My title concept* above derives from the Blut und Eisen speech given by Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck to the Landtag (Parliament) when he “rejected demands for liberal reform“.
(Note: The headline is not my original turn of phrase. It’s Samuel Huntington’s.)
The relevant portion that lent Bismarck’s famous 1862 peroration its name is as follows: “… it is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided – that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by iron and blood”.
Continue reading “Nations are forged in the cauldron of war”
Helen Ang 