"Is Paris burning," is the title of a best-selling book by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in 1965 about the order of Hitler and the German High Command in the closing days of the WWII, to demolish or burn Paris so it will not fall into the hands of the Allied Forces unscathed, while the Germans were retreating. The authors did a lot of research and the story is based on facts, although they might have used artistic license to make it more dramatic and be a bestseller.
The book was made into an almost three-hour long blockbuster movie in 1966, with an all-star cast that included Kirk Douglas, Alain Delon, Charles Boyer, Orson Welles, Glenn Ford, Robert Stack, Leslie Caron, Anthony Perkins, George Chakiris, Jean Paul Belmondo, Yves Montand and many other popular movie stars in the sixties. The movie was very faithful to the book and the movie was a hit not only in France but all over the world. I remember enjoying the movie in my early college days.
The book and the movie begin with the failed assassination plot of Hitler in July 1944. Gen. Von Choltitz, as Military Governor of Paris, was ordered to not let the Allied Forces capture without destroying Paris, not knowing that Gen. Eisenhower was really going to bypass Paris and go straight to Germany. The French Resistance Movement was holding on to the police building and the German army could not dislodge them. Von Choltitz ordered his troops to burn the building to start the burning of Paris, and to rig the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre with explosives. As Germany was by then, losing the war, the Swedish Consul intervened and pleaded with Von Choltitz not to burn the police station as it was too near the Notre Dame Cathedral and many other historical buildings. Meanwhile, the Resistance asked the American troops for help, and Eisenhower ordered the Free French Forces under Gen. De Gaulle to move on to Paris. Von Choltitz, knowing that Germany was losing the war and that Hitler was going crazy, recalls the order to burn the police building and eventually surrendered. The last scene was of a phone call from Germany on a phone off the hook, asking "Is Paris burning?"
The recent attack on Paris by the ISIS is reminiscent of the story in the above book and movie. Obviously, the ISIS wants to create mayhem and chaos in Paris and it has partly succeeded, even if subsequent events have put the ISIS on the run and on the defensive. If the recent episodes are the beginnings of a WWIII in installments, there is a big difference in objectives and strategies of the warring parties. In the previous wars, there was always a geo-political dimension of acquiring more territories and/or power over the vanquished. The potential winners avoided destroying as much as possible, the beautiful and historical places so it can be enjoyed after the war. That is why the A-Bombs were dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima instead of Tokyo and Kyoto. The grandeur and beauty of civilization have to be preserved. Even in the Middle Ages and earlier, unless there was a "scorched earth" necessity to obliterate the enemy, the winners would take over the territory and enjoy the amenities of the conquered land. The possible losers are those that want to destroy the cities and the antiquities, out of spite and anger on its defeat. In the case of the ISIS, they are not after territory or power, except in their Middle East home bases in Iraq and Syria, they are fighting to destroy societies and civilizations that they do not like and would want to return back civilization to an earlier time when there is no freedom and women are treated as objects. They want to destroy for the sake of destroying.
In political terms, the ISIS are Nihilists, who believe that the current societies, particularly the western societies, the political and social institutions are so bad that they should be destroyed. They even destroyed archeological and historical sites in Syria and Iraq, so they would really want to destroy the Eiffel tower and the Louvre. This is not a geo-political war but a socio-civilization attack, and the whole world should be concerned and fight this war.
How do you fight a war without a defined battlefield? It seems the whole world is the battlefield, the more damaging and the more casualties the better for the ISIS. The aggrieved countries like Russia, France, Syria, Iraq and all potential target countries of the ISIS will soon form a "Coalition of the Willing" which will bring the war to the ISIS territories. But the other side of the war will be to match the ISIS initiatives in their target countries and prevent the success of any of their planned acts of terrorism. It will be a "search and destroy" operation in all the countries that the ISIS will terrorize. Surely, the coalition countries have more intelligence capabilities, technological, and moral resources than the ISIS. The recent actions of ISIS have forced the hand of the civilized countries to make decisive moves against the ISIS. Even the moderate Arabs and Moslems will now have to take a side, and not be bystanders in this conflict.
In a way the recent attacks in Paris and subsequent attacks on other cities could be counter-productive to the ISIS strategy, if ever they, as Nihilists, have a strategy.
These are trying times for all people in this world, including those away from the line of fire; regardless of beliefs, faith, and religion, it would be good for all to bow, or kneel, or prostrate on the ground to pray to their God.