Rumi Nations

War-fighting requires morale though not morality. Soldiers are supposed to be tough. Bravery can’t be fickle. If soldiers are going to be able to show bravery in battle, then they should be able to deal with ordinary, everyday corruption. Perhaps every nation claims that its armed forces are the best in the world and the soldiers the bravest. How do you quantify the bravery of the British in fighting the all-conquering Germans at the beginning of the Second World War? Was it not incredibly brave of the German soldiers to have accomplished all that they did? The soldiers of the Soviet Union made a lot of sacrifices too. The Japanese soldiers were also nothing if not brave including the kamikaze fighters and the soldiers who preferred to take poison and die rather than be prisoners of war. Indian soldiers have not really fought any major war with their back to the wall. India has never faced an enemy in the six decades since independence who wanted to occupy the land or the people....

The number of those who died in the Second World War will never be known with precision. Tens of millions of men, women and children were killed without any record being made of their names, or of when or how they died. Millions of soldiers were killed in action without anyone recording their names, or marking the place where they fell. Many calculations have been made of the number of war dead. In the war between China and Japan, which began two years before the war in Europe, it has been estimated that six million Chinese civilians were killed. The Soviet Union suffered ten million deaths in action, on land, in the air and at sea. A further 3,300,000 Soviet soldiers were killed after they had become prisoners-of-war. Seven million Soviet civilians also died; a death toll in excess of twenty million Soviet citizens. The Germans calculate 3,600,000 civilians dead, and 3,250,000 soldiers. The Japanese calculate two million civilians and a million military deaths, the largest single deat...