Star Wars and History
Page 18
10. Ibid., 2349.
11. Chester Starr, A History of the Ancient World, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 254.
12. Aristotle, “Constitution of Athens,” 2352.
13. Daniel Wallace with Kevin J. Anderson, Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 35.
14. Reynolds, Mack, James Luceno, and Ryder Windham, Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary (New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2006), 78.
15. William V. Harris, “Power,” in Alessandro Barchiesi and Walter Scheidel, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies (New York: Oxford, 2010), 564.
16. Starr, A History of the Ancient World, 468.
17. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, expanded ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 76.
18. Quoted in Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin, 1977), 123.
19. Arno J. Mayer, The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 100.
20. Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry, Star Wars: The Essential Atlas (New York: Ballantine Books, 2009), 158.
21. Harris, “Power,” 570.
22. “The Account of Dio Cassius,” in Donald Kagan, ed., Problems in Ancient History, Volume Two: The Roman World (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 269.
23. Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 358–359.
24. Starr, A History of the Ancient World, 552.
25. Jean Bethke Elshtain, “St. Augustine,” in David Boucher and Paul Kelly, eds., Political Thinkers, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 126.
26. Scott L. Waugh, “The Court, Politics, and Rhetoric in England,” in David R. Knechtges and Eugene Vance, eds., Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture: China, Europe, and Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 38.
27. Joseph B. Pike, ed. and trans., Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers: Being a Translation of the First, Second, and Third Books and Selections from the Seventh and Eighth Books of the Policratus of John Salisbury (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1938), 11.
28. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, in Peter Constantine, ed. and trans., The Essential Writings of Machiavelli (New York: Modern Library, 2007), 65, 67.
29. Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 73.
30. Ibid., 113.
31. Paul Strathern, The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior (New York: Bantam Books, 2009), 5961.
32. Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1, 134–135
33. Maurizio Viroli, Niccolò’s Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli, translated by Antony Shugaar (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), 155–156.
34. It’s unlikely that Machiavelli would have approved of the forced conscription of human stormtroopers, but the Imperial Academy for the training of officers—where Han trained and Luke aspired to go as well—was a stroke of genius; Wallace, Star Wars: The Essential Chronology, 87, 92.
35. Keay, China: A History, 94
36. Reynolds, Luceno, and Windham, Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, 12.
37. Machiavelli, The Prince, in The Essential Machiavelli, 69.
38. Ibid., 65.
39. There’s a myth that Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy from 1922 to 1943, made the trains run on time. The cliché is often used (sometimes ironically) to demonstrate that even dictatorial regimes have some practical good to them. Overall, the Italian railway system was no more efficient under Mussolini than under his liberal predecessors; see R. J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy (New York: Penguin, 2007), 439.
40. Eric Nelson, “The Problem of the Prince,” in James Hankins, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
41. Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1, 78.
42. Wolin, Politics and Vision, 189.
Chapter 8
“Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side”
Nuclear Weapons and the Death Star
Lori Maguire
“This station is now the ultimate power in the universe.”
—Admiral Motti, A New Hope
The Administration’s START [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] proposal for reductions would . . . permit the unrestrained pursuit of their Star Wars scheme for outer space—which would open another trip wire for nuclear war. This really is a very strange idea. We cannot found national policy on fond memories of radio serials, dreams of the Old West, and the thrilling days of yesteryear. We must reject the preposterous notion of a Lone Ranger in the sky, firing silver laser bullets and shooting missiles out of the hands of Soviet outlaws.
—Senator Edward M. Kennedy1
On May 25, 1983, Return of the Jedi, the highly anticipated final installment of the original Star Wars trilogy, premiered in the United States. Anticipation had been building for months, and, not coincidentally, 1983 was also the year of Star Wars imagery in U.S. politics. On March 8, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, in which—obviously referring to the USSR—he talked of “the aggressive impulses of an evil empire.”2 Two weeks later, Reagan publicly proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which aimed at creating a space-based missile defense system. The very next day, Senator Kennedy mocked it as “Star Wars.” The Washington Post quoted him, Time magazine did a cover story using the term, and SDI soon had a very popular nickname. It was perhaps inevitable that the pet project of a former movie actor president would spawn a film analogy.3 These speeches show how much Star Wars had already become a part of American culture, but they also tell us how the American viewers of the time directly linked what they had seen in Star Wars to their country’s experience of the Cold War.4
Senator Edward Kennedy, who first christened SDI “Star Wars.”
President Ronald Reagan denouncing the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union.
In particular, we should note how Kennedy immediately connects Star Wars with the idea of military technology. Certainly, military technology (its limitations and its morality) is a major theme of the original Star Wars trilogy, with the Death Star—or, rather, the two Death Stars—serving as the most important example. Named that way because of its ability to obliterate an entire planet, this space station is the supreme weapon of mass destruction and one whose objective is to maintain the Galactic Empire’s dominance of even the most far-flung outposts. In the original Star Wars film from 1977 (now known as A New Hope), it is described as “the ultimate power in the universe.” Grand Moff Tarkin uses it to annihilate the planet Alderaan—very clearly establishing its terrifying capacity and its deadly threat, as well as the utter ruthlessness and evil of the Empire.
Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader force Princess Leia to watch the destruction of Alderaan, her home planet. (A New Hope).
American servicemen watch a mushroom cloud blossoming in the distance as the United States tests thermonuclear weapons in the South Pacific during the 1950s.
Much of the plot of the first Star Wars revolves around the Rebel Alliance’s attempts to destroy the Death Star. Indeed, by the end the Rebels have managed to find a weakness that enables Luke Skywalker to do just that—although he is finally able to succeed because he turns off his computer and uses the Force. A second Death Star appears in Return of the Jedi, only to meet the same fate in an even more dramatic fashion. This time, it is the primitive Ewoks, attacking with spears and logs, who help bring down the protective shield, making its destruction possible. The strength of “people power” and the ultimate inadequacy of purely military and technological power are thus graphically shown.
For obvious reasons, the Death Star does not have the same central position in the prequel trilogy. Its plans, however,
are shown in Attack of the Clones, while it actually appears in an early stage of construction at the end of Revenge of the Sith. The Death Star and the Galactic Empire are thus associated from the very start.
As Kennedy’s and Reagan’s speeches show, Star Wars is a product of its time (or times) and so reflects many of its hopes and anxieties.5 Undoubtedly, the greatest worry during the Cold War was that of nuclear annihilation. The Death Star provides an obvious manifestation of this fear, but it is also one example of more general worries about the evolution of the arms race and the fragility of democracy.
This chapter examines the influence that the very real atomic bomb had on the creation of a fictional super-weapon, the Death Star, and the parallels between them. The development of such a weapon required an enormous expenditure of resources and expertise, as the historical Manhattan Project—the secret World War II research project that developed the first atomic bombs—demonstrates. The twentieth century saw the emergence of other super-weapons used to intimidate whole populations, such as the neutron bomb or biological and chemical weapons. In comparing these real weapons of mass destruction with the Death Star, we should consider the fear generated by such arms and how they can become a focus for espionage and paranoia. How do super-weapons change the balance of power in each case, and how does fear of the “ultimate weapon” affect populations threatened with them? Finally, we should examine the military-industrial complex that grew out of and further promoted the creation of new super-weapons. A close analysis of Star Wars films shows how much they have been affected by the very real events of George Lucas’s lifetime, which find a reflection there. Star Wars is not an isolated fantasy world but one heavily influenced by the major issues of its time—and, indeed, influencing them.
The Death Star explodes. (A New Hope)
A nuclear explosion, conducted as a test by the United States in Nevada, April 1953.
“This Station Is Now the Ultimate Power in the Universe. I Suggest We Use It.”
Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb. . . . That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam’ which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare. . . . It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
—Harry Truman6
Clearly, the Death Star is a military arm but one that has a predominantly political function. In a certain sense, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) exist, paradoxically, so as not to be used—or used only once, to provide an example. As we have already noted, Tarkin talks of the need “to make an effective demonstration” of the new weapon.7
Admiral Motti in a Death Star conference room. (A New Hope)
Of course, the search for the ultimate weapon has played a role in very real conflicts far from the universe of Star Wars. More than one commentator has noticed the resemblance between the Death Star and the atomic bomb.8 A great deal of time and expense were put into the fabrication of the first atomic bomb by British, Canadian, American, and other scientists working on the Manhattan Project. Though the bomb was used only against Japan at the end of World War II, its destructiveness terrified the very men who had ordered its detonation. For President Harry Truman, the atomic bomb was an apocalyptic weapon—one that inspired fear and terror—and to be employed only as a last resort.9 Yet he refused to officially rule out its use, as this excerpt from a press conference during the Korean War shows:
Question: Mr. President, I wonder if we could retrace that reference to the atom bomb? Did we understand you clearly that the use of the atomic bomb is under active consideration?
Truman: Always has been. It is one of our weapons.10
This became, of course, official U.S. and NATO policy, which refused to rule out the possibility of striking first.11
President Harry Truman saw the atomic bomb as an apocalyptic weapon but refused to rule out a future use.
President Dwight Eisenhower, who had been a military man and therefore knew a great deal more about the subject, had a somewhat different attitude.12 In October 1953, Eisenhower signed National Security Council document NSC-162/2, which became the government’s basic document on American security policy: it insisted that the nation must be able to inflict massive retaliation against any attack.13 Deterrence—the theory that the threat of overwhelming military retaliation by one country would prevent another from attacking it—became the foundation of U.S. and NATO policy. During the next years, a new field of study developed—that of nuclear strategy. Interestingly enough, though, it was not the military but civilian academics who developed some of the most controversial theories associated with it. In particular, Herman Kahn of the Rand Corporation and later one of the founders of the Hudson Institute and Henry Kissinger of Harvard wrote books with provocative titles such as On Thermonuclear War (Kahn, 1960), Thinking the Unthinkable (Kahn, 1962, the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis), and Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (Kissinger, 1957).14 Even more worrying, government officials talked in a similar way: John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s secretary of state, spoke of “the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power” and developed the idea of “brinkmanship.”15 Robert McNamara, in 1967, while secretary of defense, went so far as to affirm,
It is important to understand that assured destruction is the very essence of the whole deterrence concept. We must possess an actual assured-destruction capability, and that capability also must be credible. The point is that a potential aggressor must believe that our assured-destruction capability is in fact actual, and that our will to use it in retaliation to an attack is in fact unwavering. The conclusion, then, is clear: if the United States is to deter a nuclear attack in itself or its allies, it must possess an actual and a credible assured-destruction capability.16
This idea became known as mutual assured destruction or, more simply, MAD.
Although the U.S. government played down the threat from nuclear weapons in the early 1950s with programs such as the “duck and cover” campaign (which taught schoolchildren that they could protect themselves from nuclear attack by ducking down and getting under some kind of cover, such as a desk or even a tablecloth), by the end of the decade, anxieties about nuclear warfare were being freely expressed in popular culture. Novels such as Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957) and Peter George’s Red Alert (1958) were imagining atomic disaster. End-of-world fears reached their high point in the dark parody of Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964, based on Red Alert), where we see mushroom clouds exploding across the Earth at the conclusion. Not coincidentally, perhaps, the greatest crisis of the Cold War occurred during this period. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the greatest example of brinkmanship, brought the world right to the edge of mutual assured destruction.
The debate about super-weapons was now in the open, which meant that new developments were bound to cause heated debate. One of the most controversial of the later super-weapons was the neutron bomb, technically known as an enhanced radiation bomb: it is a thermonuclear device that emits large quantities of lethal radiation but only reduced levels of heat and blast. In theory, these bombs would kill human and animal life, while allowing some structures to survive.
The news that the United States had developed a neutron bomb set off a massive debate around the time the first Star Wars film opened, with its Death Star. On June 6, 1977, the Washington Post published an article titled “Neutron Killer Warhead Buried in ERDA Budget,” which revealed that the Carter administration was planning to install neutron warheads. Its author wrote, “The United States is about to begin production of its first nuclear battlefield weapon specifically designed to kill people through the release of neutrons rather than to destroy military installations through heat and blast.”17 In other words, people would be killed while building
s would be left standing. The article strongly but not entirely accurately implied that this was a new and particularly frightful development, and these charges quickly spilled across the pages of the world’s press. The Soviet propaganda machine soon weighed in with a massive campaign in Europe against this ultimate capitalist weapon.18 The controversy that resulted led to Carter’s decision to cancel the deployment of neutron bombs, although President Reagan reversed this decision in 1981.19
Biological and chemical weapons have been a more immediate concern in recent years, especially after the still-mysterious anthrax attacks in the United States in 2001. Certainly, they have a long and tragic history, notably with the use of mustard gas in World War I. A number of nations have used them since then. Saddam Hussein employed them in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980–1988 (having first obtained them from Western countries), notably against the Kurds in the Halabja attack of 1988. This fact, combined with his often belligerent attitude to UN inspections, provided the justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Leading figures in both the U.S. and British governments drew terrifying pictures. Tony Blair, for example, told Parliament,
When the inspectors left in 1998, they left unaccounted for 10,000 litres of anthrax; a far-reaching VX nerve agent programme; up to 6,500 chemical munitions; at least 80 tonnes of mustard gas, and possibly more than 10 times that amount; unquantifiable amounts of sarin, botulinum toxin and a host of other biological poisons; and an entire Scud missile programme. We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years—contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence—Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.20