On The Organisation of Nations in War

In times of present but limited war, especially, it was necessary to calm people and remind them that daily life was to be continued as in other states - to an extent. You could not merely start anew after the war, with people unused to acting in this manner. A long, involved war would get rid of a nation attempting this, who instead requires war to be waged quickly if it is to survive. A situation of passive, lengthened war would generally also lead to alterations that aren't easily revoked, or the necessity of attacking anything else that might seem objectionable.
In general, this repurposing in times of war is especially pronounced when it surrounds war work and the possibility of being used as soldiers. Hence, others - separated from this - were generally necessary if a nation was to survive a war while retaining some explicit continuity, and this would be produced inevitably on the event of a war. In this sense, war was a central event in the life of nations, and of course a nation which was easily attacked would likely be threatened.

However, alongside this, there was also the necessity of keeping continuity elsewhere. In this, states like the USA which were separated from others generally had an advantage, at the expense of being press-ganged into a pattern of continual war which they could not escape. In this sense their interventions since then have been a necessary continuation of their actions in the world wars, and the dynamic shift in this.

In general, over time most of the Western nations - including Russia - have been caught up in this process of continual war. They will not, of course, attack things which they like much - like most of these other Western nations. Of course, for this pattern to be incorporated into a nation generally requires that the people being repurposed assent to it, and hence generally requires support from populist factions in the nation. Hence, nations like Britain only more recently fully committed to this direction, nonetheless this required help from the USA and subservience to their 'conservative' Presidency, which they had to have close relations with and whose view on them was in a sense much more important than that of the British politicians. Britain could not actually form an independent politics, despite its own illusions.

In general, then, there are various areas of a nation that participate in a war. As such, when a nation is attacked, the need will come for these to be detached from the war somehow - this applies for instance to people functioning for the war effort, and in general those where the continuity is highly uncertain. This detached form is unlikely to threaten the rest of the nations, who respond aggressively, or it is ultimately forced into co-operation. 'Rebellious' communities which decry their being attacked by others rather than left there are quite hypocritical - they are effectively declaring a fight against these nations, on some level and perhaps a limited one, and hence of course likely to be attacked and possibly taken out. The overall result of this is that temporary formations which are detached from the nation generally are necessary if it is to be kept on track with the overall system, and shelter it from war. These will generally remain within one nation or other, but if the war comes too close or they are caught in the 'heart of the storm' or the centre of this dynamic, then they will generally detach from both of these to some extent, and try to form isolated communities to assure people of this continuity. This will generally be more likely to occur when the war is milder in nature, or this continuity can be easily drawn upon.

In general, then, nations which are in notable war or caught up in the process are likely to be victimised by elements within them, elements which however will not relate offensively to the others or which are not really 'revolutionary' - sometimes even in intent. Of course, these forces are either not interested in the nation, or take on a 'nationalised' form - in which case their conscious formation around a lack of wartime 'patriotism,' despite their attempting to take on this 'patriotic' or national form, presages their undoing. Such patriotism must in the future be manufactured in a highly artificial manner, so far as such conditions are concerned. However, generally, these break-away elements cannot easily be integrated with the rest of the nation, as this is not their function: it presupposes some opposition between them and the nation, somewhat in spite of itself, which is still to be worked out, and might take the form of their repression until the nation can return to functioning. However, if the nation allies too easily with 'normal' foreign elements, it will undermine its own position in this return to functioning.

However, ultimately this tendency among the nation did not serve to improve it, and sometimes turned against its war effort. This lack of commitment could be fatal. Sometimes, the state would be forced to clear them away, in order to resume its nationhood as something separate and fortified. In addition, because these elements took place at around the point where people might hope to gain entrance to official roles or elsewhere, they could easily forestall any mobility in the state, which it then had to make up for somehow through the replacement of its officials. This tendency, separating itself from the nation's war effort in order to maintain continuity, was one which did not cling to a definite tendency or doctrine. However, it was ultimately characterised by its finitude and hypothetical nature - it was attempting to keep continuity with some hypothetical ending of the war, when it would flow back into the rest of society - and hence was in itself weak and indefinite. In Russia, for instance, this tendency had decisively entered the nation by the time of Tsar Nicholas II, where coronation events could easily turn into stampedes for food, and in general required exposure and addressing. By the time this tendency had overrun a nation on its own part, if such were possible, it would in all likelihood have lost a war - and a nation so divided will either see one side fall, or both. Hence, in general, such nations as were in major war - something quite common in the 19th Century, and taking a significant part in the early 20th Century, but then more sparse and partial as time went by - led to certain functions in them which were realised in accordance with the stage of the war. These could have notable political consequences, but were always in a sense subordinate.