Lessons From the Cold War

The Cold War America’s greatest victory of the 20th Century teaches us several important lessons that can help us survive and win the present Terror War.
Lesson 1) Concentrate on fighting and defeating the Bad Guys don’t get distracted by nation building i.e. arrogant efforts to impose American values and institutions on foreign nations and other kinds of do-gooding. In the Cold War, when America concentrated on fighting Communism it usually won as the conflicts in Greece, El Salvador, Korea, Granada, Afghanistan and elsewhere proved. When we tried to build democracy or create model societies as we did in Vietnam we failed and failed miserably. So we must concentrate on fighting the war, that is on finding and destroying the Islamic terrorists and forgo our dreams of Arab democracy and Afghan utopia.
Lesson 2) Make sure the war is contained and limited. The world survived the Cold War because the United States and the Soviet Union found ways to limit the conflict to certain parameters. For example America dispatched weapons but not troops to Afghanistan and the Soviets limited the aid they provided to Latin American guerrilla armies. This was done to prevent limited brushfire wars from escalating into all conflicts when either side refused to limit involvement as the US did in Vietnam and Russia did in Afghanistan the result was inferno. In the Terror War this might mean sending in commandos or a limited air strike or using local mercenaries to do the fighting instead of our troops. We’ve already seen the maelstrom the massive American presence in Iraq has produced. It might also mean tolerating some safe havens for terrorists and areas under Islamic law.
Lesson 3) Learn that you sometimes have to choose the lesser of two evils in a conflict. During the Cold War America backed many despotic and oppressive regimes, many of them as morally loathsome as Communism to stop Communism. Just as America had formed alliances with Communists in World War II against the worse evils of Nazism and Japanese Imperialism. This meant backing tyrants who were weaker or autocrats who allowed some freedom as opposed to Communists who allowed no freedom. Eventually the US even made peace of a sorts with China, by accepting the lesser of two evils we ensured our victory. I might also add it was a double victory because the undemocratic regimes we backed disappeared along with Communism. In the Terror War this might mean supporting Middle Eastern dictatorships that suppress Islamic radicals or Shiite Radicals against Sunni Radicals allied with Al Qaeda.
Lesson 4) Concentrate on the Big Picture and Long Term results. America won the Cold War because farsighted leaders like Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan saw the Big Picture the battle between Freedom and Communism and Freedom’s eventual triumph. A prime example of this was the 1980s when doomsayers on right and left were saying America had lost the Cold War because of economic problems and recent Communist victories. Ronald Reagan saw between these things to final victory he saw that America would win and steered the course. Today Reagan is hailed as a visionary but at the time we was condemned as an ignorant reactionary. We must concentrate on the big picture and ignore the headline of the week.
Lesson 5) and this is the important lesson, learn that we won’t always win and sometimes will have to walk away. In the Cold War America suffered an embarrassing defeat in Vietnam but went on to win. We came out of Vietnam stronger, because of Vietnam we stayed out of other potentially disastrous conflicts. So we’ll have to learn to walk away if we want to win in the end.
It took us fifty years and the deaths of nearly 60,000 Americans and countless others in Vietnam to learn the important lessons of the Cold War. I pray that our victory in the Terror War won’t be so costly.