Dr. Jan Willem Honig doesn’t believe that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. He knows that it’s all going to re-occur again anyway, especially when dealing with war.

With the War on Terror and conflict in Iraq as a backdrop, Honig, senior lecturer in the department of war studies at Kings College in London and visiting professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, presented an iconography of victory in a discussion titled ‘Winning Wars’ on Thursday. Honig analyzed artwork depicting particularly consequential battles at the moment of final victory, tracing a profound shift in conflict resolution from the Treaty of Mnster to the World War I armistice to President Bush’s declaration of ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq.

Hosted by the Syracuse University International Relations Program and the Institute for National Security and Counter-Terrorism in Eggers Hall, the discussion highlighted a fundamental shift in attitude towards war from 1648 to 2006.

The 1648 depiction of the Treaty of Mnster, which involved 80 years of bloody religious conflict between the Spanish Catholics and the Dutch Protestants, presented an unarguably political signing of the peace agreement. Spaniards and Dutchmen gathered together, dressed in cassocks and robes, as the politicos of the two nations reached an accord. ‘The spirit of absolute equality between the two parties was regarded as the proper way to end conflict,’ Honig said.

It was the 1814 illustration of the Congress of Vienna – that signaled the end of the French Revolution – showed signs of separation between victors and vanquished. In the painting, French and Austrian parties are portrayed as separate groups, though still, equals in the political occasion.

Honig continued to present with a gallery of more recognizable works capturing moments of victory. Each image demonstrated less and less equality among foes.

‘The portrayal of Napoleon III and Bismarck after the Battle of Sdan shows the French leader stooped and dejected aside the statuesque German chancellor, but it also shows the beginning of the militarization of victory,’ Honig said. ‘What is essentially still a political moment has become a decidedly military one as well because both men are dressed in full uniform.’

Scenes from the railway car where the World War I armistice was signed exemplified ‘a further reaching inequality between parties and an increasing militarization’ of victory, as the defeated Germans ceased to even appear in the famous photograph of the allied parties.

The evolution is complete with the photograph of the V-J Day events, in which several Japanese military officials signed an unconditional surrender on board the gargantuan USS Missouri in September of 1945. The contrast between the conqueror and the conquered couldn’t be more obvious, Honig said. In a conscious attempt to humiliate the Japanese, General Douglas Macarthur, flanked by Allied representatives and hundreds of Allied soldiers, accepted the dishonorable capitulation of the Japanese army. The striking juxtaposition, ‘says something important about how we see and fight wars in modern times,’ he said.

Honig commented there has been past parley.

‘In the 17th century, the Spanish and the Dutch were fighting a war of religion – a conflict that is theoretically unsolvable for reasons of ideology,’ said Honig, ‘But despite fundamental differences of belief, the nations eventually engaged in negotiation, ultimately ending the strife and the Eighty Years War with the civilized Treaty of Mnster in 1648.’

Today, victory never ends in conciliation.

‘No longer do rivals of ideology pursue peaceful negotiation,’ Honig said. ‘Modern warfare seeks unconditional surrender as the final military objective,’ he continued, citing World War I, World War II, the Gulf War and the War in Iraq as examples.

But the endgame isn’t the only aspect of modern warfare that has changed, Honig said.

‘A fundamental shift in opinion as to what the role of war should be has occurred. In 1648, war was seen as an unfortunate but necessary and important tool of interstate relationship,’ Honig said. ‘Today, war is widely viewed as a bad thing, justifiable only in retaliation or self-defense against a bad person or criminals.’

Honig commented on the United States role in war and used Yugoslavia as a basis for comparison.

‘When it comes to (the West), the use of force means death, and what we want is justification,’ Honig said. ‘Only when you suffer an act of violence like the attacks of 9/11 is the response very straightforward. Getting involved in, say, Yugoslavia was a more difficult sell, because Milosevic didn’t provoke (the United States) in any justifiable way.’

To the audience, Honig asked, ‘Should we have negotiated with Saddam Hussein? Should we have kept the regime in power?’ As several seemingly amused ‘no’s’ sounded out, Honig made his point: ‘Negotiation is no longer a realistic option.’

There has been, argued Honig, a fundamental shift in attitude over time toward war.

‘Ideas about what constitutes victory have changed over time and they have changed quite dramatically,’ Honig said. ‘If you regard your enemy as a criminal, you’re going to fight accordingly in the strictly uncompromising fashion we see today.’

For more information, see his staff biography at kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/ws/staff/jwh.html.

Published on February 9, 2006 at 12:00 pm