Another new year is upon us, with media stories making specific prognostications, like our economy will slip into recession in the next year or Michelle Yeoh will win the best-actress Oscar for her role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” or driverless cars will finally become an everyday reality.
While such predictions can be entertaining, wouldn’t it be even more fascinating to explore predictions made 100 years ago about what life would be like today? In two opinion columns published in early January of 1923 in Minneapolis daily newspapers, there was a direct clash of opinions on what the year 2023 would look like. Let’s see which vision was right.
On Tuesday, Jan. 2, 1923, an opinion article was published in the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, “Deadly Efficient Machines Predicted for War of 2023.” Authored by the commandant of the United States Army War College, Maj. Gen. Edward Fenton McGlachlin, Jr., the main points were that war not only would still exist in 2023 but would be waged with more deadly and sophisticated weapons than ever before.
Gen. McGlachlin argued that in 2023, “cannons may fire much farther (and) larger projectiles (would) penetrate upon oblique impact with greatly increased effect and extreme accuracy.” This forecast accurately described the high-tech weapons now being used in the Russia-Ukraine war. From High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, with a 45-mile range for rockets and a 167-mile range for guided missiles, to the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS, with a range of up to 100 miles, Gen. McGlauchlin correctly predicted we would get much better at killing each other.
About a week after Gen. McGlachlin’s article was published, on Monday, Jan. 8, 1923, the editors of the progressive Minnesota Daily Star published, “What will the year 2023 be like?” In the editorial, the newspaper strongly disagreed with Gen. McGlachlin’s predictions. It argued in all capital letters that Gen. McGlachlin’s predictions could not possibly come true, because, “IF THE SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT OF WAR PROCESSES CONTINUES AT THE PRESENT RATE FOR A HUNDRED YEARS, EITHER WAR ITSELF OR THE HUMAN RACE WILL BE DEFINITELY WIPED OUT.”
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Well, war is still with us, and we have not yet wiped ourselves out. Of course, with Vladimir Putin’s continual warnings of atomic escalation, the threat of nuclear war is greater now than since the end of the Cold War. This ominous prediction could still come true, and we may face the end of times.
Another 1923 prediction of the Star editors was that states coming together in peaceful federations would prevent war by 2023. They referenced the United States as a perfect model of peace. “Minnesota does not make war on Wisconsin and vice versa, because the power to make and carry on war has been removed from these lusty and vigorous commonwealths and lodged in a higher power.”
They pointed out that a “United States of Russia” had just been created in the Eastern Hemisphere and that this same pattern of associations would happen in Europe, Central America, and South America, thus preventing war in all those places. The editors of the Star concluded, again all in capital letters, “WHY NOT A UNITED STATES OF THE WORLD AND THE END OF WAR WITHIN A CENTURY?”
The United States of Russia mentioned by the Star editors was the creation of the USSR on Dec. 30, 1922. That federation did not, as we know, bring peace to the world. Instead, it brought us Cold War proxy wars in Greece, China, Vietnam, Korea, Paraguay, Kenya, Sudan, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Eritrea, Yemen, Dominican Republic, Chad, Thailand, Bolivia, Malaysia, Angola, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Afghanistan.
The destruction wrought by the Russia-Ukraine war tends to confirm Gen. McGlachlin’s predictions of 100 years ago.
Another general, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated in November 2022 that 40,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine with 100,000 Ukrainian troops and 100,000 Russian troops killed or wounded. Indeed, if there are already a quarter million casualties from this 10-month-old war, we have demonstrated clearly that science has increased our efficiency to kill one another.
Dave Berger of Maple Grove, Minnesota, is a retired sociology professor, a freelance writer and author, and a regular contributor to the News Tribune Opinion page.
The Trust Project
