Dismissing non-interventionism
I was reading today a fascinating article about the debate that shaped the US foreign policy after WWII. It is extremely interesting to note how relevant the different opinion are today, and how the warnings become reality. Watching the Presidential debates, and how dismissive are the GOP candidates to the policy of non-intervention
In foreign policy, it was the extreme right-wing Republicans, who were particularly strong in the House of Representatives, who staunchly battled conscription, NATO, and the Truman Doctrine. Consider, for example, Omaha’s Representative Howard Buffett, Senator Taft’s midwestern campaign manager in 1952, one of the most "extreme" of the extremists, a man who consistently received a zero rating from such liberal raters of Congressmen as ADA and the New Republic, and whom the Nation characterized in that era as "an able young man whose ideas have tragically fossilized." I came to know Howard as a genuine, consistent, and thoughtful libertarian. Attacking the Truman Doctrine on the floor of Congress, Buffett declared:
"Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns…. We cannot practice might and force abroad and retain freedom at home. We cannot talk world cooperation and practice power politics."
[…]
Even on Asia, Taft, in January 1950, opposed the Truman policy of supplying aid to the French army in suppressing the Indo-Chinese national revolution; he also warned that he would not support any commitment to back Chiang in a war against China, and he called for the removal of Chiang, his bureaucrats, and his army of occupation on Formosa in order to permit the Formosan people a free vote on their own self-determination:
"[A]s I understand it, the people of Formosa, if permitted to vote, would probably vote to set up an independent republic of Formosa…. If, at the peace conference, it is decided that Formosa be set up as an independent republic, we certainly have the means to force the Nationalists’ surrender of Formosa."
A careful examination of the superpowers policies since world war 2 will reveal that, for bot USSR and the US, they suffered dire looses whenever they were outmaneuvered to direct, long term, involvement. It took Eisenhower’s brilliancy to save the US from the mess in Korea, The Vietnam war was a disaster (although it will take some time until Giuliani will understand that) and the war in Iraq can be proved the most damaging war in the American history. Similarly the Soviet deployment of forces to protect Egypt during the war of attrition push them from the center stage and left the US as the only possible peace broker, and the involvement in Afghanistan was catalyst,among other, in the distraction of the USSR. Counterintuitive, most achievements gained when the Superpowers knew how not use their might.
I will add here one small remark, which I will have to expand on a later post - the argument that the US support is vital to Israel existence and that this support serve the Israeli interest need to be examine very carefully. Unlike this common believe I would argue that Israel position itself as a client state, a proxy for American interest - many times against its own interests. Israel survived without being a client state until 1967, and did fine. Obviously American non-intervention policy would force Israel to change its national security concepts - and maybe it will re-adopt Ben-Gurion’s strategy
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Rogel @ October 31, 2007