'The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory' by Andrew Bacevich

"Without the Cold War, what's the point of being American."  (from Rabbit, Run by John Updike)

 Removing Trump will not solve the malaise afflicting the United States, this state of endless squabbling and tribal hatreds.  For that Bacevich says must look at the changes in the United States following the sudden end to the Cold War. That victory led to an emphasis on globalization (which would make us rich, the elites theorized),  and over militarization when we were already too militarized. We had everything riding on a unifying posture of struggle with the powers of evil epitomized by the Soviet Union. When the reason for that antagonism ceased to exist, no self-examination took place, just an opening up of the throttle. His remark that support for globalization was a con seems dissonant, “The promotion of globalization included a generous element of hucksterism,” he writes, “the equivalent of labeling a large cup of strong coffee a ‘grande dark roast’ while referring to the server handing it to you as a ‘barista’.”  Cute, but true?

 

Bacevich argues we fell for three illusions:

• the more we embraced capitalism the better off we and the world would be;

• with overwhelming military superiority, we now had the right to dictate the terms of global peace and enforce that peace through war;

• because freedom won, the lesson we learned was that there should be no limits on our autonomy, especially individual autonomy.

 

The elites he disparages were think tanks (ironically, Bacevich just started one, the Quincy Institute, devoted to the theory we fight too many wars), major east coast newspapers, and political figures who shape the public discourse. The elites came to believe that military superiority defined leadership. Those ideas don't seem to me to be particularly new or revelatory. Turner and Mahan laid the groundwork for American expansionism (the Spanish-American War and the annexation of the Philippines) so perhaps the end of the Cold War simply exacerbated existing tensions.

 

It was the failure of these illusions that resulted in first the Obama and then Trump voter. The voters recognized that failure and voted for what they perceived was an alternative, a repudiation of the establishment consensus. The illusions had given us the Iraq and Afghan wars (now beginning its 18 year) and the global recession of 2008. Obama was the first repudiation, Trump the second after Obama failed to complete his promise.  "Draining the swamp," resonated. Bacevich sees Trump as a demagogue fully embracing the illusions rather than providing any useful response. His incompetence prevented any realization of his stated goals. He argues the political elites' reaction to Trump focused on the trivial rather than the larger problems that gave rise to his election. Trump and Hillary will be the Rosenkranz and Guildenstern of the future, comic characters of little significance.

 

But one might argue that Bush (both of them) and Obama did little better.  Obama and Trump both paid lip service to reducing the American presence overseas but their efforts were thwarted by those who benefited from that presence. The imperative of supporting the troops and not blaming soldiers for misguided policies created a barrier to critical discussion of national foreign policy. We appropriate money to keep the war going because no one wants to be blamed for its failure. Military superiority was (is) confused with global leadership.  Americans don't care because we no longer have the draft and the military is all volunteer and isolated from everyone else; wars are funded on the credit card. If all had to serve and pay for the wars the general population might think twice. Bacevich flatly states that if we got rid of the enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, the volunteer army would collapse in six months.

 

I can't help but be reminded of two other books I read years ago: The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years by Tad Szulc who revealed the covert efforts of Nixon and Kissinger to "democratize" the world, reminiscent of Wilson, and Arthur Schlesinger's The Imperial Presidency who argued that the US Presidency was out of control and the Presidency had exceeded its constitutional limits.  Not to mention Eisenhower's fear of the military-industrial complex. Bacevich claims the Cold War was the uniting factor, the glue holding us together. I think its roots lie in the great Depression, WWII and finally the Cold War, but the thesis that  the lack of a common enemy has driven us into disparate parts certainly resonates.