Tag Archives: Lessons of History

Sleigh Ride.

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            Imagine a Russian four-horse sleigh.  Coming home from a Christmas party at a nobleman’s country estate, it is loaded with presents.  Its passengers are bundled in furs and further insulated against the cold by much wine and an elaborate meal.  Sleep beckons. 

            Glancing drowsily toward the nearby forest, one among them sees the glitter of eyes watching from the woods.  “Wolves,” he says.  The sleigh-driver urges his horses on a bit.  Looking back, the passengers see a pack of wolves emerge from among the trees.  Then the leader of the pack begins to run after the sleigh.  The others follow.  Looking back, the driver sees them and quickly cracks his whip.  The horses surge forward and the passengers come fully awake.  Safety lies only in reaching their own country house. 

            The wolf-pack gains ground.  The driver belabors his horses with the whip, but calls to his passengers that they must throw things overboard.  That will lighten the load for the horses and it may distract the wolves.  Hampers filled with left-overs are the first to go.  The wolves pause briefly to snap at the offerings, but then come on with appetites whetted.  Gifts still wrapped in paper and ribbon go over the back next.  The wolves hardly glance at these, just keep rushing toward the sleigh.  Panic begins to grip the people on the sleigh.  Would they reach home before the wolves caught up? 

            So it was with rearmament in the Thirties.  Germany was the leader of the pack, Japan and Italy were other members of the pack; Britain and France were the passengers in the sleigh; and rearmament itself was the sleigh. 

            For more detail and depth on these issues, you can see additional posts on this blog. 

            The Costs of the First World War.  The Costs of the First World War. | waroftheworldblog 

            Appeasement and Beliefs.  Appeasement and Beliefs. | waroftheworldblog 

            Britain, Appeasement, and Today.  Britain, Appeasement, and Today. | waroftheworldblog 

            France and Appeasement in the Thirties. France and Appeasement in the Thirties. | waroftheworldblog   

            Crossing the Line.  Crossing the Line. | waroftheworldblog 

            Hitler’s War.  Hitler’s War. | waroftheworldblog 

            Why write this stuff NOW?  Why write?  I’m a historian trying to make sense of human actions under the pressure of ideas and events.  It’s my way of trying to serve a useful purpose beyond my own enjoyment.  Why NOW?  I suspect that those times inform our times.  China is the leader of the pack; Russia, North Korea, and Iran are the other wolves.  Maybe I’m just crying “Wolf!” 

No more coals to Newcastle.

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            By the mid-Thirties the international situation had begun to darken.  It was not yet Desperate.  The worst—another World War—might still be avoided.  Serious men had to deal with situations in a realistic way.  What were the situations? 

First, there was the conflict between the “democratic” and “status-quo” powers (Britain, France, and the United States) and the “authoritarian” and “revisionist”: powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist Russia, and Imperial Japan.  Each of the “revisionist” powers desired to expand its territorial control over adjoining areas.  To accomplish these goals they would have to overthrow the system of international order—often called the Versailles settlement—created after the First World War.  Beyond that common goal they were often at odds among themselves. 

            Second, there were the military realities.  The conventional economic policy adopted to respond to the Depression (1929-1939) combined lower taxes with spending cuts, while limiting international trade (autarky).  Where countries stuck with this policy, military budgets suffered.  Where they did not stick with this policy, they rearmed faster.  Meanwhile, autarky spurred both isolationism and aggression.

            Third, Britain had three enemies threatening its global position: Germany in Europe, Italy in the Mediterranean, and Japan in the Far East.  It had the military resources to fight one major war at a time.  Britain lacked good allies.  America was deeply isolationist; Communist Russia hated capitalist counties—democratic or authoritarian; and France had been “bled white” in the First World War, while the Depression intensified partisan polarization.  If Britain fought one major power, the other two enemies would pile on.  Unless they were bought off or deterred. 

            In July 1934, Austrian Nazis had tried to seize power.  Hitler’s fingerprints were all over the failed coup.  The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered four army divisions to the border with Austria to deter German intervention.  In London and Paris, this seemed a good omen. 

            In March 1935, Nazi Germany declared that it would begin rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty.  In April 1935, representatives from Britain, France, and Italy met in the resort town of Stresa.  They agreed to resist any further German violation of the Versailles Treaty.  During the conference, the Italians raised the issue of Ethiopia.  Italy wanted to take over a big chunk of Ethiopia.  This was Italy’s bill for helping contain Germany.  The demand embarrassed the British, so it never made it into a written agreement.    

Mussolini had not abandoned his goals.  In October 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia.  Public opinion, but especially “progressive” opinion, in both Britain and France went wild.  Demands rang out for support for the League of Nations and economic sanctions on Italy. 

British and French leaders still hoped to save the Italian alliance against Germany.  In December 1935, British Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare met secretly with French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval.  They agreed on a plan that gave most of Ethiopia to Italy while leaving a fragment independent.  News leaked, public opinion revolted, the plan was abandoned, and Hoare resigned.  King George V said “Ah well Sam, no more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris.” 

Lesson: If you want the “status quo” in one area you may have to accept “revisionism” in another.  Who is the main enemy?  What are the alternatives? 

The Costs of the First World War.

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First, the war cost Europe its system of international security. 

That system had depended upon a balance of power among the five great powers (Germany, France, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Britain) and on the managed decline of the Ottoman Empire. 

The Ottoman Empire collapsed.  France got Syria and Lebanon; Britain got Iraq, the Trans-Jordan, and Palestine; the Greeks tried to seize much of Turkey and got a bloody nose.  Who would now organize the Middle East? 

The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed.  Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, the remnant of Austria, and an enlarged Rumania emerged out of the ruins.  Post-war Central and Eastern Europe was made up of weak, quarrelsome “Potemkin” countries.  Ethnic minorities were scattered throughout the new countries and territorial disputes festered.  “Ruthenia, Land That We Love.”  The collapse of a single large market gave way to competing national economies.  Who would now organize Central Europe? 

The tsarist empire collapsed and the borders of Russia were driven back hundreds of miles.  Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and an enlarged Rumania (Bessarabia) all emerged from the ruins.  Russia went through a revolution, civil war, and famine.  Russia sought to export revolution to other countries by force of arms and by conspiracy.  Russia repudiated its international debts.  Communist Russia became a rabid dog of a country. 

Britain turned toward near-isolation in Europe as it dealt with domestic problems and imperial issues.  The British economy slumped soon after the end of the war, leaving it with a million men unemployed for many years.  The “staple industries” of pre-war British prosperity were ruined: cotton-spinning, ship-building, coal.  Rebellion broke out in Ireland and the British were too stupid to do the obvious thing.  Imperial security was threatened through conflicts with France over Europe and the Middle East, with Japan over the Far East, and the US over economic issues.  In Europe, Britain wanted a restored prosperity and stability. 

France emerged from the war “bled white,” without reliable allies, and fearful of German revival.  The population structure of France had long differed from that of other European countries, so the casualties of the war had a different effect.  Twenty years after the First World War, France would enter the “hollow years” of few draftees.  The French tried to replace their lost Russian alliance by negotiating treaties with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.  This was like trying to replace a sumo wrestler with circus dwarves.  The refusal of the American Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty ended the Anglo-American security guarantee offered to the French in exchange for concessions on the treatment of Germany. 

Germany emerged from the war with its military power and territory significantly reduced, and with a heavy reparations burden imposed on its economy, but with its real power relative to every other country greatly increased, and a deep sense of grievance against virtually everyone.  German population rebounded from the war losses much faster than did that of France.  To the east and south Germany was bordered by small, weak countries in need of foreign investment and technical expertise.  Germans were enraged by the war’s outcome. 

Second, the war cost Europe its dominant position in the world. 

The foundations of European economic leadership were ruined. 

During the war European industries had shifted from producing consumer goods (for either the domestic or the export market) to producing military goods.  Foreign producers had expanded their own industry to take up the slack.  For example, Japan captured the Asian textiles market.  Indian, Latin American, and North American producers had done similar things.  They also had exported goods to a Europe that could not provide for itself.  How were Europeans to re-gain these markets after the war? 

Wartime losses of gold and the liquidation of foreign investments had transferred wealth from Europe to other countries.  Japan and the United States were the big winners here.  However, the income from “invisibles” (income from foreign investments, interest on loans, fees for insurance, merchant shipping income) had long covered a European payments deficit.  Now these were all gone. 

The war left behind a huge tangle of debts.  All the Allied belligerents had borrowed from Britain, then from the United States.  Britain also had borrowed from the United States.  How were these debts to be re-paid after the war? 

Germany owed reparations to the victors.  Initially, these reparations were supposed to cover actual damage to property (mostly in France and Belgium).  Subsequently, they were expanded to include pensions to widows, orphans, and disabled veterans, and separation allowances to the troops (generally one year’s pay).  This massively increased the sum of reparations, but there was no way to calculate the exact amount or figure out a payments scheme until 1921. 

Non-European states saw their power greatly increased.  Japan rose as a power in the Far East by seizing the German colonies north of the Equator, by seeking to dominate a China in the midst of civil war and revolution, and by expanding its navy.  Even more importantly, the United States revolutionized its position in the world.  From 1914 to 1918, the United States went from being the greatest debtor nation in the world to being the greatest creditor nation.  During the war the Americans set out to build a “Navy second to none.”  In short order the Americans had raised and trained an army of four million men.  After the war the United States began to muscle its way into Latin American markets that Britain had long dominated.  

Nationalism in the non-western world greatly increased.  Turkey emerged out fo the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, driving out French, Greek, and British forces, then compelling the wartime victors to negotiate a new peace treaty with the Turkish Republic.  In the Middle East Arab nationalism appeared.  Egypt gained a nominal independence that did not satisfy the desires of the Egyptians.  In India, Gandhi began his campaign to force the British to leave.  While they were trying to fend off Japanese imperialism, the Chinese nationalists also adopted an anti-Western stance.  Even in the “White Dominions” (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada), the British found the members of the Empire pushing back against London’s authority after the war.  The Chanak Crisis in 1922 led to the fall of prime minister Lloyd George. 

Third, the war cost Europe its stable society based on bourgeois values. 

Middle- and upper-class supporters of Enlightenment values (sometimes called Modernism) were gravely weakened.  Casualty rates had varied by social class.  In terms of percentage, not absolute numbers, the upper and middle classes had born the brunt of the war in all countries because they had provided the bulk of the junior officers. 

The upper and middle classes had suffered huge economic losses during and after the ar.  No country had universal social welfare systems.  Members of the industrial working classes were covered in some places.  However, the middle and upper classes depended upon a lifetime of savings and inherited wealth to pay for a middle-class lifestyle, retirement, the education of their children, dowries for daughters and setting sons up in business or the professions.  Wartime and post-war inflation, taxation, and the shift in income distribution had undermined the resources of many of these people. 

      The middle ground of politics thinned out as post-war politics was radicalized and polarized.  The political middle ground, where people could find a basis for compromise, thinned out.  On the left, Communist parties following Russian Bolshevik orders competed with Socialists, who were discredited by having supported the war effort.  This pulled one wing of politics toward the extreme left.  On the right, fascist parties competed with traditional conservative parties.  This pulled the other wing of politics toward the extreme right.  The big losers here were the traditional “liberal” parties of left and right.  Individual liberty, a small government, and a free market offered few attractions in post-war politics.  Certainly, young people and veterans were not much attracted to such parties. 

            Before the war widely-accepted conventional liberal views had held that humans were governed by reason, that compromise offered the best solutions to political issues, that history was a story of continuing progress, that science served mankind, and that one could regard the future with optimism.  Before the war, a few thinkers had argued that people were driven by the sub-conscious, by impulse, and by individual assertiveness more than by rational thought and a co-operative spirit, and that there were limits to human understanding.  The ideas of Einstein, Freud, and Nietzsche, among others, were known to a relatively small number of well-educated people willing to entertain radical ideas and their racy implications.  However, these ideas were not generally accepted.  After the war, however, the pre-war “fringe” thinkers began to look like prophets of the new age.  These views, usually in a popularized form, became fashionable. 

            Furthermore, wartime governments had systematically violated the tenets (NOT “tenants”) of liberal doctrine.  Free trade had been abandoned for import and export controls imposed by the government.  Passports had been introduced to regulate the movement of people from one country to another.  A gold-backed money supply had been replaced by freely-printed paper currency.  Individuals had been conscripted for military service or for industrial labor.  Governments had closed small, inefficient companies to shift their labor and machinery to larger, more efficient firms in order to better support the war effort.  Censorship hid many truths from people, while propaganda sought to whip up the emotions, rather than appeal to reason. 

            Most of all, looking at the casualty totals, who could believe in Reason or Progress? 

History Lessons.

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            In 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in major Russian cities in a coup not supported by the majority of the Russian people.  They fought and won a bloody civil war.  Famine savaged the people.  The new government repudiated the debts to foreign investors in Tsarist government bonds and seized foreign property.  The new regime sought to export revolution all around the globe.  As a result, Communist Russia spent many years as a pariah country among the nations.  The new Soviet Union had little trade, no foreign investment, and constant harassment of its foreign operations.  Then came the collectivization of agriculture, more famines, and the purges.  Then Nazi Germany attacked.  A commonly-accepted estimate is that the war killed 20 million Russians.  Nevertheless, by the end of the war, the red flag flew over the Reichstag.[1] 

            It’s certainly possible that the Russian people have gone soft in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Perhaps failed hopes for a swift victory, hundreds of combat deaths, tough—but not complete—economic sanctions, near-universal moral condemnation, and scathing satire on late-night television will bring Russia to its knees.  Or perhaps the badly out-gunned Ukrainians will suffer grave defeats, many additional millions of refugees will flood across the border into the European Union, and Russia will confiscate Western businesses and turn off the gas to Europe as further bargaining chips. 

            The peace settlement following the First World War left many people disappointed or unhappy.[2]  Germany suffered territorial losses, had to agree to pay heavy reparations, and had its sovereignty limited by disarmament.  At Versailles, “Meester Veelson” and other progressives denied Italy the territorial gains promised to it in exchange for entering the war in 1915.  Japan found its wartime efforts at empire-building in China checked.  Russia lost vast chunks of territory through the Western-sponsored triumph of national self-determination.  While German grievances won substantial redress during the Twenties, Italy and Japan remained dissatisfied. 

            The Great Depression transformed international relations, just as it did in domestic matters.  The conventional economics of the time commanded budget cuts and military spending suffered.  Democracies turned toward domestic reforms, or became paralyzed, or just collapsed wherever it had failed to sink strong roots.  In the decidedly un-capitalist Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin had seized to power in the late Twenties.  The Depression brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, while the government of Japan increasingly fell under the control of imperialist soldiers.  Italy’s Benito Mussolini ranked as the senior dictator in the group, although he had little yet to show for his tenure in terms of expansion.   

            The democracies were hard put to deal simultaneously with three open and one covert aggressors.  In the Thirties, the United States turned from partial engagement in international affairs to a deepening isolationism.  France’s interests and resources were almost entirely European.  Britain had the means to fight one war, but faced enemies in the Far East, the Mediterranean, and Central Europe.  Things had to get much worse to change policies. 

            Today, Russia, radical Islamists in the Middle East equipped—or almost—with nuclear weapons (Iran, Pakistan), and China all can be counted as dissatisfied powers.  Where to start? 

[1] Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (1977) is cold and comprehensive. 

[2] Raymond Sontag, A Broken World, 1919-1939 (1971) remains a valuable guide. 

Default Setting II.

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Between 1775 and 1825, the revolts against the British and Spanish Empires in the Americas created a host of new nations.  In the minds of European leaders, formal “empire” sold at a deep discount.  However, the “empire of free trade” arose as a far more appealing idea.  If non-European countries would pursue Western economic[1] and legal[2] policies, then you could get the same benefits of empire without the costs and heartbreak.  The Western capital generated by industrialization could then safely flow toward the economic development of the rest of the world.[3]  All would benefit.

The world of international investment brimmed with challenging opportunities in the later Nineteenth Century: Latin America, the United States, the Ottoman Empire, Japan, and China for example.  However, a willingness to fulfill commitments to Western economic and legal doctrines in exchange for Western investment varied from society to society.

Russia came late to industrialization and wanted to hurry the process forward.  Russia possessed rich natural resources, but its primitive agriculture generated little wealth.  Where to find the capital for rapid industrialization?  Two solutions offered themselves.  Either the country could borrow from rich foreign lenders or the peasantry could be squeezed very hard.  Fearful of peasant unrest, Russian leaders sensibly opted for foreign borrowing.

Foreign lenders could discern positive and negative features in Russian borrowers.  On the plus side were two essential factors.  Russia’s gigantic territory housed vast amounts of minerals and other natural resources.  In the middle of the century, the Tsar Alexander II had shoved through a series of “Great Reforms” intended to begin the modernization of Russia.  Those reforms had not yet taken full hold, but they provided a foundation for further progress.  On the negative side the “Great Reforms” had compounded the turmoil inside Russia.  Rapid industrialization would intensify the strains.  Then, Russia remained an absolute monarchy.  After the death of Alexander II, the quality of leadership declined markedly.

Between 1890 and 1920 political considerations, rather than purely economic ones, exerted a growing influence over foreign investments in Russia.  First, seeking escape from the diplomatic isolation into which it had been forced by Bismarck’s diplomacy, the French government encouraged lending to the Tsarist regime.  This lending supported the eventual Franco-Russian alliance that surprised and alarmed German statesmen.  Second, during the First World War, the French and British tried to prop up their tottering ally by ample credit.  Third, the Bolshevik regime repudiated the Russian external debt.[4]  The Bolsheviks understood the Red default as a stroke against global capitalism.  It would—and, in France, did—gravely weaken the middle class savers who formed a vital support for bourgeois democracy.

At the same time, default contributed to making Soviet Russia an international pariah.  Within a decade, the Soviets turned to the alternative strategy of squeezing assets out of the peasantry.  As late Nineteenth Century leaders had foreseen, the human cost would be terrible.

[1] Raise no barriers to imports and exports; pursue “sound” money.

[2] Practice Western notions of the rule of law, especially the sanctity of contracts.

[3] See, David Landes, Bankers and Pashas: International Finance and Economic Imperialism in Egypt (1958).

[4] See: Hassan Malik, Bankers and Bolsheviks: International Finance and the Russian Revolution, 1892-1922 (2018).

Soldiers Become Governors.

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Modern war is about destroying the enemy’s army and seizing control of his territory.  Even when it can be achieved, victory still brings problems.  If Army officers wanted to be civilian bureaucrats they wouldn’t have gone into the military.  Yet civilian bureaucrats lack the means to effectively govern conquered territory.  Both civilians and soldiers agree to ignore this reality in what one scholar labels the “denial syndrome.”  Unfortunately, scholars have a lot of evidence with which to work in sorting out good practice from bad.[1]  People can’t help but compare the successful occupations of Germany and Japan after the Second World War with the disastrous aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  What went right with the earlier occupations?  What went wrong with the later occupation?

After victory in the Second World War, the American military occupied huge territories of the defeated enemies.  Those countries acknowledged that they were beaten and that the war was ended.  The military had created immense global logistical systems that enabled it to move supplies to the conquered areas.  It had very large military forces available to support and enforce American military government.  The desire to avoid any renewed military danger from Germany or Japan inclined Generals Lucius Clay (Germany) and Douglas MacArthur (Japan) to sort out the conquered people, not just to punish them.  The suddenly developing Cold War with the Soviet Union motivated Americans (and the Germans especially) to not want a break-down of civil affairs.

Very different conditions prevailed in Iraq.  The war plan assigned far too few soldiers to occupation duty, then American forces were further drawn down.  Very quickly, the George W. Bush administration transferred authority in Iraq to what proved to be an inadequate Civilian Provisional Authority.  Iraqis did not acknowledge that they were beaten and that war had ended.  Instead, Sunni-Shi’ite-Kurdish conflicts broke out into the open.  Shi’ites looked to neighboring Iran for support, while Iran sought to undermine the American and Sunni positions.  While Germans had feared the Soviet Union, many Sunni embraced the insurgency that quickly became associated with the radical Islamists of Al Qaeda.

One—depressing—“lesson of History” might be that people fail to learn from History.  The George W. Bush administration failed to study the “good occupations” of Germany and Japan.  The Obama administration continued the same chaotic occupation policies launched by the Bush administration.  One reason for this failure may lie in the clash between any “lessons” History teaches and what people want to believe.  Lost in the adulation of the occupations of Germany and Japan is the reality that Americans raised in an environment of inter-war isolationism were only constrained to embark on internationalism by harsh necessity.

Also lost in recent accounts is the reality that Rome wasn’t built in a day.  By focusing tightly on the brief periods of military administration, then jumping ahead to the long-term outcomes, it is easy to attribute change to military government.  This analysis falls short of a real explanation.  On the one hand, civilian governments by the defeated peoples took decades to create democratic political cultures.  They wanted to avoid repeating the errors of the past.  On the other hand, Germany became a democracy because the victors in the Second World War partitioned the country, then parked 20,000 tanks on top of the place for almost half a century.

[1] Susan L. Carruthers, The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace (2016); Nadia Schadlow, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory (2017).  In a typically American solipsism, the authors ignore the contemporaneous British experience with the government of conquered territories.

The last helicopter from Baghdad.

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As we embark on an attempt to salvage Iraq from both the misdeeds of its post-Saddam Hussein/post-American occupation government and from the claws of ISIS, here’s a cold, hard lesson from History.

After his election as president in November 1964 Lyndon Johnson increased American troops in the war in Vietnam to a maximum of 540,000 men. In January 1968 the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (VC) launched a massive offensive to coincide with the Tet lunar New Year celebration. The Americans and the South Vietnamese managed to defeat the Tet offensive on the ground, but not in the eyes of American voters. Up until Tet Americans had tended to believe the assurances of progress that were being made in Vietnam on the part by their leaders. Tet changed that. Now a majority began to doubt that victory was possible and that American leaders were telling them the truth about the war. In March 1968 President Lyndon Johnson announced a halt in the bombing of North Vietnam, solicited peace talks, and announced that he would not run for re-election.

Peace talks began in Paris in May 1968. When they failed to make progress, President Johnson resumed bombing until the North Vietnamese came to their senses in October 1968. However, Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon encouraged the South Vietnamese to block further talks until after the November 1968 elections.

Nixon narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey in the November 1968 election. Nixon’s goal was to extricate American forces from Vietnam without the whole house of cards coming down immediately. As his foreign policy adviser Henry Kissinger put it, “We’ve got to find some formula that holds things together for a year or two [i.e. until late 1970 or 1971].” That formula appeared to be “Vietnamization”: shifting the chief burden to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). While negotiations with North /Vietnam continued, Nixon began to draw down American forces. By late 1971 the total number of American troops had fallen from 540,000 under Johnson to 157,000 under Nixon. Unsurprisingly, the negotiations went nowhere since the US was obviously withdrawing and the North Vietnamese could anticipate swift victory once the Americans were gone. In March 1972 Nixon unleashed a massive air attack on North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese gave in, negotiations resumed, and a cease-fire was declared in January 1973. Most of the remaining American troops were withdrawn by March 1973.

The Republic of South Vietnam survived until early 1975. Then the North Vietnamese attacked. The ARVN collapsed, and huge numbers of refugees-in-the-making converged on Saigon in hopes of being evacuated by the Americans. Many (6,200) were, but most were not. Saigon fell on 30 April 1975.[1]

What are the parallels, if any, between South Vietnam then and Iraq now? Neither government enjoyed much legitimacy in the eyes of at least a large minority of their people. Both governments were up against ruthless and competent enemies. There are limits to what can be accomplished by airpower. The American administrations that had to clean up the mess weren’t the ones who had caused it.

Perhaps the differences are more important. Having escaped the Indochina disaster, Americans refused to recommit when a new crisis arose. The world did not end.

[1] “Leaving Vietnam,” The Week, 9 February 2007, p. 11.