Some of you might find this interesting: History News Network | Did the Pentagon Learn from Vietnam?
foreign policy
“Coping with the Sense of Drift and Disorder in World Affairs, Part 1” | History News Network
Yesterday was the first day of classes at ASU and I spent most of that day trying to explain to my students why studying history is important. Most of them are freshmen and are taking the course as a requirement, so I’m not sure how successful I was. But I’ll keep trying.
I know what you’re thinking. What does this have to do with “Drift and Disorder in World Affairs”?
In grappling with the issue of the U.S.’s lack of a coherent foreign policy William R. Polk points to an important factor that very few people acknowledge: us. Most citizens, and even many of the leaders, in this country are ignorant of the basic history and issues that impact their lives and the lives of others.
“Is this ignorance important? The French conservative philosopher, Josef de Maistre answered that it is because ‘every nation gets the government it deserves,’ If citizens are uneducated or passive, they can be controlled, as the Roman emperors controlled their peoples with bread and circuses, or as other dictatorships have with ‘patriotic’ demonstrations or manufactured threats. Indeed, a people can make themselves willing dupes as the Germans did when they voted Hitler into power in a free election. Ignorance and apathy are the pathogenes of representative government. Under their influence, constitutions are weakened or set aside, legislatures become rubber stamps, courts pervert the law and the media becomes a tool. So, even in a democracy, when we duck our civic duties in favor of entertainment and do not inform ourselves, the political process is endangered.” So true!
Polk identifies other important factors that contribute to the drift and disorder of the world, but I find this one particularly compelling. We cannot change what kind of leaders we get if we don’t first change ourselves. We all need to take our responsibilities as citizens of the U.S. and the world more seriously.
Please read Polk’s thought-provoking piece: History News Network | Coping with the Sense of Drift and Disorder in World Affairs, Part 1.
“We Need to Come to Terms with the Russian People’s Support Today of both Stalin and Putin” | History News Network
Walter G. Moss proposes that “[a]ny effective U.S. foreign policy must not just vilify leaders, whether Saddam Hussein or Putin, but recognize and try to understand why so many foreign citizens think differently than we do.” I half agree with him. We too often fail to take into account the views of other peoples in formulating our foreign policy. If our foreign policy is to be effective we must understand how others view the world and their place in it. However, I disagree with Moss’s contention that we should not “demonize” the leaders that they admire. Well, maybe we shouldn’t demonize them, but we should call them out for their outrageous behavior.
I would still recommend reading Moss’s article. He makes some good points concerning the history of our foreign policy. History News Network | We Need to Come to Terms with the Russian People’s Support Today of both Stalin and Putin.
“Yes, It Could Happen Again…the trigger points for World War III are in place.” – The Atlantic
Optimism is all the rage today, but Roger Cohen reminds us that pessimism can be “a useful prism through which to view the affairs of states.” The problem with optimism is that it often blinds us to the warning signs of looming catastrophes. Too much pessimism has its dangers as well, but today we seem to be wearing rose colored glasses when considering the possibility of another major world war. Not to mention that the fear of terrorism has consumed all our attention when it comes to world affairs. But this is a mistake. It is important, but it is not existential threat that it has been made out to be. There are events in other parts of the world that are more concerning in terms of their destabilizing potential across the globe. The potential for large-scale land wars has not disappeared, despite appearances.
You’re probably tired of me ranting about nationalism, but the threat it poses is real and deserves our attention. I’m glad to see that Cohen has taken it seriously. As he points out, “It is already clear that the nationalist fervor unleashed by Putin after a quarter century of Russia’s perceived post–Cold War decline is far from exhausted. Russians are sure that the dignity of their nation has been trampled by an American and European strategic advance to their border dressed up in talk of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. Whether this is true is irrelevant; they believe it. National humiliation, real or not, is a tremendous catalyst for war.” And this type of national fervor and perceived humiliation is not limited to Russia. It can be found across the globe from Japan to Israel and eastern Europe.
I would recommend reading Cohen’s thoughtful consideration of this very important topic. I somewhat disagree with his solution concerning the need for U.S. power projection, but overall his diagnosis of the problem is well-grounded in historical precedent. Read the entire piece here: Yes, It Could Happen Again – The Atlantic.
“Did Obama Really ‘Cut and Run’ and ‘Abandon’ Iraq to ISIS?” | History News Network
Our political discourse is dominated by hyperbolic discourse that simplifies the world in an emotionally appealing way. Therein lies its power. It is emotionally gratifying and makes us feel like we’re in the know when we’re not. We would like the world to be black and white, but it isn’t. Unfortunately, theses false and/or deceptive narratives harden into “facts” as they are perpetuated via the media, the blogosphere, and social media. This rhetoric has poisoned our political discourse and has hampered our efforts to deal with our problems.
Some of the most despicable rhetoric has been reserved for President Obama. Once the rhetoric has established the general feeling that Obama is “incompetent” and “weak” (or “tyrannical” depending on the context) all further charges against him then “ring true” (no fact checking needed!). One of the recent charges against Obama accuses him of “cutting and running” from Iraq, leading directly to the creation of ISIS. With extensive knowledge of the situation, Brian Glyn Williams takes on this claim and concludes that “Maliki’s anti-Sunni policies directly led to the rise of ISIS. He, along with Paul Bremer, is the man most responsible for creating ISIS.” But he doesn’t let Obama off the hook completely.
Read Williams’ well-researched examination of the rise of ISIS here: History News Network | Did Obama Really “Cut and Run” and “Abandon” Iraq to ISIS?
Book Review: Ron Briley Reviews Christian G. Appy’s “American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity” HNN
In his review of Appy’s book, Ron Briley concludes that it “is a provocative read and presents a convincing argument regarding the Vietnam War as exposing the myth of American innocence. Yet, the concept of American exceptionalism continues to exercise a strong hold upon the nation’s belief system, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Vietnam War may not provide the national reckoning so passionately called for by Appy.” Read the entire review here:
“The American Military Uncontained” | History News Network
The retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) William J. Astore examines the current role of the U.S. military from the perspective of the 1990s, after we emerged victorious from the Cold War. Rather than gearing down for peacetime Astore shows that the military retained it Cold War size and attitude. But crucially, according to Astore, it also became uncontained as the sole superpower. He argues that after the fall of the Soviet Union the attitude that emerged was one of “go[ing] for broke.” After laying out the consequences of this situation, he warns, “No military should ever be trusted and no military should ever be left uncontained. Our nation’s founders knew this lesson. Five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower took pains in his farewell address in 1961 to remind us of it again. How did we as a people come to forget it? WTF, America?”
I agree with much of what Astore says, but I see the transition to the present situation a little differently. He makes no differentiation between the humanitarian efforts (or non-efforts to be more accurate) in places like Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda in the 1990s, and the so-called “national security” interests in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen in the twenty-first century.
“Yet even as civilian leaders hankered to flex America’s military muscle in unpromising places like Bosnia and Somalia in the 1990s, and Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen in this century, the military itself has remained remarkably mired in Cold War thinking.”
I think it is a mistake to see this trend beginning in the 1990s. We did NOT “go all in” for the 1990s humanitarian situations. In fact, trying to persuade the Bush (papa) administration and then the Clinton administration to do anything in these situations was like pulling teeth. We only intervened belatedly in the Bosnian War with very little cost or effort after thousands of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) were slaughtered. We did successfully intervene in Kosovo, but mostly out of guilt for what we didn’t do in Bosnia. We shamefully did nothing in Rwanda. And we pulled out of Somalia, where we were engaged in humanitarian aid, after the first sign of trouble (Black Hawk Down), which played right into the hands of the Somalian warlords. So, I think it is misleading to include Madeleine Albright’s plea to send in troops to the former Yugoslavia as evidence of the “all in” attitude in regards to the military. In all these cases, those in power did everything they could to make sure we didn’t use the military. Why? Because these were humanitarian causes and the “Vietnam Syndrome” was still alive and well. These were the cases we should have intervened, but didn’t. So much for “never again”!
The hawks that Astore refers to care little for humanitarian interventions and were happy to intervene in what they saw as “national security” situations (e.g. The Gulf War). But I think it was something else that turned the tide toward the intervention everywhere attitude: 9/11. Presently the fear of terrorism ensures that this attitude will continue to prevail.
However, I agree with his conclusion “Take an uncontained, mutating military, sprinkle it with unconditional love and plenty of dough, and you have a recipe for disaster.” Read the entire article here:
History News Network | The American Military Uncontained.
Lessons From History: “A War to End Jihad” – NYTimes.com
Examining the history of the Ottoman Empire, Eugene Rogan concludes: “With the fall of the Ottomans after the First World War, the Arab world entered a century of conflict. Caught between foreign domination and the rival appeals of nationalism and Islamism, the Middle East has yet to emerge from the shadow of jihad. But perhaps there is a caution in this narrative. In a striking parallel to events a century ago, the threat of far-reaching jihad — most recently in the name of the Islamic State — continues to play on the minds of Western leaders. But it does so far beyond any evidence of wide appeal among a vast majority of the globe’s Muslims. So Western leaders can learn from the experience of a century ago. When they overreact to the threat of religious war, they concede power to the very enemies they seek to overcome, with consequences impossible to predict.” Read the entire article here:
A War to End Jihad – NYTimes.com.
History News Network | “Unconditional Surrender” in Iran
The historian Mark Byrnes warns against the “unconditional surrender” mentality that has taken hold on the right: “Like the uncompromising Tea Party Congressional caucus does with domestic issues, Cotton seems to think that in diplomacy, any kind of compromise with an adversary, anything less than total victory, is abject failure. As I’ve written before, this attitude is dangerous enough when it shuts down the U.S. government or blocks meaningful action in Congress. When it is brought to bear on the world stage, it can be catastrophic.” Read his entire article:
History News Network | “Unconditional Surrender” in Iran.
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton
History News Network | John Bolton’s Love of Bombs
The historian Lawrence Davidson exposes the folly of John Bolton’s recent opinion piece in The New York Times advocating the bombing of Iran. Here’s an excerpt from his take down: “John Bolton’s op-ed to the New York Times is just a mess – a dangerous flight of fancy based on skewed opinions rather than hard evidence and facts. In what must have been a very weak moment while writing this piece, he actually admits that there is a “lack of palpable evidence” for his case. He then moves right ahead as if the absence of evidence and facts just do not matter.” Read more here:
History News Network | John Bolton’s Love of Bombs.
History Chick in AZ 