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Present at the Destruction
The United States has a pretty good track record at winning wars, but there is only one important conflict in recent memory where we also won the peace. Fortunately, this singular victory occurred in conjunction with the largest of them all, World War II.
The postwar peace was the result of an extraordinary work of American statecraft. It occurred because a very serious and smart group of men realized that, if the fruits of the hard won victory were not to turn rotten again, the flaws in the world system that had led to the global conflagration needed to be corrected. So they created two critical institutions. The first was the Western alliance, later formalized as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to provide for collective security of the democratic world, and thereby decisively deter any future totalitarian aggression. The second was a system of international free trade, formalized as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, later renamed the World Trade Organization), to enable global economic recovery and prosperity, thereby ensuring the continued stability and growing strength of the democracies themselves.
These two pillars of the postwar order – NATO and GATT – lay the foundation of a world so much more peaceful and prosperous than the prior chaos that one its leading architects, Truman Administration Secretary of State Dean Acheson, entitled his memoir Present at the Creation.
The creators of the postwar order built on the basis of hard won knowledge. Free trade is necessary for economic prosperity for the same reason that long distance transport is. Everyone understands that advances like the Erie Canal and the transcontinental railroad greatly accelerated American economic development by cheapening internal transportation costs. But imagine that the government put a tax on movement via such systems so that they cost more to deliver goods than previous methods of transportation. In that case, the great canals and railroads would be rendered as useless as if they had been physically destroyed, and US economic development would have been crippled. Similarly, international tariffs do as much harm to the world economy as would be done by a sinking all the most advanced merchant ships. Thus it was the trade war, initiated by the US Smoot-Hawley tariff bill and similar measures taken by foreign governments that made the Great Depression great.
The creators learned from this. Similarly, they also learned from the debacle of the 1930s what happens when democracies abandon their collective security arrangements and allow tyrants to start picking off their weaker members one at a time. So they put in place something that was called the Free World, within which enterprise and trade could prosper, without fear of either excessive intergovernmental interference or external attack. The result was the greatest period of economic growth that the world has ever seen. America was transformed from poverty-riddled depression America to suburbia America, with a vast middle class owning homes, cars, and televisions and sending their children to college. Europe and Japan were completely rebuilt, with South Korea, Taiwan, and numerous other previously undeveloped countries lifting themselves out of hunger and desperation as well. Furthermore, despite the continued existence of two very dangerous totalitarian potential adversaries, the general peace was preserved.
As a result of this profound success, whatever the differences between the two major parties may have been on other issues, these two fundamental bedrock principles underlying the creation and continuation of the post-1945 world order have remained uncontroversial among serious political leaders for the seven decades ever since.
Unfortunately, this has now changed. In both major parties, powerful figures have arisen who are challenging this long-held consensus. Among the Democrats, the chief usurper is the Marxian socialist Bernie Sanders. Among the Republicans, it is the national socialist Donald Trump. Both would gut the Western alliance. Both would wreck the system of global free trade. Both would cause a global depression. Both would unleash the dogs of war. While their rhetoric is quite different, on the central issue of defending or betraying the Pax Americana, the program of both is the same.
It is to be expected that a rabid left-wing socialist like Bernie Sanders would support such a program, and one must be thankful that the remaining Atlanticist forces within the Democratic Party appear to have him and his faction in check – at least for this election year. But what can one say of the Republicans and allegedly “right wing” radical Donald Trump? National Review founder William F. Buckley used to say that conservatives should support the most conservative electable candidate. Hillary Clinton would continue the Obama administration’s deleterious liberal policies for four more years. So she is certainly no conservative. But Donald Trump would destroy the Western alliance and the world economy. On the basis of that comparison, if the two were to face off in November, as incredible as it may seem, William F. Buckley would have no choice but to vote for Clinton. Surely we can do better.
Is the Pax Americana worth preserving? Do we prefer the world as it has been since 1945 to the world as it was before 1945? Will the Republican Party still fight to help preserve and improve that world? Or will its epitaph be Present at the Destruction?
Published in Foreign Policy
There really was little Roosevelt could do against Stalin, short of be willing to go straight from Nazi Germany into the heart of Eastern Europe and tackle the Red Army. As much as I would prefer to see Eastern Europe saved from the communist scourge, what would the likelihood of that be? Roosevelt was powerless at Yalta re: Eastern Europe because the Soviets had troops there and we did not. Granted, he was naive and seems to have believed that Stalin would shape up to be ok, but regardless, he was powerless.
Stalin’s murders were very heavy before the war so there was little that could have been done there. Yugoslavia was a creation of World War I, and the United States had no direct power over the Middle East as much of the former Ottoman Empire was now in British and French hands.
Tell that to the Ukraine.
Perhaps we put the post war structure too much on auto pilot but NATO, GATT or suitably adapted arrangements, and American military supremacy were essential and remain so. Not so much Bretton Woods, the UN or our naive attempts to institutionalize the Marshall plan. By the time we understood Bretton Woods it was time to end it, which we haven’t really done. The UN seemed baked into the establishments intellectual DNA by its misreading of the failed League and the Wilsonian interpretation by that period’s academics. The great depression and the war both occurred because we failed to understand that we had to step forward and fill the vacuum left by the Brits and help heal the destruction caused by WWI.
Douglas – where have you been my friend? Do you read headlines? Follow Claire Berlinski’s many writings on Russia? The re-emergence of the Nazi mentality in Western Europe lately (read the chapter from her book Menace in Europe on the German band Rammstein – that was 10 years ago) – the provocations of Russia around the world are at cold war levels once again – quoted many times lately by our own generals – now we have cyber-hacking so add that threat. Russia is just getting warmed up for Act III.
Russia is a threat to Ukraine because Russians think the Ukraine IS Russia, or part of it, and they have some history to back them up on that. The Rus began in Kiev, after all. But Russia is not going to be rolling tanks through the Fulda Gap. Russia is not going to be landing Naval Infantry in Naples. Russia is not going to be dropping paratroopers into England. Russia IS, however, one of the few states in Europe… along with Hungary and Greece, willing to say “You know, maybe letting thousands of Muslims into Europe isn’t such a great idea”. So even Russia… no one’s idea of a beacon of freedom… even Russia gets that. And long term, that’s the biggest threat to Europe. When the majority of baby boy names in London maternity wards is Mohammad… I’d say Ivan is far down on your list of problems.
That’s no trivial achievement.
Russia doesn’t need to do any of these things. It seems to be doing very nicely by winning the hearts and minds of naive Westerners who think Muhammed is their biggest problem and Ivan is their savior.
Kind of how Mexico thinks of California, Texas, and all that desert between?
Have people actually read the history of Europe? Do they understand how amazing a peaceful period like this one is?
I knw the main point would drive you crazy, so this one was the candy coated distraction for you. If you like an IRS being the political arm of the administration, then your embrace of Mr Zubrin’s candidate, Hillary, is for you. If you have ever been through an audit, killing is a mercy.
It seems to me that too many Americans believe the economy of the early-post war period was normal. It was not normal. The relative competitiveness of the US today is closer to normal.
This period was unprecedented as the US had the only functioning industrial capacity in the world. This gave the US a huge advantage over the entire world in capital and industrial productivity. This led to the unsustainable industrial union contracts of the 1960’s, which led to stagflation in the 70’s and is still being felt today as high school graduates can no longer walk into a union manufacturing job at wages that put them in the top 20% of earners after 10 years on the job.
By the mid 60’s first Europe then Japan started to catch back up. Now we have huge populaces in China and India that have just enough capital to make them competitive with the West.
Instalanche’d.
(link corrected)
Is it possible to agree to neither of the presented choices? Why yes I think it is.
As for the rest of your backhanded comment – we’ve been around and around on that issue before with neither convincing the other. I didn’t feel like wasting my time on it. Suffice to say that the presented solutions for the problems of the “working class” you present are flawed.
…as if NATO is anything but a toothless paper tiger and we actually have free trade.
What a deal for baby Europe: America gets to foot the bill for their defense while they lecture us on how we are violent cowboys. “Come die for us again when we need you; we’ll be sipping wine in Paris” is wearing thin.
This latest escapade into the Middle East has proven that not one drop of American blood should be spilled for Muslims who hate us and wish us dead or dominated.
Similar comment stream, too. Well on your way to becoming the Ricochet Post.
May you never have to co exist with the working class. Go with your elitism intact.
That’s really what you think I think? Most amusing. That I don’t agree with your particular proposed solutions in no way means I don’t think there are problems to fix or ways to fix them.
By all means keep tilting at those windmills from up on your high horse.
A false equivalence.
https://twitter.com/KevinNR/status/724413728997924866
Ah, those elites and their Cervantes allusions.
I liked the triple negative in the prior statement also.
The other half complain about inhabiting the same planet with Kevin Williamson?
Read a book sometime. It will make you feel less angry.
What would the ramifications of returning to non-fiat currency look like? I get the impression that not all would be sunshine and roses – even if we were to dramatically devalue the dollar relative to some arbitrary commodity like gold in order to “standardize” against it, that doesn’t prevent that commodity’s value from fluctuating against other commodities.
To be fair, Schiff was the guy who got a bunch of people to fraudulently file a zero income tax liability statement with the IRS, correct?
What a novel idea! Got any more great stuff you learned in elite academy? Care to share with us angry common folk just waiting for your solutions to our problems?
Thank you for making Ricochet so entertaining TKC. I enjoy your rejoinders.
Sorry I’m a little lost, am I an elitist because I hate working class people or because I’ve read Cervantes?
The existence of Article I courts is well established and specifically outlined in the constitution. That is a pretty poor argument to make and if he induced others to commit illegal actions based on it its not surprising he went to jail.