Give a child a hammer and everything looks like a nail. Give politicians the most powerful military force in the world and every foreign policy issue looks like it has a military solution.
It doesn't. Some inexplicable combination of hubris and just plain ignorance continues to prevent American politicians from learning from past mistakes.
With the emergence of the USSR as a nuclear power in 1947, the fall of China to Communists in 1949, and effective Republican strategy of hammering Democrats for having "lost China," it was inevitable that President Truman would, under aegis of the U.N., react with force to the North Korean Communist attack on South Korea.
That unpopular war, tagged as "Truman's war," continued until the truce was signed in July 1953. China demonstrated that it would pay any price to keep American forces out of North Korea. That lesson is still relevant and should be remembered regarding policy toward North Korea.
Even having achieved its objective, the unpopular war ended Truman's chance for re-election in 1952. That lesson was to be re-learned by another president some 16 years later.
As the "Red Scare" continued to dominate foreign policy, neither Presidents Kennedy, Eisenhower nor Johnson wanted to be accused of "losing" another nation to communism.
Here, a neglected footnote to history regarding "The China Hands," is relevant. The China Hands during World War II were Foreign Service officers of the U.S. State Department. These civil servants had extensive knowledge and experience in China going back to the 1920s. The China Hands recognized the unpopularity of Chinese Nationalist President Chiang Kai-shek and warned of future communist success. They argued that it would be in America's national interest to work with the Chinese Communist Party with the objective of promoting Chinese nationalism and preventing its alignment with Soviet communism.
With the fall of China to the Communists in 1949, the time was ripe for Republicans to blame Democrats and the State Department for having "lost China." Prominent "anti-communists" who had no professional expertise in Chinese history or politics were among many who charged that the China Hands had undermined Chiang, misled the American public and "lost China" through naive ignorance of Marxism, or even "allegiance to the Soviet Union."
Senator Joseph McCarthy expanded these accusations in a series of congressional hearings that drummed the knowledgeable China Hands out of the Foreign Service. Instead of being recognized for their prescient warning, they were blamed for results, punished by having their careers unceremoniously ended.
With this disgraceful chapter in political history, the State Department had lost knowledgeable Foreign Service officers who could have informed presidents and the Congress of realities, complexities and nuances of Southeast Asia as it affected policy options.
That said, it is possible, probably likely, that American politicians, ignorant of the area, would have paid little heed to knowledge and counsel of the China Hands.
President Eisenhower had kept his promise to end hostilities in Korea and did not want to involve the U.S. in another land war in Asia. But neither did he want to "lose" another nation to communism. He escaped the dilemma by sending "advisors" to Vietnam after the French lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It was his good fortune that the situation in Vietnam did not entirely collapse during his tenure in office.
By 1960, the situation had deteriorated further and President Kennedy, in a similar dilemma, responded by sending more advisors. Less than a year after JFK's assassination, President Johnson significantly escalated the war only to suffer the same fate as President Truman 16 years earlier - an unpopular war ending his quest for re-election.
Ironically, communist Vietnam would be at the bottom, if it were even on, a lengthy list of current American foreign policy issues. A "solution," military or otherwise, to what was to be a nonproblem was not even necessary.
After 9/11, the inevitable public demand was to "do something." Topping the list was demand to send military forces into Afghanistan to pursue Osama bin Laden, perpetrator of the disaster. If he would be chased down, fine. But he temporarily escaped. It might have been wiser to get out of Afghanistan rather than stay for another 17 years and counting to achieve some ill-defined objective.
In contrast to reason to enter Afghanistan, though not stay there indefinitely, a totally illogical military response was to invade Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. It didn't matter to politicians and the supine mainstream media that Saddam Hussein considered Al Qaeda his enemy. Iraq was invaded on the grounds that "it has weapons of mass destruction." It didn't, but apologists still insist that Iraq and the Middle East are better for the American invasion.
One lesson that has been learned from these wars is that those who oppose a war should take out their wrath on politicians, not the troops who carry out the orders.
But there still are numerous unlearned lessons from these costly wars.
Korea: China will pay any price to keep American forces out of North Korea.
Vietnam: It was folly to believe that we could do what the French could not. Wars are viewed through different lenses - battle against communism vs. battle against colonialism, for example. Americans were viewed not as saving Vietnam, but as foreign invaders to their own country.
Afghanistan: Again, folly to believe we can accomplish some ill-defined objective and/or do what the British and the Soviets could not.
Iraq: We can successfully invade a country without winning the peace.
All wars: It is disastrous to cherry pick intelligence reports to fit a political agenda. Don't punish intelligence officers and Foreign Service officers for reporting facts that don't fit a preconceived political agenda. It's easy to get into war but hard to get out. Winning battles does not necessarily lead to winning wars, especially those with no military solution.
Will politicians ignorant of history and, worse, unwilling to listen, ever learn?
- John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in the Monroe Times.
It doesn't. Some inexplicable combination of hubris and just plain ignorance continues to prevent American politicians from learning from past mistakes.
With the emergence of the USSR as a nuclear power in 1947, the fall of China to Communists in 1949, and effective Republican strategy of hammering Democrats for having "lost China," it was inevitable that President Truman would, under aegis of the U.N., react with force to the North Korean Communist attack on South Korea.
That unpopular war, tagged as "Truman's war," continued until the truce was signed in July 1953. China demonstrated that it would pay any price to keep American forces out of North Korea. That lesson is still relevant and should be remembered regarding policy toward North Korea.
Even having achieved its objective, the unpopular war ended Truman's chance for re-election in 1952. That lesson was to be re-learned by another president some 16 years later.
As the "Red Scare" continued to dominate foreign policy, neither Presidents Kennedy, Eisenhower nor Johnson wanted to be accused of "losing" another nation to communism.
Here, a neglected footnote to history regarding "The China Hands," is relevant. The China Hands during World War II were Foreign Service officers of the U.S. State Department. These civil servants had extensive knowledge and experience in China going back to the 1920s. The China Hands recognized the unpopularity of Chinese Nationalist President Chiang Kai-shek and warned of future communist success. They argued that it would be in America's national interest to work with the Chinese Communist Party with the objective of promoting Chinese nationalism and preventing its alignment with Soviet communism.
With the fall of China to the Communists in 1949, the time was ripe for Republicans to blame Democrats and the State Department for having "lost China." Prominent "anti-communists" who had no professional expertise in Chinese history or politics were among many who charged that the China Hands had undermined Chiang, misled the American public and "lost China" through naive ignorance of Marxism, or even "allegiance to the Soviet Union."
Senator Joseph McCarthy expanded these accusations in a series of congressional hearings that drummed the knowledgeable China Hands out of the Foreign Service. Instead of being recognized for their prescient warning, they were blamed for results, punished by having their careers unceremoniously ended.
With this disgraceful chapter in political history, the State Department had lost knowledgeable Foreign Service officers who could have informed presidents and the Congress of realities, complexities and nuances of Southeast Asia as it affected policy options.
That said, it is possible, probably likely, that American politicians, ignorant of the area, would have paid little heed to knowledge and counsel of the China Hands.
President Eisenhower had kept his promise to end hostilities in Korea and did not want to involve the U.S. in another land war in Asia. But neither did he want to "lose" another nation to communism. He escaped the dilemma by sending "advisors" to Vietnam after the French lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It was his good fortune that the situation in Vietnam did not entirely collapse during his tenure in office.
By 1960, the situation had deteriorated further and President Kennedy, in a similar dilemma, responded by sending more advisors. Less than a year after JFK's assassination, President Johnson significantly escalated the war only to suffer the same fate as President Truman 16 years earlier - an unpopular war ending his quest for re-election.
Ironically, communist Vietnam would be at the bottom, if it were even on, a lengthy list of current American foreign policy issues. A "solution," military or otherwise, to what was to be a nonproblem was not even necessary.
After 9/11, the inevitable public demand was to "do something." Topping the list was demand to send military forces into Afghanistan to pursue Osama bin Laden, perpetrator of the disaster. If he would be chased down, fine. But he temporarily escaped. It might have been wiser to get out of Afghanistan rather than stay for another 17 years and counting to achieve some ill-defined objective.
In contrast to reason to enter Afghanistan, though not stay there indefinitely, a totally illogical military response was to invade Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. It didn't matter to politicians and the supine mainstream media that Saddam Hussein considered Al Qaeda his enemy. Iraq was invaded on the grounds that "it has weapons of mass destruction." It didn't, but apologists still insist that Iraq and the Middle East are better for the American invasion.
One lesson that has been learned from these wars is that those who oppose a war should take out their wrath on politicians, not the troops who carry out the orders.
But there still are numerous unlearned lessons from these costly wars.
Korea: China will pay any price to keep American forces out of North Korea.
Vietnam: It was folly to believe that we could do what the French could not. Wars are viewed through different lenses - battle against communism vs. battle against colonialism, for example. Americans were viewed not as saving Vietnam, but as foreign invaders to their own country.
Afghanistan: Again, folly to believe we can accomplish some ill-defined objective and/or do what the British and the Soviets could not.
Iraq: We can successfully invade a country without winning the peace.
All wars: It is disastrous to cherry pick intelligence reports to fit a political agenda. Don't punish intelligence officers and Foreign Service officers for reporting facts that don't fit a preconceived political agenda. It's easy to get into war but hard to get out. Winning battles does not necessarily lead to winning wars, especially those with no military solution.
Will politicians ignorant of history and, worse, unwilling to listen, ever learn?
- John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in the Monroe Times.
