The ancient Greek philosopher Polybius (circa 200-118 BC) and the Spanish American philosopher George Santayana (born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, 1863- 1952, pictured above) both warned us that failure to study and appreciate history would lead societies to repeat its mistakes. Americans have been particularly bad at following this admonition, particularly in the past 50 years, and the world has generated a view of us as “arrogant cowboys” as a result. Whether we ignore military realities or economic trends, the results have been consistently disappointing to American leaders and their constituency.
The most glaring examples are worth reviewing, starting perhaps with the notorious Vietnam War that raged from the mid-1960s until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, shortly after U.S. forces, unable to secure any real victory, withdrew. The communist north conquered the “democratic” south. Strangely, foreigners never did well in Vietnam, starting with the numerous wars between China and Annam (old word for Vietnam) that began before the time of Christ. In the 15th century, A.D., the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di complained that those damned Annamese wouldn’t stand and fight, instead preferring to hit and run, often diving into a set of elaborate tunnels that the Chinese never seemed able to extinguish.
The defeat of a French Foreign Legion Vietnamese outpost “in The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. The Viet Minh and their mercurial commander Vo Nguyen Giap handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on 7 May 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. Of the 12,000 French prisoners taken by the Viet Minh only 3000 survived. At the Geneva Conference the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh. Independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.” Wikipedia. How much history did we need to know in the 1960s to realize that insurgent Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars would deploy the same “move troops and arms at night, attack stealthily and withdraw quickly and disappear into a vast array of underground tunnels” strategy that had defeated every other invading force?
Afghanistan anyone? Central Asia’s rugged terrain and fierce Afghani tribalism kept the Soviet Union at bay for a decade, mostly in the 1980s, and the Russian’s continuing failure to subdue the local “insurgents” slowly sapped the Soviet economy and is often credited as one of the principal reasons the U.S.S.R. collapsed shortly after they withdrew. “The 10-year Soviet occupation resulted in the killings of between 600,000 and two million Afghans, mostly civilians... Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties on both sides, the Soviets withdrew in 1989.” Wikipedia. Does it look like we are “winning” in Afghanistan today? Does supporting and ungrateful mega-corrupt Hamid Karzai administration strike you as even remotely taking the high ground? And have our mounting expenditures in this theater and in the failed “weapons of mass destruction” Iraqi theater, particularly while Americans enjoyed healthy tax cuts, been paid for by anything other than borrowing and raising our national debt? Sound familiar? Someone apparently ignored the history books once again.
But those are the military efforts where we failed or are failing because we ignored history. How about some economic missteps, particularly relevant to the present debacle: “The events of the last few weeks — gridlock in Washington, brinksmanship over raising the debt ceiling, Standard & Poor’s downgrade of long-term Treasuries, renewed fears about European debt and a dizzying plunge in the stock market — bear an intriguing resemblance to some of the events of 1937-38, the so-called recession within the Depression, with a major caveat: it was a lot worse back then. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 49 percent from its peak in 1937. Manufacturing output fell by 37 percent, a steeper decline than in 1929-33. Unemployment, which had been slowly declining, to 14 percent from 25 percent, surged to 19 percent. Price declines led to deflation…
“By 1937 an economic recovery seemed to be in full swing, giving policy makers every reason to believe the economy was strong enough to withdraw government stimulus. Growth from 1933 to 1936 averaged a booming 9 percent a year (rivaling modern-day China’s), albeit from a very low base. The federal debt had swelled to 40 percent of gross domestic product in 1936 (from 16 percent in 1929.). Faced with strident calls from both Republicans and members of his own party to balance the federal budget, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress raised income taxes, levied a Social Security tax (which preceded by several years any payments of benefits) and slashed federal spending in an effort to balance the federal budget… The possible causes of the ensuing stock market plunge and steep contraction in the economy provide fodder for just about everyone in the current political debate. Republicans can point to the Roosevelt tax increases. Democrats have the spending reductions…” New York Times, August 12th. It took World War II and the destruction of all of our competitors’ manufacturing capacity from that war to lift the United States out of that second economic plunge (the “double dip” of the 1930s) caused by our “leaders.”
Sound familiar? Politicians thinking everything is on track long before it is, pulling out all of the support systems that had fomented the earliest signs of growth, to deal with a deficit… and in the process destroying the U.S. economy once again, a failure that was corrected only by serendipity and an horrific war. With consumer confidence at its lowest level since 1980, clearly Americans simply do not believe the worst is remotely over. What is it about "obvious" that politicians just don't seem able to see? What is our serendipitous rescue like to be? What if there isn’t one?
I’m Peter Dekom, and those who do not study history are condemned to repeat its mistakes (thank you George and Polybius).
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