Tuesday, June 28, 2005
The Battle of our Age
Sometime in the 1760s Americans realized that the revolution was coming. Some brilliant Americans missed this entirely. Benjamin Franklin spent the decade in Europe convinced that the issues would be settled peacefully.
At the end of World War II, the Roosevelt administration,and then the Truman administration completely underestimated the Soviet threat to the U.S. They missed the obvious history of the Soviet Tyranny: from the mass starvation of the Russian people, to the pact with Hitler, to the subjugation of the peoples of Eastern Europe. It was only the brilliant writing of George Kennan and his Long Telegram from Moscow in 1947 that awoke this nation from it's dogmatic slumbers.
The Long Telegram of our time may have been written. If China invades Taiwan in the next few years there will be a World War. The world will plunge into chaos. Historians will look back on the war from the 22nd century and see one of two things. Either the U.S. will have rapidly prepared and organized the world to stop the Dragon tyrant, or the U.S. will have been caught flat footed and the free world will have been devastated before it could muster a response. These two possibilities will correspond to another either/or. Either we listened to Bill Gertz or we did not.
Gertz's recent column outlines the threat. We need to react diplomatically and try to head it off. We need to try to use soft power to push China away from nationalistic furor and towards a self-satisfied capitalism. But failing that, we need to steel ourselves against the coming tragedy. We will need to let go of the strategy against asymmetric warfare and unconventional threats. And we will need to recall the spirit of the great men who landed at Normandy, stood fast in Arnhem, and never gave up. There but for the grace we will go.
At the end of World War II, the Roosevelt administration,and then the Truman administration completely underestimated the Soviet threat to the U.S. They missed the obvious history of the Soviet Tyranny: from the mass starvation of the Russian people, to the pact with Hitler, to the subjugation of the peoples of Eastern Europe. It was only the brilliant writing of George Kennan and his Long Telegram from Moscow in 1947 that awoke this nation from it's dogmatic slumbers.
The Long Telegram of our time may have been written. If China invades Taiwan in the next few years there will be a World War. The world will plunge into chaos. Historians will look back on the war from the 22nd century and see one of two things. Either the U.S. will have rapidly prepared and organized the world to stop the Dragon tyrant, or the U.S. will have been caught flat footed and the free world will have been devastated before it could muster a response. These two possibilities will correspond to another either/or. Either we listened to Bill Gertz or we did not.
Gertz's recent column outlines the threat. We need to react diplomatically and try to head it off. We need to try to use soft power to push China away from nationalistic furor and towards a self-satisfied capitalism. But failing that, we need to steel ourselves against the coming tragedy. We will need to let go of the strategy against asymmetric warfare and unconventional threats. And we will need to recall the spirit of the great men who landed at Normandy, stood fast in Arnhem, and never gave up. There but for the grace we will go.
