There Will Be War
Volume IV
edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr
Published by Castalia House
Kouvola, Finland
www.castaliahouse.com
First published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. (1985)
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Finnish copyright law.
The stories in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Editor: Jerry Pournelle
Associate Editor: John F. Carr
Technical Editor, 2015 Edition: Eric Pobirs
Cover Image: Lars Braad Andersen
Version 001
Copyright © 1985, 2015 by Jerry Pournelle
All rights reserved
The stories contained herein were first published and copyrighted as follows:
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS by Jerry Pournelle was written especially for the 1985 edition. Published by arrangement with the author and the author’s agent, Blassingame, McCauley, and Wood. Copyright © 1985 by J.E. Pournelle
MACDONOUGH’S SONG by Rudyard Kipling is in the public domain.
THE CLOAK AND THE STAFF by Gordon R. Dickson was previously published in Analog in the August 1980 issue. It is presented by special arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1980 by Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
WINTER SNOW by Eric Vinicoff and Marcia Martin first appeared in the November 1984 Analog. Published by special arrangement with the authors. Copyright © 1984 by Davis Publications.
A WAY OUT MAYBE… OR A DEAD END FOR SURE was written especially for this volume by John Brunner. Published by arrangement with the author and his agent, Paul R. Reynolds. Copyright © 1985 by Brunner Fact & Fiction Limited.
A LETTER FROM THE SOVIETS by Alexander Shatravka is in the public domain.
EMERGENCY RATIONS by Theodore R. Cogswell is published by permission of the author. Copyright © 1953 by Greenleaf Publishing Company.
THE PROUD FOOT OF THE CONQUEROR by Reginald Bretnor was published by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1985 by Reginald Bretnor.
LEPANTO by Gilbert Keith Chesterton is in the public domain.
A CURE FOR CROUP by Edward P. Hughes was first published in the Spring issue of Far Frontiers. It is presented here, by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1985 by Edward P. Hughes.
COMMENT AND DISCUSSION ON “ELEVATION OF THE U.S. FLEET” BY RICHARD B. LANINC, USN (Ret.) by Kenneth Roy was done especially for this volume. It appears here for the first time. Copyright © 1985 by Kenneth Roy.
BATTLE AT KAHLKHOPOLIS by Robert Adams is a tale of the Horseclans Series and appears here for the first time. It is published by arrangement with the author and author’s agent, Cherry Weiner. Copyright © 1985 by Robert Adams.
THE CONQUEROR OF VECTIS by Keith Taylor is an original story appearing first in this volume. It is published with the permission of the author and his agent, Cherry Weiner. Copyright © 1985 by Keith Taylor.
PRETTY BABY by Ray Peekner was originally published in Swank Magazine as “Operation Kill-Quota.” It appears here by special arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1978 by Swank Magazine Corporation.
THE MAN IN THE GRAY WEAPONS SUIT by Paul J. Nahin is published by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1979 by Paul J. Nahin.
REAGAN VS. THE SCIENTISTS by Robert Jastrow was first published in the January 1984 issue of Commentary. It appears here by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1984 by Robert Jastrow.
JOINED THE SPACE FORCE TO WEAR MY BLUES by John Maddox Roberts appears for the first time in the 1985 edition. It is published by special arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1985 by John Maddox Roberts.
PSYOPS was first given as a speech at the Defense ‘83 Conference in Las Vegas. It appeared in the 1985 edition by permission of the author. Copyright © 1983 by Stefan T. Possony.
THREE SOLDIERS was previously published in Galileo Science Fiction Magazine in 1978. It appeared in the 1985 edition by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1978 by D.C. Poyer.
INTERIM JUSTICE was published for the first time in the 1985 edition and appeared by permission of the author. Copyright © 1985 by William F. Wu.
NO TRUCE WITH KINGS by Poul Anderson first appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1963. It was reprinted by permission of the author. Copyright © 1963 by Mercury Press, Inc.
The editor gratefully acknowledges that research for the non-fiction essays, including “Psyops” by Stefan T. Possony, was supported in part by grants from the Vaughn Foundation, and The L-5 Society. Responsibility for opinions expressed herein rests solely with the authors.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Sic Semper Tyrannis by Jerry Pournelle
Macdonough’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
The Cloak and the Staff by Gordon R. Dickson
Winter Snow by Eric Vinicoff and Marcia Martin
A Way Out Maybe by John Brunner
A Letter From the Soviet Union by Alexander Shatravka
Emergency Rations by Theodore Cogswell
The Proud Foot of the Conqueror by Reginald Bretnor
Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton
A Cure for Croup by Edward P. Hughes
Comment and Discussion by Kenneth Roy
Battle at Kahlkhopolis by Robert Adams
The Conqueror of Vectis by Keith Taylor
Pretty Baby by Ray Peekner
The Man in the Gray Weapons Suit Paul J. Nahin
Reagan vs. the Scientists by Robert Jastrow
Joined the Space Force to Wear My Blues by John Maddox Roberts
Psyops by Stefan T. Possony
Three Soldiers by D.C. Poyer
Interim Justice by William F. Wu
No Truce With Kings by Poul Anderson
There Will Be War Vol. II
Riding the Red Horse
The History of Strategy
Books by Jerry Pournelle
Castalia House
New Releases
Introduction
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS
by Jerry Pournelle
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
—Thomas Jefferson
The Greeks said tyrannos, a word that originally meant no more than “master.” But free men cannot endure masters, and “Tyrant” soon took on other meanings, until the very name was hateful. When he struck down Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth shouted “Sic semper Tyrannis!”—Thus be it ever with tyrants!—as full and complete justification for his act, and indeed it would have been so had his fellow citizens accepted that Lincoln was no more than a tyrant. Learned authorities, of religion and morality alike, have proclaimed that tyrannicide is not murder.
Booth’s act did bring forth real claimants to mastership, men who would be tyrants over part of the land if not all of it, but our institutions were too strong for them. The Constitution and the Union stood and endured. Indeed, the very times were fair for democracy and freedom, here and throughout the world. The tyrannical misrule of Ferdinand of Naples, universally regarded as the worst despot of Europe—his own people called him “King Bomba”
—ended in the same decade as our civil war. A Republic was established in France. Greece was freed from the Turks.
Germany received a constitution, as did Austria. Electoral reforms swept through Britain. Civilization and freedom were on the rise–
The dream ended in The Great War of 1914. The history of the twentieth century is the story of the rise and fall of tyrants. Rather more have risen than have fallen. First Russia, then Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, all fell under the rule of masters.
New wars began. The Great War was “the war to end war”; its 1938 continuation became “the war to make the world safe for democracy.” At enormous cost Italy, part of Germany, and most of western Europe were rescued; but Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Poland—for whose independence the war had begun in the first place—and all the Russias were abandoned to Stalin, whose personal power would have been envied by the most despotic of the Roman Emperors.
When Stalin died the world hoped for change. It was not to come. For a few years it looked as if the Soviet Empire would mellow. There was even talk of detente with the West. Now, alas, we find the changes were illusory. Yellow Rain falls on the primitive people of Laos and the hardy mujahideen of Afghanistan. At Sverdlovsk, old Ekaterinberg, city of doom for the Tsar and his family, an explosion in a military laboratory spread anthrax—black death—across the land. Thousands died. Now there is chilling evidence that the Soviet Empire has gone beyond Yellow Rain: are experimenting with gene mechanics and cobra venom to produce new biological terrors.
Despotism spread from continent to continent. Nearly all the peoples of Africa were abandoned to Bhogassa, Nkrumeh, Idi Amin Dada, Kenyatta, and their ilk. Things are no better in Asia. Javanese imperialism rules the former Dutch colonies. Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, China—the list is nearly endless.
Far from a century of liberty, this has become a century of masters, and there is little relief in sight.
Why should this be? One may understand how one man might gain control of the new “nations” in Africa, or other lands with little or no experience in government; but how explain the constant rise and fall of the caudillos in South America? How to explain Hitler and Stalin? Why should free citizens welcome a master? What is the attraction that tyrants hold?
It is not so difficult to see why nations might turn to a strong leader after a military disaster, or in times of civil war; but that is not the whole of it.
The sad truth is that democracy itself is often unstable. Intellectuals lose faith. Democracy is not flashy. It falls out of fashion. The intelligentsia feel scorned, unappreciated, and turn to new theories.
There are other pressures. Republics stand until the citizens begin to vote themselves largess from the public treasury. When the plunder begins, those plundered feel no loyalty to the nation—and the beneficiaries demand ever more, until few are left unplundered. Eventually everyone plunders everyone, the state serving as little more than an agency for collecting and dispensing largess. The economy falters. Inflation begins. Deficits mount. Something must be done. Strong measures are demanded, but nothing can be agreed to.
In Weimar Germany the price of a postage stamp went to 8 billion marks. In China, Latin America, many of the new African nations, inflation has exceeded 1,000 percent. The middle class is destroyed. The economy collapses. Democratic institutions cannot cope.
Enter the strong man, who will save the state.
For more than two thousand years the decline of democracy has been the precursor of the tyrant, who comes on stage as the nation’s protector. Sometimes he will do no more than end the strife: better a single master than hundreds who cannot agree. Julius Caesar was such a one, Francisco Franco another. They promise no more than order. They do not seek to reconstruct the nation, and they do not construct a full fledged totalitarian state. So long as their rule is not opposed, so long as the people are silent, then most are safe.
Nations could do worse than adopt King Log. Even John Stuart Mill said that a degenerate people, unfit to rule themselves, should think themselves fortunate to have a Charlemagne or an Akbar.
There are other masters; masters who will do more than hold fast to the old ways; they will usher in a new era. The theorists proclaim it. Times have changed. Old institutions, devised in simpler times, are outmoded. Modern times demand modern, streamlined, efficient government; government that can sweep away the dead hand of the past, and bring forth the new dawn.
A new friend of the people comes forth. He will end the babble of political parties and factions and class war. He will give meaning to life; will lead a crusade against poverty, squalor, ugliness; will transform the nation into a land beautiful and shining. He will be the Hero, of whom Carlyle said:
His place is with the stars of heaven. He walks among men; loves men, with inexpressible soft pity—as they cannot love him: but his soul dwells in solitude, in the innermost parts of creation. Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself from this man? He is thy born king, thy conqueror and supreme lawgiver: not all the guineas and cannons under the sky can save thee from him.
Hitler was hailed as a semi-mystical hero who would purify Germany; and Carlyle was quoted to good effect in praising him. Yet, surely, we, in this nation, and in this century, are above such mystical twaddle? Perhaps. Yet…
In 1929, on his fiftieth birthday, Stalin was hailed as: the greatest military leader of all times and nations; Lenin’s Perpetuator in Creating the Theory of Construction of Socialism; The Theoretician and Leader of the Fight for Peace and Brotherhood among the Peoples; the Military Genius of Our Time; Mirrored in the Literature of the Peoples of the World; Teacher and Inspired Leader of the World Proletariat; Coryphaeus of World Science; The People’s Happiness; Brilliant Thinker and Scholar. The praise for Great Stalin gushed forth, and not merely in the Soviet Union. Western intellectuals seemed equally eager to heap praises on the dictator who was transforming Russia into a modern nation. The era of social engineering was at hand.
By 1938 Stalin had murdered more than 12 million people, nor was this any great secret. The full horror was still hidden, but it was impossible to hide it all. The evidence was there, but Western intellectuals refused to look. Even when Stalin formed a pact with Hitler, giving him access to still more victims, a hard core of intellectuals continued to give him allegiance. Why should they not? They had already accepted the worst.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes the horrors of the slave gangs constructing the White Sea Canal; Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Professor Harold Laski, and many others lauded this great “engineering feat.” George Bernard Shaw applauded the Soviet “experiments” in penology and reformation of criminals.
In the midst of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union, the American ambassador, Joseph E. Davies, reported that Stalin had “insisted on the liberalization of the constitution” and was “projecting actual secret and universal suffrage.” Western intellectuals found democracy tiresome. They wanted to believe that society could be transformed; that the Soviet Union was a model for the future. Had not Lincoln Steffans, “America’s philosopher,” said it? “I have been over into the future, and it works.”
Self-deception never ends.
The truth is that no nation is safe. Tyrants seldom come openly, their hands dripping with blood, their eyes blazing with hate. More often they come as friends of the people; tireless workers for the public good, heroes who will save the nation; who will cut the Gordian knot of parliamentary babble; who will carry out the people’s will.
They come with promises. If we will disarm ourselves, they will provide professionals to protect us. If we give over our property they will assure us jobs. Crime will be abolished. Poverty will vanish. Together we will build a nation worthy of the future.
The temptation is large, because we all, at one time or another, have longed to have an end to striving; to create the future and have done with it. Can we not, by one supreme act, solve all human problems? The way will be hard, but
after heroic effort the struggle will be over. War on poverty; war on ignorance; war on illness; war on cancer, mental illness; one supreme act of war, and then eternal triumph. The strife will cease…
We know better, of course. We all know the price of liberty: eternal vigilance. Jefferson said it well: “the tree of liberty is a delicate plant. It must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Editor's Introduction to:
MACDONOUGH’S SONG
by Rudyard Kipling
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be entrusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.
—Thomas Jefferson
The Athenians had a constitution; but on one terrible day they, in solemn assembly, declared it monstrous that they should not do whatever they willed. By a strange irony of fate, Socrates was chairman of the assembly of the people on that day; he refused to allow the vote. The next day, the Athenians abrogated their constitution, and voted to put their generals to death without trial. Not long after, they condemned Socrates.
It is the ultimate dilemma: how shall the people be protected from themselves?
There Will Be War Volume IV Page 1
