That's way above my knowledge, but there is a detail I would like to ask something: Douthat says "...1985, ... with glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall just around the corner." That is very hindsighted. When did the first experts started talking about the fall of the Soviet empire within some years and not about "one day it will happen"? My feeling as a young person in 1989 and before was that nearly noone saw the fall of the Berlin wall coming and the fast crumbling of GDR (but I am from Germany, we have our own reality). Do you remember any experts giving a half-right forecast?
Not an expert but I agree the fall of the Berlin wall was not on the radar of any media I saw, even during the last few weeks when people started going west through Czechoslavkia.. While I was seeing that the Soviet Union's control over its bloc was in trouble, with changes in government leaders, etc., the idea that the concrete embodiment of the Iron Curtain would be breached in a night was totally surprising.
Rather like the difference between hearing the weather forecast of a front moving through with the possibility of storms and actually experiencing a tornado down the street.
I didn't read Douthat's piece, but it's hard to overestimate the corrosive impact that Abu Ghraib, and the WoT torture regime had on America's power and regard by the rest of the world.
There were not 3 but 4 underpinnings of dominant American power in the American era (1942-2010): military, economic, cultural and ethical/inspirational. The last was destroyed in Iraq, and it was by far the most unique and irreplaceable.
This is such a long winded and torturous argument; the Iraq war was bad because it killed a lot of people, poverty limits opportunity, poverty restricts longevity as does lack of health care.
Why limit the candidates? The vast array of Post WW II foreign policy choices for comparison to name the all-time worst is mind-boggling; the first and the second atomic bombings of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, our misadventures in Central America, the War on Drugs, Middle East Policy, in general, to include Iraq beginning with the first misadventure, our response to the collapse of the Soviet Union, immigration policy, the Trump Putin axis, etc.
It would be good to begin with a set of criteria for our judgment. What are the critical characteristics of gross hubris cultivating ineptitude and death? Since we love quantification, is it the total body count on both sides per minute? The A-bomb would capture this category, or are we more intrigued by agonized death over time, including wounded, later suicides, immigration flows? As if anyone has any accurate numbers on any of these.
As with the human good, human evil can only be concrete. Unless we attempt to concretize the candidates, we're just shadowboxing.
We could begin with an initial round of 64 candidates and play each off against the other until we reach the final four, open it all up to online betting, and have a go. Trump certainly would have a way to fundraise from it whether he was named or not.
Not much for making overarching comparisons, but on the more narrow point of the impact of the wars on US security policy in their aftermath, I think Vietnam was worse. There does not appear to be an Iraq syndrome analogous to the Vietnam syndrome. The US continued to maintain forces in Afghanistan for years after leaving Iraq (though, we can debate whether the pullout from Afghanistan should be seen as a separate event). The US was willing and able to use military force in concert with Iraq against ISIS and we still have forces operating in Syria today. While there certainly is a growing isolationist or inactivist element in the Republican party, the attitude seems less widespread and pronounced then was the case after Vietnam.
Old Timer Anecdote: I can remember the uproar that occurred back during the Reagan years when a US military advisor in Honduras was photographed carrying a rifle (they were supposed to be limited to pistols). I seem to recall it eliciting a few "slippery slope" comments at the time. Also, I recall the secrecy with which the invasion of Granada was carried out, as if the administration was trying to avoid discovery by American public more than by the Cubans. Just saying that we may have a bad taste in our mouth from Iraq, but we were positively snakebit in the late 70s - early 80s.
Fair points. But I suspect it's not either-or, but the cumulative impact Vietnam-Iraq-20088 finanjcial crisis that has taken us down the Trumpian rabbithole, domestically and shaped foreign opinions with regard to US hypocrisy, reliability, and overdrawn perceptions of US decline.
That's way above my knowledge, but there is a detail I would like to ask something: Douthat says "...1985, ... with glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall just around the corner." That is very hindsighted. When did the first experts started talking about the fall of the Soviet empire within some years and not about "one day it will happen"? My feeling as a young person in 1989 and before was that nearly noone saw the fall of the Berlin wall coming and the fast crumbling of GDR (but I am from Germany, we have our own reality). Do you remember any experts giving a half-right forecast?
Agree, entirely hindsighted in 1985. At the time, the UCS predicted nuclear Armageddon highly likely by 1990.
1986 (Reykjavik) was the most consequential turning point in the Cold War, and that was not clear until at least March 1989.
Not an expert but I agree the fall of the Berlin wall was not on the radar of any media I saw, even during the last few weeks when people started going west through Czechoslavkia.. While I was seeing that the Soviet Union's control over its bloc was in trouble, with changes in government leaders, etc., the idea that the concrete embodiment of the Iron Curtain would be breached in a night was totally surprising.
Rather like the difference between hearing the weather forecast of a front moving through with the possibility of storms and actually experiencing a tornado down the street.
I didn't read Douthat's piece, but it's hard to overestimate the corrosive impact that Abu Ghraib, and the WoT torture regime had on America's power and regard by the rest of the world.
There were not 3 but 4 underpinnings of dominant American power in the American era (1942-2010): military, economic, cultural and ethical/inspirational. The last was destroyed in Iraq, and it was by far the most unique and irreplaceable.
This is such a long winded and torturous argument; the Iraq war was bad because it killed a lot of people, poverty limits opportunity, poverty restricts longevity as does lack of health care.
Why limit the candidates? The vast array of Post WW II foreign policy choices for comparison to name the all-time worst is mind-boggling; the first and the second atomic bombings of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, our misadventures in Central America, the War on Drugs, Middle East Policy, in general, to include Iraq beginning with the first misadventure, our response to the collapse of the Soviet Union, immigration policy, the Trump Putin axis, etc.
It would be good to begin with a set of criteria for our judgment. What are the critical characteristics of gross hubris cultivating ineptitude and death? Since we love quantification, is it the total body count on both sides per minute? The A-bomb would capture this category, or are we more intrigued by agonized death over time, including wounded, later suicides, immigration flows? As if anyone has any accurate numbers on any of these.
As with the human good, human evil can only be concrete. Unless we attempt to concretize the candidates, we're just shadowboxing.
We could begin with an initial round of 64 candidates and play each off against the other until we reach the final four, open it all up to online betting, and have a go. Trump certainly would have a way to fundraise from it whether he was named or not.
Just pointing out that the atomic bombings of Japan were not *post* WW2. WW2 was very much ongoing at the time.
Not much for making overarching comparisons, but on the more narrow point of the impact of the wars on US security policy in their aftermath, I think Vietnam was worse. There does not appear to be an Iraq syndrome analogous to the Vietnam syndrome. The US continued to maintain forces in Afghanistan for years after leaving Iraq (though, we can debate whether the pullout from Afghanistan should be seen as a separate event). The US was willing and able to use military force in concert with Iraq against ISIS and we still have forces operating in Syria today. While there certainly is a growing isolationist or inactivist element in the Republican party, the attitude seems less widespread and pronounced then was the case after Vietnam.
Old Timer Anecdote: I can remember the uproar that occurred back during the Reagan years when a US military advisor in Honduras was photographed carrying a rifle (they were supposed to be limited to pistols). I seem to recall it eliciting a few "slippery slope" comments at the time. Also, I recall the secrecy with which the invasion of Granada was carried out, as if the administration was trying to avoid discovery by American public more than by the Cubans. Just saying that we may have a bad taste in our mouth from Iraq, but we were positively snakebit in the late 70s - early 80s.
Fair points. But I suspect it's not either-or, but the cumulative impact Vietnam-Iraq-20088 finanjcial crisis that has taken us down the Trumpian rabbithole, domestically and shaped foreign opinions with regard to US hypocrisy, reliability, and overdrawn perceptions of US decline.