190623: Two Lessons About Using History

First, as the Trump Administration tries to figure out how to go to war with Iran--or not, Bret Stephens suggests an easy answer. And he uses an historical precedent to justify his recommendation. But as Andrew Bacevich, a former American military officer, writes in The American Conservative, Stephens leaves out key details that undermine--if not contradict--his historical analogy. History is complicated. "Bret Stephens: Warmonger."

Second, Masha Gessen writing in the New Yorker fathoms the statement by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about "concentration camps." Again, we see history as messy and our focus and perceptions as widely varying from reality. "The Unimaginable Reality of American Concentration Camps"

Reality makes us uneasy, as well it should, and our nation's history is not a tale of sweetness and light. 

Andrew Bacevich: Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War

I finished listening to this extended essay on the history of American foreign policy since the beginning of the Cold War. The short summary that I might use: Ike was right. Bacevich, a retired military officer turned IR professor, provides an extended tour over the time span following the Second World War, when the U.S. decided to extend its military presence throughout most of the world, to our current entanglements in Iraq & Afghanistan. The view is not a pretty one. Viet Nam, CIA dirty tricks, the pretty crazy thinking of Curtis LeMay (the first head of SAC), the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascoes. Ike did warn us about this in his farewell speech, but he did little during his administration to stop the ideology and cabal of interests that established these Washington Rules that came to dominate our thinking about foreign involvements. This is a bracing and well-written critique. What I would like now from Bacevich is an alternative way of seeing and acting in the world. This is bad, but what can serve us better? I despair that we can change our current mentality, but perhaps we can, eventually. Perhaps circumstances will limit our willingness to enter into foreign ventures. But we have to have an alternative vision to counter-act the current Washington Rules, and I don't think that we get that from this book. It's a start, not a finish.