Learning from History?

Abstract:

George Santayana’s famous dictum that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it is a lesson drummed into the heads of historians, politicians, and students of politics and international affairs. While the ethos of such a warning is well-intended it becomes problematic when put into practice. History provides an infinite number of historical events and peoples from which to draw lessons to apply to current circumstances, so which history is the one to review to make it through the next policy decision? The short answer is that we must pick and choose a number of elements from a multitude of events if we are to apply the lessons of yesteryear to today. Like snowflakes, no two historical events are alike—underpinning what could be a maddening process. This essay takes a contemporary example, the war in Iraq, and briefly reviews three historical examples with which this occupation has been compared: the Marshall Plan of post WWII; the British occupation of India; and the Vietnam War. The point is to show that all of these events have lessons that can be applied to today’s happenings in Baghdad, yet cautions that none of them should be solely relied upon for answers to the problems in Iraq.

While numerous examples are given (and cited) throughout this paper it is less academically rigorous than your average journal article. It is thoughtful and light without being whimsical and pedantic.

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“States of War” was the inaugural theme to Lapham’s Quarterly, one of the newest political-historical-minded periodicals to hit the newsstands. In his editorial introduction Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harper’s Magazine, draws inspiration from Heraclitus’ assertion that war is the “father of all things.” The decision to use the theme was a no-brainer for Lapham, claiming, “The history of the Western Civilization bills itself as the romance of war. On whom else do we bestow the prize of immortality (Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napolean, Adolf Hitler) if not on the champions of mortal destruction?”[1] Who else indeed, Mr. Lapham, aside Michelangelo, Aristotle, Henry Thoreau, Charles Darwin, Martin Luther King, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Albert Einstein, and other decidedly non-warrior figures?

To whom should we look to in the past to lead us through the present? To which events do we draw advice in order to move beyond current circumstance and into the future? Instead of looking ahead to the future and imagining what might be, we instead fall into the trap of relying on history to predict what may come. Often it is the wrong history—albeit with good intentions—that is consulted. History repeats itself, we are told, so best learn from it. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” warned George Santayana. Indeed, the same sorts of dramas, tragedies, and missed opportunities seem to play out over and over again in recorded human history. Jared Diamond, in his gripping book Collapse, tells the story of the demise of the Anasazi people of the American Southwest; a civilization that eventually succumbed to the harsh environs of the desert—“a fragile and marginal environment”[2]—despite their best efforts to channel as much water as possible into their fragile communities. Oblivious Americans currently living in Las Vegas and Phoenix would do well to read of the coming and going of the Anasazi; they would surely recognize many parallels to their modern living condition and perhaps learn a vital lesson of the past and do something to prevent their own impending doom in the desert.

Yet the struggle against Mother Nature by the Anasazi and Arizonans is not an exact repetition of history—advents of modern technology have seen to it that life in the Sonora desert is not a broken record of experience and existence. Can the Arizonans learn from the history of their geographic predecessors, or should they take a page from another history book? “The Egyptians managed to sustain their irrigation system for 5,000 years,” writes Cynthia Stokes Brown. “Today, however, Egypt is beset with soil and water problems, since the technology of the twentieth century, applied to fix the problems, has worsened them. (For example, the Aswan Dam does not permit the annual flooding that deposited fertile silt…).”[3] Recently in Arizona flood waters were released from the Glen Canyon Dam in order to simulate what should otherwise be a natural occurrence on the Colorado River[4]… is this a portent for a bleak future? Which civilization’s lesson should best be applied to the problems of Arizona’s current water problems, the Anasazi or the Egyptians? Should Arizonans learn from those who have passed through their same dusty land before, or from those experiencing similar problems today, but half a world away? Perhaps neither?

Likewise, we must be cautious in other realms when deciding how much to take from the past to apply to current and future dilemmas. Of course we can—and must—learn from the past. In doing so, however, let us remember that rather than repeat itself history remakes itself.

Believing that history repeats itself may have negative consequences, especially if you are studying the wrong history. With good intent we consult our libraries and memory banks for a historical precedence to guide us through a current pickle, but this can sometimes lead to disastrous results. For example, many times the Coalition Provisional Authority (cpa) referred to and compared its mission in Iraq to that of the Marshall Plan in Germany at the end of wwii.[5] In so many ways this historical reference is wrong for what was—and is—the war in Iraq. No doubt their intentions were good; recalling the caution from Santayana cpa staffers brushed up on American history thinking that history was about to repeat.

They were reading the wrong history, of course. Such hubris, ignorance, and naiveté are what precipitated our stumble into the sixth year of this foreign policy debacle in the first place.  

Like snowflakes, no two historical events are the same.

I took the notion of applying history to the present to renowned historian, Karl E. Meyer,[6] Editor Emeritus of World Policy Journal and author of numerous books on the histories of the Middle East, Eurasia and South Asia. I mentioned my chagrin at how cpa officials and other Americans do not seem to be well read on Iraqi history, and that this has been a significant element contributing to many of its failures. I mentioned also that some cpa officials were reading up on the Marshall Plan, and wondered if this was the right history to consult.  The Marshall Plan was a U.S. assistance plan to Europe in the aftermath of wwii; could we assist the people of Iraq by taking a page from this book? No, the Marshall Plan is not the right history from which to draw, Meyer replied, but there are some facets of wwii’s finality that should have had parallels when the Iraqi army was soundly defeated by the Americans in 2003.

The Marshall Plan was instituted after full surrender and cease-fire had been reached in Germany. Unfortunately, there was no formal surrender of the Iraqi army like there was of the losing Germans in wwii. President Franklin Roosevelt was aware of a similar historical oversight from wwi wherein the German army could always maintain, “We were never beaten,” and took measure to ensure this negligence would not repeat. “Practically every German denies the fact they surrendered in the last war. But this time, they are going to know it!” he declared.[7] The same cannot be said of the Baathist or Republican Guard defeats today. “Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved,” President Bush remarked in an address to the American public. “There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.”[8] With no formal surrender in place scattered members of the Iraqi army and other Saddam Hussein loyalists can shoot and run all they want because… well… they never officially “lost.” “I don’t think the enemy in Iraq decided he was defeated when we decided on April 9, 2003 that he was defeated. We pulled down the goal posts at halftime and he kept on playing,” Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks said of the fall of Baghdad.[9] Unlike the defeat of the Germans and Japanese militaries in wwii there is no closure on the military front in Iraq, and American soldiers are feeling the brunt of this strategic blunder now. Bush should have had such a ceremony take place under his “Mission Accomplished” banner before—or instead of—the premature, braggart speech he flew in to give. Nonetheless, surrender or no surrender—nothing like the Marshall Plan is working in Iraq. Billions of reconstruction dollars have poured into the country, that much is true, but billions of dollars have been squandered or lost altogether as well.[10]

Maybe because it was the “good war” Americans look to it for a precedent in how to behave in successive endeavors. U.S. Army General William Westmoreland, for instance, looked to Nazi Germany’s losing offensive in the Battle of the Bulge as a road map for how to react to the Tet Offensive in his war in Vietnam. “I know that as was the case in the Battle of the Bulge in wwii, that after the enemy exposed himself we would defeat him,” he said. The enemy (Viet Cong) “would weaken and we could follow that up through the use of maximum military force; the enemy would have no choice but to come to some accommodation.”[11] We know how that idea panned out.

Perhaps the cpa could have done well to learn from a previous imperial experience, one also backed by economic incentives (even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledges in his new book that the invasion of Iraq was about oil[12]), was imperialist in nature (the conquering of a foreign nation), and included a viceroy (L. Paul Bremer’s title in Baghdad). I speak of the British adventure in India, of course.

Could there be an appropriate lesson to draw from the British Imperial experience in India? Intrigued by the possibilities I put the question to Karl Meyer and probed for an answer, hoping his insights on the history of Eurasia and India would bring forth historical parallels to the American bungling of Iraq. Instead of a direct answer I was given a whirlwind tour of the British experience in India, sprinkled with Meyer’s excited reading of select passages from his acclaimed Tournament of Shadows.[13]

There are lessons to be learned from British cultural insensitivities for sure, Meyer reminded me. In 1857 British occupiers issued to its native (Hindu and Muslim) troops rifle cartridges “coated in grease taken from cows, sacred to Hindus, or from pigs, anathema to Muslims. Worse, the bullets had to be bitten.”[14] Soon thereafter mutiny spread and the blood of thousands on both sides was spilt.

Cultural norms are given secondary status to military primacy in Iraq as well. Dogs, seen by many of Islamic faith as unclean,[15] are not only regularly used by American troops (for searches and in prisons like Abu Ghraib), but by Iraqi soldiers as well![16] Whether or not the use of canines has increased civilian anxiety or been the cause of Iraqi military desertions is difficult to assess. It may or may not have an impact, but that is not the point; other means could be employed that might get the job done while at the same time be less offensive to the occupied populace, and would not force Iraqi soldiers to choose between acting in concert with their faith and providing security for their country. The cow and pig-greased bullets issued to Hindu and Muslim soldiers in occupied India was a major agitating and destabilizing force in India that gave the British nothing but trouble henceforth. The same may occur in Iraq with the introduction of unclean dogs into the state’s security apparatus.

Yet, more often than any other American (or foreign) invasion/occupation the debacle in Iraq is compared to the Vietnam War, where it is hoped lessons learned from that embarrassing foreign policy endeavor might aid in a successful extraction of American troops from Baghdad. The mainstream press certainly jumped on this “Iraq as Vietnam” bandwagon. USA Today highlighted the comparison before the invasion.[17] “Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam War Comparison,” The Guardian touted in 2006.[18] Writing for the Washington Post Thomas Ricks drew the similar comparisons.[19] Intellectuals got on board too: Ronald Bruce St. John, a widely published expert on Mid-East affairs, penned an article titled, “Sorry, Mr. President, but Iraq Looks a Lot like Vietnam,” for a think tank publication.[20] And on and on. With so many wonderful lessons to be learned from Vietnam, and with so many intelligent people aware of them, why is Iraq still chaotic five-plus years into its “liberation?”

On the surface the reasons for the Iraq-Vietnam comparison seem obvious: mired in a “quagmire,” we seek parallels with our last, greatest morass (and failure), and need look no further than Vietnam; the apparition of weapons of mass destructions smacks of Gulf of Tonkin deceit; the hit-and-run guerilla tactics of Northern Vietnamese are mirrored by “insurgent” tactics on the streets of Baghdad; anti-war protests in the 1960s were played out on the streets of the U.S. and around the world in the run-up to the Iraq invasion; veterans of both conflicts came home to speak out against their respective wars; and other parallels. Discussing any and all of them has not helped the situation on the ground in Iraq, that much can be said. Others are more cautious and wary when it comes to drawing parallels between the two conflicts. The title of a tightly edited volume by Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young sums up the sentiment of the book’s tone: Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past.[21] Still others want us to learn from our present circumstance and apply the lessons to the future: Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War sums up the desires of the editors of this slim addition to the literature.[22]

Will we look to the generals of the Iraq fiasco as heroes, like we do to other conquerors? I doubt that in one hundred or one thousand years our descendants will marvel at marble busts of General Tommy Franks alongside those of Caesar, Napoleon, and Patton, and with good reason. In seeking their glory through conquest, our current spate of political leaders has stumbled in Iraq. With good intention, no doubt, they may have sought lessons from the past to help them navigate the present—yet to no avail. “We need to learn again,” New York University professor Tony Judt laments, “or perhaps for the first time—how war brutalizes and degrades winners and losers alike and what happens to us when, having heedlessly waged war for no good reason, we are encouraged to inflate and demonize our enemies in order to justify that war's indefinite continuance.”[23]

History is remade, not repeated. Baghdad, 2003 is not Berlin 1945. Occupied Iraq is not the same as occupied India. And the guerilla-led combat of Iraq is not the same as the guerilla war of Vietnam. Iraq is none of these and yet it embodies characteristics of all of them. To expand on a metaphor from Lapham’s introductory remarks: “we have nothing else with which to build the future except the lumber of the past…”[24] Yet, which trees from which groves, so to speak, should be selected to strengthen (and understand) the current situation in Iraq? Perhaps then this is the United States’ opportunity to make history and set a precedent for a peaceful century—to plant new trees as it were. Once the troop withdraw from Iraq commences the next president must keep an eye to the future, without forgetting the recent past, in order to avoid another mindless and wasteful travesty.

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Winter 2008