What is the benefit of historical studies for the process of creating tactics and strategies in foreign policy?
Upvote:0
"Was die Erfahrung aber und die Geschichte lehren, ist dieses, daß Völker und Regierungen niemals etwas aus der Geschichte gelernt und nach Lehren, die aus derselben zu ziehen gewesen wären, gehandelt haben." (Hegel)
Upvote:2
Ever heard the phrase 'generals are always fighting the last war'? It's poignant applied to France and Britain's strategy during the Second World War, when they assumed, based on WW1, that the advantage would always be to the side using a defensive strategy. That's why they constructed the 'Maginot Line' and refused to attack Germany.
Have you heard the proverb 'the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there'? This has the opposite lesson to Hegel's dictum which was posted above: that you can't just assume that the present is 'like' the past and use it to teach you lessons about what to do.
I can't give a definitive answer to a broad question like this: In other words, what is the benefit of retrospective analysis for dealing with the future on a political level?
It varies. A lot. Someone who draws the wrong lessons from history may suffer as much as he who learns nothing from it. How do you know for certain what lessons are wrong? I wish I knew.
More post
- 📝 How much were telegraphists in the 1950s paid?
- 📝 Voting enfranchis*m*nt in the USA in the 18th century
- 📝 When was the first time that concrete was used in Indian Subcontinent?
- 📝 Hyrcanian Burial Practices
- 📝 Why do the British Queen's Guard and the Danish Royal Guard Company look so similar?
- 📝 What happened to foreign investments of enemy citizens during WW2?
- 📝 When names of these countries were first called
- 📝 Did Man Ray photograph Nimet Eloui Bey in the all together?
- 📝 What did the term "Parage" mean in middle ages Langued'oc?
- 📝 Was it common to brush off Hitler's radical remarks as just figures of speech to whip up the supporters among US commentators in the 1930's?
- 📝 Are there any historical examples of successful price ceilings (aka price gouging laws)?
- 📝 What was the first confirmed use of black powder to blow stuff up in war (in China and in Europe)?
- 📝 What did Japanese architecture look like with heavy materials such as stone, mortar and clay?
- 📝 When was encrypted voice over radio first used?
- 📝 Why didn't the Black Death made the peasants more desperate and more accepting of exploitation?
- 📝 Did the turret shown in this picture belong to a German battleship?
- 📝 Apart from Veer Savarkar and S.A. Dange, were there any Indian revolutionaries who filed mercy petitions to the British?
- 📝 Did the discovery of zero affect our calendar and how we count days? Are we off by a tenth?
- 📝 Why did overestimated coins led to inflation and well-estimated coins to deflation?
- 📝 What is the single longest Presidential Campaign run in the United States?
- 📝 Did the Celts come to England from France and Belgium?
- 📝 What steps did President Herbert Hoover take to reduce unemployment during the Great Depression?
- 📝 What percentage of the population in the Thirteen Colonies in 1776 were first/second generation immigrants?
- 📝 The history of toys: Who invented the first porcelain dolls?
- 📝 Found picture, want to know more about. It
- 📝 Are Zoot suits considered an element of the 1940s Hipster subculture?
- 📝 Who is 'Ebinichibel' mentioned in the Borgia Map?
- 📝 Were there any British traitors during the American revolutionary war?
- 📝 When did the practice of formal declaration of war start?
- 📝 Why bother attacking castles at all? Why not go around?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What is the benefit of historical studies for the process of creating tactics and strategies in foreign policy?
- 📝 What are the historical reasons for religious and political negative attitudes towards h*m*sexuality?
- 📝 What is the historical evidence for asserting Huns were one and the same as Xiongnu?
- 📝 What is the historical name(s) for area between Syria and Mesopotamia?
- 📝 What is the historical basis for the Exodus?
- 📝 What is the historical basis for the claim that "Taiwan has always been part of China"?
- 📝 What was the shortest time between a historical event occuring and a museum opening dedicated to said event?
- 📝 What is the primary source for this quote by Julius Caesar's on Celts and Germans?
- 📝 What historical reasons did the Nazis give for hating the Jews? How did they identify non-practicing Jews?
- 📝 What historical evidence is there for the existence of Jesus Christ? What do we know about him?
- 📝 What was the original process for becoming a US citizen?
- 📝 What is the historical reason for 18 years being the most commonly accepted age of adulthood?
- 📝 What are the most comprehensive historical references for ancient India?
- 📝 What were the original casualty projections for Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 What are the historical reasons for the conventional map orientation?
- 📝 What historical evidence do we have for the existence of Mohammed?
- 📝 What was the primary motivation for a historical figure like Xenophon to create an extensive collection of written material?
- 📝 Historical examples and numbers for the value of ‘Jizya’ levied by Muslim states
- 📝 What was the motivation for the Church of England to begin recording births, marriages and deaths in 1538?
- 📝 How difficult was Muraviev's amassing of troops for the forcing of the Treaty of Aigun, and what effects on development did it have?
- 📝 What Land Runs were there in the U.S., and were the Indians paid for their land?
- 📝 What is "discovery" in the historical sense? How do historians today view and describe "discoveries"?
- 📝 What were conditions like for Chinese men subject to recruitment by the army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War?
- 📝 What is the term for a person who surveys the land and relays messages from a noble to his governed village?
- 📝 What was the process for the Japanese to sign up for the Kamikaze suicide program?
- 📝 What were Helfrich's orders for Doorman in 1942 prior to the Battle of the Java Sea, and did he comment on these in later life?
- 📝 What is the nature of questions that can be answered by historical sources and methods?
- 📝 What is the source for the Arabic name of the penguin and when it is first used?
- 📝 What is the historical relationship between Yule and Christmas?
- 📝 What were the requirements for Iron Cross first and second class?