Overweening pride without any sense of humility plus disproportionate power often leads to serious blind spots and biases, and egregious blunders in statecraft. We have seen such errors repeatedly in the 65 years since the end of World War II, as the power elite in charge often became their own worst enemy. Let’s review the most egregious of the lot.
The Bay of Pigs (1961)
President Kennedy had his Bay of Pigs because he was sold a bill of goods by his senior military advisors and the so-called wise men in the Central Intelligence Agency. But, unfortunately, the plan was not thought through in the necessary detail and was executed poorly. The mistakes of the Bay of Pigs eventually led to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
The Vietnam War (1964-1973)
After the assassination of JFK, President Johnson moved forward in 1964 with expanding the war in Vietnam, which violated from the outset, General Douglas MacArthur’s prescient advice to President Kennedy: Avoid a land war in Asia (at all costs).
The leadership team in the Kennedy/Johnson administrations thought they knew better, and they were some of the smartest and ablest men to have ever served at the highest levels of government. David Halberstam called them “The Best and the Brightest” in his book of that title. These civilians did not understand waging war or guerilla warfare, especially in a country that none of them understood in the least. America lost over 58,000 military personnel and killed almost 900,000 Vietnamese in that war. And to what advantage, absolutely none.
The Somali Intervention (1993) And The War in Kosovo (1998)
President Clinton barely averted disaster in these two interventions but only barely. Again, the elites were clueless in these two arenas but escaped without the devastating losses in other more severe blunders in statecraft.
The War In Afghanistan (2001-2021) And The Iraqi War (2003-2017)
These two wars are the poster children for when pride and power go off the rails.
The War in Afghanistan was called the good war by Mr. Obama versus the bad war in Iraq, after he became President in 2009. America invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and we have just ended that war this month (August 2021). The War in Afghanistan lost its way after the initial invasion and payback against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda for the 9/11 Attack. It morphed into a war lacking in strategic goals or purpose and without a rational exit strategy.
The invasion of Iraq was the most horrific strategic blunder ever made by an American president. This blunder can be laid rightfully at the feet of Messrs. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz. But, sadly, I have yet to hear an apology or a mea culpa from any of them. Three of them (President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary Rumsfeld) did get their book deals, though.
We have squandered the lives of too many of America’s finest young men and women in these wars. One war we should never have continued (Afghanistan), and the second one we should never have started (Iraq). To what advantage have these protracted, drawn-out conflicts given us, and what positive results. I have to answer unequivocally again, absolutely none.
Why?
Why do these blunders occur? My sense of it is quite straightforward. All humans are flawed, and many leaders at the highest level tend to take themselves much too seriously.
The ancient Romans had it right. They had a slave at the elbow of the victorious general who whispered continuously to the general during the victory parade: (Remember) you are mortal (only human). Perhaps our presidents and political elites should have such a resource at their side to remind them to think twice before they go to war or act too precipitously.
Links
Internal: https://whitebeardwisdom.com/re-the-longest-war-needs-fresh-thinking-wsj-april-17-2019/
External: https://theasianantiquarian.com/
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Note: *I borrowed part of this phrase from Reinhold Niebuhr, as referenced in a book entitled “After The Apocalypse” by Andrew Bacevich. I rephrased it and added my own perspective as well.