At first we were content to civilize the West, occasionally conducting “special military operations” in our own hemisphere, but rarely venturing further afield along the Barbary Coast and in the Far East. But we grew restless and it has now been well over a century since we strutted upon the international scene, battling for freedom and justice, and leaving mayhem in our wake.
Early on we instigated a “splendid little war” against the Spanish tyrant, freeing Cuba from that decaying empire, but we got bogged down afterwards in atrocities and resentment as “our little brown brothers” in the Philippines rebelled against our evangelizing the American way. Not long after we joined a far bloodier crusade to make the world safe for democracy and foreign investment, thereby ushering in a century of totalitarianism. But we finally, if only briefly, got our footing a generation later with the “Good War.” Suddenly greatness was thrust upon us and we sat astride the globe, proud and earnest. Granted the Good War was still chock full of blood and destruction but no matter the Allied excesses–Nagasaki, Dresden, etc.–they could not rival the ineffable horror and evil of our adversaries. We could honestly and fairly feel good about that good war.
Yet ever since that good war, which was as close as we have ever come to a Golden Age, we have sought to regain that heady feeling of our “greatest generation,” searching desperately for another indisputably good war. From Korea to Vietnam, from Grenada to Kuwait, from Iraq to Afghanistan, we have tried to regain that wonderful sensation we feel when we hearken back to World War II. But all our successes were limited and costly. Only perhaps in Korea and in a few piddling places like Grenada and vicious proxy conflicts like Nicaragua, did we have any success, but never enough to bring back that overwhelmingly sense of pride.
The first Gulf War seemed at first to usher in a new era of almost painless (for us) warfare. While we lost about 250 personnel, those losses were easily glossed over as we all sat dazed before our television screens, enthralled by the Gameboy-like, high-tech wizardry of our assault upon tyranny. But the victory was not complete and we needed to try to slake our unquenchable thirst for fixing the world by again attacking Saddam in 2003. Another almost bloodless (again, for our side) triumph, which was sadly ruined by scandals like Abu Ghraib and a vicious insurgency that irritatingly rejected our efforts to civilize their country.
But now, after almost four score years of yearning, we have orchestrated a war between Ukraine and Russia that is not just Good, but as perfect as any war ever recorded in history has ever been. At least for us.
World War I versus World War II
There are three key ingredients to making a perfect war. The first requirement is that we have to see ourselves as in the right. If there is any doubt about the rectitude of our cause, it ultimately erodes our commitment. Shades of gray are an existential threat to our exceptionalism, but this is rarely an impediment to any special military operation in its early stages. Like the Russians and Ukrainians in the current conflict, our natural inclination toward thinking ourselves morally superior to all our adversaries makes it easy for our leaders to wage war almost anywhere at any time. Even such blatantly ill-founded wars as our invasion of Iraq are initially able to garner widespread support among a people who are intoxicated by their own specialness. So it is imperative that the public is made to see the conflict as a Manichean struggle of absolute good against absolute evil. And in order to do that the think tanks need to stop thinking and the media need to be gently seduced.
In establishing beyond any doubt that the “Other” is evil incarnate and that our side is heroic, noble, and good, we invariably declare that our opponent is another Hitler: ruthless, heartless, and bent on world domination. This is the template for all our wars. We must always draw connections between that good war and any current conflict in order to legitimize— indeed sanctify—it. It is impressive how well this old saw works over and over again with the American public. When it comes to history, American leaders are trapped in a time warp. Every crisis, every enemy, is automatically compared to Hitler and World War II. The single decade from 1938-1948 is used to explain every problem we encounter; the other 5,000 years of history are just an irksome footnote. Although that decade was very formative to American foreign policy development, it was aberrational in world history. Nonetheless, in 1950 Kim Il Sung was compared to Hitler, in 1956 (according to the British) Nasser was another Hitler (at least he had a mustache), during the Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh was the latest Hitler seeking to takeover all of Southeast Asia, and more recently Ayattolah Khomeni and most definitely Saddam Hussein (that mustache again) were Hitler’s progeny. No one seriously believes the current crisis has anything more than a superficial resemblance to 1939. Yet myriad, otherwise sensible people still blather nonsense drawing absurd parallels between the two conflicts, deftly manipulating the vast majority of Americans on both the left and the right, especially those serving in Congress. It should be too old a trick to confuse very many, yet somehow it does.
We are told that words like negotiation and compromise are just euphemisms for “appeasement” and we are warned by our leaders who should know better that we must stop the Russian onslaught because there is no satisfying Putin’s megalomania. Ukraine would be just the first step—analogous to the Sudetenland or Poland. This is the same theory we were sold in 1990 and again in 2003 regarding Saddam—that he would soon control the entire region if we didn’t come to the rescue. But in retrospect do many Americans still believe that Iraq posed a serious security threat to America? Yet at the time the vast majority of Americans did believe that paranoid fantasy. Similarly, otherwise sensible individuals genuinely believe that Russia would not have stopped with Ukraine and would have tried to reconquer as much of Europe as possible. Isn’t this just as absurd and paranoid as the Russian fear of NATO? Does anyone really think the Russian tanks could make it to the German border without running out of fuel or breaking down or losing their way? And Zelenskyy being portrayed as some sort of latter-day Churchill? That is only marginally less comical than the avuncular portrayal of Stalin in the 1943 movie Mission to Moscow.
And the manipulation by the media and the think tanks continues unabated. Newspaper reports proliferate, always mindlessly parroting the official line that characterizes this conflict as “Russia’s unprovoked” invasion, as if “unprovoked” was a statement of fact rather than mere opinion. Similarly, often the conflict is referred to as “Putin’s war” as if any other Russian leader would have done differently. Russian leaders as far back as Gorbachev and Yeltsin and as recent as Medvedev have warned about the consequences of NATO pressing too close to Russia’s borders. We don’t embrace the Hitlerian notion of the “Big Lie;” we find it far more effective to be subtle and nuanced in our deceptions.
Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of history and human nature knows that World War I is a far better cautionary tale for the current crisis than World War II, but it would ruin our “fact-based” propaganda blitz. Putin is arrogant, paranoid, and aggressive. But in these qualities, he resembles the Kaiser far more than the Fuhrer. Russia does not seek world domination; it seeks security and equality. It feels, as did Germany in the lead up to World War I, that it has been treated unfairly and that its neighbors seek to encircle and strangle it. To the Russian mind NATO “Enlargement” is just a euphemism for NATO “Encirclement.” Normally reasonable friends argue that Russia had nothing to fear from NATO because Ukraine would not have qualified to join NATO for years, probably decades, if ever. And more so, because even if Ukraine joined NATO, that defense organization would never have the capability to attack Russia or in any way interfere with Russian domestic affairs. But they fail to see that these realities are irrelevant to Russian perceptions of the threat to their homeland. And perceptions matter far more than reality. One can easily imagine Putin, like the Kaiser on the eve of war, complaining that he was betrayed and was left no choice. The tragedy of that first world war, like this current conflict, is that there were plenty of misunderstandings and poor choices made on both sides. To persist in thinking that Russia alone is to blame for this debacle is to willfully refuse to open one’s eyes.
More similarities: just as Germany underestimated Belgian resistance in World War I, Russia has woefully underestimated Ukrainian resistance. And just as the Allies woefully underestimated German persistence in World War I, we are underestimating Russia’s determination. And just like in World War I, most of the left-leaning, socialist politicians who had been condemning the prospect of war, rapidly fell into line and unequivocally supported their country’s war effort. Even in propaganda terms, the echoes of World War I resonate. As Belgium was portrayed as a virginal heroine being raped by a cruel invader, now Ukraine is portrayed as blameless and pure. We quickly forgot how horribly Belgium was viewed throughout the world just a few years before World War I for the genocide perpetrated in the Congo, just like now we conveniently minimize that Ukraine is among the most corrupt countries in Europe and that its treatment of its Russian minority would be vehemently condemned if it were any other country in Europe. Even the news reports are similar, with the Western media at that time prematurely declaring how the heroic Belgians had countered the Germans and Germany was already defeated. How often this past year have we been told that Ukraine was on the verge of a great breakthrough?
On the other hand, since it is always useful to try to look at things from your adversary’s perspective, looking at this as a Russian might we actually can see certain World War II parallels. For example, Russia’s passivity throughout the 1990s and early 2000s as NATO continued to enlarge and encroach on Russia’s traditional sphere of influence could be seen as a NATO Anschluss, and Russia’s tepid reaction to NATO “aggression” for nearly two decades could be viewed as appeasement. Russians may even smile ruefully that one of the primary leaders of NATO’s response is Norwegian. How ironic, they may muse, for yet another Norwegian to supinely do the bidding of a foreign state, even if that foreign state is far less malignant than Nazi Germany.
Consensus and Pain
The second and third components of a perfect war are inextricably linked. We must retain a broad political consensus in our country and we must minimize the pain inflicted upon ourselves. Given the horrific evil we defeated in World War II, the loss of 400,000 lives seemed small by comparison. But that sort of sacrifice is unlikely to ever be forthcoming in future wars. Indeed, the American political capacity for accepting casualties is negligible, and thus the current conflict is ideal. We supply the money and cool gadgetry, but not a drop of blood. The Ukrainians and Russians accommodate us on that score so we need not worry about any serious domestic opposition. Those who ever believed in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era were mistaken. The anti-war movement was primarily founded on self-preservation masquerading as moral outrage, and it rapidly withered away after the military draft ended. While vestiges remained, even as blatantly immoral an action as the invasion of Iraq could not rally any formidable opposition. America is genuinely anti-war only when a war risks American lives. And in this current war even secondary costs are minimal. The fuel shortages and the economic damage barely impacts us, while Europe and other parts of the world feel the pain.
But most wonderful of all from an American perspective is that we can all feel so good about this war. On the Right, it satisfies that messianic itch to make the world in our own image, while on the Left it satisfies that eternal yearning to save the oppressed. It’s a perfect storm of righteousness and hubris, offering us a truly almost perfect war for our voyeuristic pleasuring, safely savoring the bloodletting from a distance. The Romans were clever to numb their citizenry with “bread and circuses,” but they were amateurs compared to the daily entertainment provided by the Ukraine-Russia slugfest. Cheering for the good guys and raging against the bad boys, rarely have Americans been so united in their shrill indignation and smug righteousness. Rattling sabers is easy when you know you will never be scathed.
Why Only Almost Perfect?
General James Mattis once naively remarked that “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.” A sweet sentiment, but a little misguided. Diplomats and politicians are almost always more eager to conduct “special military operations” than the military. U.S. government officials are quick to always point out that NATO membership for Ukraine was far in the distant future, so there was no need for Russia to attack. At the same time, U.S. officials have been pushing hard for years to make Ukraine NATO membership a reality. It is hard to ignore the disturbing possibility that at least some in our government wanted to provoke Russia. For us the crucial point is that the longer the war goes on, the better for us. Russia weakens, Ukraine festers, Germany and France cling to us. A more subtle and modern, but no less rapacious, Delian League begins to coalesce.
Of course, if Russia were to unconditionally surrender–that is, give NATO and the US all that it wants–then grudgingly the war may end, but anything remotely indicative of compromise is anathema to us. Which is unfortunate because the solution to this conflict must be political and the framework for a political settlement was clear long before the carnage began: ironclad guarantees of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity along with ironclad guarantees of Ukraine’s military neutrality, safeguarding of the Russian minority rights in keeping with European Union standards, and an indefinite lease of the Sevastopol port to the Russian navy.
The one drawback to the current conflict, in the longer term, is that we have sacrificed one of the cornerstones of our foreign policy: keeping Russia and China apart and not united against us. Somehow, we are managing not only to bring those two powers together, but even to render India and Brazil and other important nations increasingly sympathetic to both Russia and China.
All of which reminds me of one of my favorite diplomatic memories. During former President Bush’s 2003 visit to Manila, animosity toward our “unprovoked” invasion of Iraq was on the rise. So much so that in a small gathering at the embassy Condi Rice expressed understandable delight that all the Filipinos seemed so warm and welcoming. Laughing, my wife Sharon unthinkingly, but wonderfully, responded: “Of course they love us. It's our government they can’t stand.”