Summary: Travel brings new insights, especially when done by Martin van Creveld — knowledgeable, experienced, and wise. He brings home to us a vision of a different path to the future for the West.
“A visit to Warsaw“
By Martin van Creveld.
From his website, 23 November 2017. Re-posted with his generous permission.
I have been to Warsaw before. This was in the spring of 1989, just weeks before the first free elections that put an end to Communism in Poland. And twenty-two years after Poland had broken diplomatic relations with Israel, which meant that my colleagues and I were the first Israeli delegation to visit the country in all those years.
At the time Warsaw was a weird place. Clean and safe, or so we were told. Built almost entirely of bare concrete, painted exclusively in gray, a sea of unintentional brutalism gone mad. And with hardly any colored signs to relieve the depressing monotony. People living on $20 a month. People queuing in front of small kiosks to buy various kinds of preserved fruit, apparently the only food that was freely available. Every corner occupied by old women holding out small transparent plastic bags with a single tomato or cucumber inside. Every street swarming with black market dealers trying to con you as they changed your dollars into zloti.
Very little traffic, consisting almost entirely of locally-produced, antiquated Fiat (Polski) cars on the streets. A hotel with lousy food and no running hot water (when I called reception to tell them of the problem, they sent up a waiter with a glass containing it). Big “magazines” staffed by lazy saleswomen who spoke nothing but Polish and refused to get up if you were looking for something. Returning home, people asked me what Warsaw was like. I used to tell them it was a place where you spent a week looking for a present for an eight-year old — but could not find any.
Twenty-eight years later Warsaw is still clean — as my wife and I could see with our own eyes — and quite safe — as we were told. In other ways, though, such is the change as to merit just one description: stunning. The kiosks, the old ladies, the black market dealers, and the antiquated cars are gone. While traffic is as heavy as in any Western city drivers are, if anything more polite.
People are very well dressed. Public utilities gleam with cleanliness. Color is everywhere. Shops, many of them first class (and, for those of you who are contemplating a trip, very cheap indeed) are bursting with the best imaginable merchandise: clothing shoes, leatherware, cosmetics, electronic appliances, what have you. Any number of excellent restaurants serving every imaginable kind of food. Some truly excellent museums. An extremely lively cultural scene.
To be sure, compared with London or Paris Warsaw remains quite poor; the minimum wage is about 400 Euro per month. But it has gone a long, long way towards catching up.
All this is interesting, but it is not what I want to talk about today.
The reason I went to Warsaw was because the Polish Staff College asked me to give some talks. I readily agreed, and so I found myself lecturing to 40-50 officers, most of them colonels (on their way to becoming generals) and lieutenant-colonels with the odd major thrown in. Average age about 35-50. As agreed, the lectures were based on my book, More on War. The course was a success and the members of the audience, most of whom spoke very good English, seemed very interested. They kept asking questions, which is always a good sign.
Again, though, this is not what I want to write about.
What I do want to write about as the fact that, for the first time in God knows how many years, I found myself in a class that did not include any women. Having asked, I was told that the Polish military, which like other Western ones consists entirely of volunteers, does in fact take women; they are, however, mostly limited to ancillary tasks such as medicine, logistics, administration, etc. In the higher ranks there are hardly any women at all. One outcome being that, unlike most Western militaries, the Polish one has no difficulty attracting as many young men as it needs.
Finding myself in this unaccustomed situation, at first I kept opening my talks by saying, “ladies and gentlemen.” As the week went on, though, I discovered that not having females around has its advantages. I found myself able to mention some sensitive, but serious and interesting and important questions; and do so, what is more, without having to follow the obligatory wisdom whereby women are no different from men and can and should imitate the latter in everything. Or having to worry about some crybully getting “insulted” and running off to admin to make a tearful complaint.
Briefly, the evil winds blowing from Brussels did not make their effect felt. Political correctness did not reign. I did not have to worry about anyone feeling “embarrassed” by what I said. Though I only spent five mornings lecturing, the experience of liberation was overwhelming. What a blessing, not having to constantly look over one’s shoulder! All, paradoxically, in the one institution — the military — which is normally considered the most hierarchical and the least open to freedom of thought.
Shame on those who have brought us all to this point. However, I am happy to say that the Director of the College has asked me to come back next year. Health permitting, I most certainly will.
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Editor’s notes
(1) Poland is different from western Europe in another sense: it refused to take in refugees. The EU launched legal proceedings against them. Poland appears to have won.
The essence of Martin van Creveld’s work — consistent over his long career — is that it initially seems fantastic (in the sense of “how could anyone say such a thing”). TIme passes, and it seems unusual. Eventually it seems commonplace.
His perspective in this essay would have seemed almost mad five years ago. Today we have colleges filled with students (mostly women) who are “triggered” by mundane words — from which they need protection. The “me too” movement burns uncontrollably, with ever-widening definitions of improper behavior.
The Left nears its “Robespierre moment”, when its leaders wonder if they were wise to start these fires (e.g., see bien pensant William Kaufman’s “The Great American Sex Panic of 2017” at CounterPunch). Next comes the “Governor Phips moment” (the court running the Salem Witch trials convened on 2 June 1692; the Governor dismissed it on October 29 after his wife was called for examination).
About the Author
Martin van Creveld is Professor Emeritus of History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and one of the world’s most renowned experts on military history and strategy.
The central role of Professor van Creveld in the development of theory about modern war is difficult to exaggerate. He has written 24 books, about almost every significant aspect of war. See links to his articles at The Essential 4GW reading list: Martin van Creveld.
Even more so are his books about western culture: Men, Women & War: Do Women Belong in the Front Line?
Perhaps most important are his books examine the evolution of war, such as Nuclear Proliferation and the Future of Conflict, The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz
His latest book is Hitler in Hell
For More Information
If you found this post of use, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also see these posts about women, society, and the gender wars — about women soldiers, and especially these…
- Putting women in combat: a quick look at the other side of the debate.
- About the future of an American army with women as combat soldiers.
- Women in combat are the real Revolution in Military Affairs.
- News about the battle for women’s equality in our armed forces.
- Martin van Creveld looks at Amazons: women warriors in the real world.
- Martin van Creveld looks at the experience of women in the Israel Defense Forces.
- Martin van Creveld: women are a problem in the military, not the cure.
Two books saying that women are the superior gender.
The Natural Superiority of Women
Why Women Should Rule the World
I have been living in Poland since 2002 and this is a good description of what the country is like. There is no need for all the political correctness bullshit as men and women here are very much on an equal footing, which is a natural state of affairs rather than an enforced one. The two sexes have a lot of respect for each other’s different talents and long may this continue.
Clean Streets. No foreigners. Freedom from over-sensitivity in the workplace (accomplished by not having women at all). I suppose the trains run on time?
A word or two about ends and means would be appropriate, maybe?
Oh, if you think Poland is bad, wait until you see South Korea or Japan. No graffiti on the subways, crime is so low that lawyers and insurers literally don’t have much to do, and with the population decreasing and robots getting more and more advanced, the locals look forward to a less crowded nation with lower living costs and maybe less hours of work than they’ve traditionally had, thus lowering their world-leading suicide rates. (Which, shock, shock, might let future young people consider having kids again down the line.)
How horribly bad for global invest-I mean, how horribly Unvibrant and Racist.
Ian,
You are batting 1000 with your comments.
Re: benefits of a declining populations
That’s an important point which is widely misunderstood. For more about this see Must our population grow to ensure prosperity? Spoiler: no!
The Poles, when they became free again, were apparently not eager to exchange rule from Moscow for rule from Brussels, They also have some idea, based on hard experience, of what European security guarantees can be worth in practice. I think too that one reason Poland is maybe more serious about making things work is that they fear actually losing a war for their own home country. NATO military forces tend to be about fighting optional wars for reasons that may not, at the end of the day, make logical sense. But the Polish armed forces are there to defend Poland from attack, and if they ever fail, then it means no more Poland. I expect those Polish military officers Professor Van Creveld spoke to were serious hard core professionals. They study war, not gender theory, and if I watched their troops on exercises, I think I might find them training pretty hard.
The Poles won’t set their own house on fire, because they’ve had some experience of what it’s like after it all burns down. So they’ve built a fine home for themselves, and I think they’ll be pretty careful with matches.
Thanks for the picture of Warsaw. The only picture I had in my mind of the city was that monstrosity the Russians put up as a monument to Stalin. I believe Len Deighton, in one of his novels called it “The world’s ugliest building”. Times sure have changed.
The Man,
I agree with your analysis, but not everybody does. I got some emails from people for whom the default position was that changing military gender roles was sensible — and the Poles; reluctance to do so was a risky experiment that needed to be justified in battle. It’s America today, where we see the world thru ideological lenses. “Yes, it works in practice — but can you prove it works in theory?”
I do recall that in 1991, some anti-Communists with a sense of grim humor put the location of the future Warsaw Stock Exchange right where Communist Party HQ used to be.
Poland takes over the world! No longer will the modern Polish Navy need glass bottom boats to see the old Polish Navy.
Gute,
“Poland takes over the world!”
I’ll bet their aims are more modest — to keep Poland independent from its large and often aggressive neighbors. A reasonable goal which shouldn’t be mocked.
“No longer will the modern Polish Navy need glass bottom boats to see the old Polish Navy.”
Quite false. Much of Poland’s navy sailed to Britain, and was supplemented with British- or American-made vessels. Like their cousins in the RAF, they fought well — often with great ferocity. Note the famous quote by the British First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound — said in 1942 when decorating some Polish submariners.
http://www.polishforcesinbritain.info/polishnavymain.htm
LK – You’re killing me smalls.
I guess you can say that Poland is not yet…lost?
I love reading Professor van Creveld’s articles and books because they are eye-openers.