anything revelatory on Twitter. It’s not a trove of forbidden knowledge. It’s entertainment, and edgy contrarianism is a costume like any other.
Now back to geeking out about long-dead men.
Wilhelm II’s Germany was well-armed, proud, and above all, young. He desperately wanted to move it from a second-tier power, beset by rivals on land and sea, to a hegemon. That meant colonial purchases, a massive naval buildup, and the quest for a reliable neighbor. He did alright on the first and really well on the second. Unfortunately, he ended up with Austria-Hungary.
I don’t know how you can look at that and think “America.” NATO stands in the UK position of sea dominance, commercial dominance, but limited appetite for intervention. It’s not in the German position of encirclement, and it doesn’t burn with the need for “a day in the sun.”
Conversely, American geopolitics is compatible with leaving Ukraine to Russia. That doesn’t generate a threat to the homeland, and it doesn’t violate any actual treaty. We haven’t done so because 1) we’re getting a decent return on investment and 2) we’ve got a bit of a complex about letting the bully get what he wants. That’s our job.
As I understand it, Trump could cut all weapons sales to Ukraine by revoking their ITAR license. I wouldn’t expect that to supersede any Congressional allocation of aid, but I don’t know what the proportions look like. Do I think he’d actually do this? No. Probably not. Well, it is Trump, and long-term consequences have never been his strong suit. The point is, he’s got leverage over our industrial contributions to the war.
Austria-Hungary was not particularly an albatross around Germany’s neck except of its own making; absent the German blank check, it’s unlikely Austria would have full-on invaded Serbia as opposed to making demands which would have been considered reasonable upon review by the Russians. It was nowhere near as militaristic as Germany and while Franz Joseph was and old, out of touch emperor, he died in 1916 and was succeeded by Karl I, who likely would have given the needed reforms to keep the Slavs happy(Franz Ferdinand would have done the same thing).
Austria as a powder keg is foreseeable mostly in hindsight; a reasonable observer would have expected Franz Joseph’s successor to calm tensions.
Everyone goes on and on about the German blank cheque and completely ignores that the French did the exact same thing about a year before. They told Russia explicitly that they were prepared to back up Russia in a general war over a future Balkan crisis (one happening every few years at this point). What is that if not a blank cheque?
The French had decided they didn't particularly mind war, Germany hardly deserves more blame than France.
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I don’t disagree.
To be clear, I’m blaming reckless German policy, such as giving a blank check. There’s a quote from the German ambassador to A-H along the lines of “there is no way we actually benefit from this relationship.” But the other options all sucked, so Germany really doubled down on a weak hand. They’d have been much better off continuing Bismarck-style defensive politics like everyone else.
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Because I think America/NATO actually achieved what Germany (according to its modern defenders) was trying to achieve, peace through unquestioned dominance on the continent of Europe. America doesn't view itself as aggressively expansionist, even as NATO expands, because its military actually is so dominant that it seems only natural that other countries should want to join our military alliance. So America is definitely not like Germany if the comparison is "young upstart power with something to prove", but America does seem similar to Germany in its view of a peaceful world order, i.e. everyone should just do what we want.
But hey, I'm just getting into this stuff for the first time, my curiosity having been sparked by the much-maligned Twitter. Maybe there is no analogy to be made, but I appreciate getting informed pushback from people who know a lot more about this than I do!
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This is the sort of enthusiasm that keeps me here with a smile at times like now.
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