Howard Y Chisengah - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Howard Y Chisengah

The American Historical Review, 1962

The point is of no great important as long as the reader knows exactly what he is in for and does... more The point is of no great important as long as the reader knows exactly what he is in for and does not feel that he has been sold a book under false pretences. This book seeks to explain the war which began on 3 September 1939. It. does not attempt to answer the questions: why did Hitler invade Soviet Russia? why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? or why did Hitler and Mussolini then declare war on the United States? It is directed solely to the question: why did Great Britain and France declare war on Germany? This may also meet another possible complaint from American readers: that there is very little about American policy. This has a simple explanation: American policy had very little to do with the British and French declaration of war on Germany. Perhaps it would be truer to say that what it had to do with their declarations of war was of a negative kind, like the significant episode of the dog in the night, to which Sherlock Holmes once drew attention. When Watson objected: "But the dog did nothing in the night," Holmes Destroying these legends is not a vindication of Hitler. It is a service to historical truth, and my book should be challenged only on this basis, not for the political morals which people choose to draw from it. This book is not a contribution to "revisionism" except in the lesser sense of suggesting that Hitler used different methods from those usually attributed to him. I have never seen any sense in the question of war guilt or war innocence. In a world of sovereign states, each does the best it can for its own interests; and can be criticised at most for mistakes, not for crimes. Bismarck, as usual, was right when he said of the Austro-Prussian war in 1868: "Austria was no more in the wrong in opposing our claims than we were in making them". As a private citizen, I think that all this striving after greatness and domination is idiotic; and I should like my country not to take part in it. As a historian, I recognise that Powers will be Powers. My book has really little to do with Hitler. The vital question, it seems to me, concerns Great Britain and France. They were the victors of the first World war. They had the decision in their hands. It was perfectly obvious that Germany would seek to become a Great Power again; obvious after 1938 that her domination would be of a peculiarly barbaric sort. Why did the victors not resist her? There are various answers: timidity; blindness; moral doubts; desire perhaps to turn German strength against Soviet Russia. But whatever the answers, this seems to me the important question, and my book revolves round it, though also of course round the other question: why did they resist in the end? Still, some critics made a great fuss about Hitler, attributing to him sole responsibility for the war or something near it. I will therefore discuss Hitler's part a little more, though not in a polemical spirit. I have no desire to win, only to get things right. The current versions of Hitler are, I think, two. In one view, he wanted a great war for its own sake. No doubt he also thought vaguely of the results: Germany the greatest Power in the world, and himself a world conqueror on the pattern of Alexander the Great or Napoleon. But mainly he wanted war for the general destruction of men and societies which it would cause. He was a maniac, a nihilist, a second Attila. The other view makes him more rational and, in a sense, more constructive. In this view, Hitler had a coherent, longterm plan of an original nature which he pursued with unwavering persistence. For the sake of this plan he sought power; and it shaped all his foreign policy. He intended to give Germany a great colonial empire in eastern Europe by defeating Soviet Russia, exterminating all the inhabitants, and then planting the vacant territory with Germans. This Reich of a hundred or two hundred million Germans would last a thousand years. I am surprised, incidentally, that the advocates of this view did not applaud my book. For surely, if Hitler were planning a great war against Soviet Russia, his war against the western Powers was a mistake. There is evidently some point here which I have not understood. Now, of course Hitler speculated a good deal about what he was doing, much as academic observers try to put coherence into the acts of contemporary statesmen. Maybe the world would have been saved a lot of trouble if Hitler could have been given a job in some German equivalent of Chatham House, where he could have speculated harmlessly for the rest of his life. As it was, he became involved in the world of action; and here, I think, he exploited events far more than he followed precise coherent plans. The story of how he came to power in Germany seems to me relevant to his later behaviour in international affairs. He announced persistently that he intended to seize power and would then do great things. Many people believed him. The elaborate plot by which Hitler seized power was the first legend to be established about him and has been the first also to be destroyed. There was no long-term plot; there was no seizure of power. Hitler had no idea how he would come to power; only a conviction that he would get there. Papen and a few other conservatives put Hitler into power by intrigue, in the belief that they had taken him prisoner. He exploited their intrigue, again with no idea how he would escape from their control, only with the conviction that somehow he would. This "revision" does not "vindicate" Hitler, though it discredits Papen and his associates. It is merely revision for its own sake, or rather for the sake of historical truth. Hitler in power had once more no idea how he would pull Germany out of the Depression, only a determination to do it. Much of the recovery was natural, due to the general upturn in world conditions which was already beginning before Hitler gained power. Hitler himself contributed two things. One was anti-semitism. This, to my mind, was the one thing in which he persistently and genuinely believed from his beginning in Munich until his last days in the bunker. His advocacy of it would have deprived him of support, let alone power, in a civilised country. Economically, it was irrelevant, indeed harmful. His other contribution was to encourage public spending on roads and buildings. According to the only book which has looked at what happened instead of repeating what Hitler and others said was happening 1 , German recovery was caused by the return of private consumption and nonwar types of investment to the prosperity levels of 1928 and 1929. Rearmament had little to do with it. Until the spring of 1936, "rearmament was largely a myth". 2 Hitler in fact did not apply any prepared economic plans. He did the nearest thing that came to hand. The same point is illustrated in the story of the Reiehstag fire. Everyone knows the legend. The Nazis wanted an excuse for introducing Exceptional Laws of political dictatorship; and themselves set fire to the Reichstag in order to provide this excuse. Perhaps Goebbels arranged the fire, perhaps Goering; perhaps Hitler himself did not know about the plan beforehand. At any rate somehow, the Nazis did it. This legend has now been shot to pieces by Fritz Tobias, in my opinion decisively. The Nazis had nothing to do with the burning of the Reichstag. The young Dutchman, van der Lubbe, did it all alone, exactly as he claimed. Hitler and the other Nazis were taken by surprise. They genuinely believed that the Communists had started the fire; and they introduced the Exceptional Laws because they genuinely believed that they were threatened with a Communist rising. Certainly there was a prepared list of those who should be arrested. But not prepared by the Nazis. It had been prepared by Goering's predecessor: the Social Democrat, Severing. Here again there is no "vindication" of Hitler, only a revision of his methods. He expected an opportunity to turn up; and one did. Of course the Communists, too, had nothing to do with the burning of the Reichstag. But Hitler thought they had. He was able to exploit the Communist danger so effectively largely because he believed in it himself. This, too, provides a parallel with Hitler's attitude later in

The European Union is a unified trade and monetary body of 28 member countries. It eliminates all... more The European Union is a unified trade and monetary body of 28 member countries. It eliminates all border controls between members. That allows the free flow of goods and people, except for random spot checks for crime and drugs. In other words European Union is a union of 28 member countries which share political and economic relations. COLD WAR The Cold War was a twentieth-century conflict between the United States of America (U.S.), the Soviet Union (USSR), and their respective allies over political, economic, and military issues, often described as a struggle between capitalism and communism. In Europe, this meant the US-led West and NATO on one side and Soviet-led East and the Warsaw Pact on the other. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Drafts by Howard Y Chisengah

Policy making process cannot be understood simply in terms of how decisions are made. Policy invo... more Policy making process cannot be understood simply in terms of how decisions are made. Policy involves not only collections of decisions, in the sense of a number of related decisions concerning a particular policy area, but also different kinds of decisions. In any modern political system where political and administrative powers are not concentrated in only one authority, the process of making public policies can be a relatively complex one. It is an exercise that comprises a number of stages, each of which is vital for the overall success of the venture. However, the five stages of analysing public policy making process include, problem identification, policy formulation, policy adoption, implementation and evaluation. While this essay is organised into two main sections. The first section define key concepts related to the question. The last and concluding section, seeks to critically analyse the five stages in public policy making process that any government may take to create a body of knowledge that can help to resolve a problem. Public policy has been conceptualised in various ways by different scholars and authors. Geurts (2014:6) defines the term public policy as ''a choice that government makes in response to a political issue or a public problem''. This choice is based on values and norms. Policies are aimed at bridging the gap between these values and norms and a situation. The term 'public policy' used in this context always refers to the decisions and actions of government and the intentions that determine those decisions and actions. Policy guides decisions and actions towards those decisions and actions that are most likely to achieve a desired outcome (Anderson, 2011:100). The first stage in public policy making process is problem identification. Ezeani (2006:303) defines problem identification as ''the process of forming a list of issues to be addressed by government or getting the government to consider action on the problem''. In problem identification stage, a body of knowledge normally set the agenda by checking the problems which have emerged and gain a lot of public attention and require government intervention. In this stage a body of knowledge should know what and why are prevailing problems surrounding certain issues. They also need to analyse social and political context and check whether current policy is effective for being applied to certain issue as well as get the general idea that will be involved in this policy. However, when a problem ascends it is always valuable to involve a body of knowledge in identifying and understanding the gap between the actual situation and the desired situation. This helps to ensure that all policy makers understand that a problem exists and

The origins of the Second World War are linked closely to the end of the First World War. The bas... more The origins of the Second World War are linked closely to the end of the First World War. The basic origins of world war two were nationalistic tensions, unresolved issues and other resentments resulting from the world war one. However, the culmination of events that led to war was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany which was provoked by additional events before the invasion which contributed to the commencing of world war two. The major origins of world war two include the unfairness of the treaty of Versailles, System of alliances, Arms Race, the drawbacks of the League of Nations, the worldwide economic depression that includes the Manchurian crisis and the ruling of Hitler of Nazi Germany alongside with Hitler's plans, the Munich agreement and Chamberlain's appeasement policy. Therefore, this academic writing endeavour's to critically analyse the origins of the Second World War. A clear road map shall be shown, key terms shall be defined and finally a conclusion of the paper shall be presented.

The American Historical Review, 1962