Tipping the Scales: the Lesson of Munich or Vietnam Syndrome

Politics have certainly heated up here at home. Abroad we are at war with Islamic Fascism (due to the fact that we intentionally brought the fight to their backyard after a sneak-attack a home), but the ultimate war is starting to manifest itself here at home in domestic politics -- not through bombs and beheadings, but through rhetoric and control of the narrative not only about the war, but about the very nature of the West itself. There is a complete contrast in worldviews that ultimately choose to view this fight through one of two lenses: the Lesson of Munich, or Vietnam Syndrome.

On September 1, 1939, the German Army swept into Poland from the north, south and west. Polish lines were thin, and the German blitzkrieg overwhelmed them within weeks. For Poland, this event kicked off what would be 60-years of living under submission to totalitarian power. For the rest of the world, this meant that uptopian fantasies of peace through pre-emptive treaty were shattered. Peace would only be acheived in Europe when Adolf Hilter and the German Army had a collective bullet lodged in their skull. It took almost six years, along with a continent littered with millions of dead, but Hilter was defeated and peace came to Western Europe.

The now infamous moment of Neville Chamberlain holding up his sign, "Peace in Our Time," became the symbol for this delusion -- the hope in the ability to influence totalitarians to play the game fairly. The Lesson of Munich demonstrated that an irreconcilable force can only be stopped by a display of overwhelming force in return, and that restraint in the face of aggression is indicative of weakness and will be exploited to the degree that the means and capabilities of the aggressor dictate.

For the next 60 years, Democrats and Republicans mostly stood side by side in standing the Soviet Union down. This is a bit of a generalization and should more appropriately be thought of on continuum versus a true or false statement. You'd be hard pressed to find a sweeping statement like "Republicans/Democrats fought the communists better than the Republicans/Democrats" (although I'm sure partisans from each side will try). For every Robert Taft and Jimmy Carter, there was an Ike Eisenhower, Arthur Vandenberg, Harry Truman and John Kennedy. One can argue the effectiveness of the particulars, but there was bipartisan support for the defeat of communism from both parties.

Smack dab in the middle of our Cold War with the Soviets came a "limited engagement" in Vietnam that ended in failure. Although it was a step backwards, the Cold War would end in an eventual victory for the United States. However, the consequences of the Vietnam War would provide lingering effects that would haunt the United States in all its future foreign policy engagements. No longer would the Lessons of Munich be purely applied to acts of aggression towards American interests abroad as in Korea and Vietnam. The halo had come off. Not only was it possible for the United States to lose, it was possible to make her look like a giant oppressor in the process. Unlike recent revisionist history, this is the true definition of Vietnam Syndrome*.

Our foreign policy would never be the same. November 4, 1979 the hardline Islamists took over our embassy. Then President Jimmy Carter would play ring-around-the-rosey as our embassy staff was be held hostage for the next 444 days. The only action even somewhat resembling direct confrontation would come in form of a rescue attempt (Operation Eagle Claw) where the rules of engagement were so strict and impossible, it was completely doomed from the start (read Mark Bowen's account here).

A little more than after our embassy crisis in Iran, on Christmas Day, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Jimmy Carter, instead threatening nuclear retaliation or direct military confrontation, began to fund and support the guerrilla Islamists (primarily through Saudi Arabia) to hold the Soviets down much like we were held down in Vietnam. Through the eyes of Vietnam Sydrome, Carter deemed it to risky to confront the Soviets directly -- instead he would fight them by proxy.

This prism was NOT limited to Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan, who was infinitely tougher with the Soviets on the geopolitical landscape, also found that it was politically expedient to fight proxy wars. His Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger had a list of principles that the United States would follow before engaging in any major confrontation:

• Is a vital US interest at stake?
• Will we commit sufficient resources to win?
• Are the objectives clearly defined?
• Will we sustain the commitment?
• Is there reasonable expectation that the public and Congress will support the operation?
• Have we exhausted our other options?
• Do we have a clear exit strategy?

The last four bullet points are all policies that are side-effects oft of Vietnam Sydrome. The question was no longer, "How do we confront said threat and do whatever we can to defeat it?" it was, "What is the nature of the threat, and if we do engage, how can we do so that we get support from the public." The Reagan Administration would put these policies into practice by engaging in proxy war in Central America (successfully I might add). Adversely, they applied this doctrine when the Marine barracks were bombed in Lebannon -- the sectarian conflict that the United States found itself in the middle of was in clear violation of our criteria for engagement, and we pulled out leaving Lebannon to brutal a civil war in which Hezbollah and Syria would be the main benefactors.

No longer would America get itself tangled in a conflict where victory was uncertain, or if its duration would be prolonged. The American people had been traumatized not only by a war that they lost, but also by the perceived loss of its soul.

George Bush Sr. found himself in the middle of a perfect Storm, if you will. Iraq invaded the oil-rich/defense-poor country of Kuwait, and with the Soviet Union teetering on the brink of collapse, the United States found itself with unanimous world opinion in support of stopping Saddam Hussein. Colin Powell, then Joint Chief of Staff, formed the Powell Doctrine (or the Powell Doctrine of Overwhelming Force) during the run up to hostilities:

• Is a vital national security interest threatened?
• Do we have a clear attainable objective?
• Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
• Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
• Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
• Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
• Is the action supported by the American people?
• Do we have genuine broad international support?

The Powell Doctrine was an amalgamation of Casper Weinberger's principles and the rare and serendipidous concensus due soley to current circumstances that lead to Desert Storm. Rare in World History do you find a leader who does something so egregiously arrogant, aggressive and stupid that the entire world aligns against you, and even rarer can you find the overall geo-political climate so mild to allow such support. The Powell Doctrine was applied successfully in Desert Storm, the Coalition smashed Saddam Hussein, but it was ulimately a pyrrhic victory.

The undercurrent that had been building against the United States during this time was the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism -- a draconian ideology rooted in the desire to retake control of mankind in the name of Allah. Powell's Doctrine carried over adversely into the Clinton Administration, as we found ourselves, just a Reagan did, in a conundrum where our interests were threatened, and this elusive enemy didn't provide us with a clear solution that could be solved quickly with international consensus. Al-Qaeda manifested, found America's ideological weakness, and exploited it through a series of incredibly bold attacks on our interests, followed by a retreat into the shadows.

How could we find a clear objective, when the objective was a shape-shifting enemy that would run and hide with each successful bloody nose it gave us? Al-Qaeda's successes in exploiting the fallacious policies and mindset are extensive: Somalia, the African embassy bombings, the USS Cole, the first WTC bombing, and the Khobar Tower attack. Vietnam Sydrome was proving to be immune to these pills, because amazingly, none of these attacks managed to provoke a serious challenge to U.S. policy.

Then, one of the worst days in American history was perpetrated by this enemy. What was a cloudless and gorgous fall Tuesday, turned to a day with burning structures and people jumping 100-stories to ultimately share the same fate as 3,000+ other innocent civilians.

An act of war -- no less.

Except for a few moonbats on the far Left, America's response was apropos and necessary in the eyes of most. We knew who did it, where they were, and what their Modus Operandi was. The military operations that ensued was swift, creative and devestating, but not complete. While al-Qaeda and its proxy hosts were defeated, Islamic Fascisism was not. Our dilemna after September 11th was not, "What do we do about Bin Laden and his 'militant' group," but, "How do we defeat an ideology that has turned an entire region rotten?"

America turned to the next logical enemy: Iraq in the hopes that a show of force in the heart of the Middle East would bring Islamic Fascism face to face with its own rot. Knowing the unpopularity of Saddam's regime, his numerous crimes against his people and neighbors, his continued desire for weapons of mass destruction, and his belligerent acts in direct violation of the cease fire to end the Gulf War, it was thought that a swift move into the heart of Iraq would bring Saddam to justice and hopefully be the beginning of a reconciliation with the Islamic world.

Well, the invasion and subsequent sacking of Bagdad was swift and unprecidented in warfare. The United States Military again proved that it had no equal on the battlefield, however we'd be in for a bit more trouble than we initially bargained for. Partly planned, partly spontaneous, some of the most nefarious characters in the Middle East who had everything to lose by a prosperous and free Iraq, would loosely band together to fight a guerrilla war. The purpose of which would not be to defeat the U.S. Military, but to expose the soul of the West. A soul that contained a large portion of the population deluded to real history and to the very nature of America itself. A soul that had the potential to hate itself so much, that it would no longer look towards the pure evil incarnated in a group of people that could make Hitler blush, and instead turn its destructive potential on itself.

The fallacy of Weinberger and Powell's Doctrine is not in its pragmatism (which had its place in Central America), but in its inability to provide rules of sustained and committed engagement against an ememy that is schrewd enough not to paint itself with a big target on its collective chest. This enemy will not be defeated with the deathblow required by the Powell Doctrine -- it will only be defeated by a persisent, sustained hunt that eventually bleeds to death from a thousand cuts.

So, where does this put us now?

This war of civilizations becomes a fight to win here at home. Just as with the Civil War almost 150 years ago, the ideological opposites are not going to reconcile over a cup of tea and a handshake. Some in this country learned the Lesson of Munich, and know the consequences of allowing pure evil grow in strength, while higher minded leaders sign treaties and pretend to solve the problem with "mutual agreements." Unfortunately, too many still view the very nature of this conflict through the eyes of Vietnam.

Security Watchtower's C.S. Scott, made a comment here about a week ago that gives us some perspective and underscores the danger of our current mindset:

Anyone clinging to 18th century warfare doctrine would've been slaughtered when they ran into the weaponry of the Civil War. Anyone clinging to 19th century warfare doctrine would've been slaughtered when they ran into the weaponry of World War I and World War II. Anyone clinging to 20th century warfare doctrine will be slaughtered when they run into modern weaponry. The nature of threats and warfare evolves and transforms constantly.

The founding fathers may have found it convienent to remain free from the tangle of foreign alliances, but they also weren't faced with the threats of intercontinental ballistic missiles, weapons of mass destruction, or an international terror nexus. All they had to do was watch the ocean and guard the beach for all intents and purposes, the ocean was the best defense there was.

Today most nations don't carry out open, large-scale warfare for a host of reasons. What many do engage in, is waging war by proxy or using third parties to further policy goals (see Iran's use of Hezbollah, Liberia's support of guerillas in Sierra Leone, Chavez's support of rebel groups in South America). The result is a lower intensity warfare, frequently playing on ethnic or religious differences, insurgencies, urban combat, etc. The enemies of freedom today are forced to operate in the shadows for the most part, or at least attempt to.

In summary, I sincerely dont believe that most Americans understand the nature of today's threats (neither did all of Europe in the 1930s), where anything short of a 9/11 attack would require a near miracle to act against. It will be much harder to muster public will to act against unconventional threats that don't stoke a strong reaction among the American people.

Will Vietnam Sydrome so paralyze this country, that it will lose this war? I'm optimistic that in spite of this, we can overcome it. Unfortunately, it may take a Lesson of Pearl Harbor for us to wake-up, drop the gloves, and really come out of our corner swinging. In this age of technology, the thought of an equivalent Pearl Harbor could make September 11th look like paper-cut, and that occurance will conclusively demonstrate that the Lesson of Munich was not learned, and future generations will have to learn from the Lesson of New York/Los Angeles/San Francisco/Chicago/Washington D.C./or Seattle.

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* The definition of Vietnam Sydrome has been re-written by many on the Left as an epithet used by "conservative Americans" towards those who felt that Vietnam was destined for failure. In this false definition, these conservatives falsely cling to the hope that the United States could have won the Vietnam War if it wasn't for undesirable pacificsm at home.

This essay tries to argue that the actual definition is not the antithesis of this false definition, but a general syndrome where policies and worldviews have been heavily influenced by the events in Vietnam -- so much so that that U.S. policy has suffered as a result.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at July 12, 2006 09:36 PM | TrackBack