Star Wars and Our Wars

Forty two years ago, my best friend in high school Jon Chack and I went to the movie theater at White Flint Mall to see Star Wars (later renamed Star Wars:  The New Hope).  The movie had been out for months, so the print was rather scratchy from incessant viewings.  But we sort of liked it, though I recall liking my old Star Trek reruns better.

The movie theater as well as most of White Flint Mall has closed down.  Grass and small trees grow in the cracks in the asphalt parking lot, with only a determined branch of Lord and Taylor clinging to existence there.  Jon and I drifted apart over the decades though we caught up as many old friends do a couple years ago but, as many old friends do, drifted apart again.

Star Wars, on the other hand, has done much better than White Flint Mall.  Robin and I went to see the Rise of Skywalker at the Uptown Theater in DC with reserved seats--gone are the lines snaking around the block waiting to get in, where you'd eat a slice of Vace pizza from across the street while waiting and run into folk you know in line (I ran into my brother there once and another time told a friend in the front of the line for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II as we left that Ron dies).  Ok, the lines were fun in their way.  And though many have not enjoyed the movie we did, we went to see it a second time as the theater staff gave out free passes after the movie because there were troubles with the projection system.  We saw stuff we didn't pick up the first time (John Williams as a bartender--not the first time a musician earned some money behind a bar or waiting tables).

Lucas has described his fascination with the old adventure serials as inspiration for the Star Wars saga.  I didn't grow up on those movies, but I did grow up on World War II movies and have read much about the war.   George Lucas grew up in the years following the Second World War and probably saw many movies set during the war as well as documentaries about the war on television.  Their influence is apparent in the original trilogy.  Darth Vader's helmet looks like a German helmet from both world wars.  The uniforms and jackboots of the crews of the Star Destroyers and Death Star look eerily like the uniforms of the Nazis.

Even some of the weapons of the Empire look like German arms of the second world war.

German machine gun from World War II

Imperial Storm Trooper with a machine gun he picked up at a galactic rummage sale.

Though the Star Wars universe revels in glowing swordplay and reverence of the force, I am sometimes more fascinated by the overall political outlines and military strategy at play in the movies, but then again, I grew up in the Washington, DC area.

The first movie's conflict between the Republic and the Empire that overthrew it brings to mind the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's.  The Nationalists of Franco overthrew the Spanish Republic and received aid as well as troops and aircraft from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.  Though the Spanish Republicans received some aid from the Soviet Union, in general they were a rag tag collection of fighters, including members of the International Brigades who rallied to the cause of freedom.  The Empire of Star Wars had a terrifying weapon of terror in the Death Star.  The Spanish Nationalists had the assistance of the Condor Legion of German airmen and warplanes that pioneered the technique of terror bombing at Guernica and Madrid that would become all the rage in World War II, from Rotterdam and London at the hands of the Germans and Hamburg and Hiroshima at the hands of the British and the Americans.  The Americans continued the practice all the way through the Vietnam War thirty years later, though the effectiveness of bombing and violent oppression is debatable.  As Leia told Governor Tarkin "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Fortunately the Republican rebels of the first Star Wars movie vanquish the Death Star (I will not mention any of the prequels if you won't.).  The Spanish Republicans were not as fortunate.  Their fate was more akin to that of the Rebellion in Empire Strikes Back.  Franco with Nazi aid took over all of Spain and his dictatorship lasted almost 40 years, though he was eventually replaced with a Republican government.

A staple of the Star Wars movies that follow is a small detachment of the good guys making a sneak assault on critical infrastructure to cripple the superior bad guys: the deflector shield in Return of the Jedi, the rear entrance of the planet destroyer in Force Awakens, the Death Star plans in Rogue One, and (SPOILERS!) the Navigation Tower in Rise of Skywalker.  The rebels use the small detachments of irregulars because a conventional frontal attack on the full power of the Empire's fleets would be suicidal.  

These special detachments had real life counterparts in the early years of the Second World War when Britain fought alone against Germany.  The British did not have the strength to make full frontal attacks on the Germans and hence created small detachments to stage raids on the Germans.  Among the organizations formed for this purpose were the British Commandos, the Long Range Desert Group, and the Special Air Service (the antecedent of modern military special forces units).  The commandos made raids on German installations from Norway and France to Libya and Syria.  Their attacks became such a nuisance that Hitler ordered any commandos captured to be shot.  The Long Range Desert Group made long forays in the Sahara Desert to disrupt Axis supplies during the fighting in Libya and Egypt.  The Special Air Service made similar attacks in North Africa on aircraft on German and Italian airfields.  These organizations disdained typical military discipline and deportment and thrived on independent actions and initiative.  Small scale raids with limited objectives were their usual mode of operations.  One could describe their tactics as asymmetrical warfare.

British Commandos in Italy

A Long Range Desert Group patrol departing from base

Jeeps of the Special Air Service with its founder, David Sterling

Max Boot, the conservative writer, penned a superb book on the practitioners of asymmetrical warfare, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present.  He notes how rebel movements through history have resorted to asymmetrical warfare because direct confrontation would be suicidal.  Fighting an enemy with overwhelming superiority whether in numbers or in technology necessitates resorting to alternative forms of warfare.   The British units mentioned above arose because of the impossibility of successfully attacking the Germans in 1940 through 1943, much as the cohorts of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca and the later cohorts of Rey, Finn, Roe, Rose and, wow, Chewbacca again would be easily defeated by the Empire or First Order in a direct assault.  Though some may not appreciate the comparison, how far of a stretch is it to compare the Rebel/Republican Alliance's asymmetrical struggles with Galactic Empire or First Order with some of the following:

• The Colonial Americans with the British in the American Revolution
• The Philippine rebels with the United States in the Philippines in the early 20th century
• The Algerian rebels with France in Algeria
• The Mau Mau with the British in Kenya
• The Viet Cong with the United States in Vietnam
• The IRA with the British in Ireland
• The Mujahideen with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and, a dozen years later, the Taliban with the United States in the same country
• The assorted Syrian militias with Assad's regime in Syria

I will not make judgements on the relative nobility of rebel causes, only noting the disparate resources of the opponents.  Some rebel movements were successful, some were not.  Rebels fought against the French and British colonial empires for their freedom, even though some of the regimes that replaced the colonial rulers were sometimes every bit as abusive as those they supplanted.  The Soviet Union before its demise was among the largest and at times most brutal empires in history.  It grieves me that the United States has sometimes displayed the behavior of an empire around the world.

Max Boot notes in Invisible Armies how many successful rebellions rely on outside aid to prevail.  The rag tag American colonials under George Washington would not have prevailed against the British were it not for French intervention on land and at sea, just as Han and Leia in Return of the Jedi would not have succeeded against the defenses of the deflector shield without the aid of the Ewoks.  I am confident that the sensibilities of the French would not be offended by their predecessors being considered the 18th century equivalent of Endor's Ewoks.

Would it be surprising if a resentful Iranian Revolutionary Guard, or Yemini rebel, or Hamas member watching the rag tag rebels of Star Wars defeat the militarily and technologically superior Galactic Empire or First Order sees a parallel with his country's struggle with the United States?  Would they see the suicidal sacrifice in Rogue One as very different from their comrades' suicidal sacrifice? Are we unwittingly watching propaganda leading to our eventual decline and doom?

The Star Wars movies are exhilarating operas of action, story, and music.  To some they are great epics of sword fights and amazing special effects.  To others they represent a whole mystic universe united by the force.  But if one were to write a history of the events portrayed through the series (again, let's not talk about the prequels), sword battles, bounty hunters, kisses on ice planets, and chatty droids would be footnotes to the main military and political narrative.