The Amercian flag flies on the east side of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2023. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo
To put it charitably, America and Americans suffer from a bad case of strategic amnesia.
This condition has affected not only how the U.S. is responding to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. More importantly, how the U.S. is dealing with its “enemies” is very concerning. Despite forgetting history, a bit of recall is instructive. Advertisement
During the Eisenhower years, the U.S. panicked over the so-called “missile gap” with the Soviet Union. Soviet power was not merely exaggerated. Much of the so-called nuclear weapons Moscow allegedly had, did not exist. Of course, the U.S. repeated that blunder in 2003 with the Iraq invasion to eliminate Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
A corollary of the missile gap was the myth of a monolithic Godless Communist threat linking the USSR and PRC. When the Kennedy administration took office in 1961, this led to major military rearmament that was not needed, and to the president’s commitment to pay any price and bear any burden in supporting freedom. Vietnam became the test case. And the cause celebre, like the missile gap and Iraqi WMD, was North Vietnamese PT boat attacks against two U.S. Navy destroyers in international waters that did not occur. Advertisement
About Gaza, Vietnam is relevant. Hamas, a despicable terrorist organization, must be neutralized. But if the cost of destroying Gaza entails imposing many tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties in urban warfare that cannot be waged without collateral damage, is that acceptable? Many states would not agree. So what is the alternative?
In August 1965, the Marines burned down the village of Cam Ne, a practice that would accelerate as the war escalated. What of the villagers? The phrase of destroying a village to save it underscored this paradox. Israel has every right to defend itself. Yet, as Hamas is ingrained in Gazan society, how can this be done without overly punishing Palestinians?
As the Cold War ended and the USSR imploded and China modernized, the American expectation was that both countries would join the Western community of states and the international system and rules based order that were in place. But was that a sensible expectation? And when it turned out not to be the case, Russia and China became revisionist adversaries in league with Iran and North Korea.
Beyond the second Iraq War, America’s greatest strategic blunders were made against Russia and China. For no apparent reason and with little advance notice, in 2011, the Obama administration announced its strategic pivot to Asia. Allies were bewildered and fearful. China was angered. And the Obama Administration presented its national security strategy that was predicated on “containing, competing, deterring and if war came defeating” a range of possible enemies headed by China and Russia. Advertisement
The Obama administration did enter into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. An unprecedented surveillance system was imposed on Iran. And provided all signatories followed the JCPOA, Iran would never have nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, critics of the JCPOA refused to accept these realities assuming Iran would always cheat.
The Trump administration would abrogate the JCPOA. Worse, not understanding international economics, to rectify an imbalance in the current account that covers goods and services and ignoring the capital account in which China had invested billions in the U.S., the Trump administration imposed tariffs on China. That not only infuriated China. The U.S. consumer picked up the costs.
That President Joe Biden is considering imposing more tariffs on China follows this erroneous path. While tensions between the U.S. and PRC are improving, China remains the consensus enemy certainly on Capitol Hill. Why? As with the missile gap and other misperceptions, are we repeating these conceptual errors?
About Ukraine, the Biden team has been conservative in restricting certain long range weapons systems to Ukraine. But unlike earlier wars, single members of Congress have been able to prevent the passage of aid for months to Ukraine. Ironically, one member may have done more damage to Ukraine than the Russian army. Advertisement
A combination of strategic amnesia and a seemingly irreversibly politically divided public has placed the United States in extreme jeopardy. The November election is unlikely to close these differences and could well exacerbate them if Donald Trump loses and does not accept the outcome.
There may not be a cure for amnesia. And as long as history has no role, in temporizing U.S. thinking, is the U.S. consigned to repeating these and other strategic blunders in perpetuity? One wonders.
Harlan Ullman is UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior adviser at Washington’s Atlantic Council, the prime author of “shock and awe” and author of “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large.” Follow him @harlankullman. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
